49ers Post Game

[CharVike]

It’s very much an oil and water situation,which is why I think extending Cousins would be a mistake. This offense as long as Zimmer is here is always going to be run first and conservative. Cousins simply takes up too much resources to shore up the line and isn’t elite enough to make it work with the line we have. They gave it a shot and they can try one more time next year but really I think it’s better to cut losses at this point. Either make it work next year or pivot to a new direction.

What do you mean by make it work. If it's Super Bowl then only two teams made it work. We made the playoffs and knocked off a division winner on the road. That's a good season. IMO our D needs the most help. They did a great job against Brees. Wilson got beat in the playoffs as well. He won't take that current team to the Super Bowl. They need a better D. They beat Philly but is that a great thing. Our ground game didn't do much as the season wore on. We had 20 yards rushing against the 48ers. That was a beat down to the max. Somethings wrong there to. Is it OL or RB. They need to cut the stiffs that take up a ton of CAP. The draft won't provide immediate help either. What OL players will be there in FA. That.s the biggest question.

This 49er team got hot at the right time. They destroyed us and the Pack. Mahomes could be considered the best right now. I won't argue that. They are scoring at will. Teams can't hold up. This 49er team is a different animal right now. Mahomes will by time with his movement. But he will get hit. A qb can only get away with that for a period of time. Sooner or later as he already found out this season he will get dinged.

[RandyMoss84]

Really? I guess you got lucky, the fans there have been classless and one of them pour beer on me

Wow, sorry to hear that. I’ve literally walked around the entire parking lot hitting multiple random tailgates with no issues. Although the viking presence was strong this year.

I am glad you had a good experience with no issues, I wish I could say the same, I am never going back to Kansas City

[J. Kapp 11]

What do you mean by make it work. If it's Super Bowl then only two teams made it work. We made the playoffs and knocked off a division winner on the road. That's a good season. IMO our D needs the most help. They did a great job against Brees. Wilson got beat in the playoffs as well. He won't take that current team to the Super Bowl. They need a better D. They beat Philly but is that a great thing. Our ground game didn't do much as the season wore on. We had 20 yards rushing against the 48ers. That was a beat down to the max. Somethings wrong there to. Is it OL or RB. They need to cut the stiffs that take up a ton of CAP. The draft won't provide immediate help either. What OL players will be there in FA. That.s the biggest question.

This 49er team got hot at the right time. They destroyed us and the Pack. Mahomes could be considered the best right now. I won't argue that. They are scoring at will. Teams can't hold up. This 49er team is a different animal right now. Mahomes will by time with his movement. But he will get hit. A qb can only get away with that for a period of time. Sooner or later as he already found out this season he will get dinged.

If you're referring to Mahomes' knee injury ... that happened on a quarterback sneak, not when he was running around.

[StumpHunter]

This 49er team got hot at the right time. They destroyed us and the Pack. Mahomes could be considered the best right now. I won't argue that. They are scoring at will. Teams can't hold up. This 49er team is a different animal right now. Mahomes will by time with his movement. But he will get hit. A qb can only get away with that for a period of time. Sooner or later as he already found out this season he will get dinged.

If you're referring to Mahomes' knee injury ... that happened on a quarterback sneak, not when he was running around.

Not to mention Jimmy G, and pocket passer has been hurt a lot more and missed more time than Mahomes.

[Fat Stupid Loser]

You beat me to it. Man, the Niners are OBLITERATING the Pukers. At least we put up 10.

Packers just scored more points than Vikings

Garbage time, game was way over.

[VikeFanInEagleLand]

Our division was a joke this year too. The Packers were HUGE posers.

Dude what? They just went to the NFC championship. I thought the same initially but they were clearly good enough to get there. Keenum's year they had Brett Hundley most of the year and went 7-9. 4 of those 7 wins coming from Rodgers. The Bears were horrendous at 5-11. And the fricken Lions finished 2nd at 9-7. That is in no way shape or form comparable to this year.

We were the only competitive team in the division that year. This year the Vikings, Packers and Bears were all competitive.

Keenums games in the division were a much easier walk in the park compared to what Cousins had to deal with this year and it's not even close.

So the fact that they went to the NFC Championship means that they were good? But Keenum was LUCKY when they went there? That's what I mean with you. You hate Keenum so much, you become illogical.

If you want to believe that the Bears and Lions were actually good this year, go for it. The Packers feasted on a incredibly cake schedule to get a bye (because an embarrassing Vikings team allowed them to win the division) and then got to play an injury riddled Seahawks in the playoffs. Along that course, they won several games that they had no right winning. This Packers team really wasn't that good.

I used to be a big time sports better. Haven't placed a bet in years (at least a sizable one), but this weeks GB vs. SF game was too much for me to turn down. I wanted to bet more, but the place I used only allowed me to deposit $1000. And I will say that it was probably the best I've seen GB look all year and they STILL couldn't cover the spread.

And as a side note, you still haven't understood the difference between escaping from the pocket, and escaping from pressure. We know that Brady and others don't escape from the pocket, but they DO escape pressure. Cousins escapes neither. And NO, obviously you don't step up when you get pressure up the middle. Duh! That's when you side step a little. And when you don't get pressure up the middle, that's when you step up because there might be pressure behind you that you can't sense.

Look, no one is changing your mind. You see a much better QB in Cousins than I see and a much worse QB in Keenum. Let's just leave it at that.

[TSonn]

Packers just scored more points than Vikings

Garbage time, game was way over.

Niners went into prevent D the entire second half. Jimmy G only threw 8 passes the entire game. It's dumb to argue because we both got smoked, but at least Jimmy G had pass 6 times in the 2nd half against us.

[StumpHunter]

Packers just scored more points than Vikings

Garbage time, game was way over.

Yes and no. If the Packers D makes a stop in the 4th, those points would have mattered.

[VikingPaul73]

Exactly and that’s the problem. Cousins isn’t good enough for his contact so they cannot build the dominant OL and running game that’s required to compensate for cousins’ limitations . They need to pay up for OL DL and everywhere else, and draft a QB early every 3 years . Hopefully you can find a qb on rookie contract that can play well and win a SB.

Two ways to win in this salary cap era of the nfl:

1. Find an elite QB and pay him. Hopefully he can take you to the promised land
2. Find a good or even average qb on rookie contract - dominant D and good O and young qb is good enough to win big

How not to win

1. Pay an average QB like an elite QB, and live in salary cap hell because you can’t afford your great players with that QB contract

Just curious but what “great players” can we not afford on this team?

Fair point - I guess the players on this team I would consider 'great' are on multiple year contracts. But there are several good players that might go. We will see how much magic Rob B can work, but Mack, Trae, Harris are all FA, who will they not be able to keep because they're paying a decent QB $28M? Will Griffen take a pay cut or will he walk? What about Reiff? What other FA OL are out there that we could pursue if we had more cap flexibility?

[VikingPaul73]

If you’re eating up $30M+ a year you’re not going to have a spectacular everything else. YOU need to be spectacular and Cousins is not that on a consistent basis. Look at the Titans, similar run first old school offense. You only need a guy like Tannehill for that type of offense, put the rest of your resources everywhere else.

It’s opportunity cost. It’s not about Kirk vs whoever else. It’s is he worth that contract in this offense. And I don’t think he is. You can find a QB that can run play action for much cheaper. His contract should be given to a guy that can extend plays, make clutch plays, and carry a team when needed. It’s not worth giving it to a statue pocket passer that’s inconsistent in clutch games. Let him play out the last year of that boat anchor contract then decide. The biggest mistake they can do is extend him or Zimmer right now.

The Vikings need to pick an identity and stick with it. If this is a run first, strong defense strategy then you simply don’t pay a QB that type of money unless he’s a guy like Wilson who can make do with a shoddy o-line.

Another great post, well stated. It's not about Cousins vs. (insert name here). It's about Cousins vs. Contract.

Last paragraph is absolutely correct. Too many system changes on Offense, and not identifying the correct pieces for the chosen system . I guess when you change systems so frequently, it's hard to get the personnel sorted out, but Zimmer seems uncertain about what he wants. This was most obvious in 2018:
1. Hire the latest trendy new pass happy OC
2. Sign a shiny new QB to run the offense
3. after a few weeks, publicly call out your new OC for not Pounding the rock.

[fiestavike]

If you’re eating up $30M+ a year you’re not going to have a spectacular everything else. YOU need to be spectacular and Cousins is not that on a consistent basis. Look at the Titans, similar run first old school offense. You only need a guy like Tannehill for that type of offense, put the rest of your resources everywhere else.

It’s opportunity cost. It’s not about Kirk vs whoever else. It’s is he worth that contract in this offense. And I don’t think he is. You can find a QB that can run play action for much cheaper. His contract should be given to a guy that can extend plays, make clutch plays, and carry a team when needed. It’s not worth giving it to a statue pocket passer that’s inconsistent in clutch games. Let him play out the last year of that boat anchor contract then decide. The biggest mistake they can do is extend him or Zimmer right now.

The Vikings need to pick an identity and stick with it. If this is a run first, strong defense strategy then you simply don’t pay a QB that type of money unless he’s a guy like Wilson who can make do with a shoddy o-line.

Good take. In the sense of constructing a championship football team, Cousins is sort of a tweener. Too expensive to be able to provide a great supporting cast, too dependent on a great supporting cast to be worth the money.

[fiestavike]

If you’re eating up $30M+ a year you’re not going to have a spectacular everything else. YOU need to be spectacular and Cousins is not that on a consistent basis. Look at the Titans, similar run first old school offense. You only need a guy like Tannehill for that type of offense, put the rest of your resources everywhere else.

It’s opportunity cost. It’s not about Kirk vs whoever else. It’s is he worth that contract in this offense. And I don’t think he is. You can find a QB that can run play action for much cheaper. His contract should be given to a guy that can extend plays, make clutch plays, and carry a team when needed. It’s not worth giving it to a statue pocket passer that’s inconsistent in clutch games. Let him play out the last year of that boat anchor contract then decide. The biggest mistake they can do is extend him or Zimmer right now.

The Vikings need to pick an identity and stick with it. If this is a run first, strong defense strategy then you simply don’t pay a QB that type of money unless he’s a guy like Wilson who can make do with a shoddy o-line.

Another great post, well stated. It's not about Cousins vs. (insert name here). It's about Cousins vs. Contract.

Last paragraph is absolutely correct. Too many system changes on Offense, and not identifying the correct pieces for the chosen system . I guess when you change systems so frequently, it's hard to get the personnel sorted out, but Zimmer seems uncertain about what he wants. This was most obvious in 2018:
1. Hire the latest trendy new pass happy OC
2. Sign a shiny new QB to run the offense
3. after a few weeks, publicly call out your new OC for not Pounding the rock.

Its not mere correlation that when Zimmer's defenses perform best he also has an offense that can run the ball and convert 3rd downs. I think so long as he is our coordinator a complementary offense is going to be the identity of the vikings more than a high flying circus show offense. Given that, spending top 10 money on a QB is probably pretty foolish unless he is the kind of guy who has the ability to make 3rd down conversions on his own, with adaptability and athleticism. Clearly, that is not Kirk Cousins.

[Fat Stupid Loser]

Garbage time, game was way over.

Yes and no. If the Packers D makes a stop in the 4th, those points would have mattered.

Well, I guess, but SF was coasting. That's the chance you take when you're up big and start coasting. Mess around too much and let good teams back in games. Even though, in this case anyway, they were never really back in the game.

[CharVike]

This 49er team got hot at the right time. They destroyed us and the Pack. Mahomes could be considered the best right now. I won't argue that. They are scoring at will. Teams can't hold up. This 49er team is a different animal right now. Mahomes will by time with his movement. But he will get hit. A qb can only get away with that for a period of time. Sooner or later as he already found out this season he will get dinged.

If you're referring to Mahomes' knee injury ... that happened on a quarterback sneak, not when he was running around.

Yes and you are correct it was a sneak. Just my thought when these guys take off eventually they will get that hit. Mahomes seems crafty and he made that team look stupid last week when he took off. Nobody was there. This 49er team flies to the ball. They will get after him. They are also a well coached group. I could be wrong but I don't see a wide open field for him. They know he will take off. As I said they will get after him and try to collapse the pocket. They did it to Rodgers. I seen Mahomes on some plays stand there forever. Even the announces commented on it. Mahomes himself seemed shocked and was side stepping and moving from nothing. I don't expect that to happen again. It almost looked like the other team was a step or two slower. Or wore out might be better. That was the 3rd road game in a row against tough opponents. Mahomes took it to them.That 49er team isn't tired. They seem ready for action.

[Pondering Her Percy]

Yeah I'd love for Cousins to move up, right into the DL that Elflein and Bradbury whiff on play after play. Look at Brady this year, his OL struggled and so did he in the pocket. If you can find ways to pressure Brady he crumbles. Look at the losses they had and how much he was taking heat. Look at Brees vs. the Vikings. When you can get pressure on a pure pocket passing QB, they struggle. Hence why these teams build good OLs around them.

The Vikings OL was ranked 27th in pass blocking by PFF. Let me know how Brady and Brees do with the 27th ranked pass blocking OL. We'll see how much they'll be "stepping up or moving to the side".



Bottom line is, we have a pass blocking OL that someone like Russell Wilson could survive behind, because his is even worse but not someone like Cousins, Brees, Brady, any pure pocket passer.

So we need to either find a way to better this OL by a good margin or draft a mobile QB. But the current combination we have doesnt cut it. We have a bad pass blocking OL paired with a pure pocket passer. It's like mixing oil and water. This is why I said all year the main reason they had Cousins rolling out. Because we didnt have the damn OL to hold up when he's taking 7 step drops from under center. I called it out often in the first Chicago game.

It’s very much an oil and water situation,which is why I think extending Cousins would be a mistake. This offense as long as Zimmer is here is always going to be run first and conservative. Cousins simply takes up too much resources to shore up the line and isn’t elite enough to make it work with the line we have. They gave it a shot and they can try one more time next year but really I think it’s better to cut losses at this point. Either make it work next year or pivot to a new direction.

Agree with most of this the only thing is really disagree with is that cousins takes up too many resources to shore up the line. They have had enough money the last few years to spend where they want. Cousins isn’t saying “hey go sign defensive guys and give me nothing for an OL”. If anything, it’s on Zim and spielman for not putting more effort into the OL. I thought signing Kline was a good stop gap at guard. I thought he played decent this year and IMO was our second best lineman behind O’Neill. But from the center over to Reiff the pass blocking is horrid.

Given the FA class last year, if you want to say cousins contract was holding us back then I guess you could say “instead of signing a guy like Rodger Saffold we signed Kline”. Sure it sounded better but how much better was Saffold? He gave up 6 sacks to kline’s 2. Grantee Kline missed a few games but IMO Kline is a better pass blocker. And the differences in contract are huge. Kline averages 5.1 million per year and saffold averages 11 million per year. Is there really a $6 million difference in their play? No not even close. I’m personally glad spielman doesn’t overpay OL in free agency because they rarely pay off. Saffold doesn’t make this line much better this year (maybe in terms of run blocking) but makes it worse on cousins as a pass blocker.

And that’s the thing, everyone wants that splashy OL signing in free agency. Look at the guys that landed huge contracts this year in free agency! Guys like Billy Turner, Bobby Hart, etc. Legitimate duds. I’ll be all for a splashy signing like Steve Hutchinson who’s a hall of fame caliber guard. Rodger saffold is far from a hall of fame caliber guard.

We need to draft them and draft them well. That’s where we’ve been inconsistent. More so they end up looking pretty promising and play well early on and fall on their face (Kalil, Elflein, etc). O’Neill was an excellent find. Kirk cousins contract isn’t preventing us from drafting an offensive lineman.

So to say his contract takes up resources to build an OL, I don’t agree with. It’s about spielman and Zim putting their mind to it and finding what they need and doing everything in their power to get that. I’m willing to be patient with Bradbury because he’s only a rookie and is an excellent run blocker. But I’m so far done with Reiff and Elflein it’s not even funny. I don’t mind keeping Elflein as a backup guard or center 100%. But reiff I cant stand. And he’s another perfect example of an overpaid free agent offensive lineman. Is he worth what he got? Not at all but that’s the market. Matt Kalil got $55 million for god sakes and we haven’t seen a worse lineman than him in a long time outside of TJ clemmings.

So in the end, I don’t mind the Kline signings of the world if you have a hole at every spot other than RT. He fit the system well, was cheap, and played well enough. He didn’t hurt us I can say that. Bradbury, Elflein and reiffs pass blocking hurt us. I’m shocked cousins didn’t have a ton of fumbles this year because that’s his entire blindside. The rollouts saved us their and it was smart.

But you’ll see in my mock offseason I think I have a good solution at LT by cutting Reiff (which I initially wasn’t going to do) but seeing what was out there changed my mind