Going into the 2011 season, it was largely wondered whether or not Brian Robison would be able to step in and replace the departed Ray Edwards at defensive end opposite Jared Allen. Edwards made it no secret that he wanted out of Minnesota, feeling as though he had been disrespected due to the fact that the Vikings signed Robison to a three-year contract extension right before the lockout hit, and at that point he was making less money than Robison. . .or, as he quite unceremoniously referred to him, "his backup."

So, Edwards hit the road as soon as he could, signing with the Atlanta Falcons after the lockout was lifted, and the Vikings rolled into the season with Robison as the starter at defensive end. Apparently, it was the right thing to do.

Last year, Robison ended up playing 936 snaps on defense as he started opposite Allen, more than all but eight other 4-3 defensive ends (Jared Allen, who had to be practically hog-tied and dragged off, led the league with 1044). He wasn’t just taking up space on those snaps either, bringing pressure consistently over the season and holding up against the run, something that had been a concern among his detractors before the season. In 385 snaps run defending, Robison missed just a pair of tackles, posted very similar numbers to Allen, and earned a positive PFF grade over the season, despite the Vikings’ defense feeling the loss of Pat Williams in the interior.

As a pass rusher, he recorded nine sacks, but 54 total pressures, good for 11th among 4-3 defensive ends, and his 8.4 Pass Rushing Productivity score was good enough to rank 21st, one spot better than Jason Pierre-Paul, and comfortably ahead of the player he replaced.

Congratulations to Brian Robison for proving the doubters wrong. The front office took some flak for letting Edwards go and making him the starter. . .but, as is usually the case, if you're taking flak it just means you're right over the target.

2011 was not a great year for the Minnesota Vikings. I think we all pretty much understand this. But while the Vikings were losing a lot this past season, they were also among the most inefficient teams in the National Football League in doing so.

A site called OSMGuy.com (or, if you pronounce it slowly enough, "awesome guy". . .hey, it sort of markets itself) computed "Cost Per Win Efficiency Standings" for the National Football League this season, a function of taking a team's salary cap figure and dividing it by the number of wins the team got in 2011. With the Vikings only getting three victories, you would expect them to be at the bottom of the standings, and that's exactly where they were.

Based on the 2011 Vikings' salary cap figure of $123,553,646 (the highest in the NFL last year. . .talk about your crappy ROI), each win the Vikings mustered last year cost them $41,184,549. The only two teams that were less efficient were the two teams in the NFL that finished with fewer wins than Minnesota, the Indianapolis Colts ($57,129,649 per victory) and the St. Louis Rams ($60,917,893 per win).

This is just one of the many statistics about this team that really has nowhere to go back up. This team isn't going 3-13 again next year, so they will raise their spot in these standings next season.

We've long talked about the virtue of "alternate" statistical sites for football, and one of the best out there is Football Outsiders, who we've gotten a chance to talk to on a few different occasions. While looking at their site this afternoon here, I saw something that I think a lot of us suspected, but the folks at FO really managed to drive home.

The folks over at FO have something that's called an "Aggressiveness Index" that measures the tendency of NFL head coaches to go for it in specific situations. Those situations, according to the men themselves, are as follows:

Here at Football Outsiders, we created the Aggressiveness Index (originally appearing in Pro Football Prospectus 2006) to rank coaches based on how often they go for it on fourth downs. Although no NFL coach is as aggressive as the data suggests he should be, we discovered there is quite a wide range of fourth-down tendencies among coaches. To compute AI, we analyzed fourth-down decisions when the offense was in the opponent’s territory, where a coach’s tendencies were most distinguished from his peers. We also excluded obvious catch-up situations: Third quarter, trailing by 15 or more points; Fourth quarter, trailing by 9 or more points; Last five minutes of the game, trailing by any amount. AI measures how often a coach attempted a fourth-down conversion compared to the league averages in similar situations, based on the field position and the distance needed for a first down.

After the jump, we'll take a look at what the AI says about Vikings' head coach Leslie Frazier.

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The folks from Pro Football Focus have been doing their "All-Division" teams for the past couple of weeks, and they got around to their All-NFC North Team a few days ago. Surprisingly, the Minnesota Vikings. . .despite their 3-13 record. . .managed to lead the way with eight players getting spots on the team.

The eight players that were named to the All-NFC North Team by Pro Football Focus were running back Adrian Peterson (despite injury issues), tight end Jim Kleinsasser (who made it as a fullback, but hey. . .he's the People's Champion, so we're not arguing), wide receiver Percy Harvin, guard Steve Hutchinson, center John Sullivan (who PFF praised all season long), defensive end Jared Allen, defensive tackle Kevin Williams, and outside linebacker Erin Henderson.

In something that's sort of weird, the Vikings managed to get the most players on the team despite having the division's worst record. The Chicago Bears, who had the second-worst record in the division at 8-8, got the second-most players with seven (and nearly swept the special teams categories). The Detroit Lions, who went 10-6, had the fewest players with five, and the Green Bay Packers put six players on the squad.

That goes to show the discrepancy between the top part of the Vikings' roster and what they have as far as depth is concerned. Yes, the Vikings still have some superstars that continue to go out and produce at a high level, but the gulf between those players and the rest of the roster got huge in 2011. The 2012 NFL Draft and free agency periods will serve as a chance for the Vikings to correct that issue as they rebuild this team and get back to their normal status as contenders.

Back before the NFL lockout hit last season, the Minnesota Vikings were faced with a choice. . .they had three players that they could justify using their franchise tag on, those players being defensive end Ray Edwards, linebacker Chad Greenway, and wide receiver Sidney Rice. Edwards was never really an option, as he spent the majority of the off-season complaining about being "mistreated" by Minnesota, and subsequently moved on to the Atlanta Falcons, where he spent 2011 in almost total irrelevance. (On an individual level, anyway. . .obviously, the Falcons were a pretty good football team this past season.)

Many folks were surprised when the Vikings chose Greenway over Rice. But Rice's injury history, likely coupled with the way he handled his hip injury after the 2010 season (when he decided to put off surgery until after training camp rather than having it when the issue was discovered) led the Vikings to that decision. In the end, it appears that the Vikings made the right decision, as it was reported a few days ago that Rice needed to have surgery on both shoulders after the 2011 season came to its conclusion.

To emphasize that the Vikings may have gotten it right on Rice. . .at least so far. . .let me compare the stats between two wide receivers.

One of those wide receivers is Sidney Rice, who signed a five-year contract with the Seattle Seahawks for $41 million, $18 million of which is guaranteed. The deal included a $6 million signing bonus.

One of those wide receivers is Michael Jenkins, who signed a three-year contract with the Vikings for $9 million (yes, total). Not sure how much of Jenkins' contract is guaranteed, but he got a $2 million signing bonus.

Can you tell the difference? I can't.

Here's some halftime entertainment for everyone to enjoy during the AFC Championship Game. Someone put together a nice little highlight reel of Vikings' quarterback Christian Ponder from this past season.

While I understand that pretty much anybody can make a highlight reel to make a player look good. . .after all, I seem to recall a Troy Williamson highlight reel floating around out there at one point in time. . .I think this one pretty much sums up why it's fairly ludicrous to suggest giving up on our rookie signal caller at this point.

Seriously, look at what the guy can do when he has a little bit of time and a receiver actually shakes loose. I think my personal favorite throw out of this entire package is towards the end, where he hits Visanthe Shiancoe against the Raiders right down the seam into tight coverage for a big gain down to the 1-yard line.

Yes, I understand that Christian Ponder was very up and down as a rookie. . .however, if we can get him an offensive line that doesn't have him facing a jailbreak on about 90% of his snaps and a guy that can stretch the field a little bit, I think we're going to be looking at a whole lot more "up" than "down" going forward.

The other day, ESPN draft guy Mel Kiper, Jr. regraded the 2011 NFL Draft for all 32 NFL teams. As you might expect, the grade for the Minnesota Vikings got a bit worse than it was this past April. Right after the draft, Kiper graded Minnesota's selections as a C+. Here's what he had to say about the class of 2011 after they actually played some football.

When you think you're drafting the quarterback of the future for the franchise, you take your shot. That's what the Vikings did at No. 12 when they drafted Christian Ponder. I had that as a reach on my board, but Ponder showed some things in 2011. Still, it was for a team that was far less competitive than we thought it would be, and, as the season finished, I even heard questions about whether the team should give Joe Webb a shot. Are the Vikings confident they can compete in 2012 with Ponder at the helm? Kyle Rudolph is a talented player and should be a weapon in that offense; he certainly has mastered the one-handed catch. After that, it's pretty quiet. Christian Ballard got reps, but I don't see him as an impact player. Overall, this is still an incomplete for me as we wait on Ponder. But hopefully we'll see some development from the other picks, too.

With that, he proceeded to grade the Vikings' 2011 draft as a C-.

On the bright side, all four NFC North teams got lower grades in January than they did in April. However, the Vikings still have plenty of catching up to do. Hopefully this April that catching up will get underway.

Color me surprised on this move, as the Vikings have fired defensive line coach Karl Dunbar. There wasn't a lot to cheer about as a VIkes fan in 2011, and other than Jared Allen, the defensive line was a source of concern for a good part of the season.

Kevin Williams had a somewhat down year, as he served a bogus two game suspension, then dealt with a foot injury for a good part of the season. He seemed to get healthier late in the year, and it was no coincidence that his game picked up towards the end of the year.

His counterpart, though, was nowhere to be found, except on the side of a milk carton. Free agent pickup Remi Ayodele was a waste of a roster spot and had no impact all year long. Rookie DT Christian Ballard had an up and down year, but he showed some potential.

Brian Robison started out strong, but faded badly at the end of the season, virtually disappearing over the last 8 or nine games. Everson Griffen came on strong, though, and it's not like the Vikings defensive line was bad--they were near the top in sacks, and in a disappointing season, it wasn't a terrible performance overall.

But it wasn't good enough, and the first on what will be many defensive whackings has commenced.