All is Not Well in Vikings Land…

The Vikings are a team in disarray, that is if you spend anytime discussing the current state of the team online. It was thought, only a few days ago, that this team was gelling at the right time, that the defense (except for the Bills game) was basically playing at the same level they did last year (when they were a number one unit) and that the offense was capable of forgoing the run game and beating teams through the air, with some excitement that the REAL rookie of the year Dalvin Cook was back and 100% for the first time in forever. It’s funny how quickly things can change in the NFL. Or rather, how quickly things can fall apart from a fans perspective. The team is separate from that, and will give you all the right football answers about how they still have a shot, but as Chad Greenway explained on this week’s ‘Morning Joes’, the players actually do pay attention to the media and also sort of believe in curses. Neither of those things bode well for Sunday Night’s game against the Packers.

That panic isn’t created out of whole cloth, though, as these odds for next year’s Super Bowl show, the Vikings odds to win their first Lombardi Trophy took a huge hit after losing 25-20 to the Bears, falling from +1800 to +3000. They are now 1.5 games behind Chicago in the division and hold a slim half-game lead over Seattle and Dallas in the battle for the second Wild Card. Their remaining schedule is pretty nightmarish. In addition to facing the ever-dangerous Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay in Week 12, they still have to travel to New England and Seattle. Getting more from the ground game, which ranks dead-last in DVOA, will be crucial. It would not only take pressure off of Kirk Cousins, but it would also slow opposing pass rushers, who are feasting on a Viking O-line that’s 31st in pass protection according to Pro Football Focus.

Now, as the person on the VikingsTerritory/purplePTSD/purpleTERRITORY “Radio” Network that interacts with our readers the most, I don’t think that one game suddenly changed peoples minds in some sort of a complete 180, but rather that people were beginning to have hope that this Vikings team was as good as the Rams/Saints/Chiefs and to a lesser extent the Bears (when healthy), but that hope couldn’t cancel out some of the nagging issues that they’ve had with the team this year. Sure, the turnovers have been something we’ve had to say “sure, the turnovers…” in multiple articles this season (or conversations), and that’s really what the problem is with this team, and what will determine really the Kirk Cousins era the next two and a half seasons. Now, no one has been as big of a Kirk Cousins fan/apologist/cheerleader than I have and when the season started and he was sitting in the pocket, taking big hits and hitting Adam Thielen like they both shared a womb, I was on cloud nine thinking that once the defense got back to 2017 levels, this team would be unstoppable.

My job is to attempt to find exactly what has changed with Cousins (to find a way to explain my way out of defending him so fervently in June/July) and perhaps how they’ll be able to fix what has changed moving forward. The Vikings are currently the sixth seed in the NFC and while they do have a rough schedule moving forward, they still do have the ability to do some damage should Cousins “figure it out”. The problem with that, though, is that the Bears exposed what I’ve been arguing and losing sleep over for years now and that’s that the Vikings have basically built this amazing team but in doing so they’ve ignored arguably the most important position group on any team (especially in today’s NFL) and that’s the offensive line. And how do you fix something like that, especially at this point in the season (with the trade deadline in the rearview)? It’s simple, you really can’t, you just have to hope that somehow the unit they have will improve to a subpar unit from a disastrous unit (if you think I’m over-exaggerating, the Vikings have had one game in the past 21 seasons where they rushed for less than 25 yards, before this year, where that has happened TWICE).

If you think I’m alone in this thinking, this was the top post on Reddit earlier this week (among a littany of posts basically breaking down who is responsible for this “mess” and who should be fired (from DeFilippo to Childress, cause… Reddit)):

Now there is some argument that DeFilippo is to blame and that’s mainly because the Vikings neither came out in a high tempo, no huddle offense (with a ton of shotgun throws) that seemingly worked way too late in the Bears game, nor did they think to double team or chip Khalil F’ing Mack until after half-time (at least if you believe what Coach Zimmer said to Michelle Tafoya or your eyeballs after watching Mack (and Akiem Hicks) basically spend more time in the Vikings backfield than Dalvin Cook or Latavius Murray Sunday night). You’d think that they would’ve known that the line couldn’t handle those two, but instead of starting the game with a lot of really quick passes (to Thielen and Diggs, in the slot), Cousins ended up holding onto the ball for nearly a half second longer than usual against the Bears, which isn’t just something he decided to do on his own (as he was waiting for plays, called by DeFilippo, to develop).

But the problem is much deeper and more terrifying than just that, as the offensive line is basically terrible and it’s not something that can be fixed at this point in the season. Beyond that, if the Vikings do their top draft picks on a lineman, it might take them a year or two to get going and considering that this Vikings team is supposed to be winning either now or within three years, that’s something that makes me believe that the Vikings need to snag some top offensive lineman in free agency (and add depth in the draft). Granted, both Pat Elflein and Brian O’Neill have had good rookie seasons and interior lineman have less responsibilities than tackles, but keep in mind this is the Vikings and with their luck they’ll probably end up with the offensive line equivalent of Demetrius Underwood.

The good news is that the Vikings are basically set at every position (even if Zimmer will fight for another corner in the draft) so they can focus nearly every pick on the line, but the bad news is that they might not be able to add a huge free agent left tackle in free agency because of their cap space (according to SporTrac they have $10.3 million in cap space open next season, as of the writing of this article). The Vikings have been lucky that Brian O’Neill has not only been able to contribute but has been one of the better linemen in that unit (he graded out as the best offensive lineman Sunday Night, as he only allowed one pressure which is huge considering that Mack switches from left side to right side), but still, the Vikings offensive line has basically created a situation in which Kirk Cousins’ internal clock is broken and the running backs are worthless against good defensive lines.

Think about any other “good” team having Dalvin Cook and Latavius Murray in their backfield and putting up less than 30 yards despite having almost 20 touches. Cousins isn’t without blame here, but when you have a guy pass 60 times in a game where he is pressured on half of his drop backs (during a season where he’s been pressured in the high 40 percentile) and you’ll begin to understand why bad things are happening. Not to say Cousins isn’t to blame, he’s made some bad decisions and throws.

It is pure insanity that before the draft the Vikings invested the most money in NFL history in a player (who was known to throw bad picks when under duress), only to turn around and ignore investing in the offensive line in a meaningful way. Brian O’Neill was a project and they’ve been lucky in that regard but they should’ve spent more picks on internal lineman and perhaps that Sheldon Richardson money on anyone from the top of this list (http://walterfootball.com/freeagents2018OT.php), or this list (http://walterfootball.com/freeagents2018G.php).

So, it’ll be interesting to see how the season ends. The Vikings are good enough to beat bad teams, but have shown they can’t beat teams with winning records (although they have faced some great teams this season), almost solely because of mistakes made thanks to the above. This unit fell apart on Sunday night because Tom Compton had a TJ Clemmings-esque night (with a PFF grade of less than SEVEN), and Khalil Mack is a monster, as is Hicks and IF Cousins can someone limit these devastating turnovers then the Vikings could theoretically make a run, but this is the Vikings that we’re talking about and I’m pretty concerned as to how the rest of the season will progress. Either way, it’s probably well past time that we consider the Vikings a Super Bowl team and that breaks my heart. Hopefully they’ll be able to fix things but considering, I doubt it.

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