The Closing Window

The Vikings lost on Saturday, and for the 30^th time in the Super Bowl era, their season ended with playoff disappointment. That happens to be the league record, a remarkable feat when you realize they haven’t even had one playoff appearance that didn't end in failure. In 54 seasons they have made the playoffs 30 times, and they have failed to capitalize on all of them. If every one of their playoff appearances had been decided by coin flip, they’d be expected to have 2.9 titles. Their chances of having zero Super Bowl victories is less than 5%. Their success in the regular season has been remarkable, and their playoff futility has been statistically improbable.

But that’s the past, and as has been the case for the previous 29 defeats, the Vikings fans will once again turn their eyes forward. Because this playoff appearance wasn’t just some fluke, sneaking into a Wild Card spot in a weak conference. This is an elite team loaded with elite talent, and they have a chance again in 2020.

Of course, as I addressed in the first paragraph, things never really go as they’re written out on paper. The Vikings have plenty of stuff to get excited about, but there are plenty of red flags as well. And they will have some decisions to make this offseason, decisions that will play a major role in shaping the course of the franchise over the next five years.

How We Got Here

There seems to be some frustration right now among Vikings fans with GM Rick Spielman, including some calling for his job. I don’t understand this at all. There have certainly been mistakes made in recent years, draft selections that didn’t work out, but on the whole he has done a fantastic job of roster construction, transitioning them from the Adrian Peterson era into their current window by collecting multiple star players from the draft and finding a way to stitch the roster together to align the primes of their careers.

To start with, we have to go back to 2013. Coming off another brief playoff appearance, the Vikings were a team in a bit of a no-man’s land. They had ridden to the playoffs on the back of a superhuman season from Peterson, but it was rapidly becoming clear that Christian Ponder was not going to pan out at quarterback. Peterson was ready to enter the downhill phase of his career, they had no solution at the most important position, and their best player on defense—Jared Allen—was about to enter his age 31 season.

In hindsight they probably should have gone for a more complete teardown. They were smart to sell high on Percy Harvin, getting a first round pick that turned into Xavier Rhodes to add to the secondary that already featured budding star Harrison Smith. They used their own first round pick on Sharrif Floyd, a phenomenally talented defensive tackle whose career was cut short by a botched medical procedure. This is the first example of the bad luck that has hit the Vikings team—the bad luck that hits every team to some extent, but the bad luck that turned them from a Super Bowl caliber team into an also-ran. It wouldn’t be the last such incident either.

They made a mistake jumping up to select Cordarrelle Patterson. It was a gamble, one they were able to make thanks to some extra picks they had acquired from Cleveland the year before. But he turned into one of the two true first-round busts that Spielman has had in this period. Busts happen, and the draft is always a crapshoot (in recent years even renowned organizations like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Green Bay have chosen players like Breshad Perriman, Artie Burns, and Damarious Randall). You don’t have to nail every single draft pick to be a Super Bowl contender, and the Vikings have done as well as any team over this stretch.

2014 brought two more first round draft picks, and the hiring of Mike Zimmer. Their first selection turned into Anthony Barr, a current star of their defense. They were building the core of a team targeted towards the 2017-2020 window, and at the end of the first round they traded up to get their quarterback to go along with that window.

We all know the story of Teddy Bridgewater by now. It’s impossible to know what he would have become if his knee hadn’t exploded and cost him the final two years of his rookie contract, but it’s clear what it cost the Vikings. The first round selection they used to grab him in 2014. The 2017 first round selection they gave up trying to replace him with Sam Bradford (a decision I hated at the time, and one I have more mixed feelings on now). And ultimately any sort of continuity, as they spent the first couple years of their title window trying to figure out how to best utilize Kirk Cousins.

From 2012 through 2014 the Vikings built the star talent of their roster. Smith, Barr, and Rhodes locked down their defense, while they handed out big contracts both in-house (Everson Griffen) and in free agency (Linval Joseph) to form the core of this elite unit. In 2015 they had another phenomenal draft, adding quality starters in Trae Waynes and Eric Kendricks in the first two rounds and finding genuine stars Danielle Hunter and Stefon Diggs in later rounds.

All these players are still on their team now, and all are major factors in what they have accomplished. With the exception of Waynes, all have signed second contracts that have locked them up through next season at least. Throw in the big deals they gave to Cousins, Riley Reiff, Kyle Rudolph, and Adam Thielen, and it is hard to believe they aren’t doubling the salary cap with this roster.

The problems for Minnesota have come in the drafts since then. In 2016 they whiffed on Laquon Treadwell, their other first round bust during this period. Combined with the pick they traded away in 2017, that left two straight years with no first round talent added. 2018 brought Mike Hughes, who has been limited by injuries over his first two seasons. And their 2019 first round pick, center Garrett Bradbury, was one of the biggest liabilities on their roster this season.

That’s the biggest problem with Minnesota’s roster as it is currently constructed. Because as much as they are getting from players on their second contracts, they received virtually nothing from players on rookie contracts, the ultimate bargains in the NFL. While San Francisco has star level performances from Nick Bosa, DeForest Buckner, and George Kittle, the only real contributors from the Vikings still on rookie deals are Hughes, Mackensie Alexander, and Brian O’Neill, all three of whom missed Saturday’s game with injuries.

Some of this can be chalked up to bad decision making. I liked all of their draft picks at the time, but in hindsight it’s easy to see the flaws that doomed Treadwell and have hindered Bradbury in his rookie year. But some of this is also just bad luck, primarily the injuries I’ve discussed. We hate to admit it, because it makes us feel powerless, but luck plays a huge role in separating the very best teams from everybody else. And for the past few years, that luck has been against the Vikings.

One Last Shot

But luck is just that, luck, and it can turn in your favor as easily as it can turn against you. And the core of the Vikings roster is still intact, though from the table below it will become clear that there are a couple of issues:

Two things immediately jump out from this list of Vikings starters. They are expensive, and they are old. Currently with the contracts on their roster, the Vikings are $5 million over the salary cap. And that doesn’t take into consideration the money they will have to spend on draft picks, or any of their own players they want to resign. They probably don’t have a chance at bringing back Waynes, but hopefully they can find a way to get new contracts for Alexander and Harris to at least keep some continuity in their secondary.

To do this, they are going to have to clear up cap space. Of the players I listed above, some are easy cuts. Rhodes is gone, as he was a below average cornerback this year and will turn 30 by the start of next season. It would be nice if they could renegotiate with Joseph and Griffen, but they aren’t worth what it would cost to keep them at this point. Joseph would be more important to bring back, since they really have no one else on the interior.

There are other smaller cuts that can be made. Releasing Reiff would save a lot of money but would cripple their already shaky offensive line. They have a young replacement for Rudolph already, but he isn’t costing them that much, and he’s coming off an excellent season. And as much as cutting Harrison Smith would save them, he is still an elite player and a crucial piece for their defense. If they plan on competing next year, they need to bite the bullet and bring all these players back.

The problem is, pretty much every one of their starters is at the peak of his career. With the exception of Cousins, I would expect every player age 30 or older to be worse next year than they were this year. That is always the way of things, and most teams can make up for this decline with young players stepping forward. But among the Vikings starters the only players under the age of 25 are O'Neill and Irv Smith, the same lack of young production I mentioned above

So the question becomes: how will the Vikings be better next year than they were this year? They don’t have the flexibility to sign free agents, and with pick 25 they can't count on getting an immediate impact player in the draft. Someone like Hughes will likely have to step into a starting role, and I suppose he could be an improvement on Rhodes. Maybe a year of NFL offseason training will help Bradbury add strength, his biggest weakness coming out of college. But strength wasn’t his only flaw this year, and he was old for a rookie, suggesting he just might not have that much space to physically grow out.

It’s not out of the question to see them performing better next year. I was hoping they would have some continuity on offense for the first time in a while, but the Browns went and hired away their offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski, so that remains up in the air as well. There is a chance though, if a few more things break their way next year. They were 2-3 in games decided by 8 points or fewer this season—not a bad record, but a far sight from Green Bay’s 8-1. If those numbers flip next year, the Vikings might be able to win the division and set themselves up with a fighting shot when the playoffs come around.

One things is clear though. After 2020, this version of the Vikings is done. Cousins is a free agent, most of their starters will be past their peak, and the salary cap hits will eventually catch up to them. They can try to string it out for a couple more years, maybe even make the playoffs once or twice, but the days of them being Super Bowl contenders will be over by 2021. And it may very well be over already, which brings us to the next option.

Tear it All Down

The Vikings will not follow this route this offseason. They probably won’t do it next offseason either, even though it will absolutely be the correct course by then. This team was built for the window from 2017-2020, and that window is now three-quarters shut. And it services no one to delude themselves into drawing out the rebuild by pretending otherwise.

Minnesota’s next window likely won’t open again until 2023 at the earliest. They will need to bring in a new quarterback, likely a highly drafted rookie to develop alongside a rebuilt core. Harrison Smith, Rudolph, Reiff, Thielen, Rhodes, Joseph, and Griffen certainly won’t be a part of it. Barr and Kendricks likely won’t be either. The only members of their current roster that I see as clear contributors in their next window are Hunter and O’Neill, with some hope for Bradbury, Hughes, Alexander, and Irv Smith if they can develop.

You’ll notice a couple names that I didn’t mention: Dalvin Cook and Stefon Diggs. After two injury hindered seasons, Cook exploded this year, performing as one of the best running backs in the league and proving a perfect fit for their zone running scheme. By the standards of other positions he is still young. But of course, he is a running back. And running backs age quickly, add little value, and bring constant injury risk, as we’ve already seen from Cook.

Cook will be a free agent after next year, and the Vikings absolutely should not give him an extension. After a couple down years, we saw several big running back contracts handed out to Todd Gurley, Ezekiel Elliott, and Le’Veon Bell. All three teams are likely regretting this decision now, and the Vikings would be foolish to do the same.

Cook is not part of Minnesota’s future, and I don’t think Diggs is either. In theory he could still be a major contributor if they are able to get the pieces in place by 2023, as he will only be 29 at the time. But as we saw quite frequently this year, he remains a volatile personality, a passionate competitor who isn’t afraid to speak his mind. This sort of player would be a problem for a rebuild, and potentially for a young quarterback.

Whether this year or next year, the Vikings need to move on. They need to let Cousins, Cook, Griffen, Rhodes, Joseph, Reiff, Rudolph, and Waynes walk. They should seriously consider trying to trade Diggs, Smith, Barr, and Kendricks, for picks to help them when it’s time to start from scratch. They need to be aggressive about doing this, because if they don’t, this window will still slam shut, and the next one might not open until the latter half of this coming decade.

Is There Hope?

That’s the question, isn’t it? Hope for next year, and hope for the years after that.

As far as net year goes, I don’t know what to say. They have a chance to win the Super Bowl next year, but a worse chance than they did this year. Their defense will likely be worse as most of their players slide further down the age curve. Their offense likely won’t be better. Maybe they can get luckier, and be in better position when the playoffs come around. It’s not out of the question, but they have limited options for making their team better than it was this year.

This window is just about closed, but if they play their cards right, they might be ideally positioned to hit the next window. Part of the issue they ran into the past few years was that this window coincided with several other windows across the NFC. Over the past five years, the Vikings have found themselves competing for positioning with the Aaron Rodgers led Packers, the Russell Wilson led Seahawks, the Drew Brees led Saints, and the Matt Ryan led Falcons. Four different Hall of Fame quarterbacks either in their primes or very close to them, all now over the age of 30.

Things change fast in the NFL, and it’s impossible to really say where every team will be in three or four seasons. But it seems reasonable to say that most, if not all, of the top NFC quarterbacks will be either retired or over the hill by that point. And most of the top young quarterbacks right now happen to be on the AFC side of things. Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson—toss in Josh Allen, Baker Mayfield, and Drew Lock, whatever you think of them—all on the other side of things from the Vikings.

Look at the NFC for comparison. Carson Wentz and Jared Goff have shown flashes, but neither has ever really been elite and are both on teams that have mortgaged their futures to go all in on the current period. Dak Prescott remains unsigned in Dallas. Who the hell knows what is going on in Tampa Bay or Carolina. And of the three rookies who played in the NFC this year, Kyler Murray is the only one who wasn’t a total disaster, and he didn’t exactly look like a future superstar.

Things can obviously change. San Francisco could be kicking off a run of dominance. Wilson could age well in Seattle. The Packers could stumble ass-backwards into another Hall of Fame quarterback.

But right now, the window from 2022-2025 in the NFC looks wide open. The Vikings have the flexibility to tear things all down after next year, and a front office with a proven track record of competence. The only clearly missing piece is the willingness to tear it all down, to admit that they missed their chance and keep from drawing out mediocrity any longer than necessary.

Or maybe they’ll win it all next year. The window is still open, but right now it is only a crack.

The Week that Offense Forgot

One more week of NFL action is behind us, four more teams were sent home for the season, and I think my lifespan was shortened by a good 2-3 years. All four games were incredibly close contests, with two not being decided until overtime and with the losing team having a shot to either take the lead or tie in the final two minutes in the others. It was probably the most exciting weekend of playoff football that I can remember.

But do you know what it wasn’t? High scoring. Eight teams total, and none of them managed to eclipse 20 points scored in regulation. During the regular season this year the average game saw 45.6 points scored. The only game to reach that mark was the Vikings-Saints contest that hit 46 only after Minnesota scored the winning touchdown in overtime. The four games together averaged 37 points scored. For reference, the NFL hasn’t seen a season with games that averaged so few points since 1978, the first year after defensive backs were no longer allowed to make contact more than five yards downfield.

It's easy to write this off as an expected result of the postseason, when teams lock down and scoring gets more difficult. After all, in New England, Buffalo, and Minnesota we saw three of the league’s top five scoring defenses in action this weekend. But the offenses are typically better in the postseason as well, as we saw five of the league’s top ten scoring offenses on the field. We couldn’t have expected these performances coming into the weekend, and how they happened says a lot about both why the losing teams fell short and what we can expect from the winning teams going forward.

Dead Men Walking

First, the Eagles. Because they are in kind of a category of their own, as no one could have expected them to score easily with the circumstances they were facing this weekend. They entered the game missing their top three wide receivers, one of their top running backs, and two All-Pro caliber offensive linemen. Their starting tight end was playing two weeks after suffering a lacerated kidney. The only thing their offense had going for it was the presence of Carson Wentz, and he made it less than a quarter before suffering a concussion that forced them to turn to Josh McCown.

The fact that they managed to move the ball at all is remarkable, and it says a little bit about the Seahawks defense they were facing. They bogged down in the red zone, settling for three field goals and turning the ball over on downs twice in Seahawks territory late in the game. But they did a good job moving the ball, avoided turnovers, and had a shot to tie things up late in the game.

McCown wasn’t spectacular, but he performed admirably for a 40 year old quarterback thrust into an unenviable situation in a postseason game. I really have nothing more to say about the Eagles, except that you should check out these highlights of McCown playing basketball, and remember that he is one of the best pure athletes to play in the NFL over the past two decades.

Eating the Clock

It’s an antiquated philosophy to believe that controlling the game on the ground and grinding out the clock is a path to success in the NFL. Running the ball is generally less effective than passing it in pretty much every situation, and offenses are able to strike quickly enough that “keeping the ball out of their hands” really doesn’t do much unless it’s at the very end of the game. And yet, a couple teams this weekend managed to pull off a version of this, to some degree of success.

Minnesota and Tennessee were among the most productive teams on the ground this season, and they lived up to those expectations in the first week of the playoffs. Going on the road against teams that were heavy favorites, they managed to do what every underdog dreams of: pound the ball on the ground, get out to a lead, and shorten the game.

These two teams pursued this strategy for different reasons. For Minnesota the prime focus was to keep the Saints offense off the field. Drew Brees remains an elite passer, and Minnesota’s secondary was shaky even before being banged up. Minnesota had more success on defense than I expected for reasons we’ll get into below, but when push came to shove late in the game the Saints were able to pass the ball down the field.

This wasn’t the case on the AFC side of things. The Patriots offense is not intimidating anyone at this point, and the main goal for Tennessee was figuring out how to attack the terrifying New England defense. Trying to throw the ball against Stephon Gilmore and company is a nightmare proposition, and that proved to be the case again this weekend, as Ryan Tannehill managed only 72 yards through the air. But they didn’t need him to throw, because once they got Derrick Henry going, they were content just giving the ball to him and letting him churn downfield.

Henry isn’t the shiftiest back in the backfield, but give him space to work up his speed and he is terrifying to tackle on the second level. Tennessee dominated New England up front, and Henry had all the space he could want on his 34 carries that took him for 182 yards. Let’s say that again: the Titans gave the ball to Henry on the ground 34 times, a number that no running back has reached in the past two seasons. They only ran 57 plays total, six of which were punts, and with a completion to Henry thrown in, that means he touched the ball on 69% of Tennessee’s offensive plays.

When you keep the ball on the ground, time is going to trickle off the clock faster. There will be fewer plays run, and fewer points scored. And when a team is facing an opponent that is likely better than them, the more plays run mean more chances for this difference to assert itself. So a low scoring game in these situations will favor the underdog, and it is unsurprising that both six seeds managed to win following this strategy.

Conservative Decision Making

One of the biggest reasons that no one put up big numbers was because the teams that got leads in these games were uninterested in stepping on their opponents’ throats. Time and time again this past weekend we saw teams play as safe as possible, in what seemed like a competition of escalating cowardice that culminated with Minnesota nearly blowing the game against the Saints.

With some of the people involved this past weekend, this wasn’t a particular shock. Pete Carroll and Mike Zimmer are consistently among the most overly cautious coaches in the league, the biggest flaws on what are otherwise sparkling resumés.

Mike Vrabel is still young enough in his coaching career that it’s hard to say anything real specific about him, though he vaulted himself high up this list on Saturday with his reluctance to challenge New England on fourth downs. It reached a peak late in the fourth quarter when he chose to punt on fourth and five from the New England 41, a decision only slightly mitigated by the hilarious sequence of deliberate penalties that followed that allowed him to bleed nearly two minutes off the clock.

There is no such saving grace for Minnesota. Twice they got the ball with the lead in the fourth quarter, and twice they ran six plays before punting the ball away. The first of these drives was the most egregious, as after picking up one first down they elected to run the ball twice for minimal gains before throwing an incomplete pass on third and eight.

The final drive is the one that got more heat, but I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. They moved the ball through the air to pick up the initial first down, and then they tried to run the ball on first and ten, not a terrible decision. But that play was a disaster, ending with them losing seven yards.

At that point, I don’t hate the decision to hand the ball off. Second and 17 is a huge task, and even throwing the ball twice their odds of converting were slim. It would have been nice if they could have broken the first play, set up a more reasonable third down. But instead they lost two more yards, and on third down Kirk Cousins ate the ball for a sack rather than throw a low percentage ball down the field.

Strangely, the entire weekend was redeemed at the very end by the coach who is usually among the worst offenders. Not that Carroll was impressive throughout the whole game. Russell Wilson was tearing the Eagles defense apart the entire day, averaging more than ten yards each time he threw the ball. He even ran the ball for 45 yards on nine carries, most of them scrambles on called pass plays. Yet the Seahawks continued to try to grind the ball on the ground, even as their two running backs combined for 19 yards on 17 carries.

And yet at the very end, when it seemed inevitable that they would choose to punt the ball away to give Philadelphia another chance to tie the game, they went the opposite direction. They dialed up a deep ball to DK Metcalf, their best performing skill player the entire game. And in man to man coverage he burst down the field and then exploded for a leaping catch, sealing the victory and letting the Seahawks run out the clock.

Poor Quarterback Play

I don’t want to linger on this too much, but the truth was we saw some extremely mediocre quarterbacking this weekend. Wilson was great, and both Watson and Cousins redeemed themselves in overtime. McCown gets a pass, and Josh Allen was pretty much what we expect from Josh Allen, both the wild highs and wild lows. And as much as Tannehill struggled, I find it hard to blame him for being unable to pass, for reasons I'll elaborate on below.

That leaves two other quarterbacks to discuss, the two who have already locked up a place in Canton. Tom Brady and Drew Brees went out this weekend with the hopes of one final run to glory, and they absolutely folded. Both quarterbacks played arguably the worst games of their playoff careers and cost their offenses any hope of being successful.

For Brady this wasn’t a huge surprise. He has faded hard as the season has gone along, and his performance against Miami a week ago was just grim foreshadowing for what would happen when he faced a real NFL defense. And now there is no escaping the questions about his future. If he comes back next year, the Patriots are going to have to follow a very different approach on offense for him to be successful.

No longer can they trust him to hit tight windows with precise timing to a cast of receivers tossed away by the rest of the league. They need real talent on the outside, something they still seem to be searching for even after spending a first round selection on N’Keal Harry and trading a second rounder for Mohamed Sanu. And that means likely playing the free agent game—either trying to grab a free agent like Emmanuel Sanders or AJ Green, or taking a gamble on upside with someone like Breshad Perriman, or swinging for the fences with Amari Cooper.

The Saints should be in that same market as well. Because this passing game has become far too dependent on Michael Thomas, and when the Vikings managed to hold him in check there wasn’t much that Brees could do. They have a lot of speed on this offense, but they never really threatened Minnesota down the field. Whether this was because of the pressure or because Brees’s arm has started to fade, it is hard to know. But they would benefit from finding another weapon to help them in the intermediate range, someone besides Thomas they can count on to win one on one matchups through anything other than pure speed.

Defensive Strategy

Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that three of the best defensive minds in the league were involved in the games yesterday. Bill Belichick is obviously a mastermind, and both Mike Zimmer and Sean McDermott have consistently produced elite defenses as both coordinators and head coaches. And with the stakes raised in a win-or-go-home ssetting, these three coaches put together brilliant gameplans.

Buffalo’s defense faded some as the game went on partially due to schematic adjustments made by Houston, but for most of the game they had the dangerous Texans offense on their heels. DeAndre Hopkins was silent in the first half, as the Texans tried to keep him away from Tre’Davious White by playing him out of the slot. But the Bills were ready for this, and with their safeties they were able to keep him in check and force Houston to bounce him back outside.

They also did a tremendous job generating pressure on Deshaun Watson. He was efficient when he managed to get the ball out of his hand, but this didn’t happen all that frequently, as he was constantly besieged by blitzing linebackers and safeties. Even when he managed to break away from the rush, the Bills were always waiting with a spy, usually the freakishly athletic Tremaine Edmunds who could keep up with him sideline to sideline. It was only a great individual play that finally managed to beat them in overtime, when Watson broke away and found his running back for the big gain that set up the winning field goal.

Zimmer also managed to draw up a scheme to stifle the opposing offense based on getting pressure in the quarterback’s face. Going into the game it seemed like a perfect matchup, possibly the best pair of defensive ends in the league in Minnesota going against a pair of tackles who hadn’t surrendered a sack all season. But Zimmer brought a wrinkle into this game the Saints weren’t expecting. On passing downs he moved Everson Griffen and Danielle Hunter in over the guards, giving them favorable matchups against the weaker part of New Orleans’s line.

They actually didn’t run that many plays with their stars rushing from the middle, but they did it early and aggressively enough to fluster Drew Brees. He spent most of the day checking the ball down in panic, and the Saints mustered no down the field passing attack until very late in the game.

The case in New England is a bit more interesting. I mentioned the success Henry had above, and while it certainly helped Tennessee manage the game, I expect they would have hoped to score more than two offensive touchdowns if they had known they were going to get 180 yards on the ground from their starting running back. And while I don’t think we should take any credit away from Henry or this offensive line, it strikes me that this may have been exactly what the Patriots wanted.

There are different ways to approach strategy in a football game. You can try to attack an opponent’s strength, a tactic Belichick has become notorious for employing over the years. He could have stacked the box to stuff up the run and challenged Tannehill to beat him through the air, trusting his secondary to hold up on islands.

In this game, however, he used the strength of his defense to attack the weakest part of Tennessee’s offense. He knew that with his normal defense the Titans would have a battle to move the ball through the air, so he went all in on defending the pass, closing off any hope they had of sustaining a passing offense. He basically challenged them to run as much as they wanted, and prove that they were capable of winning a game running the ball alone. And they were, though in the end their victory had more to do with New England's inability to score points than their effectiveness on offense.