It's Time To See What We Have For Next Season

On the stat sheet, he had 2 tackles and a sack, which is probably better than Jared Allen yesterday (3 tackles). I was only able to watch the 4th quarter, last week so I have no idea if he passes the eye test or not. Robison has been quiet the past few weeks, but he had a good game yesterday from what I can tell.

I wouldn’t mind freeing Everson Griffin more.

He’s versatile enough to even offer them the option of mixing up their front and showing a stand-up edge pass rusher now and then. Shocking! Given opponents with competent passing attacks don’t seem to fear 3rd-and-longs against this defense at all, maybe it would at least give them something to do a double-take on…

He’s only playing cause the people in front of him are gone.

SS is a concern because Sanford has been ok, but no more
FS I’d like Raymond to get some game time
CB Sherels and Burton need to be given some game time to see what we have

LT I’d like to see Love be given a game or two just to see if he might be a swing tackle
C if Fusco is the Center of the future lets give him some time there to see if he can develop a rapport with Ponder

Word on Burton was that he had elite man skills but struggled with zone. So at least put him on the opponent’s #1… Burton Island. Maybe it would get ugly, but so what.

I usually tend to think that our coaches know best and that there is a good reason for the things we see, as well as the things we don’t. Sorry, at this point I suspect they have little more of a clue than we do. At least we look at the players objectively, having formed no personal relationships.

I know we as fans would like to see some of these young players. But the coaches see them everyday in practice. I would have to believe that the coaches play the best players. If any of these young guys were better options, I think we’d see them.

Also, I just don’t know how fair that would be to the veteran star players like JA, AP, KWill. I mean on one hand you’d have established veterans who still want to win every game and on the other you’d have a bunch of rookies who probably don’t give you the best chance to win. Plus I don’t know how I feel about putting Ponder and AP behind an even more pourous line.

Now if you want to pull the plug on the guys that won’t be back next year, i.e. DMac, well there you might have something. Question is, who won’t be back other than #5?

Guy’s big, strong, young, and he’s got quick feet! Try him now, and if he plays well, it might free up that first rounder to get other pieces of the very large rebuilding puzzle.

We all know this team needs a lot of new blood. At 2-8, they are completely out for any playoff spot. I agree with Ted that shuffling the rooks and new guys into the lineup can’t be worse than what we’ve been seeing. However, if the Vikings wind up with a 3rd or 4th overall pick, then they should go on a swapping spree and try to land at least a couple O-linemen and a couple good wide receivers.

One other thing I’d like to see is Caleb King brought up. In preseason he flashed burst and determination significantly better than Toby Gerhart’s. Maybe Gerhart is more suited to a Fullback role, but I’m not sure he could beat out D’Imperio for that job.

Also, I’d play Joe Webb at WR. Might as well find out if he can contribute this season in something other than gadget plays.

for an O-line blow-up for a while now. I’m on board. Like you said, we know that pretty much none of the guys we have are any good- Hutch included; he should be HoF bound, be he is clearly in steep decline. Sully may be serviceable as a C, but that’s a position I’m not sure you want to settle for ‘serviceable’ at. (Granted, it’s not like we can draft 5 brand new O-linemen at once, so we, in fact, may just have to settle at that for a while.)

Seriously, having split my attention between the Vikes-Raiders game and the Pack-Bucs game yesterday, and then following pm the rest of the games afterwards for at least bits and pieces, I can honestly say that from the ‘eyeball test’ our O-line is a freakin’ joke. I saw O-line collapses here and there yesterday… but not NEARLY as consistently as I saw it with us. Even the Giants O-line, which had a bit of a rough outing against the Eagles, mixed their failures in with succesful pockets that gave Eli the time it took to make a good throw. Poor Ponder hasn’t had that… once. I swear.

It’s further hurting us in our ability to evaluate Ponder. Is he our guy? He looks like it, but it’s hard to be sure. Those INTs yesterday were pretty ugly. Is that going to be a trend? Or was it the understandable, panicked reaction of a rookie QB who’s tired of having 0 time to find… well, ANYTHING on the field? I mean, as ugly as they looked to the casual observer, can we really blame Ponder for not having a chance to notice the DBs who were in INT range/ position?? The guy had .8 seconds (according to Chris, which I’m 99% positive is in fact the actual calculation) from snap to release, or else he was going to die. What QB in the NFL can consistently avoid INTs in that situation, a rookie especially? (Perhaps Peyton Manning… as we have learned this season perhaps better than any other, he is apparently G-d.)

Furthermore, there might be SOME run-blocking strength there… but that’s next to useless when teams are stacking the box. Everyone knows to fear AP, so they take no chances. Even a great run-blocking O-line is going to struggle to open lanes consitently in that situation. The best thing for a team like AP is a bit ironic IMO… instead of focusing on a run-blocking O-line, focus on a pass protecting O-line. Why? Because the best thing you can do for AP is stretch the field with a respectable pass offense. Play a few succesful play-action fakes and make teams fear more than AP, and take away their ability to succesfully stack the box. It’s not like AP truly NEEDS a great run-blocking O-line… he does 90% of the work himself regardless. (Not saying it doesn’t help; just saying this method would help MORE.) If we were able to create pockets for Ponder ANYWHERE near what the Pats give Tom Brady, you’d better believe our passing game would take LEAPS and bounds, and then teams wouldn’t stack the box nearly as much. And once you don’t… AP is unleashed and there’s not a damn thing you’re going to do about it.

Phew… OK, rant/ tirade over. Sorry, the O-line is just boiling my blood lately. Had to get that off my chest. OK, move along, move along. At least you guys aren’t subjected to the story I was thinking about writing on the subject.

Before I can determine which people to play.

I mean, our O-line is coached by a guy who was on 3 SB championship teams as coach. Have you ever seen Vikings this bad up front?

Singletary’s LB corp has been non-existent until Oakland.

Special teams? Yeah, they’re special all right. The only time I don’t cringe is when Harvin returns a kickoff.

The defensive backs, um, need no further discussion except that we have had such infrequent excellent plays there that no one fears passing at us.

I mean, we have 6 interceptions, while 5 teams have almost 3 times as many, and none this year from our LB’ers. Yeah, I get it, Cook out and injuries, etc., but why do we lack an effective blitz, too?

Offensive schemes? Defensive schemes? Hello?

I just think we gotta start looking at who is turning us into a laughingstock here, because a good part of it has to come from those in charge. I don’t think we can pass off all these breakdowns on Chilly, because even though I didn’t like him, he isn’t here right now and adjustments have to be continually made by the coaching staff, they can’t just wait until the offseason.

We need to see what kind of roster talent we have moving forward so we can make cuts. I think a lot of vets are going to be walking out the door next year.

Also, Ballard has officially started the last two games over Remi Ayodele, and has looked impressive in his wake. He had that forced fumble on Michael Bush at the end of the game that almost brought us back, as well as some disruptive plays in the running game.

Hopefully, if we can grab a franchise LT in Round 1, our line would look like this next year:

LT: Matt Kalil/J-Mart/Riley Reiff (whoever we grab, not all three haha)
LG: Hutch
C: Berger
RG: Fusco
RT: Love

That’s what I’m hoping for, anyways. I like Berger/Fusco a helluva lot more than I do Sullivan. He plays weak IMO.

We should be playing the young guys whenever possible. However, wasn’t Brown the guy who played at RT in place of Loadholt when Loadholt got hurt this season. Brown had a rough game as I recall. If he got carved up on the right side, I think he’ll get killed on the left. However, if we can find someone for the LT spot, we could move Johnson to right guard. We could then move Berger to center. If we want to see what Fusco can do, we could move Johnson to RT where things are a bit more manageable than on the left side. However, it is all predicated on the idea that we have someone who can play LT better than Johnson. I’m not sure that’s the case. At other positions, I’d be okay with saying, “What the hell. Why not.” However, Ponder might get killed if we end up playing someone with less ability than Johnson. Anyway, I think its important not to throw Johnson out just because he hasn’t been a good LT this year. I think he’d make a heck of fleet-footed guard.

I definitely want to see Raymond, Burton and Sherels getting time on the field. Asher isn’t good, and there’s no point in keeping him on the field as a starter. Get the other guys some experience. T. Johnson and Abdullah should sit too.

I’m thinking that it’s very, very possible that we’ll be picking at #2 this year.

especially the linebackers, i think griffen is a beast.
pass coverage cant be any worse than its been…

A QB, a backup QB, a RB, a slot receiver, a DE, a DL, an OLB, a long snapper, a kicker, and a punter.

Every other single position AND backup position is up for grabs, IMHO. Name recognition and fondness for players who gutted it out through major injury must be a thing of the past. Performance, performance, performance has to dictate decision making going forward. Step up, or get the hell out.

Does anyone else think that Everson could be a good/great middle linebacker? I know they tried him at outside but put him in the middle, he is big, fast and looked ok in coverage but could you imagine him coming free on a blitz up the middle?