TheLeviathan

If KAM is nothing but a yes man for his coaches....fire him and replace him with a GM who can actually draft. If his coaches are the problem he should fire them. And then he can be fired for greenlighting their hire. Also....read again: I said that the 2025 roster is getting almost nothing out of assets acquired via picks. That includes traded assets. This is is a round earth claim. It is 100% undeniable by anyone living in reality. Super happy that Turner looks to be finding his game. That's baked into the claim above. A near total lack of draft success for 4 years has suffocated the team. I didn't say they were never good. They had moments, but in both good regular seasons they got embarrassingly exposed in the playoffs. That happens when you have no identity. You have a lot easier time drafting or trading up for a franchise QB picking 5th instead of 20th. That's the whole point! And once you endure the short term pain to get the guy....you get a glorious run to enjoy.

There is no point in having a draft discussion with you. You counted Ed Ingram (traded for pennies and benched repeatedly) and Meckhi Blackmon (Cut) as draft "hits". You're just existing, by choice, on another planet from objective reality. We have gotten frighteningly little production on the 2025 Vikings from draft assets. If KAM made those picks, he is responsible for that failure. If he didn't (which I guess you're suggesting?) - then fire him for not being helpful in any meaningful way. Those of us who live in the real world, who aren't flat-earthing our way to an opinion, see the draft results for what they are. KAM is the head of that department. The dismal failure of it is on him. The team had a soft identity last year too. They have consistently under KOC. As good as the defense was, it was turnover dependent which is not a super translatable skill. (As demonstrated this year. And as the Bears will surely feel next year) They don't do anything well. They don't have a ferocious pass rush like Denver or Seattle. (w/o blitzing) They don't have a lockdown secondary. They don't have a rough and tumble OL. I'm not sure what you'd call our running back room, it has the most muddled identity of all the position groups. I know what the Rams do well. I know what the Lions do well. I know those teams and their identities. The Vikings can win all the games they want, I won't see a contender until I see an identity. Lastly - WTF? "None of these are tear it down rebuilds" and then you proceed to name three teams that were hot garbage and rebuilt around a young QB. The hell do you think a tear it down rebuild is? Washington has a hurt QB. Indy is playing well. Is it sustainable? No, probably not. Was it five years of sucking? Also no. The NFL absolutely has tear it down rebuilds. That's how the Bengals got Burrow. It's how the Bills got Allen. The Patriots shredded their roster and picked in the top of the draft multiple years while trying to find the guy. Does it take some teams longer than 5 years? Sure. And it will if we keep letting Kwesi "I crush it with Ed Ingram talents" Adolfo Mensah keep running drafts. But under a GM that can actually hit on their picks? That turnaround can happen a lot faster than in most major sports.

Good point, it will probably have to be sold to them as 2 years with this being year 1.

If nothing else, the extent of the awful play should force a reckoning on a number of issues: drafting process, roster construction, coaching, etc. But to me there are still three central issues: 1) Under this GM our drafts have been putrid. You can't be bad at drafting and hope to be a good football team. 2) This team lacks an identity. We're not physical and don't appear to want to be a physical team. We're not a speedy bunch of freaks hoping to turn games into a track meet. We might have an alright defense but it can be attacked with physicality. We don't run even though we're fairly good at it. We don't stop the run or the pass super well, we're just alright at both. Like....what do we hang our hat on? Teams in the NFL with no identity have an identity: losers 3) Our owners need to allow an actual rebuild to happen. Gut the roster, be ok with being terrible, hit a true reset. Teams that do it well can reverse their fortunes REALLY fast in the NFL. Look at New England. The Commanders last year. The Colts. The Broncos. The Bears. The Seahawks. This doesn't have to be 5 years of pain....but it might have to be 1. The owners need to accept that "meh, we're alright most of the time" isn't the goal.

Welp, that turnover ends my interest in watching this.

I like aggressiveness....but maybe let's run or sneak there. Or just take the points so you keep your defense engaged

Turner is here to play today. Darnold showing why he's not the guy. Also, their RG Bradford is the most hilariously bad linemen in the NFL today. Watch him a bit today he's a mess.

The article from Arif seems to show he's even having trouble spitting out plays in the huddle. I know he's young and that injury last year hurt his progress....but right now we're broken at levels I didn't think were possible.

Yup, I'm in this for a franchise QB. I don't want any strategy that isn't aiming for that mark.

Teddy Bridgewater isn't 33. I demand a recount! Seriously though, why does it feel like the correct answer should be 43?

Rick Spielman was fired 1,414 days ago. If you strip him of guys like Metellus and give KAM Redmond and anyone else under the sun you want that isn't a veteran FA....Spielman STILL is impacting that 14 win roster last year and this year on a larger level. By snap count. By PFF grade. By impact of any measure you want. Read that again, the dude fired over 1400 days ago is still having a greater impact. There is no insult. No strawman. I don't need to point out that his draft trades were for a guy in Hockenson we're about to cut with no real benefit gained. For McCarthy who looks terrible. For Turner who is significantly behind other guys taken after him. No, I don't need to do any of that. An argument predicated on "Ed Ingram was a hit for the Vikings draft room!" has lost before it began. That's the stretch of absurdity you ought to really focus on rethinking.

I had the details wrong - it was Hockeson who picked him up!

All the negativity aside - I'm prepared to keep going to war with him for the rest of the season and into next season. I knew this was a possible outcome of this path and that's what I signed up for. I don't want 10-6, no playoff-win finishes. I want a franchise QB. I'll deal with the lumps to come out the other side with the right guy. (Or wait until we invariably trade for one!)

I'm pretty sure I know which play it was too. He scrambled to his left at one point and awkwardly went down (falling backwards) and took a shot in his shoulder area. O'Neill or Fries hoisted him up off the ground by his shoulder pads and you could see him shaking it off. I thought he was legitimately hurt at the time but forgot about it once he started sucking it up again.

That's my conclusion - the stress and speed of the game live has caused him to revert. Poor results have compounded that and caused the regression further.

Right now we have a QB crisis in the sense of "this guy is terrible", but if Brosmer plays well in a tough place like Seattle now we add another (far worse IMO) layer of crisis in "who should we be developing?" That wouldn't be a concern if it was Wentz stepping in, but Brosmer is young. He might be worth that investment if JJ is this injury prone and this terrible.

If Max Brosmer runs a competent offense, then we're very quickly in a full blown QB crisis.

You keep reducing the success of the GM to wins and losses. Yes, those matter, but they aren't all that matters. If your GM can't draft: you're in trouble. As pointed out by Nick...we still have more starters that were drafted by Spielman than we do KAM. There is no way to sugarcoat how TERRIBLE that is. You're welcome to your opinion, but you're on the flat earther side of this and trying passionately to argue science. It doesn't compute man.

100%, but he wasn't on the field for the first three quarters. :)

Yeah, don't listen to excuse makers on drops or the offensive line, this is still primarily on the quarterback.

McCarthy has certainly been pressured...but he's holding the ball way too long. It's the same as what Darnold did at the end of last year: you make your dudes look bad if you turn every three step drop into a 5 step one. They set differently depending on when the ball is expected to be out.

Had Hockenson ever practiced that sneak? Because that looked like 8 bit where the guy's legs are moving but he isn't actually going in any particular direction. (And definitely not forward)

You're right that they probably haven't exhausted everything...but rule changes are hated just as much as the playing surface. Maybe more. (Certainly we have lots of examples with roughing the passer, PI, etc) At some point there are just not enough gimmicks to overcome a distinct advantage the defense has slowly been able to create with the fine-tuning of athletes and coaching them to do a myriad of things well. It's one thing that both the college and NFL game agree on. (Colleges fighting against spread formations and all the gimmicky offenses has been a big part in fostering this environment IMO)

I'm honestly not sure. I just think it's a conversation that is eventually going to start happening. I agree the logistics seem challenging, I'm just not able to think of many viable alternatives.