Immolated Progress

FALCONS 40

VIKINGS 23

The heartbreaking loss in Seattle a week ago basically slammed the door on the Vikings last true chance to make this a playoff season. And that sucked. But I was at least heartened by seeing the team improve on the field (if not in the win column), and encouraged about the rest of the season full of winnable games.

And all that progress, all that improvement, all that hope for this team's near future was fucking obliterated today, as the Vikings go into their bye week having played arguably their most putrid collective game of the Mike Zimmer era. And frankly, at least opened the door slightly to the possibility that that era may be about to end. 

I find it hard to really understand how a team that went to the wire against 2 of the 3 remaining undefeated teams in the NFL over the last 3 weeks could swing so completely the other way today and get destroyed at home by a winless Falcons team.

Nobody escapes blame today (well except Justin Jefferson and maybe Irv Smith). This disaster was a teamwide achievement.

Literally the first play kicked off this disaster, as Cousins threw a terrible inteception into triple coverage. Just garbage. Matt Ryan quickly threw the first of 4 touchdown passes and the rout was on.

A 3 and out and Falcons field goal followed. At 10-0 it was bad but not yet disastrous. And the Vikings offense appeared to finally get in gear. Kirk hit a few big passes and we got down inside the 5. But then Mattison got stuffed twice, Kirk threw a near TD that fell incomplete and we had.a 4th and goal.

And for some reason we ran a quick snap to run right up the middle with Mike Boone, who had no chance. Just garbage.

Well that was it. We were now heading into the abyss. And on the next offensive series Kirk threw a 2nd terrible pick, which led quickly to a 17-0 Atlanta lead. Then Kirk got picked AGAIN, Atlanta scored AGAIN, and the 20-0 halftime score honestly did not do full justice to how badly the Vikings looked.

Maybe we were rope-a-doping the Falcons, who after all have become quite infamous for big blown leads.

But only the Vikings were dopes today. After the Falcons tacked on another field goal to open the 3rd quarter, the Vikings did finally put together a scoring drive, with a Kirk to Jefferson touchdown. But then Matt Ryan pulled the day's real rope-a-dope, lofting a short pass to Julio Jones on a 4th and short play where Ryan looked to be running. Jones sprinted past a befuddled Cam Dantzler for a back-breaking touchdown.

The rest of the scoring was just for show, and on the Vikings end made the final score way too respectable for what they deserved.

This was such a failure of a football game. Even if you allow for that spark a team often gets right after firing a coach, there is no excuse for letting this team come into your building and beat you this thoroughly.

Cousins was atrocious. I have always felt it easy to defend Kirk, because I never believed he was anything he wasn't. I felt he was at his best a top 10-ish quarterback, and he is. In 2019 he was absolutely a top 10 guy. The problem is he is not looking at all like that far too often in 2020. In 6 games he has thrown 10 picks, plus a few fumbles. Those turnover numbers from your starting quarterback are just not okay. He is on pace for a Jameis Winston turnover total. You can't be a largely pocket passer and turn the ball over like he is. Now, he has never had a run of turnovers like he is on in his whole career, so this isn't a true representation of what Cousins is. Except right now it is. Zimmer said he had no thought of benching him, and I agree. That's a move you really only get to make one time and after that everything changes permanently.

The big news heading into the game was the big debut for Ezra Cleveland. It may not be his long term position, but today he replaced the embattled Dru Samia at RG. I have no idea how Cleveland played. It was one of those games where everyone sucked so bad that it's hard.to evaluate an individual lineman. Kirk only got sacked once, but had pretty consistent pressure.

And the run blocking was awful. The coaching staff obviously knew way back last Sunday that Dalvin Cook was going to be out, yet there was no apparent effort at all to adapt. The gameplan seemed to just be to have Mattison bash right up the middle over and over. And Atlanta clearly had zero concern over our run game, so they just dropped guys back into coverage, cutting off any passing lanes Kirk might have otherwise had.

The defense was never going to just not have a bad game again. But their demolition was equally discouraging. It was weeks 1 and 2 all over again. Inconsistent pass rush. Poor coverage. Very poor on early downs. They got one turnover on a fumble but they just did nothing to make things tough on that offense. And largely this same offense came in here in last year's opener and got destroyed. Remember 2019? Remember how fun that was? 

I am not ever going to call for Mike Zimmer to be fired. I believe that even as bad as today was, and as bad as this season is getting, that he has earned the right to see this thing through, to see if he can build a great defense a 2nd time. Now, if we get into December and we are still getting 30+ dropped on us consistently, that might be one thing. But this game is a huge stain on his body of work, to have a seemingly improving team go so far back down in one afternoon. I just thought we were past this, that the worst was over. 

I didn't get the feeling from this game that anybody had quit on Zimmer. Games like that you can feel. I just didn't get that impression today. The effort was there, but the execution and prep weren't.

It's unsettling, because the timing of a bye week, and a terrible performance by a now 1-5 team, is the kind of setup that has gotten coaches fired before. I truly do not think Zimmer is in immediate danger. I think deep down everyone knew this year had the potential to be more of a rebuilding project, and I don't think ownership extends Zimmer and Spielman, or sees so many vets depart through free agency and injury, and then after 6 games blows it all up cause we are 1-5.

But after the bye you play at Green Bay. And if they get drilled anything like they did in week 1, or today, then I think the Mike Zimmer era is going to start to have a ticking clock.

Other Sunday thoughts....

Tampa Bay crushed Green Bay. I'm not sure how to feel about this, but I know I'm glad to see Rodgers get blown out. 

The Bears beat Carolina and moved into 1st place.

Pittsburgh and Tennessee each stayed undefeated. The Steelers won more impressively, blowing out the Browns.

Baltimore held off a Philly rally. The Patriots somehow lost at home to Denver even though Cam Newton did play. The Colts made a big comeback to beat the Bengals.

And RIP to Sid Hartman. At least he made it to 100.