hermes wrote:that was some egregious line play
a little too familiar a script
my kingdom for some good offensive line play
Same old issues. There is no higher level for such an offense coupled to a scared conservative defensive minded coach and gm created team.
This time, they abandoned the run completely (11 whole carries) and decided an ultra short passing game was the solution. Fail.
These things put a lot of pressure on the Oline and people have to start either demanding change in their offensive minds, or demanding a change to who's building the Olines. Because it should be obvious to more people these things can't coexist, the examples span too many years now. Even those with closed minds have to start seeing it. Don't they?
On defense, often having only 4 rushers and dropping 7 into coverage. Maybe a safety cheater a few times. Why is he so scared of this QB? Zimmer's D bit on a fake for one deep route early on and he knee jerked into protecting against that all game. They know this is a running team, where was the attempt to stop their average backs. The couple times he brought pressure their offense quickly got stumped. Then the D was back to backing off again. Zimmer trying to prophesize the right moments again. Instead of just taking their damned run first way away from them and forcing the Young QB to try and beat you.
The Vikings had the experience advantage in QB and they needed to jump into a lead fast and put pressure on their young QB. It never happened. They started slow as usual. Abandoned their run entirely, abandoned any idea of fighting down field threw the air. They gave up 10 minutes into this one. No different than watching Philadelphia make them quit last season.
All this is easy to fix. Simply choose to play the way they did in overtime offensively vs Saints. It's nothing more than a choice they rarely choose to make. During the season, when they get one win against a bad team while being conservative, it is like it validates all their dreams. And yet, that's not how they beat the Saints in the end. The type of play it took to beat the Saints, to score on the Saints, is the type of offense they should have went after the 49ers with. Why can't those wins validate that for these fools?
Rick and Mike have been extended for another season. Enjoy the self derived limations they create for yet another season.