No matter who’s “healthy enough”, the Vikings need to leave Case Keenum as the starter
Aj Mansour
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The Minnesota Vikings are 4-2 on the season after a 23-10 victory over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium. On top of that, it’s likely that Aaron Rodgers is out for the year with a broken collarbone suffered in the first quarter of that game. Because of that, the landscape of the NFC North division has shifted dramatically and it leaves the Minnesota Vikings in the driver’s seat with a more than decent chance to win the division and make a playoff run towards the Super Bowl hosted right here in Minnesota.
Now let’s all slow down and read that last sentence again. I didn’t say the Vikings are on their way to the Super Bowl, only that they should have a good shot at the division and the playoffs giving them a chip, a chair and a chance to make a run for the first home hosted Super Bowl in NFL history.
But you can’t screw it up.
The Vikings already wasted opportunities on VERY WINNABLE games in both of their losses this season, the first against an underachieving Steelers squad in week two and then again versus the Lions at home in week four. No more of that. And in my opinion, the most important thing that the Vikings coaching staff can do to continue playing strong football is to leave Case Keenum as the starting quarterback of this team.
I’m not talking next week when Kyle Sloter is his only real competition. I’m talking for the rest of the year…no matter what the health of Teddy Bridgewater proves today or the healing power of Sam Bradford looks like, leave Case as the starter the rest of the way and you should make the playoffs.
Here’s the logic…essentially if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Over the past three seasons, serving in 18 games as the starting quarterback between St. Louis, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, Keenum has posted a solid .500 record. Mind you that was with some HORRENDOUS Rams squads and dealing with the in and out turmoil of this season with Minnesota already. Right now, with the Vikings, he’s having the best season of his career averaging 226.8 yards per game passing, completing more than 64% of his passes and throwing 5 touchdowns with his first interception coming on a tipped pass yesterday versus Green Bay.
Yeah that’s not great but it’s solid, solid enough to win games when your defense is allowing only 16.8 points per game on average. And that is exactly why Case should remain the starter.
Well that and the fact that there’s really no way that we can fully trust either the rehabbing knee of Teddy or the chronically injured knee of Bradford.
Take a look back to last week’s experiment with Sam Bradford and you’ll see exactly why such an experiment could be a gigantic detriment for this team.
Sam struggled through most of the first half of last Monday’s game in Chicago. He didn’t look comfortable, he didn’t look like he trusted his knee, he was all out of sorts and ultimately ended up tweaking that knee again. In the days since then, guys like Jay Glazer are reporting that this could be a career ending injury for Sam. If the Vikings had been playing any team other than the Bears with a rookie quarterback in his first start, the score wouldn’t have been 3-2 at the half. The Vikings have proven time and time again they are not the type of team that can fight back from big deficits. I’m not trying to rub it in in lieu of yesterday’s injury, but an Aaron Rodgers led Packers team would have led the Vikings 17-0 by the time Keenum came in.
That same fear is real for Teddy Bridgewater. Nobody, not even Teddy, knows how he’s going to perform when evaluated today and how that’s going to translate to the football field. He may never be the same player he once was and for all we know he might always be teetering on a fragile knee himself.
The Vikings upcoming schedule isn’t a cake walk. The Ravens and Browns games are winnable then the road heavy gauntlet of the second half of the season starts with the Redskins, Rams, Falcons, Panthers and Lions. Get to 6-2 by the by and split the rest of the way pushing through to a 10-6 record and your in.
The best chance to do that is to stick with Keenum. Continue to develop a conservative but effective game plan like we’ve seen so far with Case and the division can be had. As noted when watching Brett Hundley swimming in the deep end yesterday, Case Keenum is a far above average backup quarterback.
Now there’s another side to this. If Case goes out and wets the bed, everything I’ve said above is a moot point. But that would be the case for any quarterback who is actively losing their team games.
You may not want to lock him up with a big deal for the 2018 season as your starter, but he’s good enough to get you to the promise land this season, with this scenario and on this team.