Friday mailbag: How will the Vikings handle Dalvin Cook's absence?
With Cook on the COVID list, fans are wondering whether Kene Nwangwu gets his shot
Sign up for Purple Insider for $7 per month or $64 per year to get credentialed access inside the Vikings, from in-depth analysis to behind-the-scenes features to the ever-popular Friday Mailbag. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings
By Matthew Coller
Happy Holidays, everyone! It’s the most wonderful time of the year — playoff race time, I mean. Well, unless you are spending the entire next few weeks stressing about whether your team is going to find a way to make the playoffs. That’s been the life of Vikings fans many times in late December. So let’s get into everyone’s questions as we head into the Vikings’ huge matchup with the Rams…
@BIG_dannn let me start you off with the Cook question.. realistically how many touches for Nwangwu.. why is this team afraid to use his speed..they’ll need it more then ever this Sunday now
They had to be impressed with Nwangwu’s carries against Chicago. His 19-yard run, especially. It wasn’t just a big hole that he walked through for an explosive play. It required him to have a little patience, follow his blocker, explode through an opening and dodge a tackler. He isn’t just a speedster, he’s got true running back chops. In total Nwangwu has only gotten the ball seven times this year yet he’s ripped off 49 yards. It’s time to crank up his usage. He’s not as seasoned as Alexander Mattison and I’m sure pass blocking is a serious concern but there’s only one running back on the active roster for Sunday’s game that can do something special with the ball in his hands and that’s Nwangwu. They need to let him loose and give him 10-plus touches.
@SStrom_ When it’s all said and done, if both don’t win Super Bowls, how would you rank Kirk Cousins and Matt Stafford and what are the reasonings on why who’s in front of the other?
Here’s how Pro-Football Reference’s Hall of Fame Monitor compares them: There are 42 quarterbacks ahead of Stafford and he’s in the same ballpark as Drew Bledsoe and Carson Palmer and a little ahead of Mark Brunell, Tony Romo and Alex Smith. Cousins is farther down the list at 91st, getting comps of Jake Plummer, Ken O’Brien, Neil Lomax, Derek Carr and Matt Schaub.
If neither wins a Super Bowl, Stafford will be considered the better quarterback because he was more physically talented and he did it for longer. There isn’t much of a case that during Cousins’ time as a starter that Stafford is better than him but if you had to pick one to win you a single game, you’d go Stafford because he can do ridiculous things with his arm. We are seeing what Stafford can do with great circumstances now and it’s been better than Cousins’ peak but still leaves some to be desired. In the end they will both fall onto the long, long list of guys who were very good QBs that lived in the shadow of Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers during this era.
@BradleyPeters13 How is it that half the fans think Cousins is the answer and the correct half know he will never win three plus straight playoff games in a row?
Well, I think there’s two schools of rational thought with Cousins. Some folks look at his numbers and how well he’s capable of playing for the majority of every season — let’s say 8-10 really good games per year — and say: If there was just a little bit more help in the form of a coach who trusted him or another receiver or better guards or better defense, the Vikings could get to that 11-13 win area with him and be a legitimate Super Bowl contender. The other folks say: But how are you going to do that when he’s so expensive? And he’s missing some fundamental tools to get you there even with all that help.
Reasonable people could look at the Rams’ situation and wonder if the Vikings had ever done things like providing the No. 1 PFF pass blocking offensive line like L.A. has or traded for Odell Beckham Jr. to stack weapons rather than spending on more nose guards and corners and think that Cousins could have done more with the situation. But it’s hard to say that the guy hasn’t had a chance when he’s gotten to play seven years in the NFL with players like DeSean Jackson, Stefon Diggs, Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson. I think the shortage of playmaking skill and hot-and-cold nature of his play being like the Ryan Howard of football (the Phillies player not the guy from The Office) makes it extremely tough to see him QB’ing a team through the playoffs to the Super Bowl. If you don’t feel like your QB can do that without a complete outlier type event like Joe Flacco taking the Ravens to the Super Bowl, many of our rational observers will want to move on.
Maxwell via email: Can you explain the playoff tie breaker scenario with New Orleans? They seem to be our main competition now for the #7 seed, given their record and easy schedule down the stretch. At the moment, Vikings seem to own the tie breaker. But when I use the ESPN playoff machine and have both teams finishing 9-8, New Orleans takes the 7th seed. It seems almost impossible now for the Vikes to lose one game and still get in.
COVID came in and gave the Vikings a huge boost in the race against New Orleans by taking out Taysom Hill. It would be classic Vikings if they missed out on the playoffs to a team that started Ian Book though, wouldn’t it. (Side note: Can you guys tell how long I’ve lived here now?)
But to your question, I typed in a bunch of different ways for each team to get to 9-8 and ended up with the Vikings making the playoffs each time over New Orleans. My understanding is that the Vikings win that tiebreak because they have a better conference record than New Orleans and since all three Vikings games are against the NFC, if they go 2-1, the Saints can only get two wins vs. the NFC and that gives the Vikings the edge.
I think the Vikings should be just as worried about Philadelphia running the table. They’ve got New York, Washington and Dallas to finish the year. If the Cowboys aren’t playing for anything that day, it might end up being on the shoulders of Cooper Rush to knock out the Eagles. Oh, the irony never ends.
@jvangelder How do you think a (good) Zimmer defense would have performed against the Greatest Show on Turf?
That’s a fun question. Let’s say we give Zimmer his 2017 defense. I think that team would have done a really good job containing Marshall Faulk. He had 87 catches out of the backfield that year but Kendricks/Barr in the passing game and Linval Joseph stuffing the middle were extremely difficult for opponents to get anything rolling with their running games against the Vikings. Where it might be tough is with Torry Holt presumably matching up with Trae Waynes and Az-Zahir Hakim against Terence Newman. Holt is an all-time great receiver and Waynes was a weak spot. Hakim was blazing fast.
The rubber meets the road with this matchup with Kurt Warner’s ability to avoid sacks. He was only sacked 29 times in 1999. That was the key for the Eagles in the 2017 NFC Championship game — they didn’t allow the Vikings’ D-line to get after the QB and it came apart.
The Super Bowl was kind of a test case for this. The Titans’ defense didn’t rank No. 1 but they had a ton of talent and did find a way to slow down the Rams, just not enough to beat them.
@SchielBrian Would you expect ownership has already sniffed around to see who might be available and interested in the GM and or coaching position?
It would be negligent if they weren’t making a list and, say, checking it twice. If the Vikings fall apart in these next two games and they decide that it’s time to move on, they will need to act pretty quickly in terms of getting people in for interviews. The league is now opening the door for teams to interview coaches two weeks before the end of the year. One notable thing about this year and the hiring process is that I don’t see a ton of teams that will be changing coaches. Aside from maybe the Vikings, I’ve got the Jaguars, Bears, Texans, Broncos and Seahawks. With so many teams being in the middle, this isn’t going to be a year where a ton of coaches get blown out. The Vikings might get their pick of the litter by having a much better situation than most of those clubs.
@SamRoot43 If the Vikings win how did Stafford make it happen?
Pretty simple, right? Stafford has to turn the ball over. He has a tendency to take bad sacks and throw stunning interceptions, so you could see Eric Kendricks picking one off in the red zone or something. Though this year, Stafford is 12th best in turnover-worthy play rate by PFF, so he hasn’t been wildly reckless. But that’s really the only way it can happen because the Rams’ receivers are a huge mismatch for the Vikings’ corners.
@jls1968 What is your opinion on Rick Spielman? My take is that he seems to find talent at most positions but he has blind spots finding good talent at CB and offensive line. Is this him or because if scouting?
Spielman is the guy who takes all the scouting reports and makes the final decision, so I don’t think we can point the finger at scouting. I think the Vikings had some pretty good processes early in the Zimmer era because they knew they had time to build. Once that changed, the decision making changed. The more they went for win-now, the more miscues they had. Drafting a center in the first round because you really need a zone-blocking center, franchise tagging Anthony Harris, trading for Yannick Ngakoue.. these aren’t pragmatic moves. And, yes, blind spots are certainly a thing with everyone but the offensive line still struggling is a complete failure that will be glaring when doing the final evaluation.
A change at the GM spot would give the next person in charge some time to execute a roster-building vision rather than swing at the fences with every move hoping it’s the one that gets them over the top.
@benchwarmerjim on a scale of 1 being bad to 10 being perfect rate this uniform. And should the Rams have ever gone away from them
The old Rams uniforms are perfect in an ugly kind of way. They aren’t the pristine 49ers or the gritty Raiders, it’s a yucky yellow and the tops look like a club rugby team. Yet somehow, it’s wonderful. Teams across sports went to dark blue with everything and became super generic (looking at you, Titans). With this thing, nobody’s mistaking that the dang Los Angeles Rams are playing on your TV. Similar to how I feel about the creamsicle Tampa Bay Bucs. Is it technically a work of art? No. But it’s bright and distinctive, so it’s wonderful. I’ll give it an 8 out of 10.
@Tad_Fundermann Of all the OL not named Brian, which one has impressed you the most? Which one do you think has the brightest future on the team? Feels like Ezra and Darrisaw both might be good or better given another offseason.
Cleveland has been a wild ride this year. Sometimes you come away thinking he was really good and other times he was getting beaten in pass pro repeatedly. Maybe that’s a sign of inexperience or maybe that’s who he’s going to be. I can’t say the sample size is big enough to know. His good games have been very good though. You see on tape that Darrisaw has the physical skills to be one of the best players at left tackle in the NFL. He just has lapses and gives up bad sacks. That’s another one where I’m not sure if it gets fixed with experience or not. But I’d place the bets on Darrisaw’s talent as being a guy who locks into that position for many years, so long as he stays healthy.
@benjackson0812 The Vikings defense only Blitzed 25% of snaps this season. With the defense not being statically good should they blitz more often??
Zimmer has always been about picking the right times to blitz. I think that’s the right approach. With weaknesses in the secondary, he can’t afford to leave receivers one-on-one very often. Remember when Patrick Peterson said after the Packers game that Zimmer got too aggressive with his blitzing and left guys without help too many times? That resulted in some big plays for Green Bay. You’d worry about that a lot over the next two weeks with good quarterbacks who have receivers that beat man coverage. Plus, they have found ways to get sacks without going crazy blitz wise (though I think several quarterbacks in recent weeks have helped them with that).
@glennsteinke Given the lack of offense vs. the Bears, your thoughts on how important getting Adam Thielen back in the lineup Sunday? And what are his chances to play?
It appears he’s on track to play. How well he can play coming back from a high ankle sprain is hard to say. It definitely makes a big difference when he’s out there. This week it’ll be quite a bit different with the way the Rams are going to play the Vikings’ receivers. They’re going to put Jalen Ramsey on Justin Jefferson at all times and that will give them an opportunity to give safety help to whoever is taking on Thielen. We remember from the 2016 and 2017 Vikings how valuable it was for Zimmer to stick Xavier Rhodes on the other team’s best guy and roll coverages over toward whoever Waynes was playing against. That's what the Rams have with Ramsey. It will be the toughest test of Jefferson's career, so Thielen’s presence will be a major factor.
@bobh332 With Kirk’s ribs, do you at least make Mond available behind Mannion?
Maybe. You don’t want to end up with Thielen playing quarterback or something if both QBs got hurt but the odds of that are really low. I’d guess they just stick with Mannion as the backup.
@BIG_dannn Seeing a lot of Vikings fan asking for zimmer to employe a three safety look defense with Bynum to offset kupp and co. What’s you’re opinion?
I’m not sure how that offsets Kupp. He plays 66% of his snaps in the slot. I don’t see how another safety would be better at covering one of the NFL’s best receivers than a nickel corner. The three safety thing is pretty much mythology at this point. Almost nobody in the league does it and the few times Zimmer has tried, he goes away from it quickly. Their best chance at slowing down Kupp is giving Stafford some coverages that he doesn’t expect and having him throw into traffic.
@alstrain What’s your favorite Christmas memory and what is your favorite football memory as a fan
In my entire life? That might take awhile to figure out. When my brothers and I were kids, we’d all wait at the top of the stairs until we were allowed to go down on Christmas morning and see all the presents stacked under the tree. I’d always get the new version of Madden and play it until we left for my grandparents’ house. That was pleasant.
As far as football, there’s thousands. Watching the Bills every Sunday with my dad growing up, of course. Backyard football. Probably my favorite professionally was the first Vikings game I covered with Judd Zulgad. It was a huge step in my career to be an NFL beat reporter and I admired Judd from afar from his Strib days as one of the best beat guys in the league. He welcomed me to the job in such a supportive way from Day 1 and the first game was Vikings-Packers in Sam Bradford’s debut. A great game to kick it off.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Purple Insider to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.