So am I the only one that is wondering if Will came back to soon and is maybe keeping something from the training staff?  its not just the missed FGs,  its the Fd up kick offs as well that have me questioning him.

Did he see Parker Romo kicking ass and get nervous for his spot and decided to try and play through it so as not to get wally pipped?

He doesnt have that stone cold look that he had early in the season,  I am back to having no confidence in our place kicker.

Glazer isn’t saying O’Connell will be traded. He’s saying the idea is on other teams’ radar.

Why would other teams think they might have a shot at acquiring O’Connell, who is beloved in Minnesota and seems to love coaching the Vikings? Because other teams think three things as O’Connell enters the final year of his contract in 2025:

• That O’Connell deserves outsized credit for the team’s success, not just for his work with Darnold, but also for his hiring of defensive coordinator Brian Flores and his overall success in the absence of strong drafting;

• That O’Connell is in a great position to seek additional power under terms of any new deal;

• That Vikings ownership might not grant O’Connell that kind of power and/or the type of money O’Connell might command elsewhere.

Teams therefore sense the potential for opportunity.

There is another part of the equation that must be discussed.

How executives from other teams view Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah informs how they see O’Connell’s situation in Minnesota. Many longtime NFL evaluators scoffed privately when the Vikings hired Adofo-Mensah, a former Wall Street commodities trader who played basketball at Princeton and did not have a traditional scouting background, as their GM. Adofo-Mensah then took the lead in the search that resulted in O’Connell’s hiring.



Those executives now see the Vikings’ struggles in the draft as justifying their skepticism. If they were in O’Connell’s position, they would use their leverage to forge a direct link with ownership.

“Which business guy do you want making your evaluation: the GM or the owner?” a veteran coach asked.

How coaches and executives from other teams view things is interesting and can be instructive, but it isn’t what matters. O’Connell will decide what’s important to him. How things shake out will reveal to what extent his view aligns with the views held by other football people in the league.

Had the sound down and didn't hear the explanation on that should have been safety our D got early.

Goff was in the grasp, dumped the ball to avoid the sack and hit his lineman.  I know the RB was "in the area" but that looked like it should have been a safety for sure.

It feels a bit like a SB loss this morning..

I have a feeling these guys are going to be prepared for the Rams on MNF. 

Maybe the loss is a kick start to some wins in the post-season?  9 wins in a row was a hella run

Detroit blitzed Darnold on nearly 56% of his dropbacks and generating pressure 49% of the time. 

NFL Next Gen Stats show that as the third-highest pressure rate Darnold has faced all season..

According to the NFL, nobody sent more zero blitzes in a game than the 14 Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn called in the 272nd and final game of the regular season.

“They brought a lot,” Bradbury said. “They brought everything. I think they brought ‘Saw’ — double [blitzers] off each edge — three times in the first two drives, a lot of twists, a lot of different pressures, safeties, bringing all-out [pressure]. The frustrating thing is I didn’t feel like they got home on a lot of those. Obviously, they affected the plays. But there’s just — we didn’t play good enough offensively.”

Unlike the Oct. 20 loss to the Lions, Vikings blockers were protecting against a little bit of everything.

“It was just the variety of looks we saw,” O’Neill said. “Where the first game, they did one or two or three things over and over again. This week we kind of saw the whole Rolodex of things, so that might’ve had something to do with it.”

Lions coach Dan Campbell said his defense’s focus was to not allow Darnold time in the pocket to “pick us apart.”

“Darnold has really played better and better every week,” Campbell said. “It feels like he’s just continued to make this gradual climb and continued to improve. And what you really see is, man, when he gets the play-action pass and they nudge the edges, or they’ll max protect on some of this stuff, two-receiver routes, three-receiver routes, and he can see it and has time, he’s deadly. And we could not allow that to happen. We didn’t feel like there was any way we could let him sit back there, because we did think he would pick us apart.”

“We tried to bring more than they could handle,” he added.

The outcome could’ve been different, coach Kevin O’Connell said, had the Vikings capitalized on three red-zone trips in the second quarter that amounted to two field goals and a turnover on downs.

Alright I'm not here to b and moan too much, so I apologize.

But sadly I am here looking for answers-- Can someone explain to me why TJ Hockenson is 'just a guy'?

I thought he was going to come back midseason and light it up. Hasn't happened at all and it's been Addison who's picked up the slack (up until last night).

Hock gets ignored, then Sam remembers he exists and he'll do some good things for us. Then it's back to nowheresville. He's open and it's a bad throw. It's a good throw and he drops it / can't make the contested catch.

Is it the playcalling? Is he still hurt? Does Sam secretly hate his guts? Was I expecting too much and he's just not that Alpha TE guy?

I know we have other weapons. I know he has to block too. I'm not saying he stinks. He's just... fine.

In games like last night when we desperately need some quick passes or easy completions to move the chains, seems like the Top 10 Pick TE would be someone to lean on.

Our oft-embattled QB finds himself in familiar territory, again:

"can he live up to his potential, or is he the bust he's seen to be?".

Right now, that answer eludes me. He looked  very deer-in-headlights under center, and his early misses seemed to fry his confidence later. Granted, Detroit's defense was MILES beyond what I expected, and kept JJ/Addison/Hock bottled up better than anyone I've seen all season. Campbell and his crew utterly out-coached and out-played us last night.

So, maybe Monday is at least as big for KOC as it is for Sam: neither has proven that they can win a postseason game in their current positions, and both are looking for big paydays/contracts after this season.

They'd better get to work.

https://twitter.com/RGIII/status/1876128534424650202

Between the magnificent hair and the youthful appearance, the national sports media is all over it. 

Adam Schefter
@AdamSchefter
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5m
Jacksonville Jaguars fired Doug Pederson as their head coach, per source.

Pederson’s tenure in Jacksonville ends after three season and a 22-29 record, including 18 losses in the last 23 games.