[ad_1]
The Minnesota Vikings lost to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday when their kicker, Greg Joseph, netted a 37-yard wide field goal from neutral. That left the final score at 34-33, Cardinals, and it left those who care about the Vikings in a state of extreme exasperation. For a sample of that desperation, check out this video with your volume on:
Exasperating the people who love them has been the vocation of the Vikings for most of their six decades of existence. They have the right to be the NFL’s most successful unsuccessful franchise, with four Super Bowl appearances all resulting in losses and another six L’s in conference championship games, including three this century. People who love the Vikings understand the deal, and while they may not be emotionally free to stop caring about this team, at least they don’t have a contractual obligation to live it and make it happen. breathe at all times.
Not everyone is so lucky. Head Coach Mike Zimmer is a man who hardly can stop caring about the Vikings because he is in charge of the squad. For months now, but in a crescendo lately, a feeling has crept into my head that Zimmer deserves better, in particular, than he deserves to no longer be in charge of the Vikings. I’m not necessarily talking about firing him, because Zimmer shouldn’t be fired any more than any NFL coach should be fired by default. (It’s always good to fire a trainer if you want to, especially if you’re not actually in charge of hiring and firing.) Vikings and taken to a safe place where he doesn’t have to. facing the bullshit related to the Vikings. If that appeals to Vikings fans, then fine.
I can’t ignore the possibility that I love Zimmer too much because he once called his former boss “a bastard.”
NFL chief coaching is both a desirable and an undesirable area. You are paid generously to practice your craft at the highest and most exclusive level. What you lack in job security you make up for in buyout money when you’re almost inevitably laid off. You work long hours and spend every second of every day being guessed by people who know less about the topic at hand. To get to your current perch you had to worry so much about football that the losses could induce or just be a real medical illness. It is the inventory of fixtures, and by buying a ticket to go up, a trainer agrees to support everything.
Still, what Zimmer deals with in Minnesota seems dumber than the NFL garden variety NFL coaches taking on one of the most visible jobs in the sport. In fact, part of Zimmer’s reality is so silly and new that no other coach has had to deal with it the same way Zimmer has. The usual NFL-style silliness that Vikings tend to bring out is just a supplement.
Zimmer’s first affliction is that his quarterback is Kirk Cousins, who admittedly was pretty good in the Vikings’ 0-2 start. He pitched for 595 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions. Everything is great, and everything is in line with what has apparently been a great run in Minnesota since arriving there in 2018. For the past four seasons, including this one, Cousins has been ninth in the NFL for passing yards, fifth for touchdowns and third. as a percentage of completion.
There are, however, a lot of empty calories in Cousins’ achievements. Of the QBs who have played 100 or more downs since 2018, Cousins has 20e in expected points added per game, a metric that weighs court position, down, distance and clock to gauge how much a player’s contributions are contributing to the offense. (For example, a 1-yard completion on third and 1 might produce a higher EPA than a 5-yard completion on third and 12 – a dynamic that gross yardage totals do not capture.) , Cousins is seventh in percentage of completion over expectation, a measure of a QB’s ability to make difficult throws. All in all, Cousins might be somewhere between the 10e and 15e best QB in the NFL. There is no shame in being a good volume shooter who is not all also effective in helping a team win matches.
The problem is that Cousins is not paid as if he was on the 10the or 15e best QB in the NFL. His $ 31 million cap hit this year puts the Vikings behind the Seattle Seahawks – who have an excellent QB in Russell Wilson – in spending in that position this year. The Vikings awarded Cousins a three-year, $ 84 million contract that ran from 2018 to 2020 and was fully guaranteed in a league where few contracts are available, then extended until 2022. Si Cousins Remains in Minnesota next year, as it likely will, it is slated for a cap of $ 45 million. It wouldn’t be surprising if they found a way to reduce that number to a less savage but still high level.
It would be reasonable for Zimmer not to be so enthusiastic about having a QB who soaks up enough of his salary cap to get paid like one of the great players of all time but who, in terms of actual efficiency, is is a little better than the league median. In 2018, a few weeks before the Vikings signed Cousins, Zimmer spoke at length about the importance of retaining salary cap space to build defense and not needing to remove other areas to invest in a QB. General Manager Rick Spielman then did just that. It doesn’t take a doctorate reading between the lines to make sure Zimmer could have done things differently after a season in which he reached the NFC Championship with Case Keenum retreaded as quarterback, or to figure out that this next report is not about a coach who is happy to have Cousins as his QB franchise:
Proving that you can do a deep playoff run with a QB you don’t even think is that good, then ending up with a better but unspectacular QB that takes 17 percent of your salary cap would be boring. It would also be annoying if said overrated QB was an anti-vaccine guy who talked about potentially locking himself in plexiglass during team meetings to prevent transmission of COVID-19. It would even become Following squeaky if this QB was a leader on the least vaccinated team in the NFL, and it would only get more heinous if it had happened despite the head coach forcefully and repeatedly telling his players to go get their shots for the good of the company, some others and the Vikings’ chances in the playoffs.
We have reached a stage in the pandemic where I do not have the passion to be angry all the time with everyone who does not get the vaccine. But Vikings players have direct access to not only all the medical information in the world, but also team medics who could help them make the right choice. Zimmer has done what appears to be fairly regular charity work with cancer patients, the kind of people at increased risk in these increasingly earlier times. He said he was “frustrated” and “disappointed” with his unvaccinated players, who make up a large but minority part of his squad. I would go crazy all the time if I were Zimmer, and not just because he has the brain of a coach and has to worry about all of his QBs getting knocked out of a game because of looking for contacts. If Zimmer isn’t that mad at his own team, he’s a nicer man than I am, and as a reward, he shouldn’t be the head coach of the Vikings.
The Vikings are also unbearable from a purely football point of view. Zimmer is in charge of the team, so he can’t escape the blame for his football-related issues. But the Vikings committed 12 penalties for 116 yards in an overtime loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 1, which is the kind of feat that means coaches and players can rightfully be in. anger at each other. Sunday’s loss in Arizona is also due at least in part to Zimmer, because like Athletic’s Arif Hasan underline, Minnesota kicker Joseph had been bad before Zimmer trotted him for a decisive kick. But if Zimmer is seething because a professional kicker pushed a 37-yard player into an air-conditioned venue just between the hash marks, it’s hard to fault him. (It should be noted that earlier in the game, Joseph also made two 52 yard baskets. At one point, it’s just up to the pro kicker to be a pro kicker.) Then again, Zimmer was on the sidelines for Blair Walsh’s 27-yard miss that ended the Vikings’ 2015 season, so he’s possible that he has reached the point where no special blunder of the teams can hurt him.
The Vikings could eventually decide to fire Zimmer, before we get a chance to send a helicopter to take him to a happier place. He’s not a perfect coach, and his handling of the clock as the game ended with Joseph’s loss on Sunday infuriated many fans. These are the rules of engagement. I can’t ignore the possibility that I love Zimmer too much because he once called his former boss, Bobby Petrino, “a bastard with no guts” after Petrino left the Atlanta Falcons in 2007, or because I appreciate its general lack of filtration. :
It just doesn’t sound like a man who enjoys his job, even before he has to put up with the kicking issues of cousins and Vikings. I want better for Zimmer, the same way I want better for you if you don’t look happy at your job.
Starting 0-2 means the Vikings are unlikely to advance to the playoffs. FiveThirtyEight has its odds of around 1 in 3, while the odds of a 0-2 team on the pitch are just better than 1 in 10. That makes me happy for Zimmer, as spending a relatively relaxed few weeks in January seems nicer than spending that time training these Vikings.
[ad_2]
Source link