FanPost

Minnesota Vikings Weekly Player Recap: Week 6 2020

Nick Wosika-USA TODAY Sports


Holy f*cking sh*t. What an embarrassment of a performance. Does anyone still have faith in the franchise? First off, Rick. What dearth of talent we have on this roster. We have a few star players with a bunch of nothing around them. We have a high priced QB, high priced RB, high priced LBs, high priced S and soon to be high priced DE. That means nothing to spend anywhere else, like OL. Zim, what a joke. Have we ever had a cohesive team under Zim. We had some years where the defense dominated and held us together, but have we ever had a full team? Kubiak, I don't know if he thinks he has ol' horseface out there playing QB, but Kirk just isn't capable of playing his offense. It took him 5 weeks to figure out Cook is our entire offense. Then he ran him so much the first half of the Seattle game he killed the dude. Is he mailing it in or has he just become senile? @Maybe we should hire more of their kids to have cushy jobs under their fathers. That seems to help a lot.@ This regime should be changed at the end of the year. It might not happen because of the built in excuses. COVID, opt out, shortened offseason, etc. All those excuses. That is what Zim is good at. Pointing at the excuses and throwing players under the bus.

QBs

Kirk Cousins - 56 snaps (100%) 24/36 for 343 yards 3 TDs and 3 INTs QBR 28.0 Passer Rating 90.4. Kirk is one pathetic loser (Dumb and Dumber reference for those who don't get it). Did anyone see the first play of the game as they were settling into their couches? Someone posted in an open thread there was a though Kirk hadn't had any bad interceptions this year (I don't know what the first interception was against Seattle if not bad). That was a terrible throw. Jefferson was blanketed by 3 or 4 Falcons players. Thielen was open. Kirk has been staring down his receivers all year. He is like a rookie out there. He is pathetically bad. Interception, 3 and out, 3 and out, long drive for no points, interception, interception...those were the drives of the first half. That is what we are paying top money for. This alone should get Rick fired. 17 points off of those turnovers. Don't worry, the GarbageGOAT(tm) provided at the end of the game for fantasy owners. Anyone who thinks San Francisco or any other team is trading for Kirk and his contract is dreaming. We'd have to send Kirk + our entire draft for someone to eat this money. Also, 3 pressures were credited to Cousins this week. There were several plays where he had 5+ seconds to throw and he couldn't find anyone. I happen to think that is more on Cousins than our receivers not getting open. The PFF grade was 69.4 and this is where I always have an issue with PFF. They do not take into account enough the magnitude of the plays. Making a nice pass in garbage time gets the same rating as a game winning nice pass. The back breaking INT might get the same grade as a missed throw in meaningless play. If anyone thinks Cousins was above average, (which is what his grade suggests) I question their judgement.

RBs - pathetic effort as expected. 32 yards on 13 carries

Alexander Mattison - 27 snaps (48%) Mattison wasn't good. He had 10 carries for 26 yards and 16 of those were on his only nice run. 1 catch for 4 yards. He can't break tackles like Cook and behind this OL that is what is needed. He isn't a #1 RB and it shows.

Ameer Abdullah - 16 plays (29%) 2 carries for 7 yards and 1 catch for 1 yard. Abdullah played because he is supposed to be the pass catching specialist. Go back to special teams.

C.J. Ham - 8 snaps (14%) Ham didn't play much because we were so far behind. Maybe we should've taken the ball out of Cousins' hands for a second and try to run the ball with someone.

Mike Boone - 5 snaps (9%) 1 run for -1 and 1 catch for 6 yards. Boone's only carry was the weird call to hurry up and run it behind the worst OL I've ever seen on 4th down. That's a clown move Kubiak. Of course, he knows we can't pick up one yard without Cook so it was probably our only chance.

WRs - probably the only reason this offense is watchable without Cook is this group. They are good and deserve better QB play. By they I mean Thielen and Jefferson.

Adam Thielen - 52 plays (93%) 3 catches for 51 yards and a TD. Plug and play the comments I make every week. Thielen isn't the top 5 WR he once was, but he is still up there and a strong WR. He is consistent and is a great compliment to Justin Jefferson. PFF Grade of 68.5.

Justin Jefferson - 50 plays (89%) 9 catches for 166 yards and 2 TD. More yards through his first six games than Randy Moss. Randy Moss had the best rookie season ever. This dude is a star on a bad team. He didn't get to play much the first two weeks because of coaching incompetence. He is the best WR in this stacked draft. He is our best player on offense outside of Cook and at this rate he will pass Cook shortly. 92.6 PFF grade. He was the highest rated player on our team by over 14 points.

Chad Beebe - 22 snaps (39%) 2 catches for 13 yards on 5 targets. Beebe almost took a dump off from Kirk for a first down early on a 3rd and 10. That was the highlight of his season thus far. As much as it pains me, he isn't someone you want on the field. However, he fairly dependable on getting us 5 yards on a 3rd and 6 or 9 yards on a 3rd and 10. He just doesn't have the physical talent to do anything else.

Olabisi Johnson - 11 snaps (20%) No stats for Bisi. I have to think he is only playing because our other WRs are beat up. I would like to see K.J. Osbourne out here once he is healthy.

TEs - 74 yards on 5 catches from the TEs. Probably the best game from our TE group.

Irv Smith Jr. - 44 snap (79%) 4 catches for 55 yards. Kirk is finally looking Irv's way. He makes nice plays when he is given the opportunity. 5 targets and 55 yards is what Kirk was rewarded with. That 36 yards reception was nice. He knows how to run after the catch well, unlike our other TE. PFF grade of 77.8 agrees with my assessment.

Kyle Rudolph - 38 snaps (68%) 3 catches for 47 yards. Kyle is what he is at this point in his career. He is a declining TE with a good red-zone presence. He is overpaid for what he does and is likely in his last year with the team. He gets a lot of crap, but he's done well for us in the red-zone over the years.

Tyler Conklin - 7 snaps (12%) His usual role as the blocking TE. I saw him miss a block on the goal line stand. I think it was 2nd down. He let a guy run right by him to get Mattison and went to block a guy further out. I don't know much about blocking, but blocking the inside guy is generally the rule I know. It was one play I noticed because Conklin had a chance to block him and decided not to.

OL - The usual from our OL.

Riley Reiff - 56 snaps (100%) The consistent good but not great Reiff. He is good out there and might just prove his way into getting to stay around next year or a nice payday from some other team if we can't afford him. He did give up 1 pressure.

Dakota Dozier - 56 snaps (100%) Dozier sucks. I think he took over Samia's reigns as the worst OL in the league this week since Samia wasn't playing. He is terrible. Why can't Rick find us decent guards? I bet Dozier looks great in practice though. 41.7 PFF grade and 4 pressures given up. He is somehow worse than Cleveland in his first game ever and playing out of position.

Garrett Bradbury - 56 snaps (100%) Bradbury was terrible. He couldn't keep up with the terrible guard play around him. 47.6 PFF grade and 29.9 pass blocking grade. We can't protect up the middle.

Ezra Cleveland - 56 snaps (100%) Cleveland is about the same as Samia in his first start ever. 5 pressures given up and 43.8 PFF grade. Cleveland was drafted to be the LT next year. He was playing out of position and in his first NFL game. He still looked about as good as Samia in his best game ever last week. Cleveland gave up some pressures and wasn't good in the passing game. He was ok in the run game. He isn't the guy at guard and I don't think he will be the guy we need at LT. However, I know switching positions and playing in your first NFL game isn't easy. I will give him a pass...for now. Wait till the next game when I blast him with not regard for his feelings.

Brian O'Neill - Brian O'Neill 56 snaps (100%) O'Neill's failed block led to the 3rd INT. His man hit Kirk's arm as he tried to throw. 3 pressures given up this week. It was a bad game from O'Neill pass blocking. He was ok in run blocking, but we didn't get much of a chance to see that. PFF grade of 68.2 this week.

DL - meh, they were ok I guess. Atlanta didn't run the ball that well, but that might be because they were busy dropping bombs on us. Defense got no help from the offense in this one.

Ifeadi Odenigbo - 55 snaps (69%) Odenigbo looked good out there. He had 1 1/2 sacks (Jaleel Johnson touched the QB as Odenigbo was sacking him one play). He had 3 total QB hits and was our best DL out there on Sunday. Very nice game from someone who has been trending up the last few weeks. PFF graded him at 56.2. I would have to assume that means he wasn't great against the run. He seemed to consistently get pressure from what I saw.

Yannick Ngakoue - 53 snaps (66%) He disappeared this game. 1 tackle for a loss that was a nice play. Other than that, he was non existent. PFF grade of 68.4.

Jaleel Johnson - 48 snaps (60%) He happened to touch Matt Ryan as Odenigbo was sacking him so he gets credit for half a sack. Much better than usual because he was actually close enough to be near the players being tackled. Improvement from the dude that will (hopefully) be looking for a job next year. Thielen had more tackles this week than JJ.

Jalyn Holmes - 45 snaps (56%) Jalyn might have had his best game ever. He held his own on their interior. Unexpected very nice game from Jalyn. PFF grade of 76.9.

Shamar Stephen - 44 snaps (55%) Speaking of Career games...2 tackles for a loss for Stephen. He should retire on the top of his game. PFF grade of 54.3...second worst on the defense.

D.J. Wonnum - 33 snaps (41%) 1 tackle for a loss and Wonnum looks to be sneaking up the depth chart. He is better than those playing above him. That isn't to say he is great, but he has played well. PFF grade of 73.2.

Armani Watts - 30 snaps (38%) PFF grade 76.2. I'll be honest. I didn't see Watts make a single play. I guess he made a bunch of slightly above average plays to get a nice grade.

James Lynch - 13 snaps (16%) Lynch isn't on the stat sheet this week and to be honest I didn't notice him. After his solid play last week I was expecting him to get more playing time.

LBs - meh, the TE seemed to get open too easily against us this week.

Eric Wilson - 80 snaps (100%) 80 snaps! Wilson had a career game last week so this was expected to be lower. TBH he didn't look good though. Hayden Hurst beat him a few times for big gains. The worst grade on defense of 46.5.

Eric Kendricks - 80 snaps (100%) 80 f*cking snaps! Kendricks was a tackling machine and our best defender out there. 12 solo tackles and a few more assists. He caused a throw away with a QB pressure on 3rd down. He was the calming force on our defense.

Todd Davis - 30 snaps (38%) 1 solo tackle. Thielen, Beebe, Brian O'Neill and Irv Smith also had 1 solo tackle.

DBs - yeah, it was ok from some, but ugly for others.

Anthony Harris - 80 snaps (100%) He is doing his best covering for the mistakes from the youngens in front of him. It is a hard job. He had 1.5 tackles for a loss and was strong against the run. Harris was the highest rated defender with 78.3 from PFF.

Cameron Dantzler - 80 snaps (100%) Dantzler did well against the run. 2.5 tackles for a loss. Too bad his primary job is to defend against the pass. It seemed every pass in the first half went against Dantzler. His only reprieve was when Hughes went down and they picked on Hand for a few series. I haven't seen his grade, but he wasn't in the top 5 or bottom 3 on defense. That means his grade must have been between 56.2 and 68.4.

Jeff Gladney - 79 snaps (99%) He is our best CB. I can say that without a doubt. He had one bad play against Julio. It was a rookie mistake and the vet took advantage of him. Matt Ryan was scrambling and it looked like Ryan was going to run. Kendricks was there to stop that so Ryan pulled back. Julio and Gladney had engaged like it was going to be a run, but then Julio sneaked by Gladney and got open for Ryan. Gladney fell as he tried to turn and run and that was it. Bad play, but something you will expect from a rookie. Other than that, not a bad game. Also, he caused the only turnover from Atlanta with a nice forced fumble. It gave us a spark when we needed it. The offense went down and drove to that goal line stand. If we scored on that drive, his play could've been the play that turned around the game. I haven't seen his grade, but he wasn't in the top 5 or bottom 3 on defense. That means his grade must have been between 56.2 and 68.4.

Harrison Smith - 79 snaps (99%) Harrison is desperately trying to cover for Dantzler on a regular basis. The first TD Harrison had the inside and Dantzler was supposed to have the outside on Julio. Dantzler of course gets pushed inside and blows the coverage. We can't effectively use our safeties with these CBs.

Harrison Hand - 37 snap (46%) Hand came in and had a tough assignment against the loaded WRs of Atlanta. Hand replaced Hughes when Mike went out early. I thought he held up well though. He wasn't great, but that should be expected. He wasn't the reason we lost.

Mike Hughes - 13 snaps (16%) Hughes went down early. He gave up an easy 1st down to get them into field goal position. I don't remember much else.

George Iloka - 1 snap (2%) - he came in for one play when the refs sent Harrison Smith off to be checked.

I don't think we fire Zim or Rick mid season unless we roll off another 5 or 6 losses consecutively. I don't think we fire Zim/Rick if we win 6 or 7 games either. We're 1-6 with 10 games left. .500 ball might be enough to keep everyone around. I don't want Rick, Zim, Kubiak or any of their children running this team next year. It's time for this experiment to end.

This FanPost was created by a registered user of The Daily Norseman, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the site. However, since this is a community, that view is no less important.

In This FanPost

Events
Teams
Players