The Blair Walsh Project has finally come to an end. I’m sorry to see him go, but I believe the Vikings made the right decision, if a bit later than many fans might have liked. Walsh had a brilliant rookie season after being drafted in the sixth round of the 2012 draft and was rewarded with a big contract (for a kicking specialist, anyway), but his missed kicks, blocked kicks, and miscues since the playoff game against Seattle finally forced the team to release him. Jim Souhan says it was a mistake for the team to give him as many chances as they did:
Not every mistake teaches a lesson.
If an NFL team takes a quarterback with the first overall pick who doesn’t succeed, that does not mean the team should never again take a quarterback with the first overall pick. There is a difference between erring in execution and erring in philosophy.
Tuesday, the Vikings had to own up to a mistake, and it was a mistake of the touching-a-hot-stove variety, one that should find its way into a management binder under a tab reading: “Never do this, ever.”
In the midst of a four-game losing streak, the Vikings were forced to release kicker Blair Walsh during the first year of a four-year, $13.7 million contract, an embarrassing development for a generally well-run franchise.
Their mistakes with Walsh came at every level and every turn.
They used a sixth-round draft pick on Walsh. They can justify that by citing Walsh’s outstanding rookie season, but they may have been better off taking a raw offensive lineman and developing him into someone who might be helping them today.
They believed that Walsh’s shoddy senior year at Georgia was an aberration, believing that special teams coordinator Mike Priefer could fix Walsh’s mechanics and turn him into a standout. That worked well enough for a while but not long enough to justify the use of a draft pick on a noncontact player.
They believed that Walsh was worthy of an expensive contract extension, investing further in their original analysis of him and doubling down when they should have considered cutting ties.
And then they overlooked his 27-yard shank that cost them what would have been their only playoff victory since 2009, even though that particular missed kick proved there was something missing in his mental approach.
You don’t miss a 27-yard field goal because of poor mechanics. You miss a 27-yard field goal because the wrong thoughts were populating your head.
At 1500ESPN, Judd Zulgad asks why this took so long:
There were many who wondered how Walsh would rebound after his playoff miss and the Vikings likely were relying on the fact that moving from a two-year stint playing outdoors on the University of Minnesota campus to the indoor environment at U.S. Bank Stadium would be a big help.
If that was the assumption, it turned out to be very wrong.
One of the most puzzling things about Walsh’s situation is that the Vikings continued to treat him with kid gloves in training camp. It would have been logical to bring another kicker to Mankato to provide competition and see how Walsh would respond to the pressure but that wasn’t done.
Walsh looked lost in the Vikings’ victory at Tennessee in the regular-season opener. Early in the second quarter, the 26-year-old missed a 37-yard field goal attempt wide left and just before the half he attempted a 56-yarder that ended up going way wide to the left. It wasn’t that he just missed, it was that Walsh went back to his habit of hurrying the kick and never gave it a chance.
Walsh also missed an extra-point attempt in the third quarter and yet nothing was done.
Walsh was clearly annoyed with questions about his misses following the Lions’ loss – although his only job was to make field goals and do as told on kickoffs – and Zimmer did not attempt to hide his displeasure with his kicker a day after the defeat.
But even that did not result in a change.
Priefer attempted to convince anyone who would listen last week that he felt bringing in competition for Walsh had lit a fire under the kicker. That was nonsense. This was never about Walsh’s needing to be motivated or getting a kick in the butt.
All you had to do was watch Walsh trot onto the field to realize he had zero faith in himself.
That’s what made this so remarkable. Somehow the Vikings were the only ones who failed to see this, or they mistakenly thought that Walsh would magically find his confidence.
On Tuesday, even Spielman was forced to acknowledge that wasn’t going to happen and that keeping Walsh around was doing a disservice to everyone who draws a paycheck at Winter Park.
