You have a completely different coach and GM within those 5 years.

I think your knocks on Griffin and Edwards deserve an F grade. Edwards is a good role player and Griffin has showed alot of promise as a tampa 2 corner. Both of these guys would be an upgrade for atleast 50 % of the league.

First of all, this is not news about Cedric Griffin, whose draft profile also specified an excessive cushion and poor backpedal among his negatives. (Also note that SAFETY is listed as his primary position coming out of college.) Griffin was analyzed on video by Football Outsiders numerous times. In 2007, Cedric Griffin allowed the 2nd worst yards per pass and he gave up the largest cushion in the NFL according to numerous sources.

Here is what Football Outsiders wrote about Vikings DBs in their preview of the lost playoff game:

Game charting showed a huge difference between Minnesota cornerbacks Antoine Winfield and Cedric Griffin. The charting numbers show Winfield with 5.5 yards allowed per pass and a 67 percent Success Rate, second among cornerbacks with at least 40 charted passes. (Who’s first? Look down a few paragraphs.) Griffin has 9.0 yards allowed per pass and a 44 percent Success Rate, both among the worst numbers for starting cornerbacks. If you prefer league PBP to game charting, I can tell you that Winfield had 56 pass tackles and a 45 percent Stop Rate on those tackles, the best Stop Rate of any cornerback if we include only pass tackles and not passes defensed. Griffin had 57 pass tackles but a Stop Rate of only 21 percent on those tackles. The result could be a huge game for Kevin Curtis, who will likely be covered by Griffin on the left while Winfield has DeSean Jackson over on the right.

All CB’s job descriptions are as follows:
1) prevent a pass from being completed (in your zone or to the specific man-to-man assignment)
2) tackle any receivers in your zone/assignment without allowing excessive yardage or a first down to be gained (this is why total tackles mean less than the success rate)
3) force a fumble while doing so, if possible. Tony Dungy, the architect of the so-called “Tampa-2”, always valued DBs with good enough hands to get turnovers, and that information has been lost while traveling to Chilly’s brain. Ronde Barber has averaged more INTs per year than Cedric Griffin has in the first 3 years of his career. That could prevent CG from succeeding as a safety, but at least his primary job would be to tackle, which he does well.

With regards to Ray Edwards, all I’m saying is that he’s not an above average starter. He’s very similar to Darrion Scott (led the team with 5.5 sacks from the left side in 2006) or Derrick L. Alexander (2nd to John Randle with 7.5 from the left side in 1998) or Udeze (tied for the team lead in sacks with 5.0 from the left side in 2007) except that they had just as many or more sacks without being surrounded with quite as much talent. Edwards was drafted as a situational pass rusher, so it wasn’t unreasonable to expect more from him, even after shifting to the left side. And shouldn’t he have registered more tackles per game or per start on the left side in 2008 than he did on the right side in 2007? I would have thought so, but it didn’t really happen.