Friday mailbag: What ails the offense and pie charts

Vikings fans want to know why the Vikings' offense has been so inconsistent and they literally have pie questions

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday everyone. Here we are again, talking about another game that the Vikings need to win in order to put themselves back in the thick of the playoff race. Let’s dive right into what’s on Vikings fans’ minds…

Rob via comments: Real question, has any head coach had to try and overcome all this adversity? -Peterson beating his kid and sitting out -Teddy’s knee falls apart -Trade for Bradford, offensive line falls apart -Zimmer’s eye explodes -Bradford’s knee quits working —sign Cousins, he’s expensive and mediocre -defense regresses , Hunter out for the year x2 -Covid -4 different OC’s (I didn’t list everything) He’s caused some of his own problems with clock management and suspect defensive calls.

The NFL changes coaches so often that these types of things don’t often pile up like this on one person. Over eight years, I’m sure there are other franchises that have had two or three of them be absolutely unhinged but it usually is spread over a couple regimes. I do think some of the things on the list are extraordinary. Having a young QB nearly lose his leg and an OC quit and a serious eye injury all in one season is excessive. The 2016 season is probably one of the wildest of any team over the last decade. Beyond that, these are the things this happen in the NFL. Players get hurt. Players have off-field problems. COVID has been a thing for almost everyone. Not to downplay how strange the close games have been. I’ve never seen anything like this recent run before. It’s just that when a team is flawed and is playing on the fringe of the playoffs all the time, every bad break or strange event is amplified.

@JustTheRadioGuy Vikings chances of catching Carolina (or anybody…) in the standings now than Cam is back in Charlotte?

Well, 538 had their playoff odds at 27% the other day. They are -400 on Draft Kings to miss the playoffs. So those are the numbers. Having been through this many times with a team attempting to race from 10th place to the final playoff spot, the biggest issue is how many teams there are fighting for that same spot. It’s not just the Vikings vs. one other team. It’s the Vikings vs. the Falcons, Panthers, Seahawks, 49ers, Eagles, Giants and Bears. If any one of those teams gets hot and you don’t go on a winning streak, that’s it. And some of those teams are going to play each other so you lose ground no matter who wins. They might have the best roster of those clubs but it’s tough sledding.

@mattverick Do you think there would ever be a scenario where the Wilfs go to Rick Spielman and say: if you want to keep your job, get us out from Kirk's contract and find a better/cheaper QB option?

Questions that are phrased this way are particularly difficult to answer. Do I think it’s possible ownership could stay with Spielman and part of the edict is to trade Cousins and draft a quarterback? Yes. Heck, last year it may have been that way with picking Mond. I imagine it isn’t lost on them that they’ve paid out an incomprehensible amount of money and have only been mildly competitive for four years. The question is, if they miss the playoffs, will they hold the GM responsible for signing Cousins to the extension or was that something ownership wanted him to do in the first place? I don’t see the owners as being “meddling,” but they could have say in major decisions like that.

@CJMcAulay In honor of both Veterans Day - and your “Ah-nold” GIF - which Viking is most likely to convince the team to “Get in da choppa!” (inspire/wake them up and save the season)?

The most Rambo-ish player is Everson Griffen, right? Maybe this would be Eric Kendricks. He isn’t a big talker but he has a classic middle linebacker, when-he-speaks-you-listen kind of thing going for him. Receivers can’t really be in this conversation because they are receivers. So other than that, maybe Patrick Peterson? This roster doesn’t have a ton of those guys.

@SKOL_doctor Do you foresee any teams being willing to trade for a 45 million dollar qb this off-season?

Absolutely. If they sent out a Tik Tok to the other 31 GMs that Cousins was available, they would have a bunch of Woofs (for you fans of The Office) back in a few minutes. Let’s go through this: The Saints, Steelers, Football Team, Panthers, maybe Eagles, Texans, Dolphins, maybe Colts and maybe Broncos are in the realm of being QB desperate. If you’re the Steelers and you have good receivers, good coach, good defense and your ownership wants nothing to do with slowly rebuilding, you’re making that phone call. They did it back in the day with Neil O’Donnell and they could do it again after Ben retires. Cousins has beaten the Saints and they aren’t sticking with Jameis.

As far as the contract, whoever trades for him will sign him to a three-year extension that lowers the cap hit.

@MichaelMoers I did not get to watch the game last week -- only the NFL Redzone channel. What did you see in Cam Bynum? Promise? Hope? Buyer's Remorse on the long $$ extension for Smith???

Bynum played really well. His interception was terrific and the sheer fact that he found out that morning and had a strong game says something about his intelligence and preparedness. They should have had remorse on the Smith extension the moment it happened. With all respect to Smith’s tremendous NFL career, that deal did not make a whole lot of sense compared to precedent and they weren’t competing with anyone. They paid what top dollar for a player in his 30s.

@_Born2Early_ What is Willekes ceiling?

Hard to tell at the moment. He’s on a good track and he’s a 73rd percentile athlete for his position, so there’s a chance that he could become an average-to-good starter. He is an overachiever, you never know. You can usually tell by how they talk about a player and he’s getting plenty of strong reviews.

@SKOL_doctor What should the Vikings do with Danielle hunters contract for next year?

Guess right now is that they sign him to an extension and it’s more reasonable than it would have been if he’d put together a 20-sack season. Pass rushers are at such a premium and he’s still 27 years old, so they’re likely to want to keep him.

@rk2022 Carolina will have a quarterback bill as high as the Vikings paying 3 quarterback's. Hard to imagine Sam Darnold will be making 18+ million next season.

The Panthers really don’t have any way out of that. It remains absolutely insane that they traded for Darnold and picked up the fifth-year option on a QB whose rating was 78.6 through four years of starting. Even if you think it was Adam Gase’s fault, that makes no sense. It’s really the sign of a franchise that’s lost.

@gracefulmanitee Cam Newton fleeced the Panthers ya?

Seems like a good deal to me when you’re in the playoff race and have the possibility of making the postseason. It’s not like the competition is that stiff. If Cam plays even decently, it’ll be a massive upgrade for them and they can be a playoff team. That would be big for them after being one of the worst teams in the NFL last year.

@benchwarmerjim If you take out Kirk and put Lamar Jackson on this offense, do they roll up 8000+ yards of offense in a season?

Probably, yeah. I mean, we’re talking about an MVP and one of the most dynamic players to ever step on an NFL field. I’ll never believe anyone who says he wouldn’t be this same player if he played for the Vikings.

@alexjjlarsen Roger Goodell's salary has been in the news the last few days... relative to his industry, how does his pay grade out?

The only comparison for Goodell’s salary would be other billion dollar companies. I would assume the salary for those CEOs of those are pretty high. There’s no other sports league that compares. Also, Rog doesn’t make that money because he’s doing something masterful, he’s doing it because somebody has to be the punching bag for the entire universe while all the owners answer individually for pretty much nothing.

@ATKing53632390 Zimmer is committed to the run game and winning on defense. Would this be the same with a legitimate top-tier QB? Would he put a speed limiter on a Ferrari?

I don’t believe so. Heck, his mentor Bill Parcells switched to an all-pass offense in 1994 with New England when Drew Bledsoe was at the top of his game and they threw for 4,500 yards that year (which at the time was an insane amount). I think Zimmer has it right trying to play Cousins in a play-action offense. He falls under the same architype as Goff, Jimmy G, Tannehill etc. If he had Peyton Manning, Zimmer wouldn’t be telling him to hand off on second-and-11. That doesn’t mean they have the run-pass balance right, I just think that they’ve gotten the best years of Cousins’s career here and sometimes it’s talked about like Zimmer has done nothing but hold him back. The offense he’s in is right for what he can do.

@JohnnyBSkol What will it take for Mike Zimmer to keep his job or is his job even on the line?

We don’t have any type of confirmation from ownership that it’s on the line but the fact that there were credible reports of the team considering a change after 2019 and Mark Wilf saying they expect the team to be in the playoffs combined with Zimmer being the longest tenured coach without a ring… add that to the general state of flux that the franchise is in right now and you have yourself a hot seat. If he’s able to pull them out of this rut and then win in the postseason, there would be reason for him to stay. We’d probably consider it his best coaching job outside of 2017 if that happened.

@Conorm511 Do you see Nwangwu eventually taking over RB2 duties this season?

Mattison is pretty well established as Cook’s backup but it makes far too much sense for Nwangwu to get offensive snaps and have some plays particularly drawn up to fit his quickness. If he isn’t a gadget player in the next few weeks, I’ll be really confused. You have to give it to Kennedy Polamalu, that guy knows running backs.

@bulldogs13tv Better look. One bar helmets or neck rolls.

Whew that’s a tough one. I’ll go with the neck roll because it epitomizes the 80s and 90s NFL but when a kicker would stroll out there with that single bar, you knew that guy was ready to get in a back alley fight if needed.

@Thomas_Manfredi Can we get a pie chart of your favorite pies? Since it’s about to be Thanksgiving. I expect PFF grades for each kind as well.

This is what football season is like for me: I had no idea that it was almost Thanksgiving. I’m a simple pie person. Pumpkin gets a 90.4 PFF grade. I’ll give Apple an 84.6 and anything else I could take or leave.

@tomspeicher Better receiver for the Vikes: Bobby Wade or Michael Jenkins?

Bobby Wade was better as a Viking, though you have to give Jenkins credit for daring to wear 84. There’s a game where Jenkins catches a game-winning pass and Christian Ponder compared himself to Michael Jordan afterward. What a time to be alive.

@Tad_Fundermann Why? What did Vikings fans do to deserve all the insanity every year? In all seriousness though, what is your pie chart of final records based on the first half of the season? 3-4 wins, 5-6 wins, 7-8 wins, 9-10 wins, and 11-12 wins.

The guy I brought on the podcast to investigate the curse Zach Johnson determined that the Vikings losing the old Ed Thorp NFL championship trophy caused all of this pain. So maybe that’s it. Otherwise, it’s the quarterbacks. If you look at the history of the league, the only QBs who consistently put up 12+ win seasons are guys like Brady, Manning, Roethlisberger and so forth. To your pie chart, I’ll put 0% on 3-4 wins and 11-12 wins and go 20% 5-6, 50% on 7-8 and 30% 9-10.

@smccullough5 What's your top 3 sports movies?

I’m not a huge fan of sports-related dramas but I enjoy comedies like Major League, Happy Gilmore and Basketball. If I’m getting the entire sports genre, I’d take the documentary on Ali’s Rumble in the Jungle called “When we were Kings,” Hoop Dreams and the Curtis Martin “A Football Life.”

@benjackson0812 Many fans want Zimmer out after this year and that’s certainly justified, but what’s more risky for the Vikings. Changing the HC or changing the QB??

Risk is an interesting word. If you change QBs and don’t win, what’s different? Isn’t it risky to stay with a model that has not worked over four years? If you draft the wrong QB, draft another one the next year. Mitch Trubisky was bad, so the Bears picked Justin Fields. Keep trying it until it works. Coaches, well, that’s different. Pick the wrong one and they can dig you into a really, really deep hole and it usually takes longer for ownership to figure out that they’re bad.