nicksaviking

I’d really like to see a gameplan where the RB can get 60+productive receptions a season like the Dolphins. I don’t trust the OL coach with this and the Vikings need to completely start over with a different breed of RB.

So former Dolphins OC Frank Smith is hired to be the Vikings assistant head coach. Have to believe there may be a play for Tua Tagovailoa on the table. Obviously no trade with that contract, but if/when he's cut perhaps. I think he's better than just about all the free agent options though so I tend to think he'd take a for sure starting gig on a dumpster fire team before coming here to compete with McCarthy. TBD though, who knows. If he could get the ball to Tyreek Hill, he can get the ball to Justin Jefferson. Also, Keith Carter is the new OL coach. He was promoted from assistant OL coach. This is going to sound like hyperbole, but I think this is the worst thing the Vikings have or will do all off season. They really needed to find a top end OL coach, and I really doubt they're finding one who's been studying under the previous guy who was way out of his depth. This absolutely needed to be an outside hire. Beyond disappointed with this. Other defensive coaches too. Whatever. I stopped caring after reading this nonsense.

I'd rather see one or two internal guys from the current group of starters-should-be-relievers get a spot over Bowman, BUT this is better than signing a sketchy free agent reliever to a MLB deal. This works.

Disagree. A smart business person wouldn’t have wasted company time with TWO firings, he or she would have canned Falvey and Baldelli over the same Zoom call.

We're all just sitting around scratching their heads today. Which is weird considering both moves were basically what 90% of all posters had been asking for? Us humans are weird.

Wow. This gettin' deep.

I also wonder if the ambiguity of Flores' return had anything to do with KAM. Could have been some personnel disagreement on that side of the ball too. Or it could have been the other way I suppose too. Flores knew KAM and KOC were battling for control, but Flores liked that KAM kept getting him his preferred free agents, and Flores needed to be re-assured that KOC would let him have control of that side of the ball. Probably every word of this post is nonsense though. Except for the sentence directly preceding this one..

My take was that KOC was campaigning for control of player personnel, and the Wilfs thought it couldn't hurt, but they wanted to see how it played out this year before committing to handing over all the keys. I think that would explain the weird timing. If the new final decision maker was already in house, there was no rush to go out in the rat race and look for a replacement.

I'm all for converting the starters to relievers. The Twins might have picked the wrong guy, but doing Brock Stewart and Jeff Hoffman was totally the right move. I'm not sure I see similar situations though with this free agent class. It seems to work with former well regarded itching prospects. Maybe Griffen Canning? Or Paddack I guess. I don't care for reunions though. But aside from that, the Twins have more internal options to convert to the pen. I'm not interested in the remaining free agent relievers so I'd start working with what they already have.

KOC is on a short leash for me, but I think you're underselling the QB position. The team won 13 and 14 games when they had good-not-elite QBs Cousins and Darnold for a full season, then stunk when they had to go Dobbs/Mullins/Hall and McCarthy/Wentz/Brosmer. And stunk is relative because they STILL won seven and nine games with complete blackholes at the most important position in all of pro sports. Even if the other spots on the offense are stacked (and they weren't considering the OL hasn't been good in two decades) I think an ineffectual QB is going to drag everyone down. And I don't think all QBs, or even most QBs can be 'coached up', certainly not to the level of getting back to 13 or 14 wins.

Joe Flacco = first time Pro Bowler. Yes, we should all have a problem with the fact that Flacco is a Pro Bowler. But we should all have a bigger problem with the fact that he was chosen after Sheduer Sanders. Who was worse by pretty much any way you want to measure the two.

KAM could be the scapegoat, even if he doesn't deserve near as much blame as he is or will get. Still, I have to think KOC had a decent amount of say in drafting McCarthy. Seems highly unlikely a guy thought of as a QB guru would have been saying, "No, No, No!" and the GM says, "You're getting him, and I don't care if you like it or not!" KOC's hands can't be completely clean on this deal. BUT, that could be the narrative that ends up getting floated out there.

At this point I'd agree. But it does seem like KAM and KOC didn't exactly see eye to eye on personnel. Maybe KOC had better QB ideas and better draft ideas and he has the receipts to back it up and that's why KAM was replaced. Really curious to see how it plays out this year.

Brzyzninksi is the GM but I'd guess KOC is actually auditioning for one of those 'football czar' jobs. Which I do NOT endorse.

Yeah, good round up. If we had put a poll on this forum four years ago asking what is the most important job of a new GM and listed 'Good drafts' 'Good free agency' 'Good cap management' 'Good whatever', Good drafts would have been the unanimous choice. And I bet it would be the unanimous choice of every owner in the league. The guy is really smart and likable though. He's going to find a meaningful job again. I wouldn't be surprised if he's a GM somewhere else eventually. Just going to have to convince someone he's refined and upgraded his draft related analytics.

I'd guess KOC keeps his job. Not an endorsement, just my presumption. Somehow this disaster of an offense finished over .500 last year. Even if McCarthy is the starter week 1 and is never any good, just knowing his limitations is going to set the Vikings up to be a better team than they were last year. Also, I think firing the OL coach is going to show to be a significantly bigger deal than anyone would ever assume.

*****Moderator Note***** Hate to do that in this forum as it's mostly the same faces, but back to the shocking news. The tangent posts were removed to get us better back on track.

No he wasn't, we had all been complaining about Speilman's stockpiling of late round picks for years. I don't think anyone here was upset when Speilman was fired. If you're going to trade some of your picks for players who are expensive, like Hockenson, that means you have to be 100% sure you can make up the financial discrepancy with cheap players you get with your remaining picks. He couldn't do that. This team had to do way too much heavy lifting in free agency, and that wasn't and will never be sustainable. You have to build through the draft and if you don't have enough picks to do that, then you need to stop trading them. Use your picks to draft a cheap Hockenson or Mason instead.

I'm sure the impetus to fire him is the Sam Darnold decision, but it really should have been due to not being able to build a sustainable team through the draft. With Darnold, we really had three choices, let him walk, franchise him or extend him. Hindsight says franchising him was the right call, but I'd still not have wanted that extension. He's a good QB but he's not great. We'd still be in the same kind of Kirk Cousins purgatory if Darnold was here on a three year deal.

I always thought we tied Falvey and Levine/Zoll too tightly together. If these guys all did the same jobs, the Pohlads wouldn't have been paying two people to do them. Totally agree Levine and Zoll likely made most of the detailed personnel decisions and Falvey likely was the one who made the blueprint and stamped his approval when he liked what they came up with.

I doubt few people in those positions are uncomfortable with holding the top position in a company outside of the owner. I'll bet just about every single one of them is uncomfortable when the owner tells them they are losing their title and job responsibilities though.

I think the Dolphins are starting over and will eat Tua's money. I don't think they'd have benched him otherwise. I would have thrown Brissett into the Mariota/Flacco/Wentz group. So they maybe wouldn't dumpster dive but only because they already did. Brissett's numbers did look good last year, but that was mostly garbage time passing and the team went 1-11 when he started. I don't think Atlanta parts with Cousins any longer, I think they need him. And if he did leave, I don't think he goes anywhere that he has to compete for a job, because he wouldn't have to, there are openings for him to start. Yeah, the Vikings could get Mariota or Taylor. That doesn't help the team any more than signing Wentz did though. I'd take Wentz over both of those two in fact. At least he pushes the ball down field and has a respectable completion percentage; at minimum, he'd make for a happier Justin Jefferson. People who are demanding a veteran to compete certainly aren't thinking about any of these guys though, they're thinking about some abstract savior without realizing there isn't one. Also, Ty Simpson started 15 games in college. I hope one of those idiot teams draft and start him but I think even dysfunctional teams like the Jets and Browns will see he's got the same problem as Anthony Richardson and Trey Lance. I think he's riding pine no matter where he goes. And I think he goes way later than people are predicting now.

You mean assistant To the exectutive?

With no one but Falvey leaving, the baseball side doesn't look any different. That's why this move has to be due to the operations side. $orry, I mean the operation$ $ide. Hmmm, those dollar signs don't pop like I thought they would.

OK, I was going to type that this is the right move but the wrong time as this doesn't make any sense. But I think I got it. Falvey was hired to be in charge of the baseball part of the operations. He then got promoted to run the whole show after Dave St. Peter was fired retired. Which was still a baffling move because Falvey cut his teeth scouting pitchers, not negotiating TV deals and approving marketing campaigns. However, the TV deals and marketing campaigns almost certainly are what the new ownership group is most concerned with, as their primary goal right now is to reverse the downturn in revenue. Putting someone with experience in those areas in charge should have been a no-brainer this whole time. But I bet Falvey didn't want the demotion so I bet they 'mutually parted ways.'