Vikings listening to trade offers on Hunter

[Cliff]

Then there's the defense. Who knows how good or bad it will be? It's impossible to tell. But one thing we do know ... there's nowhere to go but up. You can't get much worse than 31st.

I agreed with nearly your entire post but wanted to bring this up. Last year the defense wasn't great, of course, but they were better than they get credit for. The Vikings had 9 comeback victories in 2022. Comebacks are not possible if the defense doesn't stop the other team from scoring during that critical point in the game. Period. Over, and over, and over, the defense put the Vikings offense in a position to be able to win the game.

Even in the playoff loss the defense stopped the Giants and got them the ball back with 3:15 left on the clock and a chance to take it to overtime. Going into overtime and winning close games was 2022 Vikings football. The defense did actually put them in a position to at least go to overtime and once there, possibly win.

Anyway, the point is the defense can get worse even if they statistically get better in their Yards Per Game. They also got absolutely spanked in a couple of games that hurt their stats. However, the 2022 Vikings defense was *not* actually all that terrible. In addition to stepping up in the biggest moments in games time and time again, they rank pretty well in some pretty important categories. 10th in forcing fumbles, 11th in INTs. Despite not rushing the QB much they were middle of the pack in sacks.

[CharVike]

These conversations have been going on since I started to follow in 1970. Our D did make some plays that helped us win games. Peg kicked a monster FG to win a game and IMO he is not a clutch kicker. To win 13 a team needs some breaks and all three phases need to contribute. I've seen it go the other way. We have too much talent on offense to fall completely out of the picture. For the first time since who knows when our OL is average. That was with a rookie RG who was one of the worst pass blockers I have ever seen. Looked like he never pass blocked in his life. He will be better this year. Even Bradbury become a better player. That's coaching. I think every O player will be more comfortable in the offense. Osbourne or some other player could step up.
I don't see how the D will be worse. Losing Smith is no big deal. He played great in October when he was defensive player of the month but did little outside of that. Is this Murphy who we signed in FA a shut down CB. Nope. If he was he wouldn't be a FA. But he's better than what we had out there last year and I do believe Flores had some input into the signing. The same with Davenport.
Last year was weird with the fact that we could get blown out. I'm not looking it up but I doubt a division winner ever was hammered into the ground like we were in our loses. Basically expansion team loses. We could win 8 games or 14 and neither would surprise me. We could win a playoff game or be dumped round 1. Again neither would surprise me.

They lost a double digit sack guy and replaced him with a guy who had 2 more pressures and 1 fewer sack on the entire season than Smith had in the second half of the year when he was supposedly doing so little (12th in pressures from week 10-18). They also lost their best interior defensive lineman by far, and replaced him with Green Bay's worst player on the interior. PP was very good for the Vikings last season, playing at a level Murphy could only dream of. All three downgraded significantly, and downgrading 3 of your top 5 defensive players is not how you build a championship defense.

For the month of October, Smith was named the NFC Defensive Player of the month with 14 tackles, 6.5 sacks, eight tackles for loss, and a pass breakup. In Week 8, Smith had seven tackles, three sacks, four tackles for loss, and a pass breakup in a 34–26 win over the Arizona Cardinals, earning NFC Defensive Player of the Week. If he did more than a little he would have had many more sacks and been worth more in a trade. He had a monster month. Footballs Mr. October.
PP had a decent season but was roasted in the playoff game. I never claimed Murphy was that great. He was a FA for a reason. Davenport was a FA for a reason also. Both guys could be garbage just like Trae Waynes was for the Bengals. That's the FA market. Hopefully Flores can get more out of them. We certainly could drop on defense. It's not that far to the bottom.

[VikingLord]

They lost a double digit sack guy and replaced him with a guy who had 2 more pressures and 1 fewer sack on the entire season than Smith had in the second half of the year when he was supposedly doing so little (12th in pressures from week 10-18). They also lost their best interior defensive lineman by far, and replaced him with Green Bay's worst player on the interior. PP was very good for the Vikings last season, playing at a level Murphy could only dream of. All three downgraded significantly, and downgrading 3 of your top 5 defensive players is not how you build a championship defense.

For the month of October, Smith was named the NFC Defensive Player of the month with 14 tackles, 6.5 sacks, eight tackles for loss, and a pass breakup. In Week 8, Smith had seven tackles, three sacks, four tackles for loss, and a pass breakup in a 34–26 win over the Arizona Cardinals, earning NFC Defensive Player of the Week. If he did more than a little he would have had many more sacks and been worth more in a trade. He had a monster month. Footballs Mr. October.
PP had a decent season but was roasted in the playoff game. I never claimed Murphy was that great. He was a FA for a reason. Davenport was a FA for a reason also. Both guys could be garbage just like Trae Waynes was for the Bengals. That's the FA market. Hopefully Flores can get more out of them. We certainly could drop on defense. It's not that far to the bottom.

I just don't think Smith made all that much of a difference in the bigger picture. If he had, he would have fetched far more in trade than KAM managed to get. PP was way past his prime. Yes, he was the best CB the Vikings had last year, but that isn't saying much and even if it did say much, PP isn't the future. The Vikings are going to have to find and develop some actual young CBs if they ever want to compete for a Superbowl. May as well get started this year. Tomlinson was good, and his loss will be felt, but as with the CBs, the Vikings need to find some interior DL production from guys they've drafted recently. They haven't drafted well at the position in recent years, and no number of free agent bandages are going to stem the bleeding on the interior unless they get that turned around.

Let's face it - the defense was a liability last year and if I were a betting man I'd guess it will be a liability again this year. However, the difference between the defense heading into last year and the defense heading into this year is that this year I think they have a better overall chance of substantial improvement. Last year's defense needed a lot of older vets to perform consistently throughout the season, and most of them failed to do so. To improve over that result, this year's defense needs a lot of younger guys to start well and improve with consistency as the season goes on. If there is a DC who is going to enable that to happen, Flores is the right guy. He'll be honest about what he has, and more importantly, what he doesn't have, and will design a scheme that fits that reality. It might not be enough, because in the end no scheme can overcome bad players, but if the players respond and do their part, and they have the athletic talent to do that, then this is a defense that I believe can not only improve over last year's unit, but will be playing it's best when it matters most.