TheLeviathan

Yes, his development is the most important thing....but if you have your QB the leverage to trade down becomes extra fantastic too. You can have both, but it can be a fine needle to thread.

McCarthy had plenty of time. This the NFL, rushers will get through. He held it too long at times and chose not to throw it away a time or two that was problematic as well. But there was progress. I don't agree that KOC has had good gameplans consistently this year. There has been far too little of what we saw today in favor of vertical passing attacks. I would bet my house he had a long chat with McVay this week who sobered him up a bit. Draft position ALWAYS matters if you aren't making the playoffs. Losing double digit games and coming out with the 13th pick is basically the worst thing that can happen. You can absolutely make progress as a QB and still have your team lose games. Drake Maye being a prime example last year. And yes....I am hoping that if KAM is still drafting next year that we have made SIGNIFICANT changes to that process. Up to the point of removing him entirely if need be. If JJM is the right guy for us going forward, nailing this draft will be vital to hoisting a Lombardi trophy. Another wasted year of picks will doom our ceiling even if our QB becomes a guy.

Good all around game. *So many different mixes of personnel packages and quick hitting plays. *Starting five offensive linemen dominated that game. *McCarthy made baby steps. No major issues but no "wow" plays either. A very game-manager performance. *Defense played like their butts were on fire. A lot of aggression in their play. *Even if we aren't taking a QB....draft position matters. It gives you trade down leverage and an advantage in the second round. This is a draft where we could land a LB and a nose tackle. Or a long-term center. Or two corners at this point. Those are strength areas of this draft and losing draft position with this win kinda stings.

Agreed, the explosive pass rush plays have finally started to show up. Last year I said we needed to be patient because of his age and we should look for a breakout this year. This year he started really poorly and had trouble getting snaps and I termed it as he was "trending" towards a bust. The last few weeks have "trended" towards being a stud. Product isn't finished yet, but we're at least headed the right way.

A totally viable take. It's just weird to me to have spent so much time talking publicly about his mechanics to pull a 180 and say "screw it, throw it like a weirdo". I'm not at all sold on my pessimism, I just can't shake it.

While I think that's the right decision.....part of me thinks the "who cares about your footwork, go play" is basically the nicest way to wave the white flag on a player I've ever heard. I can't shake that the decision to say that publicly is basically giving up on him.

The only thing keeping me in the "well, maybe I could roll with him longer" is that there is really slim pickings in the draft. Like you....I'm in this for the HR swing. I guess I'm pretty much open to anything at this point.

The weak QB class is really my own reason not to have sold all my McCarthy stock.

I totally sympathize with that fear. I don't begrudge anyone who wants out on him, he's been bad enough to warrant that.

Yes,they spend money and they aren't afraid to be aggressive. But they care TOO much about revenue. I want my owners to be aggressive and title chasers. Not aggressive and bottom line chasers.

I think they are good owners, but they're misguided about the best way to break through this wall of mediocrity. The fans will show up even when they stink. We want a championship. Swing for that - we'll forgive the terrible seasons if we are.

The most important thing to the Wilfs is that only twice in those 21 years did they have 5 or less wins. They love purgatory. It's why we kept bringing back vets, refusing to deal Danielle Hunter or other guys at trade deadlines, and insisting on a competitive rebuild. As @Cap'n Piranhasaid -tanking isn't going Miami Marlins on your football roster. It's just not pretending 7-9 wins is a "good" thing when your roster is old and makes a ton of money. That's the time to dump and move on.

Honestly? No idea. I know that we have these three cake defenses - if he can't at least look competent against them then I'm ready to go the Brissett or even Mac Jones route. But maybe he builds some momentum and looks good against GB and Detroit and then we have a new conversation about having hope. Sometimes a young QB just needs to start feeling success to show growth. I do have one thing that would just completely break my trust in whether to invest in him: if he can't finish out this short stretch of games. The injuries are not necessarily his fault (the concussion was an awkward AF play though) but if we're constantly dealing with injuries it might be time to move on anyway.

Well....JJ will be back. We have a three game stretch here against some of the absolute dregs of the NFL in terms of pass defense. If he's going to build any future momentum, this is the time. Helps that KOC was a bit more self-reflective in his pressers, so maybe we can generate some hope? (Even though I personally hope they just lose out at this point. Draft position is the only "win" we can get from here)

And by your own arbitrary definition of a "hit". Again: see Mark Craig. I'm done with this. The earth is round. I'm sorry you can't accept that. My point never changed. Unfortunately, you kept forcing me to restate it by strawmanning my arguments. One need only read each of my points to see my thesis was consistent: the Vikings have never allowed themselves to be bad. Even when it was the right decision. I put the blame for this on ownership. (I even, if you go back and look, used to give KAM a pass for 2022's disaster draft in part due to this) It's a kind of meddling that I think is deeply problematic for the franchise. Other teams have allowed themselves to be bad. When teams do that, and put their decisions in the hands of good people, they can go from loser to winner quickly. The Vikings, on the other hand, merely exist in a purgatory of never being a true contender. Never has that point changed. Not once. Though you made a concerted effort to frame it that way because you cannot make an argument that is actually againt it. From a day and a half ago: We have gotten frighteningly little production on the 2025 Vikings from draft assets. No. Not a new argument. The argument all along. Perhaps it might be time for you to actually take on my points for what they are, as stated. I know the strawmen you keep making them is an easier path for you, but it is fallacious and bad form. Again, you're welcome to take up this issue with noted idiots like Mark Craig who clearly also only have "Reasons" for this. Or Zulgad. Or Nystrom. Or Arief Hassan. Or Mel Kiper. Articles in SI. The folks at Purple Insider. Skor North. Everyone at KFAN not named Paul Allen. I mean, that's just me giving a short list and not being hyperbolic. Go ahead and pick your "KAM is a solid drafter" argument with them. No one here agrees and no one will agree. Nor should they.

The answer is...no. No that was a terrible decision.

Here, allow me to requote what I already typed. (Verbatim, straight from my original point.) Please try not to strawman this: Our owners need to allow an actual rebuild to happen. Gut the roster, be ok with being terrible, hit a true reset. I never said Spielman because Spielman is NOT RELEVANT TO MY COMPLAINT. I'm not referencing his work, I'm talking about the demands of ownership and the refusal to allow the team to be bad and reset when necessary. Your constant, tired goalpost-moving has lead you to completely lose any thread of what was being discussed. Maybe, rather than constantly having to twist every counter argument so you can hold your ground you could, I don't know, consider that you're standing on no solid ground? If you can't make a fair argument, maybe you have a terribly ill-thought position. And...reasons? Jesus, my point was crystal clear: the 2025 Vikings roster/season is getting virtually no production from drafted players. There should be four draft classes for that roster to lean on from the current GM. Instead, I'll allow you to have Judd Zulgad read a piece from Mark Craig laying out the details. (Merely skip to the 3 minute mark. Then, by all means please send all future, ridiculous complaints to Mark Craig. Cuz I guess he also only has "reasons". FFS)

The point is...some franchises allow themselves to be bad. They don't try fruitlessley to be "competitive" even when the writing is on the wall. I'll lay it out in terms of Vikings: do you think the right thing to do in the 2020 offseason was to take a 7 win team and double down on it to win 8 games? Tanking teams cut their losses and stop the slow bleeding.

This is a strawman. At no point did I say Spielman's name much less fawn over the return. In fact, I've primarily focused on the owners with this complaint. (If you were reading my actual arguments and not the ones you apparently want me to make, this might be known to you) Tanking is NOT purposely trying to eek out 7 wins when what you really are is a 4 win team. The year Spielman kept Kendricks and a bunch of other old dudes being the quintessential version of this stupidity. KAM doing it his first year. It's purposely placing yourself in purgatory. Ah....spelling, the last resort. The better questions are these - if these were great picks, could you please relay to me the value these two players are producing for the 2025 Vikings under their rookie contracts? Or, if not that, surely you can point to some stirling bit of compensation they got for these draft gems when they sent them walking? Your analysis was ridiculous because it propped up picks as "hits" that are quite obviously NOT HITS. Period. It was a poorly argued thesis with a set of definitions (made entirely subjectively by you) that can only be called ridiculous. Flat earther pointing at the horizon kind of ridiculous. So....no. I don't know who is the blame that he has so thoroughly failed the drafting process. But I know who is in charge of it and I'm not the one finding excuses for that.

So I'll address these shortly and distinctly from the other mess of a point you tried to make. The point of tanking is NOT artificially propping yourself up from 4 wins to 7 or 8. It's just embracing the fact that your roster needs a reset. The Vikings, on the other hand, have forcibly propelled themselves into mediocrity when that was clearly the cap they could achieve. So they used up resources, roster spots, draft picks meant to shore themselves up from being a disaster rather than "invest everything into a future breakthrough". The Vikings refuse to do this, but smart teams are able to look themselves in the mirror without delusion. As for the draft: Who am I to argue with any analysis that decides that legendary Minnesota Viking Ed Ingram was a feather in the Vikings draft cap? And don't get me started on Ring of Honor shoe-in Mechi Blackmon and the necessity it is to count him as a hit for Kwesi. I mean, he ****ing crushed that pick. Look at how much they got when he left! 1000 fake points for that one! Analysis!

2025 Bears = 2024 Vikings. I predict it ends much the same.

Your disparaging remarks about this obvious draft hit are so unnecessary..... Ed Ingram's HOF bust will laugh at you one day.

1) Lots of teams that lose lack identity. I think a problem the 49ers have had recently is that they lost their identity. The Chiefs are struggling through it. The Eagles have lost theirs this year. The Cowboys don't have one. The Dolphins lost theirs. The Chargers are struggling to find one. It isn't just the Vikings. Sometimes, you have a good identity but just can't get over the hump. That's the case for the Bills, Ravens, and Lions right now. However, the Vikings will always find the next Donatell, pressure excuse because they bend to the whim of their opponent. So...no. I haven't moved any goalposts. I just keep having to chase strawmen and then you incorrectly try to extend my argument to say something I never did. The Vikings have no identity. As long as that remains the case they will be guaranteed to exist in this purgatory. 2) Yes....sometimes tanking goes really poorly. Often even. If you have bad drafting and bad coaching, it can be a slog. But my point then, as it is now, is that it doesn't have to be. When you do it well and make the right decisions on leadership - no sport turns a loser into a winner faster than the NFL. And those examples you gave? The Eagles had a 4 win season and traded their QB. The Bills tanked multiple times before they got Allen. Chiefs and Ravens are the two best organizations in football. They didn't tank but they made bold moves at QB to be where they are. The Bengals? Tanked. Rams? Dealt all their picks and their QB. Patriots? Tanked. Jags? Tanked. Colts? Tanked (and then course corrected with their loaded tank roster to another QB). Broncos? Tanked. Chargers? Tanked. Commanders? Tanked. Bears? Tanked? Packers have semi-tanked just not taken a QB. Lions tanked their way to some of the core pieces around Goff. 49ers tanked. Nearly every contender and/or team with a good QB situation tanked their way to it. Seems to me that you are holding on to the exceptions (Ravens, Chiefs, and maybe Steelers?) that prove the rule and deluding yourself into thinking you figured out the rule. 3) I don't understand why you insist on praising the Vikings drafts. I'm sorry, but you're standing on a flat earth opinion and you're so wound up in it you just can't see reason. I'm not sure why you keep trying to discuss something that literally every other person here (and everywhere else except maybe KAM's blood relatives) disagrees with. Have your opinion, but I don't see why you keep wanting to debate something so utterly incorrect.

Everybody but one gets bounced from the playoffs. It isn't just that they lost in those "good" years. It was the embarrassingly stark, humiliating manner in which both of those "good" teams went down. They lost to the Giants at home. The Rams dogwalked them for four quarters. It exposed a lot of those wins as flukey/lucky. Teams with an identity don't win on good fortune. It's why, IMO, the team keeps bouncing from good to bad in an even/odd year yo-yo. Teams with identity have consistency. Of course I mean tear down if I'm talking about years of pain. We keep trying to have these only mildly painful years thanks to ownership and because of that we never truly have a shot to recover and get well. We're just limping along every year. As for the rest...you keep moving the goalposts. I point out that the 2025 Vikings are getting nothing out of their draft assets - you blame the coaches and who they want to draft as the fault. I say "cool, that relationship is too cozy. Fire them and be your own GM" You pivot and credit the great relationship that they have as they march towards a miserable 5 win season with one of the league's oldest and most expensive rosters. You're just trying to find excuses. This front office royally screwed up so many times in it's tenure it can only be described as idiocy without any of the savant. KAM said he'd never go "full Rams", throwing shade at that organization. Gee.....can we go full Rams? You know....deal our pick last year for a 2nd and a 2026 1st and have the Falcons pick this year? You know....the team that had no 1st round picks in 2022 and 20223 and managed to BADLY out draft us with Kyrien Williams, Puka Nucua, Byron Young, Steve Avila, and Warren McClendon? I could go on about the way they've drafted and developed, made shrewd moves, and built a team that contended over two different windows.....but hey...let's throw shade at them while we faceplanting our way to a terrible season, with an old roster, and a maxed out salary cap. Idiot savant indeed.