Falcons @ Vikings 12/8/24

[Vanimal46]

34 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

Kirk 344 yards but a bad day 

Around 100 of those yards came in garbage time. Empty calories when you don’t throw a TD in a month. 

[Danchat]

1 hour ago, Vanimal46 said:

I found some Falcons podcasts doing a live reaction after the game and it’s hilarious. They’re melting down about Kirk 

I am so glad we let him go, else the online discourse on Kirk if he were underachieving here would be intolerable, and he'd without doubt be holding this team back. They needed to slow-play him coming off that Achilles injury but they rushed him to play ASAP and he isn't quite the same.

And it's almost as if the Falcons knew this was going to happen and took a QB in the top ten as insurance. Which makes it all the more baffling that they handed that ridiculous contract to him when they badly needed to fix their holes on defense but blew most of their capital on 2 QBs.

[Vanimal46]

16 minutes ago, Danchat said:

I am so glad we let him go, else the online discourse on Kirk if he were underachieving here would be intolerable, and he'd without doubt be holding this team back. They needed to slow-play him coming off that Achilles injury but they rushed him to play ASAP and he isn't quite the same.

And it's almost as if the Falcons knew this was going to happen and took a QB in the top ten as insurance. Which makes it all the more baffling that they handed that ridiculous contract to him when they badly needed to fix their holes on defense but blew most of their capital on 2 QBs.

Me too my friend. Didn’t want Kirk back at any price it was beyond time to move on from that experiment. Atlanta would be crazy to keep him next season. They need to cut their losses and go with Penix. 

[Danchat]

38 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

Me too my friend. Didn’t want Kirk back at any price it was beyond time to move on from that experiment. Atlanta would be crazy to keep him next season. They need to cut their losses and go with Penix. 

It'll cost them $65M to release him pre June 1st in 2025, or split it up 40/25 if it's post June 1st. Or they could trade him for only a loss of $39.5M, and he has a no-trade clause.

Yikes!!

[TheLeviathan]

Darnold throwing 5 TDs to Cousins' zero pretty much sums up this offseason in one stat comparison.

[Vanimal46]

1 hour ago, Danchat said:

It'll cost them $65M to release him pre June 1st in 2025, or split it up 40/25 if it's post June 1st. Or they could trade him for only a loss of $39.5M, and he has a no-trade clause.

Yikes!!

Take their medicine with the $65 million cap hit and the owner needs to learn his lesson not to meddle with roster decisions. 

[Vanimal46]

Signing Kirk to a 4 year contract was clearly an owner dictated decision to end their playoff drought. Kirk’s not gonna do it for them so they need to move on too before it’s too late. 

[Mike Sixel]

4 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

Take their medicine with the $65 million cap hit and the owner needs to learn his lesson not to meddle with roster decisions. 

Agreed

[Cap'n Piranha]

Reaction caveat—couldn’t see the game, so I’m going off the stats and play-by-play.

The Positives;

Another win—it’s essentially impossible for this team to miss the playoffs now (if I’m doing my math right, 1 more Vikings win/Rams loss, or 2 more Wash losses, and the Vikes are in).

The offense finally had the kind of game I’ve wanted them to have for almost 3 years now.  Perhaps I’m forgetting a game, but I think this was the highest scoring output of the KOC era.

Whatever was slowing Addison down to start the year seems to be in the rear view.  If he continues to play like this, there’s not a lot of teams with enough players in the secondary to slow us down.

The Negatives

Now that the offense is finally starting to come around, the defense seems to be having issues.  Almost 500 yards to the Falcons today; I get they have a lot of weapons, but that’s still an unconscionable amount of yards to give up.

The loss drops the Falcons below .500 and out of the playoff picture.  That means the Vikings have played only 4 teams with winning records, and 3 currently in the playoffs, with records of 2-2 and 2-1 against those teams.  The 11-2 record is built mainly on beating bad to terrible teams, so playing 3 winning playoff teams in the last 3 weeks will be telling, in my opinion—finishing with 14 or 15 wins will go a long way towards making me feel better about our chances in the playoffs.

Overall, I’m feeling optimistic, and hopeful this can be a building block win.

[Cap'n Piranha]

21 hours ago, Aggies7 said:

Touchbacks should be to the 25, not 30

If I were forced to keep the current kickoff rules (I would prefer not to), I would change it so that each subsequent touchback, and each subsequent fair catch, costs the team 5 more yards of field position.

So the first touchback puts the ball at the 25 yard line, the second puts it at the 30, then the 35.  All touchbacks after the third put the ball at the 40.

The first fair catch puts the ball at the 25, then 20, 15, and 10 going forward.

This incents kicking teams to keep the ball out of the end zone, and returning teams to actually attempt returns.

[Aggies7]

2 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Reaction caveat—couldn’t see the game, so I’m going off the stats and play-by-play.

The Positives;

Another win—it’s essentially impossible for this team to miss the playoffs now (if I’m doing my math right, 1 more Vikings win/Rams loss, or 2 more Wash losses, and the Vikes are in).

The offense finally had the kind of game I’ve wanted them to have for almost 3 years now.  Perhaps I’m forgetting a game, but I think this was the highest scoring output of the KOC era.

Whatever was slowing Addison down to start the year seems to be in the rear view.  If he continues to play like this, there’s not a lot of teams with enough players in the secondary to slow us down.

The Negatives

Now that the offense is finally starting to come around, the defense seems to be having issues.  Almost 500 yards to the Falcons today; I get they have a lot of weapons, but that’s still an unconscionable amount of yards to give up.

The loss drops the Falcons below .500 and out of the playoff picture.  That means the Vikings have played only 4 teams with winning records, and 3 currently in the playoffs, with records of 2-2 and 2-1 against those teams.  The 11-2 record is built mainly on beating bad to terrible teams, so playing 3 winning playoff teams in the last 3 weeks will be telling, in my opinion—finishing with 14 or 15 wins will go a long way towards making me feel better about our chances in the playoffs.

Overall, I’m feeling optimistic, and hopeful this can be a building block win.

I feel a bit better about them after the last few weeks than I did before. 
 

Every single team that will be in the NFC playoffs is beatable. Even Detroit.