Bears at Vikings MNF

[VikingLord]

Dobbs looked awful nearly the whole game. His passes in the first half were slow and off target.

4 turnovers is a loss for basically any team.

The only reason it was even close was the defense. They *finally* broke down a little in the end but how do you fault them after the game they had? This was not a "team loss". The offense play is why they lost.

KOC play calling felt "meh" but I don't really know. Execution was so bad even if I thought it was great how would anyone know?

The offensive series right after the second Fields' fumble was the killer for the Vikings. The Vikings get handed the ball what, around the Bears 40 yard line and do nothing with the gift. It was a key turnover at a key moment in a key area of the field and the offense ended up with no points out of it.

The second huge missed opportunity was when Addison got wide open deep and Dobbs threw it out of bounds. That was an easy 6 points right there and those plays have to be made, especially given how the offense was otherwise struggling.

Those two situations play out differently and the Vikings are in the win column this morning. Yes, there were a lot of other things that contributed to the loss beyond that, but with better execution in those two situations the Vikings would have won despite those other things. It was poor execution at the start of the season that put them in the early hole, and poor execution now is going to ensure they don't make the playoffs. I don't envy KOC having to now make an honest assessment at the QB position. His team is still technically in the playoff race, so he doesn't want to sell the season. But if he's honest about it, his team has no chance of any playoff success even if it makes the playoffs, so does he put Hall out there to see what he has as a possible future starter at QB? Does he put Mullens out there to see if Mullens can stabilize the offense and reduce the turnovers? Or does he stick with Dobbs who seems to be less effective by the week and hope he can somehow get back on track?

The real shame here is that despite all the injuries and issues early in the season the Vikings had managed to overcome most of them and get themselves back into contention. Then they followed that inspiring mid-season performance with back-to-back, mistake-plagued losses to what probably are the two worst teams in the NFL this year, with both of those losses highlighted by being on national TV.

[makila]

I kind of want to see Hall. Think everyone knows what Mullens is. Not sure if we do with Hall yet. Strong chance he isn't the guy, let's confirm that though. Is he worth a backup roster spot going forward? Etc

[makila]

Yeah, as said by others, for all the speculation that KOC wants a more mobile qb...I question if he can actually design an offense around one. He is showing a lot of stubborn square peg round hole traits.

Dobbs is a bad fit if KOC is going to call plays like it's Kirk back there. Dobbs is a journeyman for a reason. It's one thing when one or two nfl teams pass, it's another when it's 1/4 the league that's passed.

Offensive line did no one any favors. Thy were bad. Defense was good all night until final drive. They aren't going to be perfect, especially with four TOs on offense. Don't care what defense you have, very hard to overcome that. We gave up 12 points. Win the damn game.

Addison was bad. That pass on the sideline he has to catch. Don't care if it wasn't "perfect" ball placement. Wide open, walk in touchdown. He has to adjust and be aware of where he is on the field.

I agree that Addison should have caught that, but it was an AWFUL throw. There was no defender to the inside. The throw shouldn't have been anywhere near the sideline.

I agree it could have been a better ball.

[Maelstrom88]

Dobbs looked awful nearly the whole game. His passes in the first half were slow and off target.

4 turnovers is a loss for basically any team.

The only reason it was even close was the defense. They *finally* broke down a little in the end but how do you fault them after the game they had? This was not a "team loss". The offense play is why they lost.

KOC play calling felt "meh" but I don't really know. Execution was so bad even if I thought it was great how would anyone know?

The offensive series right after the second Fields' fumble was the killer for the Vikings. The Vikings get handed the ball what, around the Bears 40 yard line and do nothing with the gift. It was a key turnover at a key moment in a key area of the field and the offense ended up with no points out of it.

The second huge missed opportunity was when Addison got wide open deep and Dobbs threw it out of bounds. That was an easy 6 points right there and those plays have to be made, especially given how the offense was otherwise struggling.

Those two situations play out differently and the Vikings are in the win column this morning. Yes, there were a lot of other things that contributed to the loss beyond that, but with better execution in those two situations the Vikings would have won despite those other things. It was poor execution at the start of the season that put them in the early hole, and poor execution now is going to ensure they don't make the playoffs. I don't envy KOC having to now make an honest assessment at the QB position. His team is still technically in the playoff race, so he doesn't want to sell the season. But if he's honest about it, his team has no chance of any playoff success even if it makes the playoffs, so does he put Hall out there to see what he has as a possible future starter at QB? Does he put Mullens out there to see if Mullens can stabilize the offense and reduce the turnovers? Or does he stick with Dobbs who seems to be less effective by the week and hope he can somehow get back on track?

The real shame here is that despite all the injuries and issues early in the season the Vikings had managed to overcome most of them and get themselves back into contention. Then they followed that inspiring mid-season performance with back-to-back, mistake-plagued losses to what probably are the two worst teams in the NFL this year, with both of those losses highlighted by being on national TV.

The Broncos are far from the top two worst. They've been balling lately and might sneak into the playoffs.

[CharVike]

well, that was disgusting and "We are who I thought we were" .

After 50 years of being a fan, I am hard pressed to think of a more embarrassing performance by my team. Against a laughably bad opponent that the rest of the league has used as a punching bag all year(s), we failed at all levels.
QB- Dobbs showed us his true colors.
OL- pitiful as near always
Coaching- absolute cowardice by the Defensive Coord when the game was on the line, he played turtle and crawled into his shell when rabid aggressive play had been the answer all day, Offensively they were entirely predictable and overly conservative for no good reason.
WR- nothing but dropped passes, poorly run routes, just pitiful.

I am interested to hear if any of you can recall a more horrendous team performance than this one? I cant.......

41-0 championship game blowout. 2 HOF WRs and couldn't even score. This game was a pleasure compared to that one. If we took Dobbs out and just inserted any of the other 2 maybe we get a spark. They should just rotate all 3 guys during games. Have them bring the play in. Run a play jog off, next man in run a play jog off ect.... That's never been done. It's been done with 2 before.

[Cliff]

The offensive series right after the second Fields' fumble was the killer for the Vikings. The Vikings get handed the ball what, around the Bears 40 yard line and do nothing with the gift. It was a key turnover at a key moment in a key area of the field and the offense ended up with no points out of it.

The second huge missed opportunity was when Addison got wide open deep and Dobbs threw it out of bounds. That was an easy 6 points right there and those plays have to be made, especially given how the offense was otherwise struggling.

Those two situations play out differently and the Vikings are in the win column this morning. Yes, there were a lot of other things that contributed to the loss beyond that, but with better execution in those two situations the Vikings would have won despite those other things. It was poor execution at the start of the season that put them in the early hole, and poor execution now is going to ensure they don't make the playoffs. I don't envy KOC having to now make an honest assessment at the QB position. His team is still technically in the playoff race, so he doesn't want to sell the season. But if he's honest about it, his team has no chance of any playoff success even if it makes the playoffs, so does he put Hall out there to see what he has as a possible future starter at QB? Does he put Mullens out there to see if Mullens can stabilize the offense and reduce the turnovers? Or does he stick with Dobbs who seems to be less effective by the week and hope he can somehow get back on track?

The real shame here is that despite all the injuries and issues early in the season the Vikings had managed to overcome most of them and get themselves back into contention. Then they followed that inspiring mid-season performance with back-to-back, mistake-plagued losses to what probably are the two worst teams in the NFL this year, with both of those losses highlighted by being on national TV.

That series was definitely the "straw that broke the camels back" but it was already toting 4 interceptions, bad offensive line play, etc.

Whether or not they have a chance in the playoffs is going to depend on what they have in Hall. Dobbs ceiling is high enough to do something in the playoffs with Jefferson but his floor is too low. Mullins ceiling isn't high enough. Hall needs to be given a turn to see if he can continue the good start he had before injury.

[J. Kapp 11]

Yeah, as said by others, for all the speculation that KOC wants a more mobile qb...I question if he can actually design an offense around one. He is showing a lot of stubborn square peg round hole traits.

On the surface, this is a perfectly legitimate criticism.

Here's the only thing I can say. The system gets installed in OTAs and repped in training camp. The system was designed around Cousins, so that's what everybody has programmed into them. Changing an entire system mid-season is difficult for a team.

Yes, there should be some adjustments made, and it almost felt like Dobbs was better in the very beginning, when he was just balling and barely had any idea of what the system was. But I do think that it's really hard for a team to go from a pocket-passer system to a scrambling, running quarterback system mid-stream.

If there's a criticism to be made, it might actually be that they even traded for Josh Dobbs. For all his intelligence, he seems panicky and twitchy. It seems that teams have enough film on him now that they can see he doesn't really understand the offense fully (an offense that is pretty darned complicated, by the way) and they can bait him into mistakes. Maybe Dobbs just wasn't the right guy, even though he played admirably for about 5 or 6 quarters after the Vikings obtained him. I don't know. Maybe they should have tried to find a pocket passer. Maybe there wasn't one available (except for Joe Flacco, no thank you).

And I say this with the complete admission that I bought into the Dobbs experience. Bit hard. I'm feeling a bit silly now. Because that game last night was a train wreck, and for the most part, it fell on Dobbs. The missed throw to Addison. The pick where Johnson baited him into an easy pick. The pick on the throw to Osborn, which was behind him and allowed Johnson to get a hand on it. The throw to Hockenson on 4th-and-7 ... if that's on target, TJ gets the first down. The panic pick to the D-lineman. Bad decision after bad decision, off-target throw after off-target throw. Where's the guy who was absolutely pinpoint against Atlanta? Where's the guy who was freewheeling and dynamic against the Saints? That guy was nowhere to be found last night. At least he had some good moments against Denver. Not last night. The Vikings lost primarily because of Josh Dobbs.

I don't know man. Can you change an entire system mid-season? Or should you expect a guy who's smart enough to be a rocket scientist to be able to pick up the system you have? Great question. Not sure it's worth answering at this point. We're done. We can make the playoffs, but it's apparent we're not going to make a run.

[J. Kapp 11]

As many of you know, I've been a Vikings fan since the Nixon administration. I've seen all four Super Bowl losses. I've watched all 10 NFC Championship Game appearances. I've seen a lot.

But it just hit me today ...

Every year, there comes a moment where I realize ... it's over.

This isn't the year. Again.

Sometimes, like in 2011 or 2013, the moment comes early. Mercifully.

Sometimes, like in 1998 or 2009 or 2017, the moment comes painfully close to the Super Bowl.

But every year, it's the same thing. Despite our futility in winning a Super Bowl, I'm a very optimistic fan. I always believe they can win any game, even if they stink. And every year, I have this deeply depressing day when it hits ... it ain't happening this year. It sucks so much and hurts so bad that I can barely function for a day or two.

Sometimes I'd just take a mini-run in the playoffs. Win a game. Give me hope that we're moving in the right direction. Last year's 13-4 was great, but when the Giants game was over, it felt like "are the Vikings really heading in the right direction?"

This year started badly. Turnovers. Beating ourselves. But then they stopped turning the ball over, and the real Vikings team came out. The light bulb came on for Kirk Cousins. I'm talking about the light bulb where he understands KOC's system so well that he becomes a master at it. I mean, the game against SF was a masterclass in QB play. With better execution and playcalling in the red zone, the Vikings would have blown out the 49ers, the best team in the league at the time. When he and the Vikings continued that kind of play against the Packers, I started allowing myself to believe this team might have a chance. BFlo had the defense rolling. The offense was killing it, and without the best receiver in the league.

Then Kirk went down. When he hobbled to the sideline, I knew he was done. You could just see it.

I thought THAT was the "not this year again" moment. I mean, we replace a legitimate MVP candidate with Jaren Hall? No offense to Jaren, but that's a huge step down.

So I set my mind on "let's just play as well as we can the rest of the season." Then Hall went down, and Dobbs came in. Third play ... safety. Then he gets KJ Osborn killed. Then he fumbles for a near scoop-and-score. Then he fumbles again. And I'm thinking, "This season went from promising to garbage in less than 2 quarters." My expectations dropped to "let's just not embarrass ourselves the rest of the year."

Then Dobbs became Superman. He won the Atlanta game. He went absolutely nuts against the Saints in the first half.

And damn it, I let myself think, "We can get into the playoffs. We can win a game. Maybe DOBBS is the guy and not Kirk."

Last night smacked that idea all to hell.

So today, I have the final realization. It's over for 2023. Even if we somehow sneak into the playoffs, who are we going to beat with Dobbs at QB? What if they put in Jaren Hall? My guess is, he might do well at first, but as soon as teams have tape on him, he'll play like a rookie.

With the annual realization comes deep depression. And writing a book on this website. Sorry about that. If you've read this far, either I'm a really good writer, or you're a great person. Take your pick. Also, I'm questioning today whether the organization is headed in the right direction. I have to believe it is. In spite of Josh Dobbs, we almost won that game. Shouldn't evaluate the entire process based on the awful play of the emergency replacement for the most important position on the team.

Beyond that, this sucks. Again.

[VikingLord]

Where's the guy who was absolutely pinpoint against Atlanta? Where's the guy who was freewheeling and dynamic against the Saints? That guy was nowhere to be found last night. At least he had some good moments against Denver. Not last night. The Vikings lost primarily because of Josh Dobbs.

When the Vikings won with Dobbs, he contributed scores running. He ran a lot because he didn't know the offense most likely and teams were likely defending as if Cousins were still the QB.

Dobbs is running less, or at least running less effectively, as defenses gameplan around that ability. In my opinion, this is what is making Dobbs' accuracy and processing issues so painfully apparent. Negate Dobbs' strength, which is extending plays and running, and force him to play out of the pocket, which isn't necessarily a weakness, but he is not nearly as effective.

Maybe it is KOC to some extent, but KOC isn't holding the ball forever, throwing inaccurate passes, etc. That is all on Dobbs.

For what it's worth, I got very excited about Dobbs as well at first. My hope was he could catch lightning in a bottle even if just for the rest of this year ala what Case Keenum managed to do the year he was in Minnesota. It does not appear like that is going to happen. It appears the Vikings used up all of their good luck allotment last year.

[Danny P]

Gutless play calling on Vikings last possession lost game for us in my opinion

You got it, especially gutless the last two drives and the offensive line play stunk. No quarterback could have performed well with that pressure including Curt. Poor coaching plus poor game preparation, especially when everyone should know what to expect from the Bears defense. Now lets see if the coaches and upper management admit to and take their share of the blame. because that is where the majority belongs.

[makila]

Love reading your posts, and perspective Kapp. I struggle with words often. Give me numbers. Haha. I am envious. Keep them coming.

I was born in 82. I became a diehard fan in the mid 90s due to John Randle. I don't know what the 70s, and 80s, were like is a fan. I appreciate the knowledge and perspective yourself and others bring to the conversation.

Re Dobbs, we all wanted to catch lightning. Or hope we could get something out of him others haven't. That's what fandom is!

To your point about throwing an offensive system away mid year, it's incredibly hard and you'd be hard pressed to find examples where it worked, so I get it. Its normally when an organization fires staff midseason. You also can't plug in someone into a timing and ball placement system, who hasn't shown to be a precision pocket passer and say, go get them! Which is why it's felt like koc did last two games. He should be tweaking the offense to favor Dobbs. Not tweaking Dobbs to favor his offense. Cause Dobbs is who is. It's like Josh McDaniel trading Cutler and saying "i can turn a hs qb into a pro bowl qb". Ok thats extreme, however the coach has to coach to the players on the roster. It's who you have.

Then there are things like the offensive line getting eaten alive, which had been an area of strong improvement as the season was marching forward. Or Addison, having a really bad game. And here we are. If your line is playing great, and your receivers are making contested (and easy catches), it helps any QB out a ton. Obviously JJ's absence too.

And yes, there aren't qbs growing on trees. I don't fault them at all for the moves since Kirk went down. The value for Dobbs was fine. We simply needed an experienced body regardless. And the Hall concussion showed why. I'll pass on Flacco too. Heh.

#### situation we've found ourselves in once things started clicking.

[Pondering Her Percy]

After mattisons first run after the turnover, I texted my buddy and said “I already don’t like how this feels, KOC didn’t learn from last week”. Sure enough he proved me right.

KOC has a lot of positive traits as a HC. But I truly thought that after last week not trying to put the game away at the end vs denver, he would’ve learned. And he literally did the same exact thing all over again. Run, run, WR screen. Up by 2 against Denver, a TD ends the game from the 10 and he goes conservative. Now against Chicago, up by 1 and get a gift from your defense that put you about 10 yards out of reasonable field goal range. It didn’t require much to get into field goal range, whether you trusted Dobbs or not. A field goal puts you up by 4 against a team that couldn’t score against you all night. Practically game over. And he curls again.

I’m not sure what the philosophy was here. Some say to kill clock yet Chicago had all 3 timeouts. It made zero sense what he was trying to do.

It’s too bad because there’s nearly zero shot we lose either of these games with cousins. But the fact that KOC is not adjusting this offense to Dobbs strengths annoys me. 2 runs for 7 yards. He played freely and improvised because he was unsure of a lot. KOC needs to tell him to continue to do that. Put some RPOs in, some designed runs. He’s trying to run Kirk cousins offense with a guy nowhere near comparable to Kirk and quite frankly, the complete opposite. Dobbs can not and will not make the throws cousins will. He can’t read the defense that well, doesn’t have the accuracy and doesn’t have the trust in his WRs like Kirk had.

And then has the audacity to not commit to Dobbs against Vegas? Then why did you trade for him? You knew what you were getting. Don’t blame this on Dobbs, blame this on yourself and adjust your offense. Are we really going to Nick Mullens because he’ll sit in the pocket? We already have a QB that doesn’t touch cousins accuracy. Now we want to put one in there that can’t improvise and is below average in the pocket? KOC needs to take accountability here and adjust.

[Purple Reign]

I am interested to hear if any of you can recall a more horrendous team performance than this one? I cant.......

It was over 20 years ago, but the worst one I remember is the 2000 NFC Championship game against the Giants where we lost 41-0. We had 114 total yards of offense and gave up 518, probably the worst game they ever played.

Also several of the games under Les Steckle were pretty bad as well.

[J. Kapp 11]

After mattisons first run after the turnover, I texted my buddy and said “I already don’t like how this feels, KOC didn’t learn from last week”. Sure enough he proved me right.

KOC has a lot of positive traits as a HC. But I truly thought that after last week not trying to put the game away at the end vs denver, he would’ve learned. And he literally did the same exact thing all over again. Run, run, WR screen. Up by 2 against Denver, a TD ends the game from the 10 and he goes conservative. Now against Chicago, up by 1 and get a gift from your defense that put you about 10 yards out of reasonable field goal range. It didn’t require much to get into field goal range, whether you trusted Dobbs or not. A field goal puts you up by 4 against a team that couldn’t score against you all night. Practically game over. And he curls again.

I’m not sure what the philosophy was here. Some say to kill clock yet Chicago had all 3 timeouts. It made zero sense what he was trying to do.

It’s too bad because there’s nearly zero shot we lose either of these games with cousins. But the fact that KOC is not adjusting this offense to Dobbs strengths annoys me. 2 runs for 7 yards. He played freely and improvised because he was unsure of a lot. KOC needs to tell him to continue to do that. Put some RPOs in, some designed runs. He’s trying to run Kirk cousins offense with a guy nowhere near comparable to Kirk and quite frankly, the complete opposite. Dobbs can not and will not make the throws cousins will. He can’t read the defense that well, doesn’t have the accuracy and doesn’t have the trust in his WRs like Kirk had.

And then has the audacity to not commit to Dobbs against Vegas? Then why did you trade for him? You knew what you were getting. Don’t blame this on Dobbs, blame this on yourself and adjust your offense. Are we really going to Nick Mullens because he’ll sit in the pocket? We already have a QB that doesn’t touch cousins accuracy. Now we want to put one in there that can’t improvise and is below average in the pocket? KOC needs to take accountability here and adjust.

Great post. I love KOC, but I totally agree. He's trying to shoehorn the Cousins playbook onto Dobbs' foot, and it's not fitting.

Here's the thing about Mullens. He's started 17 games in his NFL career. In those 17 games, he's thrown 23 interceptions. So is he really less turnover-prone than Josh Dobbs?

To my mind, it has to be either Dobbs or Hall the rest of the way. Mullens may know the playbook, but he has less talent than either of the other two and isn't very likely to succeed. That assumes making the playoffs is the goal, and we know that it is for Kwesi and KOC.

I started a new thread on this called "What now? A golf analogy." Would love your thoughts.

[VikingLord]

I am interested to hear if any of you can recall a more horrendous team performance than this one? I cant.......

It was over 20 years ago, but the worst one I remember is the 2021 NFC Championship game against the Giants where we lost 41-0. We had 114 total yards of offense and gave up 518, probably the worst game they ever played.

Also several of the games under Les Steckle were pretty bad as well.

I'm not sure which is worse - going out and just never competing from the get-go in a game like the one you mention, or managing to blow an almost sure win when the game seemed fully in hand like the team did in 1998 against the Falcons or that late give-me field goal miss they had against the Seahawks. The really bad performances are memorable, but somehow not as disappointing as the performances where the team basically blew what should have been a win. Come to think of it, the 2009 game in New Orleans was kind of like that as well. Favre drives the team into what should have been field goal range, they inexplicably take a too-many-men penalty that moves them just out of field goal range, and Favre proceeds to throw a pick that ends any chance of a win in regulation. That after that year's team inspired this year's team in how to turn the ball over and fail to execute in key situations to lose otherwise very winnable games.

The horrendous performances with this team just blend into each other after enough time passes. You get to the point where you're more surprised if they don't shoot themselves in the foot than if they do. I imagine if they ever do manage to win a Superbowl most of us older fans will probably die on the spot out of total shock, because it seems like this team is repelled by potential success like trying to bring the same pole of two magnets together. No matter how close they appear to get, they just will never connect like that.