Donatell Gone

[CharVike]

Ryan Nielsen could be interviewed from Saints. 4-3 guy. At least they play good D.

[MossCarterJefferson]

Ryan Nielsen could be interviewed from Saints. 4-3 guy. At least they play good D.

Vikings did request an interview for Nielson tonight, the Saints defense sucked at the beginning of the season but did get better late in the season, I do not know much about Nielson but he can not be any worse than Donatell

[IIsweet]

I can already see the defensive struggles and the Naked Gun gifs....

[J. Kapp 11]

I am hugely in favor of the Brian Flores interest.

The guy got hosed in Miami. Ownership in South Beach has long been known to be low on integrity, so when he says he was offered money to tank for Tua, I tend to believe him. He was humiliated by the Giants — when Belichick texted Brian Daboll to congratulate him on getting the job before they had interviewed Flores, it was obvious they were just interviewing him to fulfill the Rooney rule. Same thing in Denver, when Elway and his cronies showed up hungover to Flores' interview.

Sure, filing lawsuits probably put Flores in bad standing with a lot of league owners, but I don't care. The man can flat-out coach defense. If the Wilfs are OK with the pending lawsuits (after all, the lawsuits aren't against them) then why not get the best man available? Which is what Flores is.

Flores coaches an aggressive defense, with lots of creative blitzing and tight coverage — exactly what every Vikings fan was screaming for this season. Want this defense to get better in a hurry? Hire the man. He'll get the most out of every player on that side of the ball.

I really hope they don't let Flores leave town without a contract.

[CharVike]

Sean Desai is coming in. Another 3-4 loser defense that the Seachickens ran. 25th in points allowed per game. Why is this so hard?

[MossCarterJefferson]

I am hugely in favor of the Brian Flores interest.

The guy got hosed in Miami. Ownership in South Beach has long been known to be low on integrity, so when he says he was offered money to tank for Tua, I tend to believe him. He was humiliated by the Giants — when Belichick texted Brian Daboll to congratulate him on getting the job before they had interviewed Flores, it was obvious they were just interviewing him to fulfill the Rooney rule. Same thing in Denver, when Elway and his cronies showed up hungover to Flores' interview.

Sure, filing lawsuits probably put Flores in bad standing with a lot of league owners, but I don't care. The man can flat-out coach defense. If the Wilfs are OK with the pending lawsuits (after all, the lawsuits aren't against them) then why not get the best man available? Which is what Flores is.

Flores coaches an aggressive defense, with lots of creative blitzing and tight coverage — exactly what every Vikings fan was screaming for this season. Want this defense to get better in a hurry? Hire the man. He'll get the most out of every player on that side of the ball.

I really hope they don't let Flores leave town without a contract.

I hope Flores leave, I do not want Vikings to have a bad reputation if Vikings hire Flores

[MossCarterJefferson]

Sean Desai is coming in. Another 3-4 loser defense that the Seachickens ran. 25th in points allowed per game. Why is this so hard?

Sean is not the defensive coordinator for Seattle, that is Clint Hurtt

[J. Kapp 11]

I am hugely in favor of the Brian Flores interest.

The guy got hosed in Miami. Ownership in South Beach has long been known to be low on integrity, so when he says he was offered money to tank for Tua, I tend to believe him. He was humiliated by the Giants — when Belichick texted Brian Daboll to congratulate him on getting the job before they had interviewed Flores, it was obvious they were just interviewing him to fulfill the Rooney rule. Same thing in Denver, when Elway and his cronies showed up hungover to Flores' interview.

Sure, filing lawsuits probably put Flores in bad standing with a lot of league owners, but I don't care. The man can flat-out coach defense. If the Wilfs are OK with the pending lawsuits (after all, the lawsuits aren't against them) then why not get the best man available? Which is what Flores is.

Flores coaches an aggressive defense, with lots of creative blitzing and tight coverage — exactly what every Vikings fan was screaming for this season. Want this defense to get better in a hurry? Hire the man. He'll get the most out of every player on that side of the ball.

I really hope they don't let Flores leave town without a contract.

I hope Flores leave, I do not want Vikings to have a bad reputation if Vikings hire Flores

That makes zero sense. This isn’t like signing Deshaun Watson. Flores did nothing wrong.

[Pondering Her Percy]

I am hugely in favor of the Brian Flores interest.

The guy got hosed in Miami. Ownership in South Beach has long been known to be low on integrity, so when he says he was offered money to tank for Tua, I tend to believe him. He was humiliated by the Giants — when Belichick texted Brian Daboll to congratulate him on getting the job before they had interviewed Flores, it was obvious they were just interviewing him to fulfill the Rooney rule. Same thing in Denver, when Elway and his cronies showed up hungover to Flores' interview.

Sure, filing lawsuits probably put Flores in bad standing with a lot of league owners, but I don't care. The man can flat-out coach defense. If the Wilfs are OK with the pending lawsuits (after all, the lawsuits aren't against them) then why not get the best man available? Which is what Flores is.

Flores coaches an aggressive defense, with lots of creative blitzing and tight coverage — exactly what every Vikings fan was screaming for this season. Want this defense to get better in a hurry? Hire the man. He'll get the most out of every player on that side of the ball.

I really hope they don't let Flores leave town without a contract.

I hope Flores leave, I do not want Vikings to have a bad reputation if Vikings hire Flores

I mean the Steelers didnt have a bad reputation with Flores on their staff did they? Granted, there are a few media questions surrounding him, but I dont think he necessarily gives the team a bad reputation. That's just silly.

[VikingLord]

I really hope they don't let Flores leave town without a contract.

I think Flores would be a good hire.

Whoever they hire, they need to get crackin' on it because they don't have a lot of time before the draft and early FA and they need to know who they want to keep and who they need to ship prior to the start of the offseason.

[IIsweet]

Whether they or don't, I trust that KAM and KOC will make a decision on someone that they feel fits their culture. That is going to be huge. I would personally really like the hiring of Flores. Proven NFL DC with results. If the personalities fit, then it looks great on paper

[chicagopurple]

After watching how a real contender (Philly) utterly destroyed NY and showed the weak nature of NYs offense, I am even more convinced that we had neither the coaches or the manpower to be a contender. Yes, its a good thing to move on from such an ineffective scheme but there are a lot of positions that need to be improved on D. The only real need on the offense remains the OL ( as always) and to keep as much of our offenses talent in place. There are pundits out there saying we should upgrade our RB but I dont think its a fair judgement. The OL is incapable of run blocking so the running game was DOA all season. If this defensive scheme was really the Head Coach's desire, we are in a bad spot. Its kind of like running the old prevent defense all year, every game, most downs.....

[VikingLord]

After watching how a real contender (Philly) utterly destroyed NY and showed the weak nature of NYs offense, I am even more convinced that we had neither the coaches or the manpower to be a contender. Yes, its a good thing to move on from such an ineffective scheme but there are a lot of positions that need to be improved on D. The only real need on the offense remains the OL ( as always) and to keep as much of our offenses talent in place. There are pundits out there saying we should upgrade our RB but I dont think its a fair judgement. The OL is incapable of run blocking so the running game was DOA all season. If this defensive scheme was really the Head Coach's desire, we are in a bad spot. Its kind of like running the old prevent defense all year, every game, most downs.....

There are certainly shortcomings in the defensive personnel. I think those were already there and showing up even before this last season, but they were more exposed this year with the scheme change, and the issues start with the DL. Only Danielle Hunter is a starter that was drafted by the Vikings. The other starters were all free agent vets IIRC. That issue of poor defensive drafting in recent years extends to the LBs as well. Kendricks was drafted by the Vikings, but Hicks is another FA vet and while Asamoah played well for stretches, he was not a huge factor. Ditto in the secondary. The Vikings have made miss after miss after miss in terms of finding impact defensive players in recent drafts (how many first or second round cornerback misses can a single team have?). This has forced them to look to free agency while largely being handicapped by the cap and their willingness to overpay to retain declining veterans on both sides of the ball in a misguided effort to remain "competitive" (whatever that means).

This is a serious issue that has now shown up on the defensive side for the last two seasons running and if the Wilfs and KAM don't realize what is happening and take some effective steps to get it under control we're likely going to be looking at another bottom 5 finish for the defense next year as well regardless of who is the DC or what scheme they choose. Couple that with a likely decline in the offense due once again to over-priced declining vets taking up disproportionate chunks of the cap and you've got a recipe for a multi-season swoon just on the horizon. With only 4 picks in this upcoming draft and still not knowing if the safety and cornerback you just drafted are any good or will be even competent, the situation looks challenging to say the least.

I am still bothered by KAM trading so far down in the first to get so little in return while passing up defensive talents like Jordan Davis and Kyle Hamilton. Maybe Cine turns out to be a great player, but that was a big gamble resting on relatively large assumptions about the lack of correlation between perceived talent and draft position value. I keep hoping KAM's way of looking at things turns out to be correct, but early returns are not promising. He needs both Cine and Booth to get and stay healthy and to make an impact at their positions this coming season, and he needs to start finding and hitting on defensive and offensive line talent in future drafts starting with this one.

And if KAM extends Cousins again, I think I'm done watching for a while. That is not a criticism of Cousins per se - he had a fantastic season and wasn't an issue. It's more a criticism of the Vikings not understanding the situation they find themselves in paying any QB top dollar while the rest of the team just isn't good enough, with some of the responsibility for that situation coming from the money they're paying said QB. Cousins, as good as he played this year, isn't the future. To find the future, they're going to have to do their homework and take some chances on a younger guy, either a backup on a QB-rich team who is ready to get his chance or in the draft somewhere. It might just be time to take a shorter term hit overall to reset the team and give themselves a chance to rise higher overall in the future. Sure, the Bears took a hit this year, but they're at the bottom and now can only go up. The Vikings, OTOH, are as high as they're going to get with this current group of players. Figure out who to keep, get rid of the rest while getting what you can for the ones you retain the rights to, and focus on drafting better while taking the short term hit that is inevitably going to come no matter what.

[Texas Vike]

Couple of thoughts:
1) Flores is getting looks for HC positions (Arizona). I have to think that any offer we might make to him would be denied until he knows whether he will get a head coaching offer. Flores is also getting lots of interviews for DC positions and our lack of talent may be a turn off for a guy who figures to be a hot commodity for HC positions next season, if he doesn't get an offer this season. In short, the Vikings may want him, but the feeling may not be mutual.

2) Anyone else concerned that Kwesi kept the same scouting staff as Rick? It kind of made sense to me last season, as he didn't really have time to assemble his own team ahead of the draft. But if I'm not mistaken, he's retained many of the same folks. They have done a piss poor job at evaluating defensive talent, frankly. Since 2015, when we drafted Kendricks, Hunter, and Trae Waynes, we haven't acquired a single player via draft on our defense. That's brutal.

[VikingLord]

2) Anyone else concerned that Kwesi kept the same scouting staff as Rick? It kind of made sense to me last season, as he didn't really have time to assemble his own team ahead of the draft. But if I'm not mistaken, he's retained many of the same folks. They have done a piss poor job at evaluating defensive talent, frankly. Since 2015, when we drafted Kendricks, Hunter, and Trae Waynes, we haven't acquired a single player via draft on our defense. That's brutal.

Very concerned. I read an interview KAM did on Vikings.com and based on what he said he seems to think the Vikings have a lot of younger defensive players waiting in the wings (see https://www.vikings.com/news/evaluating ... okie-class for the exact quotes).

But this is what concerns me (from same article):

Overall, the Vikings tied Carolina in having the fewest rookies play at least 200 snaps on either side of the ball. Minnesota also ranked 27th in snaps per game by a rookie and last in its division.

Ouch and ouch. If this were a one-year issue, maybe that wouldn't be so bad, but as you note, this is a multi-year issue and the effects of the lack of production in drafts since 2015 has shown now for two years. The Vikings are left to scour the waiver wires and engineer FA deals to try to field a solid defense and it just isn't working for the most part.

What is the greater sin IMHO is KAM trading out of #12 last year and just not getting any production for that move. Granted, he can't control injuries but the fact remains that he left two consensus impact defensive starters on the board at #12 to trade back for a safety and CB prospects who didn't win starting jobs in training camp and didn't play meaningful snaps. The fact that both ended up injured is beside the point when compared to the guys KAM left on the board there. If for whatever reason neither Cine nor Booth manage to make an impact this coming year, it will look even worse for KAM. He needs both players to make meaningful contributions, he needs younger guys from recent past drafts to step up as well, and he needs to get some production out of this year's upcoming draft whether he's selecting offensive or defensive players as he has limited picks and his hands are going to be tied in free agency.