Quotulatiousness

October 4, 2014

Vikings struggles in perspective

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:45

The thrashing the Vikings absorbed from the Green Bay Packers on Thursday night had a lot of fans upset and angry, and rightly so: the team played a terrible game while Green Bay played very well. As I said in a post-game comment, “the news that Bridgewater would be inactive came as a knell of doom for any hopes we had for the eventual outcome.” Christian Ponder played badly, but so did almost everyone else in purple that night. You can make a (poor) case that Bridgewater being out would lower the morale of the offense, but it shouldn’t have made much of a difference to the defence or special teams players, yet almost everyone seemed to have “checked out” as Brian Robison put it in an interview.

Bo Mitchell wants to help put Thursday’s game into perspective:

Zimmer and Turner crafted their offseason game plan for the offense on basis of their best player (Peterson) being in the backfield. Turner said repeatedly that he planned to get him more involved in the passing game, get him in space, maybe line him up out wide on occasion, etc. Everything worked great in Week 1. Heck, the threat of Peterson was enough. Cordarrelle Patterson was the primary beneficiary. Vikings fans were riding high following the dismantling of the Rams.

Then the other shoe(s) dropped and scrambling to make adjustments ensued.

In Week 2, with a new game plan in place, new running backs in place and a controversy/distraction overshadowing the organization, the Vikings lost in lopsided fashion to the Patriots thanks in no small part to turnovers and a blocked field goal that was returned for a touchdown. You can never plan for such things as losing your star player in such an awful, embarrassing, scandalous (pick your adjective) way. The master plan was compromised significantly after one week. So they made adjustments and moved on like all coaches must.

[…]

Week 4 brought a brief return of giddiness to Vikings fans as they leveled the Falcons behind rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, whom they seemingly had to get ready in a hurry. The good thing was that Bridgewater had been splitting a lot of first team reps in practice with Cassel and played a lot in preseason so there was already a sense of chemistry in place when he had to take the reins. The coaching staff had prepared for this scenario and it showed.

What they hadn’t really prepared for was losing Bridgewater to an injury as well. Christian Ponder was pressed into emergency duty at the end of the Falcons game and then asked to get ready for the Packers four days later — after he really hadn’t spent any significant time at all working in Norv Turner’s offense. Judd Zulgad of 1500ESPN and several others in the media pointed out that this would be a problem. Ponder barely played in the preseason outside of a few third and fourth quarters with second and third stringers.

So the Vikings were on their third quarterback in three games — their third quarterback in 12 days. If they wanted to use an excuse, I’d give them that one regardless of who that third quarterback was.

Ponder just wasn’t ready. Where have I heard that before? Seriously, few backup NFL quarterbacks would have been significantly better in this scenario with so little prep. This doesn’t excuse the horrible lack of accuracy, the indecisiveness and the rest of the Ponder-isms. It was a train wreck waiting to happen.

Looking back, you can only make so many adjustments so quickly. Zimmer, Turner and the rest of the coaching staff kept the team treading water for four weeks, but they drowned in the Green Bay rain on Thursday night after the adjustments fell short and time ran out.

The Vikings at 2-3 have been victims of really odd circumstances. This isn’t an excuse. It’s a fact, though I really hesitate to use the word “victim.” I don’t even want to call it bad luck. Maybe it’s just fair to say: no team could comfortably survive such a strange amalgam of issues in such a short amount of time. Every team deals with injuries and teams have to find a way to overcome the losses of players like Fusco, Greenway and Rudolph. “Next man up” is the mantra league-wide. But look around the NFL and let me know if you see another first-year head coach directing a team without its best player that has used three quarterbacks already. This is weird stuff. Then again, Vikings fans have grown used to weirdness. It comes with the territory.

September 25, 2014

Vikings place two starters on injured reserve list

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:02

This season is starting to feel cursed, as news came out on Wednesday that Matt Cassel and Brandon Fusco are both being placed on season-ending injured reserve. Cassel isn’t a surprise, given the initial reports on his foot injury, but Fusco also being lost for the year is a very unpleasant surprise. Fusco has been one of the pillars of strength on the offensive line, and his replacement on Sunday was beaten badly on the first two plays he was in on. And it’s not just Viking fans who think he was becoming a great offensive guard:

Christian Ponder moves up the depth chart to be the backup quarterback behind Teddy Bridgewater. Vlad Ducasse may or may not replace Fusco, but the other choices are not great either: backup center Joe Berger can do the job at least in spot duty, rookie left guard David Yankey is still learning and may not be ready yet. Austin Wentworth has been activated from the practice squad, but I’m assuming he’s just there for depth at this point.

With Kyle Rudolph undergoing surgery this week, the depth at tight end was down to Rhett Ellison and recent free agent signing MarQueis Gray, so Chase Ford was signed from the practice squad. Ford is a good player and only ended up on the PS due to needs in other areas.

As far as I can tell, the team has placed seven players on the IR list (one of whom took an injury settlement and left the team), plus Kyle Rudolph who may need to go on IR for his recovery period. And that’s on top of losing the best running back in the NFL for some undetermined period that might well be permanent. And it’s only week four of the NFL season.

September 22, 2014

Vikings lose to Saints 20-9 in injury-filled game

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:02

I posted yesterday that I thought the leash on quarterback Matt Cassel might be getting shorter, after the horrible outing last weekend at home against the Patriots. Sunday’s game in New Orleans was starting to look like we had another instance of “Bad Matt” on our hands, but head coach Mike Zimmer didn’t have the chance to decide whether to make a quarterback change, as Cassel left the game midway through the first half with what was originally termed “turf toe”, but was later re-defined as “fractures in his foot”. Teddy Bridgewater came in to play the rest of the game — the Vikings only had Cassel and Bridgewater active, so rather than Christian Ponder, the emergency quarterback would have been next man up … and we haven’t had a definite word on who the emergency quarterback would have been. Cassel is definitely out for a prolonged period (possibly the entire season, if the MRI verdict is bad), and Bridgewater has been designated the starting quarterback for next week.

Aside from Cassel, other players who left the field due to injury included tight end Kyle Rudolph, right guard Brandon Fusco, linebacker Chad Greenway, and cornerback Josh Robinson. So if you’re keeping count, the Vikings are missing their starting QB (injury), starting RB (Adrian Peterson is on the Exempt list and away from the team indefinitely), starting RG (injury), starting TE (injury), backup WR (Jerome Simpson, who was cut this week for his continued legal issues), starting LB (injury), and backup CB (injury). That’s a full season’s worth of personnel changes in only three games.

While the game was hardly a thing of beauty, the team rallied around Bridgewater and the defence put in a much better performance in the second half and might have kept the Saints out of the endzone but for a badly timed penalty on Captain Munnerlyn which kept a scoring drive alive. When you don’t get a win, you look for positives, no matter how meaningless they might seem:

Of course, there were positives that were not meaningless, like the return of the intermediate-to-deep passing game:

Bridgewater’s debut wasn’t statistically eye-popping — 12 of 20 for 150 yards and a passer rating of 83.3, plus 27 yards rushing, but he made few mistakes and generally did everything you want your backup quarterback to do when inserted into a game part-way through. Cassel had not completed a pass longer than 15 yards in the first two games of the season (unless you count interceptions). It’s also interesting to note that Bridgewater didn’t play at Louisville until he replaced an injured quarterback in the third game of his rookie season, now he’s replaced an injured quarterback in the third game of his rookie professional season.

Despite the road loss, Ted Glover sees signs of life in the Vikings, particularly with Teddy at the helm:

When Matt Cassel was hurt early in the game, my Twitter timeline BLEW UP. Not because everyone was happy that Cassel got hurt (and seriously, if you did, you’re a terrible human being — get well soon Matt) but because it was Teddy Time, the moment we’d all been waiting for. And it was in about the most inopportune time one could ask a rookie quarterback to come in at — on the road in a very hostile environment, against a good team, down 10 points. His numbers weren’t sparkling (12/20 150 yards, 0/0…6 carries for 27 yards) but for a guy getting thrown into the fire, he looked good, and played well. He looked in command, and made some very good throws, including one to Greg Jennings on a frozen rope. It was a hell of an effort for a guy pretty much thrown to the wolves, and yeah, he missed some throws, especially a couple of easy swing passes to Jerick McKinnon that looked promising. And no, he didn’t engineer a touchdown, which was the first time since the Vikings didn’t score a TD in a game since 2010. But there was so much to like in the debut, that you can’t help but be encouraged that the Vikings maybe, finally, have stability at the quarterback position.

Update: A Final Dispatch From The Teddy Bridgewater Underground. ¡Viva la Revolución!

September 21, 2014

Getting closer to Teddy Time?

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:46

Today’s game between the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints may be the point at which quarterback Matt Cassel has to defend his starting job against rookie Teddy Bridgewater. Cassel did well in the season opener against the St. Louis Rams, but was flat out terrible last week playing the New England Patriots at the Vikings’ home for the next two years, TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota. If Cassel can get back to his preseason-and-first-regular-season form, he’ll definitely keep the starting job. If he turns in another performance like last Sunday, the Teddy Bridgewater Underground may start active operations to install their preferred quarterback for next week.

A.J. Mansour explains just how Cassel fell short of expectations last week:

Could Cassel have had a solitary bad game? Sure. Could he have crumbled under the pressure of facing his former coach and old tutor? Of course. But it wasn’t just the statistics that raised a red flag when I watched the game last weekend. It was the body language, the fundamentals and the physical strength that Matt Cassel exhibited, or didn’t exhibit, that have me concerned and have me once again calling for Teddy Bridgewater to start under center.

While it was the four interceptions that stole the headlines after the game last weekend, it was what led to those four turnovers that should be a worry. Cassel, a ten-year veteran, was making rookie mistakes. You could see him throwing off his back foot, throwing across the field and throwing into double, even triple coverage situations.

All of those observations left me concerned, but the thing that left me most ready to call on the rookie was the lack of arm strength Cassel exhibited last Sunday. Really, it’s been a struggle all year for him.

To date, Cassel doesn’t have a single completed pass of more than 19 yards down the field. Despite seven attempts last week, the deep game has yet to click for Matt and his receivers, and the reason is staring us straight in the face: his arm is simply not strong enough to deliver a deep ball with enough velocity to get it past the defenders without the receiver having to pull up and slow down.

Throw into the mix the fact that the Vikings most dangerous deep threat from a year ago, Jerome Simpson, and their most dangerous backfield threat, Adrian Peterson, have either been cut or are indefinitely barred from the team and the Vikings offense has been left completely one dimensional and reliant on the short-to-intermediate passing game to score points.

In my mind, the solution is simple, and already on roster with the Vikings.

September 15, 2014

Matt Cassel throws four interceptions in 30-7 loss to Patriots

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:43

It was no surprise to see the Vikings come out for Sunday’s game a bit distracted, after the bombshell of the Adrian Peterson situation. What was unexpected was for quarterback Matt Cassel to have one of his worst career games, matching his record of four interceptions in one game. When he wasn’t throwing to guys in the wrong coloured jerseys, or underthrowing passes to the guys in the purple jerseys, he was holding on to the ball far too long and inviting sacks … it was a bad game all around for Cassel. It’s probably too much to say that he lost the game single-handedly, but his performance was the key to everything else going wrong. A blocked field goal attempt made the score 24-7 instead of 17-10 at the half, and the Vikings never got closer in the second half.

Midway through the third quarter, after Cassel’s third pick of the day, the crowd at TCF Bank Stadium started to chant “Teddy”, hoping that Mike Zimmer would bench Cassel and send in Teddy Bridgewater. This inspired @Hiigashi to post this on Twitter:

The Teddy Sign

Like many Vikings fans, I’m looking forward to the debut of our new quarterback, but Zimmer is right not to send him in if he’s not ready yet. And no matter how badly Cassel played, it was still better than we saw in the dying moments of Donovan McNabb’s career (that forced Christian Ponder into the starting role before he was ready).

Offensive woes aside (and there were enough of them), the defence did not do well and the special teams performance was cover-your-eyes bad. The blocked field goal run back for a Patriots TD was the lowlight, but at one point, the Vikings only had nine players on the field for a punt return. The first task of returning special teams co-ordinator Mike Priefer will be to fix the issues that hamstrung the team yesterday (Priefer’s three-game suspension was reduced to two, so he’ll be back in the team facility this week).

Update: Jim Souhan explains the two phases of Matt Cassel.

It took Matt Cassel just two games to deftly summarize his career.

In Game 1, DiploMatt, the nice-guy professional who makes everyone comfortable, eased the Vikings to a 34-6 victory over St. Louis while playing flawlessly.

In Game 2, facing a superior defensive coach and lacking a star running back, HazMatt, the toxic quarterback, threw four interceptions, dooming the Vikings in their 30-7 loss to the Patriots at TCF Bank Stadium.

DiploMatt can make the best of a good situation. DiploMatt won 11 games with an excellent Patriots team in 2008, and won 10 with a previously inept Kansas City team in 2010.

HazMatt has gone 13-27 in his other five seasons, dooming his stay with the Chiefs in 2012 by throwing 12 interceptions and fumbling eight times in nine games.

DiploMatt runs the offense with discipline.

HazMatt stares down receivers so long defensive backs have time to Xerox blocking schemes for their interception returns.

If the Vikings are using kid gloves with rookie Teddy Bridgewater, they need to wear yellow jumpsuits when they approach Cassel.

September 8, 2014

Vikings open season with big win over St. Louis

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:10

Flying into St. Louis, the Minnesota Vikings were three point underdogs — and that was after the Rams’ starting quarterback was lost for the season to an ACL tear in the preseason. With all the coaching changes, a weak draft, and the loss of key players like Jared Allen, Kevin Williams, and Chris Cook, all the mainstream media have been predicting that the Vikings will end up with a worse record than the 5-10-1 of 2013. The defence that leaked touchdowns last year was predicted to be even worse this time around. The middle-of-the-pack offence (even with former league MVP Adrian Peterson) was going to be worse than last year as well, because … well, because.

Perhaps the Rams were taken in by the media reports, because they certainly didn’t seem to take the Vikings seriously. The Vikings long-standing woes on the road probably played into the Rams’ attitude: the Vikings have a terrible road record even in otherwise average years (they’d lost nine straight road games coming into Sunday’s game). Unfortunately for me, the game was not broadcast in the Toronto area, so I watched the Bills beat the Bears while obsessively checking my Twitter feed for game updates from St. Louis.

Daniel House sums up the game at Vikings Corner:

The Minnesota Vikings opened the season with a convincing 34-6 win on the road against the St. Louis Rams. Wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson ran for 102 yards on three carries, including a 67-yard touchdown run off of a pitch out of the backfield. The Vikings defense shut down the Rams offensive attack, helping Mike Zimmer pick up his first win as an NFL head coach. The Rams were able to handle running back Adrian Peterson, allowing him to rush for just 75 yards on 21 carries. They couldn’t handle Cordarrelle Patterson out of the backfield and it proved deadly on multiple occasions in today’s game. The Vikings defense surrendered just 72 rushing yards and prevented the St. Louis offense from reaching the end zone. Safety Harrison Smith added a 83-yard interception return touchdown later in the 4th quarter, capping the Vikings 34-6 win. Most importantly, the team won their first game on the road since the end of the 2012 season.

[…]

Matt Cassel didn’t play at an elite level by any stretch of the imagination, but he managed the game and didn’t make any critical mistakes. That is all he needs to do for this team to be successful and today was the perfect example. There were several communication issues between the coaches and Cassel early in the game, but these problems were slowly resolved as the game progressed. Cassel finished the day 17-for-25 with 170 yards passing and two touchdowns. He connected with Greg Jennings and Kyle Rudolph for scores and continually spread the ball around the entire game. Cassel connected with seven different receivers and most importantly, didn’t make mistakes that have plagued this team in the past. If Matt Cassel can manage the game, make the throws when necessary, and continue to play mistake free, the Vikings can be a formidable offense in this league.

At Vikings Journal, Arif Hasan points out the good and not-so-good on the Vikings defence:

Linval Joseph ended the day with five tackles, ranked third on the team, and all of them were “good” tackles that resulted in an offensive loss. To that, he added a sack and a literal tackle for loss and more than one quarterback pressure (and a hit). His first live action after a shooting injury that saw a bullet hit his calf, Joseph dominated the Rams offensive line, who felt appropriate to sub out Rodger Saffold after his terrible day to put in Greg Robinson.

It was Greg Robinson who gave up the pressure late that led to the final interception.

On the other side was Sharrif Floyd, who wasn’t as good as Joseph, but still a powerful defensive tackle that influenced much of the game through hurries and a tackle for loss in the run game. For someone who had struggled so much as a rookie the year before, Floyd is on track to change things, and he may have put together the best game of his career so far.

[…]

The biggest worry was at safety, with most of the tight end receptions given up (with an exception of one to Lance Kendricks) a result of safety play, almost entirely because of Blanton. There were times that Blanton showed well — he bracketed Jared Cook on the corner route that Josh Robinson jumped for the interception, and he also broke down his tackle against Tavon Austin excellently — but he also gave up several easy yards to tight ends despite the bodybags the Rams were trotting out at quarterback.

Harrison Smith, on the other hand, has been as advertised. He was all over the field, recording a pass deflection, a sack, a hit, a hurry, a tackle for loss, a standard tackle and the game-ending interception that he ran in for a score. Smith couldn’t be stopped and was lights out throughout the game, and did all of this without being targeted very often at all.

The fact that the Vikings have multiple defensive players — one at every level of the defense — worthy of the game ball (Joseph, Barr and Smith) as well as an offensive player that stole the show (Patterson) feels nearly unprecedented in recent Vikings history. With all of the work that Barr did off camera and away from the Ball I would award it to him, but it could just as easily have been awarded to any of the other four.

August 17, 2014

Vikings beat Cardinals 30-28 in second preseason game

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:39

The second preseason game for an NFL team tends to be a pretty pedestrian affair, as neither team likely has figured out their first and second strings completely, they’re still trying to integrate new draft picks and undrafted free agents, and they don’t game plan for the opponent. Despite that, you can occasionally get an entertaining, competitive game this early, and last night’s Vikings-Cardinals matchup at the University of Minnesota was quite entertaining.

The Star Tribune‘s Jim Souhan says one thing that has been settled for the Vikings is that Matt Cassel has won the starting quarterback job over first round draft pick Teddy Bridgewater:

Saturday night, Matt Cassel made the Arizona Cardinals defense look about as effective as the security team at 400 Soundbar.

Cassel hit Kyle Rudolph in stride on a 51-yard catch-and-run for a touchdown. He threw a pass from the Arizona 3-yard line that Rudolph should have caught in the back of the end zone. He even ran effectively, picking up 23 yards on one play in what might have been homage to Joe Webb.

Saturday, Cassel completed 12 of 16 passes for 153 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions, and ran for 30 yards in a 30-28 Vikings victory. For the preseason, he is 17-for-22 for 215 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions.

For this, he received golf claps. When Teddy Bridgewater completed a few passes in the fourth quarter, including a go-ahead score with 18 seconds left, against a defense comprised of future baristas, he received the full “Teddy! Teddy!” chant.

Despite public opinion, the competition that was never really a competition is now over: Cassel will begin the regular season as the Vikings starter, and Bridgewater will enjoy being one Cassel interception from becoming the most popular man in Minnesota.

Footnote: the joke about 400 Soundbar refers to the nightclub where Vikings nose tackle Linval Joseph was slightly wounded as a bystander after the first preseason game.

(more…)

August 9, 2014

Vikings win in Zimmer’s head coaching debut

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:30

I listened to the KFAN game commentary last night, but that’s a big difference from actually watching the action. Matt Cassel and the first team offence put in a creditworthy opening, then Teddy Bridgewater took over. Bridgewater got some time with most of the first team still in the game, then worked with more of the second team through the rest of the first half. Christian Ponder took the field in the second series after halftime.

It was the first time that new head coach Mike Zimmer’s team faced an opponent, so it was re-assuring that the team did fairly well. Especially hopeful was that the defence managed to hold the Raiders out of the end zone until the final few minutes of the game (last year’s defence was historically bad). That is quite clearly showing the impact of Zimmer and his new coaching staff: if they can manage to coax even a league average performance out of the defence this year, the Vikings have a chance to be playing meaningful games in December.

(more…)

May 3, 2014

Mike Zimmer’s first Vikings mini-camp has even veterans nervous

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:37

As a brand-new head coach, Mike Zimmer is allowed to have a few more early team practices and training sessions than established coaches under the NFL’s bargaining agreement. The first mini-camp was held this week, from Tuesday to Thursday, and even the veteran players were approaching it like the first day on the job:

Matt Cassel has been around the NFL block a few times in his 10 seasons as a quarterback. Not much surprises him anymore, and yet he found himself unable to sleep the night before the Vikings minicamp this week.

“I was excited, jittery,” he said.

Chad Greenway felt those same butterflies. The veteran linebacker compared it to being a rookie or college freshman again.

“It was straight-up nerves,” he said.

Captain Munnerlyn arrived in town as a key offseason acquisition who’s supposed to help fix a shipwrecked defense, and even he felt a weird uneasiness.

“With a new coach, it’s a clean slate for everybody,” he said. “That means every position is open. Except for the running back position.”

Good call. We’ll go out on a limb and suggest that Adrian Peterson probably didn’t need to impress the new coaching staff in order to keep his job. But everyone else convened at Winter Park this week with an overarching sense of anxiety not normally evident at a routine offseason workout.

Imagine your first day with a new boss, one who’s known for his no-nonsense personality and brutal honesty. And salty language.

“You’re on edge and trying to make a good first impression,” Greenway said. “You know the draft is coming in a week. They’ll probably make some decisions based off of this camp.”

If Mike Zimmer’s first on-field introduction made players nervous and uncomfortable, that’s a good thing. This organization had become too lethargic under the previous regime. The atmosphere at Winter Park became stale as losses piled up last season.

March 9, 2014

“Legal tampering period” kicks off, and more on the Matt Cassel signing

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:53

We’re in that odd block of time between Saturday and Tuesday, where NFL teams are allowed to negotiate with free agent players (or players’ agents), but no deals can be announced until Tuesday. This gives every beat writer in every football town free range to go wild with speculation and sharing rumours about which glamourous free agents are in negotiations with their local team or being stalked by some other team. Given how much of the normal NFL year is given over to passing along rumours, this must be one of the peaks of ungrounded speculation (the other being the draft itself).

The Vikings are said to be trying to sign former Bengal defensive end Michael Johnson and former Titan defensive back Alterraun Verner, but we won’t know who’s signing with any team until Tuesday.

On slightly more solid ground, Jim Souhan says that the Matt Cassel deal was the right move for both the Vikings and for Cassel himself:

Matt Cassel’s return to the Vikings sets up so many juicy possibilities.

The team is now one signing away from putting the band back together. If they can just re-sign Josh Freeman, they’ll have Cassel, Freeman and Ponder all under contract, negating the chance of any of their competitors stealing the magic formula of the 2013 Minnesota Vikings, or what Vikings receivers called, “Hunger Games: Catching Nothing.”

[…]

OK, that’s not fair. The Cassel signing is rational. He played pretty well last year, and handled himself like a pro even when forced to watch Ponder throw at the feet of receivers and Freeman throw at the feet of concessionaires.

What’s most important about the Cassel signing is that it allows the Vikings to maneuver. With Cassel capable of starting or relieving, the Vikings can cut Ponder if they want. They can spend a high draft pick on their latest quarterback of the future and know they won’t have to rush him into action.

And here’s a thought that might infuriate Vikings fans desperate to draft and develop their own Russell Wilson or Aaron Rodgers: The Vikings have done pretty well signing veteran quarterbacks. Their Plan Bs have worked out better than a lot of teams’ Plan As.

March 8, 2014

Vikings re-sign quarterback Matt Cassel

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:54

Taking some pressure off the Vikings’ requirements in the upcoming draft, yesterday they re-signed Matt Cassel to a two-year, $10 million deal. Cassel had voided the optional second year of his original contract to test the free agency waters. Clearly the right decision for him, as he’ll be making a fair bit more than the $3.7 called for in that contract. ESPN‘s Ben Goessling has more:

Now, the Vikings at least have their much-discussed bridge to the future, whatever that is. If they don’t get a quarterback in the first round of the draft, they can at least take one in a later round and let him compete for the job with Cassel, knowing they can probably survive if he’s not ready to play right away. And if they choose to look toward a 2015 quarterback class that could include Oregon’s Marcus Mariota and UCLA’s Brett Hundley, they could have Cassel’s hand at the helm for 2014.

Let’s be clear about what Cassel is, and is not. He is the most reliable quarterback on the Vikings’ roster at the moment, after turning in more solid performances than bad ones in a goofy year at quarterback in Minnesota. He is not the kind of QB the Vikings will build around, and his two-year deal reflects that. He’s had two good full seasons as a starting quarterback — in 2008 for the Patriots and 2010 for the Chiefs — and has been mediocre in the full-time role otherwise. But the Vikings were never asking Cassel to be a long-term solution at the position. They were simply hoping he could drive them from here to their next quarterback without banging the car up too badly. He should be able to do that, and now, the Vikings don’t have to head into the rest of the spring staring at a gaping hole at the NFL’s most important position.


MINNEAPOLIS – DECEMBER 15: Matt Cassel #16 of the Minnesota Vikings warms up prior to an NFL game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Mall of America Field, on December 15, 2013 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Tom Dahlin/Getty Images)

March 6, 2014

Mike Zimmer hosts Twin Cities media for lunch and film session

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 15:44

I continue to be impressed with the approach taken by new Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer. Today he sat down with several Minneapolis/St. Paul sports writers to look at film and discuss the Vikings’ plans as they enter the free agency period. USA Today‘s Tom Pelissero was there and posted a summary:

New Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer says he’d like quarterback Matt Cassel to re-sign with the team, but Zimmer knows it’s not his decision.

“I would love to Matt Cassel back, if Matt Cassel wants to be back,” Zimmer said Thursday. “I don’t know if that will happen, won’t happen. But we’re going to find a quarterback somewhere, and if it’s not Matt Cassel, then we’ll find someone else.

“I want guys that want to be here. I want guys that want to be part of the franchise, be part of the organization, be part of the team, and if Matt wants to come back, then I’m sure we’ll get it worked out.”

Cassel, 31, voided the second year of his contract last month and can become an unrestricted free agent at 4 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. The window for teams to talk to the agents for prospective UFAs begins Saturday.

“I think everyone wants to explore,” Zimmer said. “He’s got a bunch of pretty girls looking at him right now. So, he wants to explore and see what’s best for him.

Zimmer also announced the following dates:

  • April 28 Veteran minicamp report date
  • April 29-May 1 Veteran minicamp
  • May 15 Rookie minicamp report date
  • May 16-18 Rookie minicamp
  • May 28-30 Organized Team Activities (OTAs)
  • June 3-5 Second week of OTAs
  • June 9-12 Third week of OTAs
  • June 17-19 Mandatory minicamp

In other team news, yesterday the Vikings released tight end John Carlson, whose big money contract didn’t translate into the kind of on-the-field impact both sides had hoped for. Earlier today, the team also released defensive tackle Letroy Guion and wide receiver Greg Childs. Childs had been drafted at the same time as WR Jarius Wright, but suffered a serious injury to both knees and never played a down for the team.

Update: Cornerback Chris Cook — who many view as being on his way out of Minnesota due to performance issues — tweeted that he’d talked over his future with Zimmer. In an aside today, Zimmer said “My impression is that he shouldn’t be tweeting our conversation.” Most players would have heard that shot across the bow and shut up. That apparently isn’t Cook’s style:

December 22, 2013

Matt Cassel has done everything the Vikings have asked

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:48

In the Star Tribune, Jim Souhan wonders why Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier didn’t switch to Matt Cassel permanently the first time Christian Ponder went down to injury:

The Vikings will be looking for a quarterback in the draft. If they could draw up a prototype of the ideal prospect, he would look something like this:

About 6-foot-4, 230 pounds. Good mechanics. Able to control a huddle and read defenses. Adept at throwing the deep ball.

He’d possess leadership skills and experience. He’d be able to complete about 62 percent of his passes, move well within the pocket and handle the diplomatic demands of the modern NFL quarterback.

The Vikings absolutely should draft someone like that. They also should realize that they’ll have that guy in their huddle Sunday.

If you want to label Matt Cassel, you can pick any convenient phrase, and you’d be right. He has been project, prospect, young backup, winning starter, losing starter, demoted starter, castoff, veteran backup, emergency starter and, this season, a third quarterback on a team that temporarily favored two struggling quarterbacks.

At season’s end, either he or the Vikings can opt out of the second year of his two-year contract. The Vikings would be wise to keep him around. Asked whether he wants to stay, Cassel said, “I would love to be back here.”

Cassel has done exactly what the Vikings wanted Christian Ponder to do: take advantage of defenses stacked up to stop Adrian Peterson. Last Sunday, Cassel went further, taking advantage of a defense that had probably never heard of fill-in starter Matt Asiata. Cassel produced 48 points with an offense missing its top two backs and top two tight ends.

A Vikings quarterback has thrown for 240 yards five times this season. Ponder and Freeman have done it zero times; Cassel has done it five times.

Matt Cassel may not be the long-term answer, but he’s proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s a better quarterback than either Ponder or Freeman and has fully earned the starting role for the remainder of the season. The team has been more than generous in allowing Ponder opportunities to solidify his hold on the starting quarterback position and he’s remained frustratingly inconsistent. The $2 million spent on bringing Josh Freeman to town might as well have gone on redecorating the locker rooms at the soon-to-be-demolished Metrodome, as it would clearly take a miracle for him to see the field again this year.

Assuming that the Vikings spend a high pick on a quarterback in the 2014 draft, keeping Cassel on the roster is the intelligent thing to do. He can start, giving the rookie more time to acclimatize to the NFL, or he can be a mentor if the team decides to give the rookie a chance to start right away. Cassel may not be the best quarterback around, but he’s the best option open to Minnesota.

Update:

December 16, 2013

Vikings stun Eagles 48-30 despite Adrian Peterson missing the game

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:33

Now that the Vikings have been officially eliminated from postseason play (not that there’d been much doubt for the last few games, but mathematically they were still alive), it’s less likely that I’ll be able to watch another Vikings game this season. Yesterday’s game which would normally have been carried on the Winnipeg CTV station was replaced by a game with actual playoff implications. I can’t really object to this, but it would have been nice to watch Minnesota dominate the Philadelphia Eagles.

Greg Jennings finally had the kind of game we’d hoped he’d be having all season, finally going over 100 yards receiving and scoring a TD. Cordarrelle Patterson had an impact on the game from the start, as Philadelphia avoided kicking to him as much as they could, which gave the Vikings better field position after every kick. Running back Matt Asiata, filling in for the injured Adrian Peterson and Toby Gerhart, had his first, second, and third career touchdowns, while Matt Cassel had the best outing of any Minnesota quarterback all season (and one of the best games of his career: 26 of 35 for 382 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT and a 116.6 passer rating).

The Daily Norseman‘s Ted Glover clearly enjoyed the game:

On a day when the Minnesota Vikings celebrated the ‘All Mall of America Field’ team, it was fitting, in many ways, that almost 50 points would be put on the board. After all, an all time team that has Daunte Culpepper, Robert Smith, Adrian Peterson, Anthony Carter, Cris Carter, and Randy Moss on it could hang 50 on damn near anyone.

The thing is, if you told me somebody was going to score almost 50 Sunday, the last team I would’ve picked would have been the Walking Wounded version of the Vikings. Adrian Peterson was out, Toby Gerhart was out, Kyle Rudolph and John Carlson were out. And that was just the offense. On defense, it was almost as bad, and what the Vikings fielded on Sunday was an amalgamation of second stringers, practice squad refugees, and NFL journeymen. It was a game that felt like the Vikings had virtually no chance to win.

Yet, they cruised 48-30. The NFL, go figure. It was the most gratifying win in almost a year, since the last game of the regular season last year. And for one day, at least, the most high powered offense in the NFL belongs to the Minnesota Vikings. Instead of the Eagles flying high, it was the Vikings. Flying like the Eagles. To the sea. DO YOU SEE WHAT I JUST DID THERE STEVE MILLER?

Update: At the Star Tribune, Jim Souhan says that this game may end up upending a few “foregone conclusions” about the Vikings after this season:

Foregone conclusion No. 1: Frazier will be fired.

Sure, that’s possible, maybe even likely. Frazier went 3-13 in his first full season and is 4-9-1 this year. The suggestion he’ll be fired as he nears the end of his contract is logical.

But is it wise? Last year, the Vikings won their close games and made the playoffs. This year, they’ve lost a half-dozen close games and will miss the playoffs. Their losses this season have been caused by bad quarterback play and late-game defensive collapses.

[…]

The Vikings have been so desperate to develop their own franchise quarterback for so many decades that, in the 2011 draft, they chose Christian Ponder in the first round because he shared some of the same attributes as elite quarterbacks, such as breathing oxygen and speaking in complete sentences.

It turns out that the Vikings would have been better off signing another Jeff George or Warren Moon than wasting a first-round pick on a quarterback.

This year, the Vikings are 2-2 when Cassel starts, with victories over Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. They are 2-7-1 when Cassel doesn’t start, including the game against the Bears when he rallied the Vikings to victory over Chicago when Ponder suffered a concussion late in the second quarter. Cassel is not a franchise quarterback, but he could save the franchise from making a rash decision in the draft.

Cassel is no Lamborghini. He’s a taxicab sitting in front of a bar at 2 a.m. You don’t pick him for the thrills; you pick him to avoid making a big mistake.

December 2, 2013

Vikings win in overtime against Chicago

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:20

The second game in a row that went to overtime against a divisional rival, but unlike last week’s game, the Vikings somehow came away with the win. Christian Ponder started at quarterback, but left the game with concussion symptoms and Matt Cassel stepped in to bring the team back from a 10-point deficit and force overtime. Poor Rhett Ellison was the goat not once but twice on what would have been game-winning plays: allowing an interception at the goal line and then committing a facemask infraction on a field goal attempt.

ESPN‘s Ben Goessling:

Ponder had completed just 3-of-8 eight passes for 40 yards before being examined for a concussion in the second quarter on Sunday, and had been sacked twice. The Vikings trailed 20-10 entering the fourth quarter, but Cassel directed two scoring drives to send the game into overtime. He rebounded from an interception that negated another scoring drive when Rhett Ellison couldn’t handle a would-be touchdown pass and the ball wound up in Bears linebacker Khaseem Greene’s hands. In overtime, Cassel marched the Vikings down the field twice more — once for a missed field goal after Ellison’s facemask penalty negated Blair Walsh’s would-be game winner, and another time for the 34-yard kick from Walsh that ended the game.

Cassel finished with 243 yards passing and a touchdown, hitting 20-of-33 passes in relief of Ponder. And while his success might have been due to the fact the Bears hadn’t prepared for him, he might have also put himself back in the race to start next Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens, especially if Ponder can’t play.

Frazier has talked on several occasions this year about not considering Cassel as one of his starting options, preferring to keep him in reserve in case of situations such as Sunday’s, and Cassel showed again how much value he has as a veteran backup. But the Vikings also have been hesitant to go back to Freeman after he went 20 of 53 in his one start against the New York Giants, and if Ponder isn’t cleared in time to return, Cassel might get his second start of the season.

At the Star Tribune, Jim Souhan sings the praises of Adrian Peterson, who passed the 10,000 yard career rushing mark during yesterday’s game:

He begins his carries with the upright bearing of Eric Dickerson, and finishes them with the pugilistic mien of Jim Brown. Adrian Peterson bulled and sprinted into the company of legends again on Sunday, passing one of those round-number milestones so rapidly that he again made all of his outlandish goals seem attainable.

Peterson is chasing Emmitt Smith and other fast men now, and like all fast men he will find time to be his most worrisome enemy. At 28, Peterson on Sunday rushed 35 times for 211 yards to reach 10,000 yards faster than any backs in history other than Dickerson, who did it in 91 games, and Brown, who did it in 98.

Smith rushed for an NFL-record 18,355 yards, and while logic and history suggest Peterson will slow to an unsustainable pace long before he challenges that mark, logic has yet to constrain him, and history speaks well of him.

In the first 694 games in Vikings history, one back rushed for 200 yards in a game — Chuck Foreman gaining exactly 200 on Oct. 24, 1976. In his first 101 games, Peterson rushed for 200 yards or more five times.

In NFL history, only one player has had more 200-yard games than Peterson — O.J. Simpson, who had six. Peterson is tied for second with Tiki Barber.

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