Post-game vs Falcons

Where is KOCs expectations for his offense coming from?

It's only week 2 and he sat starters in preseason. They're missing starters.....

he did the same thing versus bears, he went for 2 points conversions when he could've taken the points.

it bugs me when KOC goes full Dan Campbell brain,

Vikings defense didn't rally to the ball and Robinson, especially. He torched them.

StickierBuns wrote:
Bijan ate up the D, start there and add a total of allowing 218 yards rushing by Atlanta and that's the game...not sure how anyone thinks the D played well. 6 sacks allowed and so many pressures of McCarthy who can keep count? JJ is still learning, still needs reps and he's making some mistakes but injuries on the team and around him are mounting and obviously impactful the way the D played. Starting center is out and that hurts. Just a giant shit sandwich all the way around. Skule is killing offensive momentum. The offensive line is still trying to gel, need Darrisaw back big time.

D kept us in the game mostly. You can't overcome constant three and outs by the offense and significantly losing the time of possession battle. Even then they mostly held them to field goals while our offense never got on track all night long

StickierBuns wrote:

JJ didn't help the cause, zero doubt about it. But rushing for 218 yards also tends to jack up your time of possession numbers, which Atlanta did. Penix also had time to throw, JJ was sacked 6 times....could have been more. Ryan Kelly went out early, that exacerbated things for a young QB. Skule is brutal. Plenty of blame to go around.

Atlanta is one of the better running teams in the league, so what they were going to try and do wasn't a surprise. Was more of a case of could we hold up defensively long term being an undersized, speed unit....and we couldn't. 

To me, KOC's game planning was weird and I've seen this from him in the past, but when the offensive line isn't holding up, why do we not try to establish the run? Neither of our backs reached double digit carries and in a game that was mostly within one score all night long, I just don't understand it or what he is trying to do to get the offense in any kind of rythem. We got back into the game last week in Chicago when we ran the football.

Now that we're two weeks into the season, things are looking a little clearer...

We haven't started off with a lead in either game, but our pass rush has shown up in critical times. Imagine if we can be up 7 or 10+ points and let those guys tee off on a team trying to play catch up?

We're missing Darrisaw big time. Too much quick pressure on JJ McCarthy where he doesn't even have a chance to do anything. Losing Ryan Kelly early last night didn't help the protection either.

JJ McCarthy had a tough night. The fumbled play fake on first and goal was a killer. Can't do that when your offense is struggling. He missed Nailor on a TD when he overthrew him by a couple yards. He missed low a couple times as well on some out breaking routes. Some things I liked... he never gives up and makes some highlight worthy plays. The throw to Jefferson before half time was huge. 20 seconds left deep in our own territory and once pass and we can get a FG chance on one play. HUGE.

With all the money and draft capital invested in the OL this off-season, I would have thought we'd be better at run blocking. Short yardage is better than it has been, but still not elite.

I think KOC had a rough game play calling. He likes the long developing pass plays, but our protection the last two weeks and the coverages the other team's are running are taking those away and forcing underneath throws. I'd like to see more of a commitment to the run and throwing some play action underneath to suck up those safeties and then burn up deep. Also surprised we haven't used more of the middle of the field. JJ McCarthy thrived there at Michigan, but a lot of his throws seem to be outside the numbers.

Jefferson and McCarthy are still building chemistry after he sat out basically all of training camp. Hopefully they get on the same page soon. Addison being out isn't helping either, him and JJ had great chemistry all training camp so that is leading to some struggles on offense.

I still believe we have the pieces to be a playoff team, but it is going to take some time for things to gel. If we're still seeing the same issues by Week 9 we can go into panic mode. I'm not there yet at all.

StickierBuns wrote:
Bijan ate up the D, start there and add a total of allowing 218 yards rushing by Atlanta and that's the game...not sure how anyone thinks the D played well. 6 sacks allowed and so many pressures of McCarthy who can keep count? JJ is still learning, still needs reps and he's making some mistakes but injuries on the team and around him are mounting and obviously impactful the way the D played. Starting center is out and that hurts. Just a giant shit sandwich all the way around. Skule is killing offensive momentum. The offensive line is still trying to gel, need Darrisaw back big time.

Dropping Harrison Phillips didn't help the run D.  JJM against a really high pressure rate while he holds holds holds the ball... doesn't work.  KOC still doesn't call a great game, probably never will after 3+ years trying.  Front office can't draft so it buys aged talent which, no surprise, starts sitting with injuries galore.

I'm not gonna judge JJM too harshly cuz he's green as a shoot at this NFL game, but overall this season could go off the rails fast the way it looks now.   Fortunately they get the Bengals without Joe Burrow next week, just the immortal Viking-killer Jake Browning,.

comet52 wrote:
Dropping Harrison Phillips didn't help the run D.  JJM against a really high pressure rate while he holds holds holds the ball... doesn't work.  KOC still doesn't call a great game, probably never will after 3+ years trying.  Front office can't draft so it buys aged talent which, no surprise, starts sitting with injuries galore.

Good points

I agree with Comet and Wet, KOC playcalling doesnt compute with what he's got in a green QB AND no CD.

I wish I could say (by game 2) I was surprised reading fans complaining about sticking with the run....

I think that game just looked like one of those games where you go in with the wrong gameplan and you can’t fix it midgame. I thought the defense was pretty good. Run defense was obviously a concern, but I think if the offense is average-ish, you look at us winning and we’re saying that the Falcons were one-dimensional and Penix couldn’t get them out of the hole. I think we were clearly gashed by a premier back. There’s only a handful of backs in the league that would have abused us in that situation. Given that we’re kind of running a pass-rush focused group, that all have weaknesses in run-defense, I would expect more teams to try and run the ball to keep Flores’s blitzes at bay, but I don’t think many teams will be able to replicate that level of production on the ground.

Offense was a bigger concern. I think there was just too many problems all at once and you couldn’t really fix it, especially with an inexperienced QB still in that area where he’s seeing everything for the first time, who had one less day of prep due to MNF, and also had a baby midweek and missed time there. The biggest concern I have is that KOC keeps having these games, where the OLine can’t hold up long enough to execute his deep passing game, and there’s just never really any answers schematically. This team should have much better answers for this problem besides getting better OLine players. There should always be some part of the playbook that focuses on getting the ball out quickly, and I just don’t think it exists, but I think this team looks massively different when Darrisaw gets back (assuming he looks normalish), because you don’t have a leftside that looks like Liability-Rookie. Swapping from a backup caliber LT to a stud LT will go a long way, but I think we have to ask “if Darrisaw isn’t ready to go yet, what does that mean for his season and how productive will he actually be”.

I think people are shitting on JJM a little too much right now, when it feels to me like the OLine is so bad. We’ll probably struggle on offense for a while against teams that have imposing DLines. Like you really need a more veteran QB to compensate for bad OLine play, so getting the OLine back to competency will go a long ways and is probably the key factor in our success this season.

Skor North:
The Vikings are the only NFL team in the Super Bowl era to have a game where they:
had under 200 yards of offense , failed to score a TD,
took 6+ sacks, fumbled 4+ times , committed 4+ turnovers, had 8+ penalties
allowed an individual 100-yard rusher

Pretty much sums the game up.

Play calling has got to get better. I know that is what all fans say after a loss but it is actually true in this case.)) Too many long developing plays when you have a rookie QB and O line that is getting SKuled. We heard again all summer about the running game. Time to commit to it for once. Again as I have said the last two years,, will believe KOC leans on the run when I see it. Get your young QB in some rhythm without getting him killed.
Injuries.........
Dallas Turner is disappointing, that's all I am gonna say.
LBs without Cashman is a problem.
Mason needs to be RB1.
Hock looks pedestrian.
Not having Harrison Philips hurt last night. was concerned about the Lack of D line run stoppers this summer.
Lots of work to do.
Onward and upward...

supafreak84 wrote:

D kept us in the game mostly. You can't overcome constant three and outs by the offense and significantly losing the time of possession battle. Even then they mostly held them to field goals while our offense never got on track all night long

Agreed.  The D got gashed in the first drive, but they clamped down, held them to FGs and really kept us in the game.

greediron wrote:

Agreed.  The D got gashed in the first drive, but they clamped down, held them to FGs and really kept us in the game.

+2

We can nitpick Pace and a few others. But the D was fine, it was a 6 pt game going into 4th qtr. 

In fact, I thought we might steal another one!

StickierBuns wrote:
When McCarthy was pressured almost 60% of the time he dropped back, expecting good outcomes are silly. The QB is always the lightning rod for good and bad. This is my first real time I was irritated with KOC play calling. The game was still so close, all he needed were some tweaks in a more conservative way and it might have saved the day. Max protect JJM on any planned deeper passes, etc. get the ball out of his hands faster on swings. I guarantee you that dude is sore this morning.

It has been the ongoing complaint of KOC, lack of running game and long developing routes.  JJ missed some throws, fumbled two snaps, but the pressure will definitely get to a guy.