New Vikings General Manager Announces His Seven-Point Plan to Win the Super Bowl

Note: Writer Roger Dier said he did not sleep well after Monday Night’s dismal performance against Seattle. He did, however, remember a dream in which he became general manager of the Minnesota Vikings. Roger discovered something on his computer screen Tuesday morning. His best guess is that after the dream, he sleepwalked to his office, and then sleep-wrote his seven-point plan as the Vikings new GM. 

After the Seattle nightmare, writer Roger Dier dreamed he became Vikings GM.

I want to thank Ziggy and Mark Wilf for appearing in my dream and giving me this opportunity to help the Minnesota Vikings become champions of professional football. Vikings fans have waited nearly 60 years for an NFL championship. They are tired of waiting. So am I. Here’s what steps I have taken and will take to bring the Super Bowl trophy to Minnesota.

  1. Mike Priefer is no longer with the Vikings organization. We have not had the kicking consistency required to contend for the Super Bowl. Ryan Longwell is our new special team’s coach. Ryan kicked successfully in the NFL for several years, including several seasons with the Vikings. He understands placekicking and the role of special teams. His mission as special teams coach is to consistently create and coach the best special teams units in the league. On the subject of special teams, I will not draft a place-kicker. Ever. Ryan is plugged into the kickingsphere in America. He attends all the camps as a consultant and coach, and knows a good kicker when he sees one.

2) Kevin Stefanski is our new offensive coordinator. He has in front of him at least a three-game window to oil what has become a rusted out offense. He deserves a fair shot at developing his offense in a complete season, and he will get that opportunity in 2019. He’s been loyal to the Vikings, he deserves the opportunity to develop an offense we can all be proud of and one that we can count on. He has told me that he believes that offenses should be designed on the strengths of players instead of forcing players into an offense they are not suited for. That’s a good start.

3) I have informed Mike Zimmer that he will be retained as head coach next season. However, I have made it clear to Mike that he will be the head coach of this organization as long as he is supportive of his assistant coaches, both in public and within the organization. If he has complaints about his assistants, direct or sideways, the place to air them is in my office, and only within my office. Casting doubt or disappointment with his fellow coaches in public does not serve this organization’s ultimate goal of winning the Super Bowl. He has agreed that this is the best course of action. He will be held accountable to meet this standard.

In addition, I expect Mike to enter the 2019 season completely focused on his role as a head coach. George Edwards is our defensive coordinator. He’s capable of designing a defense and calling alignments during games. George gets that chance in 2019. Coach Zimmer agrees that he will be a better head coach if the coordinators have full responsibility for their units, under his guidance.

4) After this season concludes, Kirk Cousins has two years left on his contract. However, we plan to draft a quarterback in the spring and hold an honest, performance-based assessment between draft day and the final preseason game to determine who will be our starting quarterback in the 2019 season. If we have a new starting quarterback in Week 1 of the 2019 season, Kirk will be regulated to back-up status. I have notified the Wilf family that the Vikings may have to eat Kirk’s contract should he fail to make the team in 2019. They are prepared to do that.

While I’m on the topic of free agents, I plan to be extremely selective with free agents and not sign them simply because they are available. There’s a reason NFL players become free agents and are deemed expendable by other teams. Other than Case Keenum and a few others, free agency has not served the Vikings well and we are going to be smarter acquiring them and much more frugal in what we pay them.

5) The Vikings will stop extending contracts of veteran players for longer than two years after their rookie contracts expire. Playing in either year of two-year deals gives players and the Vikings organization contractual flexibility. It also incents athletes to perform at heightened levels in both years of their existing contract.

6) We plan to hire an outside firm to assess the Vikings organization. The assessment will look at all facets of the Vikings operations including management, hierarchy, coaching, player performance and assessment, our struggles in spotlight games, scouting, public relations, information technology, sales, marketing, everything we do. To give a fuller picture of how we do things and accurately measure our organizational urgency, our consultants will study our processes between now and the end of the 2019 season. An external view of how this organization works, or doesn’t work, will allow us to make intelligent long-range decisions when their report is submitted after the 2020 draft.

7) We have hired an outside firm to recommend the best offensive linemen who will be available in the 2019 draft. The deadline for those recommendations is April 1. Meanwhile, our in-house scouts will create a list of best available linemen, be they draft prospects or college players who aren’t drafted. Seeing areas of agreement or disagreement will enable the Vikings to build a quality wall of warriors that can move defensive fronts on a consistent basis. I am tired of seeing our offense overrun.

Finally, I have notified the Wilf family that if the Vikings do not win the Super Bowl within the next four years that I will resign my post as general manager. Accountability begins at the top and if we don’t win a Super Bowl between now and 2022, that’s on me. Everyone in the Vikings organization is accountable to each other and our common goal. Everyone needs to grab the rope and pull.

Let me share a little story that illustrates what that means:  In 1965, a television network did a story on America’s quest to land a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. They interviewed a fellow who worked at the manned spacecraft center in Houston. The reporter asked the man what he did at NASA. He said, “I’m a custodian, and my job is to help America land a man on the moon before the end of the decade.” The reporter laughed a little, and asked why he believed that. “It’s my personal mission. All of us at NASA are tasked with that one mission. We are all linked by that goal. I’m here to land a man on the moon and bring him home safely. That’s all I do and it’s the only thing I want to do. I’m proud to be a part of this.”

That’s the kind of focused commitment the Vikings need to have, and will have.

Thank you.

 

Roger Dier is a contributor to PurplePTSD.com and more importantly, is a friend of PurplePTSD.com publisher Joe Johnson. Roger has
written two books and also writes for Fullpresscoverage.com.

 

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