2018 regular season thread

[hermes]

Report after report this year that Zim keeps telling Defillipo stop being so aggressive and run the ball more. This would be like an offensive head coach hiring Dick LeBeau and telling him dont blitz so much.

it really makes you wonder why in the world they hired defillipo in the first place?

did they not know what they were getting? did zimmer/whoever else made the decision think blending defillipo with zim's preferred offensive style would make the perfect offense?

[hermes]

Brad Childress went 10-6 with Gus Ferrotte and Tavaris Jackson as the QBs. He had a magical season with a 40 year old Favre 1 year. Doesnt last year look like we just hit lightning in a bottle with Case? Kind of like the 1 year with Favre. We are going to be looking at 5 years and 1 playoff win under Zim, and that playoff win came off of a miracle. We had 5 years and 1 playoff win under Childress. Childress was fired mid season after his previous 2 seasons were 10-6 and 12-4.

I don’t know that Childress should have been fired based only on his success, but he was also an offensive coach who usually didn’t have a good offense and nobody seemed to like him.
And if you remember the Childress era was followed by Frazier era, which was much worse. You fire someone like Zimmer, you might get someone better, but you’ll probably get someone worse.

I agree with you 100%. We could easily fire Zim and end up with another Frazier. Back to my GS example though, they couldve just treadmill with Mark Jackson as their coach but they took a chance on a new coach to see if he couldve taken them to the next level. GS couldve easily ended up with Derek Fisher and we wouldve never seen the GS that we know now.

All im saying is I dont know how much better we are going to get under Zimmer. I think we will always have a stud defense under him. But I dont see this offense ever being consistently good under him. Honestly I just think he is a really good DC, just not a HC. I think he is too much of a perfectionist to not stick his hands in on the offensive side of the ball. You dont hear reports of McVay poking his head in Wade Phillips play book, or Nagy in Fangio's play book. Again great coordinator, just dont see a great HC.

i think i get your perspective, seems a little like marvin lewis and the bengals. he's been there forever, doing good enough (most of the time) to not get fired but not ever getting very far. this feels a little like that

i'm not sure where i stand on zimmer. he really built this defense into a monster, now its taking a step back this year at times but its still very solid and being the best is very tough to sustain long term. i'd like for it to not fall off a cliff and there is a chance it could if he leaves (especially if he gets another coaching gig (which he may not with his age) since we've seen his history of going after his former players)

but i also think jedzz and duke are right that he's a detriment to the team's offense. he doesn't deal much with it other than push his vision which i don't think jives with where the league is going. it probably does work well with his defense though which may be the sticking point. zimmer has said that he wants to step back from being so involved with the defense to be more involved with the rest of the team but that hasn't really happened and quite frankly i'm thinking he should just stay all-in on the defense and completely let the oc run the offense. now that may not be practical now with stefanski being new to this

this will be an interesting off-season, we have the inside track to the playoffs but we are playing some terrible football right now. i suppose we could sneak in and a switch flips we get hot and go on a run but i doubt it.

i think we need a new special teams coach but i'd be fine sticking with zimmer - the major key will be an honest to goodness emphasis on improving the offensive line. it can be done, seattle's used to be terrible and look how good they are now

[hermes]

lot of talk about up and down seasons

i'll just say that it is very difficult to sustain success year after year. the only teams that have done it are ones with a great coach and a great qb - neither of which we've had

[Duke4life831]

I don’t know that Childress should have been fired based only on his success, but he was also an offensive coach who usually didn’t have a good offense and nobody seemed to like him.
And if you remember the Childress era was followed by Frazier era, which was much worse. You fire someone like Zimmer, you might get someone better, but you’ll probably get someone worse.

I agree with you 100%. We could easily fire Zim and end up with another Frazier. Back to my GS example though, they couldve just treadmill with Mark Jackson as their coach but they took a chance on a new coach to see if he couldve taken them to the next level. GS couldve easily ended up with Derek Fisher and we wouldve never seen the GS that we know now.

All im saying is I dont know how much better we are going to get under Zimmer. I think we will always have a stud defense under him. But I dont see this offense ever being consistently good under him. Honestly I just think he is a really good DC, just not a HC. I think he is too much of a perfectionist to not stick his hands in on the offensive side of the ball. You dont hear reports of McVay poking his head in Wade Phillips play book, or Nagy in Fangio's play book. Again great coordinator, just dont see a great HC.

i think i get your perspective, seems a little like marvin lewis and the bengals. he's been there forever, doing good enough (most of the time) to not get fired but not ever getting very far. this feels a little like that

i'm not sure where i stand on zimmer. he really built this defense into a monster, now its taking a step back this year at times but its still very solid and being the best is very tough to sustain long term. i'd like for it to not fall off a cliff and there is a chance it could if he leaves (especially if he gets another coaching gig (which he may not with his age) since we've seen his history of going after his former players)

but i also think jedzz and duke are right that he's a detriment to the team's offense. he doesn't deal much with it other than push his vision which i don't think jives with where the league is going. it probably does work well with his defense though which may be the sticking point. zimmer has said that he wants to step back from being so involved with the defense to be more involved with the rest of the team but that hasn't really happened and quite frankly i'm thinking he should just stay all-in on the defense and completely let the oc run the offense. now that may not be practical now with stefanski being new to this

this will be an interesting off-season, we have the inside track to the playoffs but we are playing some terrible football right now. i suppose we could sneak in and a switch flips we get hot and go on a run but i doubt it.

i think we need a new special teams coach but i'd be fine sticking with zimmer - the major key will be an honest to goodness emphasis on improving the offensive line. it can be done, seattle's used to be terrible and look how good they are now

I agree with the Marvin Lewis comparison. Double digit wins 4 straight years, in his 253 games there he has a winning record (pretty impressive for that long of a time). But there was just this clear limit on a Marvin Lewis team, I think it was clear to a lot of people after his 5-6 year. But I think Cincy just stayed with him because they knew most years he was going to produce a solid team that might make the playoffs. A treadmill team of sorts for the NFL if that is possible.

If Zim stays around for another 5-6 years, Im sure we may have 2 losing seasons, 2 10-11 win seasons and a couple 7-9 win seasons. Basically a treadmill team.

Again I think Zim is a perfectionist, it works for the defense because he has the knowledge on defense. Something isnt right, he knows what buttons to push to fix it. But I think with the offense, if the offense goes 3 and out with 2-3 passes, it probably pisses off Zim cause it was a 3 and out plus his defense goes right back on the field without getting a breather. So him being the perfectionist that he is, probably is like blowing up inside and finally goes to the OC to tell him to adjust his calls. But thats not Zim's thing.

Honestly I think hes a great DC and just not a HC.

[Worm Guts]

Report after report this year that Zim keeps telling Defillipo stop being so aggressive and run the ball more. This would be like an offensive head coach hiring Dick LeBeau and telling him dont blitz so much.

it really makes you wonder why in the world they hired defillipo in the first place?

did they not know what they were getting? did zimmer/whoever else made the decision think blending defillipo with zim's preferred offensive style would make the perfect offense?

I don’t think the style would be an issue if they were getting the results they wanted. What started happening probably around the Saints game is that the Vikings were turning the ball over too much so Zimmer wanted to get more conservative, which didn’t really help DeFilipo. It was sort of spiral where the corrections were probably making issues worse.

[Worm Guts]

I agree with you 100%. We could easily fire Zim and end up with another Frazier. Back to my GS example though, they couldve just treadmill with Mark Jackson as their coach but they took a chance on a new coach to see if he couldve taken them to the next level. GS couldve easily ended up with Derek Fisher and we wouldve never seen the GS that we know now.

All im saying is I dont know how much better we are going to get under Zimmer. I think we will always have a stud defense under him. But I dont see this offense ever being consistently good under him. Honestly I just think he is a really good DC, just not a HC. I think he is too much of a perfectionist to not stick his hands in on the offensive side of the ball. You dont hear reports of McVay poking his head in Wade Phillips play book, or Nagy in Fangio's play book. Again great coordinator, just dont see a great HC.

i think i get your perspective, seems a little like marvin lewis and the bengals. he's been there forever, doing good enough (most of the time) to not get fired but not ever getting very far. this feels a little like that

i'm not sure where i stand on zimmer. he really built this defense into a monster, now its taking a step back this year at times but its still very solid and being the best is very tough to sustain long term. i'd like for it to not fall off a cliff and there is a chance it could if he leaves (especially if he gets another coaching gig (which he may not with his age) since we've seen his history of going after his former players)

but i also think jedzz and duke are right that he's a detriment to the team's offense. he doesn't deal much with it other than push his vision which i don't think jives with where the league is going. it probably does work well with his defense though which may be the sticking point. zimmer has said that he wants to step back from being so involved with the defense to be more involved with the rest of the team but that hasn't really happened and quite frankly i'm thinking he should just stay all-in on the defense and completely let the oc run the offense. now that may not be practical now with stefanski being new to this

this will be an interesting off-season, we have the inside track to the playoffs but we are playing some terrible football right now. i suppose we could sneak in and a switch flips we get hot and go on a run but i doubt it.

i think we need a new special teams coach but i'd be fine sticking with zimmer - the major key will be an honest to goodness emphasis on improving the offensive line. it can be done, seattle's used to be terrible and look how good they are now

I agree with the Marvin Lewis comparison. Double digit wins 4 straight years, in his 253 games there he has a winning record (pretty impressive for that long of a time). But there was just this clear limit on a Marvin Lewis team, I think it was clear to a lot of people after his 5-6 year. But I think Cincy just stayed with him because they knew most years he was going to produce a solid team that might make the playoffs. A treadmill team of sorts for the NFL if that is possible.

If Zim stays around for another 5-6 years, Im sure we may have 2 losing seasons, 2 10-11 win seasons and a couple 7-9 win seasons. Basically a treadmill team.

Again I think Zim is a perfectionist, it works for the defense because he has the knowledge on defense. Something isnt right, he knows what buttons to push to fix it. But I think with the offense, if the offense goes 3 and out with 2-3 passes, it probably pisses off Zim cause it was a 3 and out plus his defense goes right back on the field without getting a breather. So him being the perfectionist that he is, probably is like blowing up inside and finally goes to the OC to tell him to adjust his calls. But thats not Zim's thing.

Honestly I think hes a great DC and just not a HC.

Well I don’t think there’s such a thing as a treadmill team in the NFL. Comparisons to the NBA don’t work for me, the NFL is just a different animal.
We might be cemented into this team anyway for a year or two with all the extensions and big contracts we handed out.

[Duke4life831]

Vikings fire Defillipo, what a shocker...

Zimmer today said he's going to take a bigger involvement in the offense for the next 3 games.

So you hire a young offensive minded coach that was this hot commodity. All season you constantly keep telling him to adjust his style. You fire him and then go to say you're going to take a bigger role of the offense. Zim knows nothing about offense, does he really think he has a better feel for offense than Defillipo?

This is why I think Zim is a defensive coordinator, not a head coach. Just seems like he has no clue how to manage the full team.

[Jedzz]

That can be the nature of the NFL, but he took a 5 win team and turned it into a 13-3 team within 4 years.

So, every three or four years he might have a 13-3 season and then he will immediately crush his own team up into a ball of losing and then roll them back out into his cookie cutter form of defense only team and try to make another run at wild card level football playing?

We can give him credit for improving what he walked into while at the same time recognize he's trashed his own team twice after reaching high record seasons. We can keep making all the excuses in the world but the way this team get's outcoached in December and January has been a constant. The way the team can quit on him during a game and not show up at all out of the blue are all constants in every season. Focus on that 13-3 season. Ask yourself how a team that good could also have losses that were as bad as they were.

I thought last years team was an 8-8 team before the season, so you’re not really going to convince me they underachieved.
The team isn’t doomed to up and down cycles just because of Zimmer. I do think we need to do something that will stabilize the offense, and probably has to be a franchise QB.
You get rid of Zimmer though and I think you seriously risk losing the high level defense.

I'm not trying to convince you they underachieved. That never entered my mind. I'm pointing out how the losses occurred, what they looked like, not just that they did occur. I would have been just as happy with 10-6 or 11-5 since they didn't get home field advantage anyway at 13-3. They lost looking like a spent bag of tools in 2017 to each the Steelers, Lions and Panthers, and ultimately Eagles because they never showed up to these game as themselves. They lost before they walked in the door and didn't have a rally capable coach to restart them and reset disciplined play during the games. These weren't hard fought battles with the lead exchanging a couple times and coming down to who had a slight edge in TOP, or even a single lucky offside kick play or singular late game player effort that was over the top.

Today it's easy to see mirrors of these games. Like these recent losses to Patriots and Seahawks, watching the punt machine roll out to start the game, the blasphemous strings of plays chosen and in critical downs, the single first turnover that instantly sparks universal implosion. Go watch that first Lions game of 2017 and tell me it looks any different from the Seahawks game this year. But this year they showed it gets worse. They can have games like the Buffalo game too which was just as hapless on both sides of the ball as 2017's Steelers game or the Eagles championship game. The bumbling multiple turnover games that this coach blames for everything is pretty much his calling card these days and those are created by him starting games with his team playing so tight their britches are bound to rip.

The Offensive line is the achilles heal, the head coach is just a DC, and the OC was just a QB position coach. Cake with purple frosting. Ask Bill Belichick and Pete Caroll if the cake is any good.

[Jedzz]

Report after report this year that Zim keeps telling Defillipo stop being so aggressive and run the ball more. This would be like an offensive head coach hiring Dick LeBeau and telling him dont blitz so much.

it really makes you wonder why in the world they hired defillipo in the first place?

did they not know what they were getting? did zimmer/whoever else made the decision think blending defillipo with zim's preferred offensive style would make the perfect offense?

I don’t think the style would be an issue if they were getting the results they wanted. What started happening probably around the Saints game is that the Vikings were turning the ball over too much so Zimmer wanted to get more conservative, which didn’t really help DeFilipo. It was sort of spiral where the corrections were probably making issues worse.

I think you are right in that the "corrections" made it worse. Ulimately that is the worst part and has killed the season more or less. But I also think hermes is right that style of offense matters if the Head Coach and OC are going to conflict on it, and Duke is right and saying the same as you that the constant corrections and control of Defilippo made everything worse.

[Jedzz]

Vikings fire Defillipo, what a shocker...

Zimmer today said he's going to take a bigger involvement in the offense for the next 3 games.

I've had enough of Zimmer myself. Right now I would like to see him gone before another game is wasted. You know what might be funny? Get the GM down on the field to direct the team to the end of the year. This is all his creation anyway.

[Jedzz]

I see a US army ad up top. Maybe I should go sign up and hope there is no TV in basic. That should ween me off my Minnesota loser sports addiction.

[Jedzz]

Who do the Vikings play this week? oh who cares

[hermes]

good luck stefanski, hopefully we can get some offense going

i think being at home will help

[hermes]

wow, easy as that

diggs td!!!

yay

[hermes]

what is frank gore, like 50 now?

[hermes]

cousins seems to be pretty good at qb sneaks, goes hard and seems to find a good spot to move forward

and cook is looking good, running game exists!!

[hermes]

wow! dalvin!

he got to that corner so fast

[hermes]

first time scoring 2 tds in the first quarter since last year? yikes, we're really twisting the knife of defillippo

[hermes]

good to see the rush defense better than last week

[hermes]

its amazing how everything is working so far, the players have some noticeable energy so far