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segagenesisgenius's avatar

Good article, a lot of great points in here. I would add a few smaller factors in to help explain why Tannehill/Stafford/Jimmy are currently in while Kirk has the Vikings watching out.

Schedule. For example, the NFC West (home to both Stafford and Jimmy) played the AFC South and the NFC North, which is easier than facing the AFC North and NFC West. Obviously having to play in a hard division takes out some of that, but then in general your division opponents are always a different kind of beast - e.g., when a team wins with scheme like the rams, it is easier to play them twice a year because you have seen more of their wrinkles and they will have less new stuff to use that is specifically honed to your personnel. Similarly, the Titans (on top of getting to play the Jags and Texans twice) played the AFC East rather than the AFC North. Case in point - MN had the 10th hardest schedule, whereas the Rams, Titans, and Niners played the 16th, 17th, and 21st hardest schedules. Not a huge difference, admittedly, but enough for a win or a half a win, I would say.

Covid - the Niners and Titans were among the teams less affected by Covid, with the two teams having a combined 11 games lost among their players, though the rams were "only" middle of the pack with 19 absences (MN had 27 games lost).

Leadership - Kirk is weird, man. I know that this is nebulous, but I will forever believe that teams are just a bit less likely to rally around Kirk as they are to a player like Stafford or Tannehill or Jimmy, and that sometimes/often counts for a few wins by the end of the year.

Lastly, luck. It feels like Coller hates to ever bring luck into any of this, but I would strongly suggest that those teams had more luck than the Vikings this year. I mean, in one of my favorite exercises every year you can check out what the standings would have been if the result in every single one-score game had been reversed, and in that case the Vikings would end up one game in front of the Titans, one game behind the Niners, and tied with the Rams at 9-7.

Frankly, this Vikings team has had a string of mediocre luck.

That said, in many cases teams build their own luck (largely through the help of that leadership deal, IMO), so this isn't exactly a factor to be weighed in a vacuum, and also this scenario still has the Vikes end up at a disappointing 9-7 as the first team to miss the playoffs, so it isn't like this is earth shattering in and of itself... but it goes to show that maybe there is less difference between us and these division round teams as some would suggest.

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Corey H.'s avatar

And none of them are cheap QB's on their rookie contracts ;)

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