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Vikings Discussion & Random Thoughts
Brad is slacking off again, so here is your Friday thread! Apathy is where I am with football today. I did enjoy seeing the Cowboys lose, and am rooting for the Bears or Lions to win the division this season. FTP! As for our Vikings? Meh. JJ could become a decent QB. Today is not that day. I will watch, and root for the team, but I expect to be playing video games or working while the game is background noise. They need to play better if they want me to watch and actually give a $%*#^ .
Winters seem longer when this team is crappy. I want to be on a beach instead of freezing.
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Laughing…
Love it
Another:
19 – 1 = 20
Make it work.
XIX – I = XX I think is the way this one works…
Another math:
2A x A = A
Solve for A
0
0.5
A(2 x 1) = A
So, 2A = A
The only answer can be 0.
0 and .5 are the correct answers.
If tomorrow all the things were gone
I worked for all my life
And I had to start again
With just my children and my wife
I thank my lucky stars
To be living here today
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom
And they can’t take that away
And I’m PROUD to be an American
Where at least I know I’m free
And I won’t forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
And I’d gladly stand up next to you
And defend Her still today
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt
I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.
Lee Greenwood, they played this at my Basic Training graduation.
Same, but at the Airmen’s club, not graduation. Lackland AFB, July 1986
KOC…
ya ok.
Weren’t they excited about Brosmer last week also?
Yes, yes they were. And now we are all excited not to see Brosmer play.
I’m not excited… does that make me a bad person?
Like I said in the mythical words, apathy is real.
At this point, it would be more beneficial for the Vikings to lose the rest of their games. Saying that, I will predict they go 3-2 in the last 5 games.
This one and the Giants game are the two we are most in danger of winning. For that reason, they will hold my interest more than the other three.
I would love to see JJ suddenly not suck, but still have special teams or prevent defense in the 4th cost us the game this week.
So JJ (QB) say that he has to stop focusing on doing things perfect and just go play football. I guess we will see how that works out.
https://thevikingage.com/jj-mccarthy-a-lot-changed-since-last-minnesota-vikings-start
I think JJ playing more freely, will make for some good football. If he plays all four quarters like he played the few finally drives where he looked loose and not overthinking, he will be fine.
I don’t know… he’s had a personal QB coach since the 7th grade. One would think 9 years of coaching would have resulted in better mechanics.
Maybe the mechanics issue started after his knee injury.
I don’t see anything different in how he threw the ball at Michigan to today.
Final injury report…
Left side of the OL is, and continues to be, an issue.
Dirty player – can’t say I feel bad tbh.
Karma can be a real bitch.
I was able to zoom in with a spotting scope at practice. Here’s what KOC means by “thinning down the playbook”
Laughing… perfect.
Don’t forget about “hold the ball for 5 seconds and take a sack”. It happens so often it must be a play call.
Hmmmm…
I guess the question now is, will he finish on Sunday?
I think you’re being humorous, but it’s a fair question.
I was wondering which QB, theirs or ours?
Laughing… another good question.
I saw where our RB sort of intoned in his presser that we might be “dumbing down” the offense for McCarthy. I don’t know how true or untrue that might be. I would have thought that we would have started McCarthy in an offense he could run efficiently, and built it up from there.
Heard KOC say something similar earlier this week…he didn’t say we were dumbing it down “for McCarthy” but he did say he wasn’t happy with the offensive execution and indicated he might slim down the playbook and try to have fewer plays but do a better job of executing them.
My old college coach was all about that, we maybe had 12 running plays and 8 passing plays but repped them over and over – we weren’t trying to out trick teams but tried to out-execute them.
I am not sure that works in todays NFL – I think you have to out-scheme your opponent to be successful.
Kind of an old interesting football take on it.
The GB Pckers became famous in Lombardi’s days for their much herakded packer sweep. It was reported they would run that ONE play for hours in practice against all types of defenses. They literally consumed an entrie practice running that one play. And no one could stop it in games.
Later in the hayday of Joe Gibbs and the Redksins (Hog time). They ran a play called 50 gut with Riggins carrying the ball. It was reported they would run that. one play 15 times in a row during a game until it was stopped.
Yep, that was the philosophy – our college coach used to say if we couldn’t run dive right and dive left then nothing in our offense was going to work anyway – so in a game we were going to keep running them till they worked.
Kind of like Woody Hayes. He had two thoughts.
If I can run my fullback off guard for three yards, will will win.
If I can’t convert third and one, we don’t deserve to win.
Many NFL OC’s run basically the same play from multiple formations, simply to get the defense into different alignments, and camouflage the play.
Late season ennui, we’re 5 weeks from the end of the season for the Vikings and the long offseason.
I don’t really start watching hockey unless the Oilers are in the postseason, after being spoiled the last two years I might be shut out by them, as well. There’s an old adage that if a team isn’t in playoff position by American Thanksgiving (about a third of the way through the season) the chances of making the playoffs are not good. That’s where the Oilers are now.
I heard the Minnesota hockey team is pretty good…perhaps you should switch??
they’d be better if they put their best goalie in more than their worst goalie
Maybe I will if the Oilers are not in the playoffs in late April…however, I need not remind you that the Wild have a long history of first round losses.
Minnesota teams in general excel at that.
@first I’ve heard of that@
I figured this out. Can you?
Why would this be for geniuses?
No idea… I figured it out, so that should wash that statement away somewhat immediately.
69…..
Correct
Guess I’m not a genius as I’d say 79.
For each increment on the left, tbe right goes up 11, so 79
I’m confused so now the answer would be 68?
I’ve done a bunch of modules in the Khan academy math – this is like one of those estimating limit values from tables yet there is not enough information to actually define the equation.
Agree.
79
So the solution is:
10 + 3 = 13
20 + 4 = 24
30 + 5 = 35
40 + 6 = 46
50 + 7 = 57
60 + 9 = 69
Not how I learned it. Public skools failed me I guess
I learned taking the sum of all three digits, and adding them to the last digit is the solution
111
(Right digit = 1. Add 1 + 1 + 1 = 3) concatenating strings vs doing math = 13
112
(Right digit = 2. Add 1 + 1 + 2 = 4) = 24
etc…
I recognize the pattern, and both solutions work
Wouldn’t it be 70+9=79?
60 comes after 50… not 70… the first factor changes by ten with each of the equations.
But it jumps from 115 to 117, skippy past 116.
You’re right!!! I missed that!
I knew I wasn’t a genius!
Jackson’s post about JJ got me thinking. What else about the team do we have to think about. Just me, so some of this is driven by curiosity when things don’t just add up, and also from some experience dealing with baseball pitchers and mechanics
JJ came from Michigan who had a great HC who was in fact an NFL QB and later a HC. Would ‘think’ he got very good coaching there.
Comes the draft. Would guess our coaches watched tons oof film evaluating various QB’s to include their flaws.
We draft JJ. He goes thru OTA’s last year, camp, and a preseason game. At that point, would think they have a very good read on him.
Hurts his leg, Rehab but stays with team and gets all the head stuff, and by the end of season was probably throwing ball around some.
This year comes, OTA’s, summer camp, preseason and a couple of games. Then hurt, sits out some, and returns with mixed results, Plays well against Detroit dnd not so good. against Packers. Then we’re told about mechanics issues, and processing problems.
I certainly can buy the processing issues, takes time. But the mechanics issues, they should have been. noted from watching Michigan and film. And as such, work on his mechanics should have begun right them.
I am tired of trying to read the tealeaves on JJ (QB). He will either get better at QBing or he won’t. I hope he will.
I also home KOC gets better at scheme and play calling to help the youngster out.
Jackson got me thinking (football). What else is there to think about with this team.
Speculate/guess about what happened in the past doesn’t do anything for me. It won’t fix much going forward in this case.
But put your energy wherever you would like. I will defer to joining in.
If you don’t know the ‘real’ problem (at least from my experience) it’s hard to fix it going forward.
Agreed.
But no-one here is ‘fixing’ anything. Nor are we getting ‘the inside story’ on what happened. Maybe in 5 years or so we will, maybe.
Currently I don’t see the point other than give you something to talk about. At the moment I am frustrated/irritated about the situation and dissecting how we got here is not something I wish to engage in.
Not telling you not to do it yourself, knock yourself out.
Jackson’s post made me realize we have been fed a pile of shit. So, it spun me up some but it will fade quickly.
Now, what else you want to talk about? Lots of interesting politics happening.
For me, the moment I knew we were being fed a bunch of baloney was the 2-4 week ankle sprain turning into a six week sprain, with the team dragging McFragile™ to the UK for two weeks right after he had a baby, the UK where he did absolutely nothing and learned absolutely _____________
I wouldn’t say McCarthy played well against the Lions. Completed 14 of 25 passes (56%) for 143 yards. Did have two TD passes, but also an interception. Really not “great” by NFL standards. Pretty ordinary.
That said, McCarthy is more play maker than QB. He makes a few really impressive plays a game, but they are ultimately overshadowed by a a large volume of poor plays.
You are (were a QB) so help me some with this. And this comes from baseball and say we have a pitcher with bad mechanics. And let’s say he also doesn’t handle stressful situations well, like placing the ball where he needs to.
Now, no coach will put him on the mound without fixing the mechanics first. This is a contributing factor to the second and needs to be fixed first.
Well, I can only remember being coached on my footwork and drop backs, as well as tucking my elbows in on my drop backs. No one ever tried to change my throwing motion. I learned how to drop back and throw a ball as a freshman in high school. Soooo… McCarthy has had a personal QB coach since he was in the 7th grade. It makes no sense to me that his mechanics were never addressed. He has a very strong arm though. He can throw it with more velocity than most other QB’s in the world. Maybe that was the focus. How far, and how hard he could throw it. Dunno. I could never throw a ball over 50 yards. I could throw 7 yard outs and ins with my eyes closed though. I wonder why McCarthy misses so many throws I know I could make at his age. I really do.
Well there are several spots on this team that need to improve.
The defensive secondary is still bad at times. They also struggle to stop the run if they miss a starter.
I do not think much of any of the top 4 free agent signings so far. Two O line and two D lineman have underperformed for what you are paying. Seen that often with this team. (Blaming Kwesi)
I think the poor O line play is a big reason for the 4 win season to date. QB play is probably reason #1, but I give them all some slack for how poorly the O line blocks.
Coaching has and is an issue as well. No idea why they are, this late in the season, trying to simplify things for JJ. Week 2 was the time to do that after the shitty offense week 1 vs the bears(Until 1 drive in the 4th quarter).
We will never know who is most “at fault” for the poor decisions, but in my head, it all starts with ownership(and I think they are mostly hands off), then the GM, then coaches. Throw in the scouting team that rated JJ above Nix, and you have plenty of people to throw dirt at.
I had Nix as my most pro ready QB in that draft. I saw second level decision making from him, that I didn’t see from any of the other QB’s. He saw things downfield and made good decisions.
McCarthy impressed me with his raw arm strength. He can whistle it. I didn’t see him really working defenses though. He kind of went with his first read, and threw the ball to that guy. He fit the ball into some tight spaces, which I think made some folks see NFL caliber passing ability.
Next summer, I am being forced by the laws of financial responsibility to purchase an investment/retirement property in Arizona….
I think the days of me freezing my ass off all winter will be coming to an end.
As I have experienced small portions of Minot/ND winters I can only approve this message.
As someone who retired and then relocated to a warm weather state, you can throw away the snow shovels and be prepared to wear out the grips on your golf clubs.
Tell us more!
Wasn’t really planning on buying a house in AZ at this time.
Son is getting married in May, starts law school in Phoenix in August
They have no money.
A decent 2 bedroom apartment would run them about 1700 a month.
I can buy a 400,000 house for 100,000 down have monthly payment of 1850.
It makes no sense not to do so.
They will live there for the next 3 years, pay me rent, then I can write off associated expenses.
I will likely end up gifting them some money at the end of each year to pay me rent during the next year – have to charge them market value to deduct.
Then I will either keep it as a rental property or use it for my retirement home…fun and games.
Good plan, at least it’s family that would be renting it. Having a place that far away with unknown renters could be bad.
Yes, true. If I want to keep renting it out if/when they move out, my son’s father-in-law lives in phoenix and rents out a house as well, he could help keep tabs on my rental property.
Ahhh. That helps.
You going to stay up in ‘ice country’ after you retire?
Maybe some of the year….I am not much of a fan of extreme heat…but honestly it will probably be somewhat dependent on where my son lives. I have but one child, I am sure we will want to be in the general area where he is at…I am thinking he is going to end up in Phoenix since that is where his wife is from…Don’t know I could stand the Phoenix summers.
Would have bet a fortune we would never end up. in Florida. But times change and how one feels. I used to hate humidity, but now find it really helps with arthritis. Usually some good in all things.
If humidity is good for arthritis I am probably heading to the wrong southern destination.
I was just going to comment that the old adage is dry heat for arthritis. Of course there are like at least 30 different kinds of arthritis.
All heat is good and cold sucks.
I was told dry heat is better, but I can confirm that being in Florida and Arizona both helped my arthritis.
Warm is better. Cold sucks.
I will say, the bones to not hurt as much today, and after the -12 of yesterday morning, today feels balmy.
Sounds like a great plan, good for you.
Many moons ago, my former bosses daughter was going off to college. A group of her friends parents asked him if he wanted to go in on a house in St Paul for the girls to live in during their college years, and then they would sell it when they all graduated. He turned them down and agreed to just pay them rent for his daughter to live with them.
After they all graduated they sold the house for something like a $40,000 profit. He was so mad he did not get involved in the purchase. All of the other girls basically lived for free for 4 years, while he paid rent.
yeah….I can’t see just throwing all that rent money away if we don’t have to – in the end this may very well end up to be nearly “free” living, I don’t really see a downside.
Your former boss maybe not so bright?
If you are holding real estate long term almost always a winning bet, although factor in taxes and inflation. Honestly, I wouldn’t jump to invest with a bunch of other parents in a house for a four year term, there are a lot of variables there like interest rates, up or down market, damage to the home, etc…plus the cost of an attorney drawing up a contract to ensure everyone is equitable with the purchase, utilities, etc.
These were all of the reasons he did not get involved. I believe there were a couple of girls that no one expected them to finish college and they would have moved out early.
True enough…not quite as straightforward as my situation.
I’m not a big fan of beaches, but I hate being cold. As I’m typing this, my fingers are cold. Yuck.
70 degrees and sunny here in Tampa today…
I’m not a beach person either VP. It sucks when it gets this cold in early December though, really drags out the winter.
That it does.
@This will end well@
Zohran Mamdani to stop all homeless encampment sweeps as NYC mayor, ending key Adams initiative
So what if Mamdani’s plan is to actually drive all the wealthy folks out of New York, and the Christian population, and replace the masses with Islamic fundamentalists, transforming the city to the Islamic Capitol of the country?
That very well indeed could be his plan.
So a larger scale Detroit.
Yep
Destroy the center of capitalism in the U.S. and replace it with the capitol of Islam in the U.S.
This will be a good test for JJM. If he can’t log yards on the Commanders, then he should maybe going into logging yards with a tree-trimmer business instead of keeping this whole pro football gig going.
I expect McCarthy to have a good game, and the Vikings to win Sunday. There is plenty of tape on that Redskins defense and what works against it. Holes galore.
That’s exactly why you should expect the Vikings to do poorly – they historically fail against teams they should dominate.
Same can be said about Dallas defense also. Got them next week, SNF.
Apathy is indeed here. Usually love football season and watching all the games and teams play.
Last night Cowboys/Lions would normally be a neat game to watch. Didn’t watch a minute and didn’t care.
Sucking just don’t get it and seems to sour the whole affair.
I had the game on, but went to sleep before halftime. Football interest is definitely dwindling. Glad the Cowboys lost of course, but at the expense of a Lions victory. Getting too late in the season to really believe the Vikings have anything to play for though. Just gonna suffer through more games watching McCarthy “develop”. Sorry, that doesn’t thrill me at all.
Jackson wrote a thoughtful post earlier this morning on yesterday’s thread regarding the situation with JJ.
After reading it, and I have no reason to not believe the information presented, then the QB coach should be fired and a serious look at the HC be given.
Gonna go read that. I logged into this thread this morning and didn’t go back and look at yesterdays.
Agree, don’t really care about the games much anymore. If I weren’t in a Fantasy Football league I probably wouldn’t be watching any of them.
My Fantasy team is so terrible that I have no reason to watch any football.
Watching games on tv is just a habit at this point.
I had the game on last night, but I was reading a book the whole time. I was flashing back to the 90s as I was reading Peter Benchley’s Beast.
From the discussion
belowyesterday; what if KOC’s plan was to fix JJs mechanics last year while Sam was the starter? The injury set that back, and neither of the possible starting QBs on the roster wanted to stay, knowing there was a good chance JJ was going to replace them as the starter at some point this year.Now this year had started and JJ didn’t get to start practicing until OTAs. Was still rehabbing his knee and trying to play QB at the pro level. Yes, he was able to absorb the play book all last season, but he still got zero reps, even in a practice situation, to put that knowledge to use. I myself struggle to understand concepts unless I am able to put them to practice. So, now he starts the season applying the knowledge he absorbed last year into practice, while the coaches are trying to change his mechanics. That is a lot to learn all at once.
If KOC is being honest about JJ just playing the rest of the season and waiting until the offseason to work on mechanics, we could see some really fun games coming up.
Reply fail, should have been a reply to a lower comment, but either way, I reposted it.
Whatever the plan was, it hasn’t worked out well for the team this year. I will say the whole O-line we were so positive about in the off-season has been a disastrous mess due to injuries. Certainly we expected a much stronger line, and really a strong running game. Then McCarthy could just throw the ball a few times a game and make some plays.
Right now I’m thinking we are in a big hole with too many big contracts that will have to be adjusted next year, and/or players released. Fielding a strong, competitive team next year could be difficult.
Good morning, SKOL!
FTP!
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SKOL!
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