0-3 Has people Crazy

The team is 0-3, could be 2-1, could easily be 3-0, but 0-3 it is and now everyone is in a tiz.  I said before the season the defense would be more aggressive but not necessarily better just because Flores came to town.  I said talent on the Defense is low and we would struggle to stop the run because we are too small upfront and our LB's are small as well.  The key would be getting out to big leads and forcing teams to become one dimensional.  I said offensively I think we have the weapons to be explosive, I thought Kirk was set to have a monster year in the 2nd year in the same offense but ultimately we did nothing to help our OL and we would win games but struggle to beat good teams and teams with dominant defensive fronts.  I said Kwesi sucked, his drafts sucked, his roster construction sucked and that any real talent on the team is almost exclusively belongs to Rick's tenure (that wasn't an endorsement of Rick, just pointing out that Hochenson and maybe now Addison) are the only real talents Kwesi has contributed to.  I had hopes for Murphy and Davenport if he could stay healthy but Davenport hasn't stayed healthy and Murphy is exactly what I expected.....a good corner but not a shutdown corner as evidenced by the 200 yards he gave up on Sunday to Allen.  and last I said KOC needed to get better with his play calling and game flow.  And I said I thought Kwesi screwed us by pushing so much money into future years.     

So, while I'm not ecstatic at the 0-3 start, I'm also not shocked.  Here is how I see it:

KOC:  No head coach is the best coach they can be when they first become a head coach.  It's a learning experience and what I see from him is a guy that is learning from his mistakes for the most part and that is a good thing.  He's smart, he isn't by the book, isn't afraid to take risks, he isn't afraid to put teams away and be unconventional like Zimmer was and while he's certainly cost us some games....overall I've seen little to think he can't become a very good coach and I see a lot of positives in things he's getting right.  But his play calling is still very suspect, not because of his decision in the last game or even any particular play, it's that he has a tendency to kill drives that have momentum, he gets too cute in the Red Zone and he often struggles to adapt when defenses exploit us like what happened in the TB game.  He's officially called 1 season and 3 games in his career, so I think it is too soon to call him a dud, because when he's hot, he's on fire like the first half of the TB game....it's not like he sucks all the time like Nagy did in Chicago. 

Defense:  I like that Flores is aggressive, but he's extremely limited by a lack of real talent to work with.  You have Hunter and Bynum playing at elite levels.  You have Metellus, Phillips and maybe Murphy playing at above average levels and the rest of the D is average to below average.  When 6 of your 11 starters are average to below average there is only so much any DC can do.  

Kwesi:  I think he is a problem.  Unlike KOC, I don't see a vision, I don't see great drafting, I don't see great value abstraction, I don't see great cap management....to quote Sergeant Schultz " I see nothing!"  

Cousins:  People on here once again can't wait to get rid of him and are drooling to draft a QB.  I said in another thread everyone is a grass is greener fan.  Everyone wants a young QB that can be the franchise guy even though 90% of all QB picks wind up being somewhere between Marcus Mariota and Zac Wilson.  But let's say we do get a Justin Herbert (since he's a guy we all just saw beat us).  I'd say almost everyone on this board that hates Kirk would LOVE if we had drafted Herbert.  So let's take a quick look.



Statistically they are the same player the last 3 years.  Kirk led the league in come back wins in 2022 but is a goat because despite playing amazing in the NFC championship game had to unload the ball on a piss poor play call as he was about to be sacked and chose a pass he knew he could complete to give his TE a chance to break a tackle vs. throwing a hail marry into double coverage to Jefferson with a slim chance of being caught and a ball that may not have even gotten there as it would have taken longer to throw.  Meanwhile Herbert is in charge of a team that gave up an enormous lead to the Jags in final game of season that was a must win to make the playoffs.  Kirk is a goat and Herbert is the guy we all aspire to have.  It's actually kind of sad...particularly when you take into account that Herbert by and large has played on teams with better rosters.

Kirk is 35 going to be 36, he's playing he best ball of his career but it doesn't change the fact he is going to be getting older and all QB's start to decline at some point.  I still think we'd be better to resign him for 2 years (he is not the problem), but if the plan is to move on I can live with that but he should be traded if we lose many more games early because I don't see this team going anywhere in the playoffs and we are setting up any new QB for failure unless we can obtain a lot more draft picks.  He would warrants some very good draft capital and it would be stupid to let him walk for nothing.  

Jefferson - He's the real deal, but I don't think he's coming back if we let Kirk walk.  If we trade Kirk, Hunter, Harry, Wonnam and the rest of the talent that isn't in the future plans maybe they get enough draft comp to make it interesting for Justin, but Jefferson wants to win more than he wants to get paid and Kwesi has put us in a spot where that is very unlikely in 24 and maybe even 25.  It's why I thought the Hochenson signing was stupid!  Outside of Addison this team is so void of real talent from the last 2 drafts the team has more holes than it can plug.  If we need to use a lot of draft capital to get a QB without trading away players there won't be any draft capital to fill other voids and because Kwesi pushed so much cap into 24-25 we won't have the money to go sign great pieces in FA either and there are a lot of holes to fill.

New QB:  The problem I see is that we are setting up any new QB to fail miserably.  If you look around the league historically in the modern Sal Cap era ....there is one common trait successful QB's have shared.  They went to teams that were already good or had at least talented rosters where they didn't have to shoulder the load all by themselves.  You could argue Burrow and Laurence are maybe the exceptions (and I'm not sold on Laurence yet anyway).  Mahomes went to a team that was already very talented.  Brady went to a team that was already talented.  Lamar went to a talented Ravens team, Russ Wilson went to a team that was talented.  Dak went to a team that was already talented.  Zac Wilson, Trubisky, Darnald, Mariota they went to shit teams.     Any new QB we have is going to have very little talent on Defense, an entire interior offensive line that needs to be replaced and a GM saddled with few picks and little cap room in 24 and likely few high draft picks in 25 if we use them to trade up for a Caleb Williams type.  If Kwesi's plan was to move on from Kirk then this team should have been making moves the last 2 years to build for that move.  They should have been focusing their drafts and FA on building a great OL and acquiring dominant defensive positions to take pressure off of any young QB ....not Safeties and TE's.  And while talented WR's are a fantastic weapon to have (and I very much like Addison) ...if you can't keep your QB upright it doesn't matter.

So in short, this team is exactly who I thought they'd be.  A team that can win any game, but isn't dominant enough at the key areas to win every game.  It's a team that could still win the division, but would need a lot of luck to do so and a few of the balls that seem to always bound the other teams way right now will likely have to start bouncing ours.  But it is a team that if we lose 2 of the next 3 should be looking to trade players like Cousins, Hunter and others ahead of the Oct deadline if they want any chance at being good 2 years from now.  This team was 100% positioned well to execute a competitive rebuild but is now no longer in that spot due to poor GM moves.       

This isn't a pessimistic view...it's a realistic view.  Keep the coach, can the GM before the real rebuild starts



VikeNation101-
There is no doubt Kirk is a very solid qb, he’s durable and a very good passer with time. Unfortunately, this has been a problem in MN. I said it when they originally signed him, due to his lack of mobility , if they want to win with KC, they better build this o-line. I would love to see what KC could do with a top 5-10 o-line.
We’ve tried to build it with draft picks but for whatever reason these just haven’t been that great.
I would like to see this offense with a young strong armed mobile qb which means we need a top 2-3 pick imo.
It appears KC will not be here next year so I would absolutely trade him if the opportunity arises. 2-1 no, but at 0-3 absolutely.

What do we do if Kirk doesn't want to waive his no trade clause?

Honestly this is helpful for any QB.  Everyone says we have to move on because Cousins isn't mobile..... He's 1st or 2nd in every statistical category and is playing like a top 5 QB right now in spite of a bad O-Line and limited mobility.  We are not losing because of Kirk right now.  In fact the only reason we've been in any of these games is because of him.  The Defense is sieve, the OL is giving free shots at the QB, the Running Game has been mostly non existent, KOC has been awful in the RedZone in play design and play calling and our skill players can't hold on to the damn ball.  NONE of the that has to do with Cousins.  Cousins has 3 fumbles and 2 interceptions right now.  All 3 fumbles were caused by the OL, one interception was because Hoch muffed a difficult but perfectly thrown ball and the other interception is half on Kirk and half on Ingram.  He rushed the pass to get it off before getting hit and was inaccurate as a result.  Hell....let's put that on him 100% its still a 9-1 TD to Int that is actually on him.  That's on pace for 48 TD's, and his numbers would be higher yet if JJ doesn't fumble the ball out of the end zone, Hoch catches the ball against the chargers, KOC comes up with any type of play call inside the 10.  I mean realistically he could easily be sitting on 13-14TD's right now!

My point is despite being behind an awful OL and not being the most mobile QB, he's still playing as well as anyone in the league right now.  He couldn't do that the first few years he was here, but the last 2 1/2 years dude had been ballin as well as anyone.  He may looked like he's ready to have a panic attack (and if I played behind this line and got hit as often as he does I would too), but dude has been clutch!  Regardless of whether you think it is his fault or KOC's fault on the last play of the game....He was making great throws on critical downs late in that Chargers game to get us in that spot.  And that throw he made to Hochenson that ended the game, could not have been thrown more perfectly by any QB.  It was textbook placement of where it needed to be thrown....away from the defender, into the window and waist high so that only Hoch could catch it....accept he not only muffed the catch he also knocked it up in the air!  I get he is going to be 36 next year but right now the he's like a fine wine....getting better with age.  When great QB'ing is soooo hard to come by, it is just almost unforgivable to let a guy go that is playing this well go without a known and groomed commodity ready to replace him.  To me you either re-sign the guy for 2 more years and draft the replacement to sit and learn or you trade Cousins before the deadline....you just have to!  I just do not in anyway understand how anyone can justify letting him walk at the end of the season for squat.  QB's are so hard to come by, to let a guy that is playing at a top 5 level behind a shit show of an OL walk for no compensation should result in an instant firing! 

And to top it all off, the guy is a great dude who loves being a Viking!   

Are we considering Roy a "solid rookie"? Has he even played a snap yet?

As for the 0-3, I had us at 1-2 at this point so it's really not far off from my expectations. I figured we'd beat the Bucs, and also the Panthers to start 2-3, which is still mathematically possible, though not very likely (would require us beating the Chiefs).

Yes, the ugly manner in which we've been losing is a bit troubling, but overall the end result is... well to paraphrase Denny; "they are who we thought they are."

If we don't beat the Panthers we're 0-4, starting at a likely 0-5. At that point I think we can all "embrace the suck" as Jared Allen put it during the 3-13 Frazier year. But let's see what happens in Carolina first.

The team is 0-3, could be 2-1, could easily be 3-0, but 0-3 it is and now everyone is in a tiz.  I said before the season the defense would be more aggressive but not necessarily better just because Flores came to town.  I said talent on the Defense is low and we would struggle to stop the run because we are too small upfront and our LB's are small as well.  The key would be getting out to big leads and forcing teams to become one dimensional.  I said offensively I think we have the weapons to be explosive, I thought Kirk was set to have a monster year in the 2nd year in the same offense but ultimately we did nothing to help our OL and we would win games but struggle to beat good teams and teams with dominant defensive fronts.  I said Kwesi sucked, his drafts sucked, his roster construction sucked and that any real talent on the team is almost exclusively belongs to Rick's tenure (that wasn't an endorsement of Rick, just pointing out that Hochenson and maybe now Addison) are the only real talents Kwesi has contributed to.  I had hopes for Murphy and Davenport if he could stay healthy but Davenport hasn't stayed healthy and Murphy is exactly what I expected.....a good corner but not a shutdown corner as evidenced by the 200 yards he gave up on Sunday to Allen.  and last I said KOC needed to get better with his play calling and game flow.  And I said I thought Kwesi screwed us by pushing so much money into future years.     

So, while I'm not ecstatic at the 0-3 start, I'm also not shocked.  Here is how I see it:

KOC:  No head coach is the best coach they can be when they first become a head coach.  It's a learning experience and what I see from him is a guy that is learning from his mistakes for the most part and that is a good thing.  He's smart, he isn't by the book, isn't afraid to take risks, he isn't afraid to put teams away and be unconventional like Zimmer was and while he's certainly cost us some games....overall I've seen little to think he can't become a very good coach and I see a lot of positives in things he's getting right.  But his play calling is still very suspect, not because of his decision in the last game or even any particular play, it's that he has a tendency to kill drives that have momentum, he gets too cute in the Red Zone and he often struggles to adapt when defenses exploit us like what happened in the TB game.  He's officially called 1 season and 3 games in his career, so I think it is too soon to call him a dud, because when he's hot, he's on fire like the first half of the TB game....it's not like he sucks all the time like Nagy did in Chicago. 

Defense:  I like that Flores is aggressive, but he's extremely limited by a lack of real talent to work with.  You have Hunter and Bynum playing at elite levels.  You have Metellus, Phillips and maybe Murphy playing at above average levels and the rest of the D is average to below average.  When 6 of your 11 starters are average to below average there is only so much any DC can do.  

Kwesi:  I think he is a problem.  Unlike KOC, I don't see a vision, I don't see great drafting, I don't see great value abstraction, I don't see great cap management....to quote Sergeant Schultz " I see nothing!"  

Cousins:  People on here once again can't wait to get rid of him and are drooling to draft a QB.  I said in another thread everyone is a grass is greener fan.  Everyone wants a young QB that can be the franchise guy even though 90% of all QB picks wind up being somewhere between Marcus Mariota and Zac Wilson.  But let's say we do get a Justin Herbert (since he's a guy we all just saw beat us).  I'd say almost everyone on this board that hates Kirk would LOVE if we had drafted Herbert.  So let's take a quick look.



Statistically they are the same player the last 3 years.  Kirk led the league in come back wins in 2022 but is a goat because despite playing amazing in the NFC championship game had to unload the ball on a piss poor play call as he was about to be sacked and chose a pass he knew he could complete to give his TE a chance to break a tackle vs. throwing a hail marry into double coverage to Jefferson with a slim chance of being caught and a ball that may not have even gotten there as it would have taken longer to throw.  Meanwhile Herbert is in charge of a team that gave up an enormous lead to the Jags in final game of season that was a must win to make the playoffs.  Kirk is a goat and Herbert is the guy we all aspire to have.  It's actually kind of sad...particularly when you take into account that Herbert by and large has played on teams with better rosters.

Kirk is 35 going to be 36, he's playing he best ball of his career but it doesn't change the fact he is going to be getting older and all QB's start to decline at some point.  I still think we'd be better to resign him for 2 years (he is not the problem), but if the plan is to move on I can live with that but he should be traded if we lose many more games early because I don't see this team going anywhere in the playoffs and we are setting up any new QB for failure unless we can obtain a lot more draft picks.  He would warrants some very good draft capital and it would be stupid to let him walk for nothing.  

Jefferson - He's the real deal, but I don't think he's coming back if we let Kirk walk.  If we trade Kirk, Hunter, Harry, Wonnam and the rest of the talent that isn't in the future plans maybe they get enough draft comp to make it interesting for Justin, but Jefferson wants to win more than he wants to get paid and Kwesi has put us in a spot where that is very unlikely in 24 and maybe even 25.  It's why I thought the Hochenson signing was stupid!  Outside of Addison this team is so void of real talent from the last 2 drafts the team has more holes than it can plug.  If we need to use a lot of draft capital to get a QB without trading away players there won't be any draft capital to fill other voids and because Kwesi pushed so much cap into 24-25 we won't have the money to go sign great pieces in FA either and there are a lot of holes to fill.

New QB:  The problem I see is that we are setting up any new QB to fail miserably.  If you look around the league historically in the modern Sal Cap era ....there is one common trait successful QB's have shared.  They went to teams that were already good or had at least talented rosters where they didn't have to shoulder the load all by themselves.  You could argue Burrow and Laurence are maybe the exceptions (and I'm not sold on Laurence yet anyway).  Mahomes went to a team that was already very talented.  Brady went to a team that was already talented.  Lamar went to a talented Ravens team, Russ Wilson went to a team that was talented.  Dak went to a team that was already talented.  Zac Wilson, Trubisky, Darnald, Mariota they went to shit teams.     Any new QB we have is going to have very little talent on Defense, an entire interior offensive line that needs to be replaced and a GM saddled with few picks and little cap room in 24 and likely few high draft picks in 25 if we use them to trade up for a Caleb Williams type.  If Kwesi's plan was to move on from Kirk then this team should have been making moves the last 2 years to build for that move.  They should have been focusing their drafts and FA on building a great OL and acquiring dominant defensive positions to take pressure off of any young QB ....not Safeties and TE's.  And while talented WR's are a fantastic weapon to have (and I very much like Addison) ...if you can't keep your QB upright it doesn't matter.

So in short, this team is exactly who I thought they'd be.  A team that can win any game, but isn't dominant enough at the key areas to win every game.  It's a team that could still win the division, but would need a lot of luck to do so and a few of the balls that seem to always bound the other teams way right now will likely have to start bouncing ours.  But it is a team that if we lose 2 of the next 3 should be looking to trade players like Cousins, Hunter and others ahead of the Oct deadline if they want any chance at being good 2 years from now.  This team was 100% positioned well to execute a competitive rebuild but is now no longer in that spot due to poor GM moves.       

This isn't a pessimistic view...it's a realistic view.  Keep the coach, can the GM before the real rebuild starts.