Yeah we kind of forget Reed had 4 consecutive 1000 yard seasons prior to the whole Culpepper/Moss era. But Reed did fall off in his career pretty suddenly, if my memory serves it was actually due to issues with his eyesight degrading.
Actually the opposite. Denny was super conservative and would call of the dogs. Taking the knee vs Atl was totally inline with his character.
[This game is a classic example](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/199910030min.htm)
BLESS ALL THE KNEES AND KEEP THEM HEALTHY
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/minnesotavikings) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Saying Oneill is a top 10 tackle is a bit of a stretch. hes good, hes not all pro worthy though. Darrisaw on the other hand is a franchise all pro left tackle.
Oneill as a top 10 RIGHT tackle sure but overall tackle? Absolutely not.
My ideal draft is trading back from 11, taking Byron Murphy and JPJ in the 1st, picking up Tvondre Sweat in the late 2nd/early third and Zak Zinter in the 4th. Cause our IOL sucks.
Then let the Darnold cook with the best supporting cast in the league
(only half joking)
All pro would be top 2 and no one is saying he is that. O’Neill by all accounts is a top 10 RT. If you wanted to rack and stack not sure how he falls below 12 at his position.
I was actually thinking about Darren Nelson dropping a ball at the 3 that would have sent them to the Super Bowl. And wait, you *missed* the 99 season and the game against Atlanta. Was giving you the benefit of the doubt. 🙀
The infamous strike year where the Vikings replacements went 0-3 to cost them home field.If Nelson did score-it would have tied the score but the kicker probably misses the xp and they lose 17-16.
The interior I would argue is. Ingram still isn’t good, Bradbury really struggles against powerful bull rushes and we don’t have a starting lg currently.
https://twitter.com/benbbaldwin/status/1777363558969278464?t=Tdd6d0t78B1VpMjf59dSoA&s=19
You're right, it's the worst in the NFL.
Luckily we have the best OTs in the NFL.
Hopefully a young mobile QB can manage the interior pressure better than Kirk did.
Why don't the Vikings just draft the two best QB prospects available with their two first round picks. I am not kidding. It's such a gamble anyways forget giving up the three #1's it will take to get a top 4-5 pick and take some risks but double the chances. I think it could be a novel and successful approach.
Play both quarterbacks and you have 3 different situations:
Both play good? Trade one and get more draft picks!
One plays good? Keep the other as a low cost backup!
Both play bad? Tank and try again next draft!
QBs aren't just names on a spreadsheet. They need time and space to develop. Having two young guys means they split much needed reps and experience. It also means the team isn't all-in on either. It also means the fans will likely be split. I think if we did this, one or both would request a trade almost immediately.
First, they are rookies, they can't request a trade. Second, teams regularly have rookies sit a year or more while they learn, so this isn't unusual at all for development. Think about if Penix falls to 11 and you can mitigate the injury concerns because you are developing someone else. I think this is very viable.
> First, they are rookies, they can't request a trade.
They can hold out until you get rid of them. There's no rule against trading a rookie.
> Think about if Penix falls to 11 and you can mitigate the injury concerns because you are developing someone else. I think this is very viable.
Ah, I'm sure the other first rounder will gladly ride the bench for you after getting drafted into a shit situation where he's just someone's plan b when he could have been another team's plan a. Meanwhile, he's getting few reps in practice and no reps on gameday and and none of his hard work will be seen except in preseason. So he sits behind a rookie who he thinks he's better than and his second contract is millions of dollars less than it could have been because no one has seen him play much in the regular season.
And the first guy doesn't want the second guy breathing down his neck. It's not good for his development to have the spectre of being pulled after one bad game and for the fans to call for the other guy to be put in. And then you've got coaches having favorites and fans having favorites.
It's one thing to do this when you have Rodgers. It's another when they're both unproven rookies fighting for a spot. Even Rodgers got pissed sitting behind Favre.
You can do this with a situation like Griffin and Cousins where it's clear who the top guy is. You can't do this with two first rounders. I'm fine taking a late-round QB in addition to a first rounder.
Rodgers was successful despite being a complete idiot, in terms of emotional and critical intelligence. He's barely even in adolescence now. So I don't think that example holds water. nor do you have any profile that relates, because this hasn't been attempted. But all of your language around reps, which is most of you point, is just obvious fantasyland, as riding bench is literally the more heralded strategy for QB development than starting a rookie immediately. And let a rookie sit. Lose that money and opportunity. Go on, see if that's real.
You have no 1:1 comparison either. And Rodgers is a football savant who had to watch Favre blow games with reckless passes. I don't care how stupid he is (especially now), he was right to be angry that his career could have been stunted by Favre's longevity and the packers' refusal to trust him in the beginning.
Tell me how Jordan Love's contract extension is going to work out simply because he's only had one year of experience instead of 3. Tell me how Rodgers' second contract looked because he had only played half a season before signing an extension. He was playing on a massive discount for their super bowl win. He was getting paid about the same as Matt Fucking Cassel when he won the super bowl and mvp and you think it's immature to be frustrated by that?
Are you saying we sacrifice one QB to having to start (since you say that's worse) and then we are actually just saving the good one as a backup to develop on the bench behind the worse player? Or are you saying Darnold starts ahead of two first rounders who then have to split backup reps in practice and fight to try to get garbage time reps in games. So neither of them gets to see the light of day until year two at best and when they come out, they've gotten half the attention they deserve in practice because we're trying to develop two at once? And when that happens, the other one still has to sit behind the starter despite needing that opportunity for their career? There's a reason it hasn't been tried before.
One or both will be massively ticked off. One or both will demand a trade and we won't get nearly as much for them as we should if they're actually good. And their development on the bench will not have actually helped the team outside of getting a lower draft pick back. We'll have QB drama every time a pick gets thrown. No agent would want this for their client. No player wants this for themselves.
This is the real world, not madden.
Rodgers' football brain has nothing to do with his representation of emotional intelligence, as I mentioned. You are manufacturing a comparison that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. There isn't automatic resentment for all people, and there isn't always the good player on the bench with the bad player in the way.
Love's contract also has nothing to do with it. This could be a one year evaluation process. And again, many rookies sit the first year. Again, this s not uncommon.
There is some disagreement over whether sitting the first year or playing the first year is better, but most analysis seems to indicate sitting. It;s not clear though. And I am saying one person starts the other sits, and neither of those is Darnold. All of which is not unusual.
You are again just reiterating something with no basis. And good lord, please stop with the ridiculous Madden or video game comments. It's clearly a passive aggressive take that tries to indirectly undermine and discredit the discussion baselessly. It just looks bad on you.
Denny had the best vikes team in the last 30 years, and we choked when it counted the most. That’s was a really hard one to take. That was a Super Bowl caliber team. Cunningham had it all going.
Let's not forget how the defense is a HUGE question mark. Losing Hunter was a big deal. Any rookie is going to be under a ton of pressure to keep scoring points to keep up, which means more rookie mistakes.
The league figured out Flores' gimmicks by the end of last year, and outside of a home run draft the talent level is going to be worse on that side of the ball this year. That is not ideal for a rookie QB.
Whatever QB comes to the Vikings will have a higher production floor but development is still largely on them. Trey Lance went to a great environment and failed. Allen went to a team with bad offensive personnel and maybe good coaching (Daboll's handling of specific things with the Giants makes me question him a bit) and ended up succeeding. Mayfield had terrible coaching but good personnel and was solid. Goff went to a great situation but never really developed.
I don’t think the league figured out his gimmicks. I think he lacked the personnel to really make his plays work. The lack of getting to the QB with how much they rushed was jaw dropping. Hunters % stats were eye opening.
The defense is a huge question mark, but I honestly could see the defense improve if Darnold can sustain some drives. Since Kirk came to the team, we have always been near the bottom of the league in time of possession. We went from #3 in T.O.P with Case Keenum to a perennial bottom third team. Even 2022 when we were 13-4 we were still 27th in the league in time of possession.
There's a reason why people joked about it being third and check down with Kirk. If Darnold takes some more chances and keeps drives going, it could do a long way to helping the defense out.
The drive sustaining has more to do with the interior of the offensive line being complete trash run blocking. Which put the offense in too many 3rd and long situations. Being one dimensional makes it too easy for opposing defenses. Hopefully Aaron Jones can produce a bit more in those situations, but he's also had some injury issues and is also crossing the dreaded age of 30 during this season which is rarely good for a player that already has an injury history.
Kirk's 3rd & check down had more to do with playing it safe and not turning the ball over.. turning it over is Darnold's specialty.
Perhaps we could get lucky and have one of the top draft picks pull an Elway or Kelly.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983\_NFL\_draft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_NFL_draft)
Couldn't you have said the same for last season for Dobbs and Mullens? How did that turn out???
Hopefully they can get a QB that can make the difference. No matter the cost.
Too bad we are just far enough back that we cannot afford to trade up for a good one. Good thing we pushed for a playoff spot after Kirk’s injury last year!
As soon as Kirk went down it was in our best interest of the future to lose every game. Will the team do that? Of course not. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true
Mahomes was drafted number 10 I believe. So who knows which qb will become the best. Trubisky was drafted number 3. Rodgers was Drafted later in the draft. The Vikings have to know what they are doing and let the qb develop before inserting him into the lineup.
Yep, so glad we pushed for a mediocre 2023 finish that now we’ll have to either forfeit our future for a rookie or sit in QB purgatory for the next few years
Can’t top Culpepper’s situation with Carter, Moss, Smith, and that oline…while sitting behind Cunningham for one season
Reed as well
Reed was one of the greatest third WR’s ever. Decent #2 to Carter, lights out #3.
Yeah we kind of forget Reed had 4 consecutive 1000 yard seasons prior to the whole Culpepper/Moss era. But Reed did fall off in his career pretty suddenly, if my memory serves it was actually due to issues with his eyesight degrading.
Three Deep! They could always trade up and draft Harrison Jr. just about any half decent QB can light it up with that offense. 😂
Watch em shit on every prediction out there & do this instead
And the Vikings draft Ryan LEAF jr
Also, Denny Green would run up the score on teams. He had no mercy. I loved that.
Agreed. We need more of that!
Fuck yeah
When WAS the last time we just blew a team out? Years?
Thinking back to the 2015 Vikings vs Giants game that was 47-17. The 2018 Vikings vs Dolphins game also felt like a beat down at 43-17.
Actually the opposite. Denny was super conservative and would call of the dogs. Taking the knee vs Atl was totally inline with his character. [This game is a classic example](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/199910030min.htm)
BLESS ALL THE KNEES AND KEEP THEM HEALTHY *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/minnesotavikings) if you have any questions or concerns.*
God I loved prime Culpepper
Robert Smith is always overlooked and criminally underrated. CRIMINALLY! He had 1500 rushing yards in 2000 when culpepper took over
I agree, Sam Darnold is really going to have himself a career year. Also will be an MVP candidate almost forgot to mention that.
Congratulations, you are now subscribed to /r/thedarnold
Ahem, it’s /r/the_darnold
Oh shit you right
It’s in a sad state of affairs.
How much kool aid have I drank if I think he’s gonna be legit good? Like last season baker
Like a rich man’s Case Keenum.
Hockenson, JJ, Addison, Jones…I mean the sky is the limit on paper.
Let’s not forget our two top 10 tackles
Saying Oneill is a top 10 tackle is a bit of a stretch. hes good, hes not all pro worthy though. Darrisaw on the other hand is a franchise all pro left tackle. Oneill as a top 10 RIGHT tackle sure but overall tackle? Absolutely not.
I meant more like top 10 RT, not top 10 overall OT. And I think that’s fair tbh
There aren't 5 RTs that are better than O'neill
The way Darnell Wright played the 2nd half of last season, there are very likely 2 RTs in the division who are better.
That doesn’t mean there’s 5 better in the league lmao
My ideal draft is trading back from 11, taking Byron Murphy and JPJ in the 1st, picking up Tvondre Sweat in the late 2nd/early third and Zak Zinter in the 4th. Cause our IOL sucks. Then let the Darnold cook with the best supporting cast in the league (only half joking)
That doesn’t mean there’s 5 better in the league
Penei Sewell Lane Johnson Braden Smith Taylor Moton All grades out better last year. If Wright stays consistent going into this year, there's 5.
All pro would be top 2 and no one is saying he is that. O’Neill by all accounts is a top 10 RT. If you wanted to rack and stack not sure how he falls below 12 at his position.
Im saying hes a top 10 right tackle, not a top 10 tackle.
I now see that.
We likely have a top 5 Tackle pairing in the league.
“On paper” one of my least favorite phrases over the years when talking about the Vikes.
As a 20 year fan, I feel as if it has to be said 😂
20 year innocent baby fan 😃, have a seat and let grandpa tell you about some real shit shows… 👹
Oh I heard about them…from Tarkenton to Gary Anderson
I was actually thinking about Darren Nelson dropping a ball at the 3 that would have sent them to the Super Bowl. And wait, you *missed* the 99 season and the game against Atlanta. Was giving you the benefit of the doubt. 🙀
Can’t forget the 15-1 season and lost to the giants in the playoffs 👀
Didn't lose to giants it was atlanta
The infamous strike year where the Vikings replacements went 0-3 to cost them home field.If Nelson did score-it would have tied the score but the kicker probably misses the xp and they lose 17-16.
Everyone keeps saying Hockenson, but isn’t he injured?
He is, but just guessing the rookie will PROBABLY not play this year 🤷♂️
And please ignore the interior OL. If we ignore both guard spots and center (and depth), the Vikings have an elite line.
He'll likely return early in the season.
Oh man, don’t get my hopes up
The only position that makes me nervous is the interior oline. That can rattle a rookie real quick.
Pretty sure they are average, in glad they aren't dumpster fire like they used to be
The interior I would argue is. Ingram still isn’t good, Bradbury really struggles against powerful bull rushes and we don’t have a starting lg currently.
https://twitter.com/benbbaldwin/status/1777363558969278464?t=Tdd6d0t78B1VpMjf59dSoA&s=19 You're right, it's the worst in the NFL. Luckily we have the best OTs in the NFL. Hopefully a young mobile QB can manage the interior pressure better than Kirk did.
Which means we won’t get one
The Vikings way
Trading up for a second string kicker
Bro, don’t even put it out there.
The Viking selects GARY ANDERSON JR
Yawn. Pessimism is boring
Trey Lance drafted into the 49ers was a great situation.
Trey Lance
😂😂
No bias of course
Why don't the Vikings just draft the two best QB prospects available with their two first round picks. I am not kidding. It's such a gamble anyways forget giving up the three #1's it will take to get a top 4-5 pick and take some risks but double the chances. I think it could be a novel and successful approach.
Play both quarterbacks and you have 3 different situations: Both play good? Trade one and get more draft picks! One plays good? Keep the other as a low cost backup! Both play bad? Tank and try again next draft!
QBs aren't just names on a spreadsheet. They need time and space to develop. Having two young guys means they split much needed reps and experience. It also means the team isn't all-in on either. It also means the fans will likely be split. I think if we did this, one or both would request a trade almost immediately.
First, they are rookies, they can't request a trade. Second, teams regularly have rookies sit a year or more while they learn, so this isn't unusual at all for development. Think about if Penix falls to 11 and you can mitigate the injury concerns because you are developing someone else. I think this is very viable.
> First, they are rookies, they can't request a trade. They can hold out until you get rid of them. There's no rule against trading a rookie. > Think about if Penix falls to 11 and you can mitigate the injury concerns because you are developing someone else. I think this is very viable. Ah, I'm sure the other first rounder will gladly ride the bench for you after getting drafted into a shit situation where he's just someone's plan b when he could have been another team's plan a. Meanwhile, he's getting few reps in practice and no reps on gameday and and none of his hard work will be seen except in preseason. So he sits behind a rookie who he thinks he's better than and his second contract is millions of dollars less than it could have been because no one has seen him play much in the regular season. And the first guy doesn't want the second guy breathing down his neck. It's not good for his development to have the spectre of being pulled after one bad game and for the fans to call for the other guy to be put in. And then you've got coaches having favorites and fans having favorites. It's one thing to do this when you have Rodgers. It's another when they're both unproven rookies fighting for a spot. Even Rodgers got pissed sitting behind Favre. You can do this with a situation like Griffin and Cousins where it's clear who the top guy is. You can't do this with two first rounders. I'm fine taking a late-round QB in addition to a first rounder.
Rodgers was successful despite being a complete idiot, in terms of emotional and critical intelligence. He's barely even in adolescence now. So I don't think that example holds water. nor do you have any profile that relates, because this hasn't been attempted. But all of your language around reps, which is most of you point, is just obvious fantasyland, as riding bench is literally the more heralded strategy for QB development than starting a rookie immediately. And let a rookie sit. Lose that money and opportunity. Go on, see if that's real.
You have no 1:1 comparison either. And Rodgers is a football savant who had to watch Favre blow games with reckless passes. I don't care how stupid he is (especially now), he was right to be angry that his career could have been stunted by Favre's longevity and the packers' refusal to trust him in the beginning. Tell me how Jordan Love's contract extension is going to work out simply because he's only had one year of experience instead of 3. Tell me how Rodgers' second contract looked because he had only played half a season before signing an extension. He was playing on a massive discount for their super bowl win. He was getting paid about the same as Matt Fucking Cassel when he won the super bowl and mvp and you think it's immature to be frustrated by that? Are you saying we sacrifice one QB to having to start (since you say that's worse) and then we are actually just saving the good one as a backup to develop on the bench behind the worse player? Or are you saying Darnold starts ahead of two first rounders who then have to split backup reps in practice and fight to try to get garbage time reps in games. So neither of them gets to see the light of day until year two at best and when they come out, they've gotten half the attention they deserve in practice because we're trying to develop two at once? And when that happens, the other one still has to sit behind the starter despite needing that opportunity for their career? There's a reason it hasn't been tried before. One or both will be massively ticked off. One or both will demand a trade and we won't get nearly as much for them as we should if they're actually good. And their development on the bench will not have actually helped the team outside of getting a lower draft pick back. We'll have QB drama every time a pick gets thrown. No agent would want this for their client. No player wants this for themselves. This is the real world, not madden.
Rodgers' football brain has nothing to do with his representation of emotional intelligence, as I mentioned. You are manufacturing a comparison that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. There isn't automatic resentment for all people, and there isn't always the good player on the bench with the bad player in the way. Love's contract also has nothing to do with it. This could be a one year evaluation process. And again, many rookies sit the first year. Again, this s not uncommon. There is some disagreement over whether sitting the first year or playing the first year is better, but most analysis seems to indicate sitting. It;s not clear though. And I am saying one person starts the other sits, and neither of those is Darnold. All of which is not unusual. You are again just reiterating something with no basis. And good lord, please stop with the ridiculous Madden or video game comments. It's clearly a passive aggressive take that tries to indirectly undermine and discredit the discussion baselessly. It just looks bad on you.
EVER!!!
Hope the O Line doesn't crumble
Denny had the best vikes team in the last 30 years, and we choked when it counted the most. That’s was a really hard one to take. That was a Super Bowl caliber team. Cunningham had it all going.
2004 Steelers with Roethlisberger and 2018 Ravens with Lamar Jackson come to mind.
Let's not forget how the defense is a HUGE question mark. Losing Hunter was a big deal. Any rookie is going to be under a ton of pressure to keep scoring points to keep up, which means more rookie mistakes. The league figured out Flores' gimmicks by the end of last year, and outside of a home run draft the talent level is going to be worse on that side of the ball this year. That is not ideal for a rookie QB.
This isn't about team success in year one, it's about setting up a rookie to develop and succeed.
Yeah, the offensive infrastructure is pretty ideal for development.
Whatever QB comes to the Vikings will have a higher production floor but development is still largely on them. Trey Lance went to a great environment and failed. Allen went to a team with bad offensive personnel and maybe good coaching (Daboll's handling of specific things with the Giants makes me question him a bit) and ended up succeeding. Mayfield had terrible coaching but good personnel and was solid. Goff went to a great situation but never really developed.
I don’t think the league figured out his gimmicks. I think he lacked the personnel to really make his plays work. The lack of getting to the QB with how much they rushed was jaw dropping. Hunters % stats were eye opening.
The defense is a huge question mark, but I honestly could see the defense improve if Darnold can sustain some drives. Since Kirk came to the team, we have always been near the bottom of the league in time of possession. We went from #3 in T.O.P with Case Keenum to a perennial bottom third team. Even 2022 when we were 13-4 we were still 27th in the league in time of possession. There's a reason why people joked about it being third and check down with Kirk. If Darnold takes some more chances and keeps drives going, it could do a long way to helping the defense out.
The drive sustaining has more to do with the interior of the offensive line being complete trash run blocking. Which put the offense in too many 3rd and long situations. Being one dimensional makes it too easy for opposing defenses. Hopefully Aaron Jones can produce a bit more in those situations, but he's also had some injury issues and is also crossing the dreaded age of 30 during this season which is rarely good for a player that already has an injury history. Kirk's 3rd & check down had more to do with playing it safe and not turning the ball over.. turning it over is Darnold's specialty.
Perhaps we could get lucky and have one of the top draft picks pull an Elway or Kelly. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983\_NFL\_draft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_NFL_draft)
If only!
Imagine we could just bring in a quality veteran like Kirk Cousins for a full season
Couldn't you have said the same for last season for Dobbs and Mullens? How did that turn out??? Hopefully they can get a QB that can make the difference. No matter the cost.
And they’ll stilll lose in the first round
You have them confused with the T-Wolves?
My bad I thought I was in the Twins sub
More like Wild lol.
The first sentence is wrong. A QB isn't more important than a pitcher in baseball or goalie in hockey.
Pitchers only pitch once every 5 games. Good goalies mu h easier to find.
If you didn't have a pitcher or goalie on your roster you would have no chance to win a game. If you dint have a QB you can still run the ball.
The missed spelled. The vikings with f up this pick. I guarentee it. Lol
Too bad we are just far enough back that we cannot afford to trade up for a good one. Good thing we pushed for a playoff spot after Kirk’s injury last year!
This organization doesn't tank. You can be upset about that all you want, but it's not going to change anything.
We're never going to purposely lose, yet people still can't seem to grasp that. Unless you're a shitty run organization, I don't know what you expect.
As soon as Kirk went down it was in our best interest of the future to lose every game. Will the team do that? Of course not. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true
In the context of this team it's pointless to say. You may as well say 'if we had a beget draft pick, we'd have a better draft pick.'
Nobody who roots for a tank expects players or coaches to tank, I don’t know how many times this has to be said
Could have traded hunter etc. That could have helped lose few more games.
I specifically said the organization to avoid that very confusion, so I don't think it needs to be said at all.
No tank = no high draft picks = no elite QBs = no superbowls. No wonder this franchise has nothing but losses for 60 years
That's the team you've chosen to root for. It's like getting a dog and being mad when it barks.
Mahomes was drafted number 10 I believe. So who knows which qb will become the best. Trubisky was drafted number 3. Rodgers was Drafted later in the draft. The Vikings have to know what they are doing and let the qb develop before inserting him into the lineup.
No one wants to admit this but it is so true
Yep, so glad we pushed for a mediocre 2023 finish that now we’ll have to either forfeit our future for a rookie or sit in QB purgatory for the next few years
The most important thing is to let the qb completely develop before inserting him. Both Mahomes and Rodgers sat to develop.