I (and I am sure many others) agree with your point Kendricks and Harrison seemed to be put into situations that minimized their strengths... Donatell seemed to not care at all what players were good at, he just wanted to run his scheme come hell or high water... At least that is what it felt like
Thanks for the analysis and common sense. So many Vikings fans (though I think much less here in the subscribers seem to have no clue)... Also, it may seem obvious but many as you pointed out (and many people don`t get) the parameters of any rebuild will be decided by the Wilfs.
As for drafting a QB in the first round, I would rather wait until next year (I like the idea of building up the trenches and defense) with the idea that next year we will not be good (schedule is brutal) and next year we will have much better draft positioning. Also if a Kirk trade happens then clearly we have a very ugly year but that sets up very well for getting a top QB prospect.. But that is my personal line of thinking and clearly others make sense as well.
I do get the feeling (Kwesi certainly implied it) he is thinking of trading down with our first round pick.
"Q- What argument could be made that this core could win a superbowl? A- That debate is already settled."
Man, I am so tired of this debate, and wish that more would agree that it is settled, lol. For the record, I agree with you.
"Oh yeah, there would definitely be a market for [Kirk].... Based on recent history [and] [b]ased on the way [Kirk] played, he’s got leverage here."
I actually don't agree with this. Kirk had his worst season in a long, long time by basically every meaningful metric. His quarterback ranking dropped like a rock (to 92.5 which is his lowest ever as a full time starter and after four years with at least 99.7), his QBR dropped to his lowest number since his third year, his ANY/A similarly was his lowest as a starter and was over a full yard below where he had been the last 3 years, his PFF grade was comfortably lower than it has been since his Washington days, his DYAR is his lowest since 2016, his INT% was his career average and was higher than it has been in three of the last four years, his TD% is his lowest since 2016... Basically the only stat that shows that Kirk has had a good year relative to himself or the competition is his game-winning drives (an insane 8 game winning drives this year), but then Matthew has been telling us for years that we should ignore game-winning drives as it is a poor stat that reflects opportunity rather than skill, and this weird team kept on giving Kirk opportunities for game-winning drives. When you combine that with the fact that Kirk will be age 25 and the recent history for trading for QBs (Russ, Matt Ryan, Watson, Wentz, Wentz again, Mariota) has mainly been a string of disappointments that have lead to coaches being fired, and I am not sure that people will be falling over themselves to trade for Kirk. In general, people tend to try to replicate what worked for other teams, and look at strategies that failed as being branded with a scarlet A.
I do think that the Vikings could trade him, but I am expecting that the market will be modest.
Otherwise, I also don't quite agree with the common refrain here that Spielman was a garbage drafter. Plenty of good players that he drafted, and it isn't his fault that in many cases the gems that he drafted (e.g., Marcus Epps, Jayron Kearse) were cut only to find success on other teams. Feels like we are going to keep on blaming Spielman for as many years as we can get away with it, but just because that is easy doesn't make it correct - the wAV that Rick drafted is significant and does not indicate a clear failure.
I (and I am sure many others) agree with your point Kendricks and Harrison seemed to be put into situations that minimized their strengths... Donatell seemed to not care at all what players were good at, he just wanted to run his scheme come hell or high water... At least that is what it felt like
Thanks for the analysis and common sense. So many Vikings fans (though I think much less here in the subscribers seem to have no clue)... Also, it may seem obvious but many as you pointed out (and many people don`t get) the parameters of any rebuild will be decided by the Wilfs.
As for drafting a QB in the first round, I would rather wait until next year (I like the idea of building up the trenches and defense) with the idea that next year we will not be good (schedule is brutal) and next year we will have much better draft positioning. Also if a Kirk trade happens then clearly we have a very ugly year but that sets up very well for getting a top QB prospect.. But that is my personal line of thinking and clearly others make sense as well.
I do get the feeling (Kwesi certainly implied it) he is thinking of trading down with our first round pick.
"Q- What argument could be made that this core could win a superbowl? A- That debate is already settled."
Man, I am so tired of this debate, and wish that more would agree that it is settled, lol. For the record, I agree with you.
"Oh yeah, there would definitely be a market for [Kirk].... Based on recent history [and] [b]ased on the way [Kirk] played, he’s got leverage here."
I actually don't agree with this. Kirk had his worst season in a long, long time by basically every meaningful metric. His quarterback ranking dropped like a rock (to 92.5 which is his lowest ever as a full time starter and after four years with at least 99.7), his QBR dropped to his lowest number since his third year, his ANY/A similarly was his lowest as a starter and was over a full yard below where he had been the last 3 years, his PFF grade was comfortably lower than it has been since his Washington days, his DYAR is his lowest since 2016, his INT% was his career average and was higher than it has been in three of the last four years, his TD% is his lowest since 2016... Basically the only stat that shows that Kirk has had a good year relative to himself or the competition is his game-winning drives (an insane 8 game winning drives this year), but then Matthew has been telling us for years that we should ignore game-winning drives as it is a poor stat that reflects opportunity rather than skill, and this weird team kept on giving Kirk opportunities for game-winning drives. When you combine that with the fact that Kirk will be age 25 and the recent history for trading for QBs (Russ, Matt Ryan, Watson, Wentz, Wentz again, Mariota) has mainly been a string of disappointments that have lead to coaches being fired, and I am not sure that people will be falling over themselves to trade for Kirk. In general, people tend to try to replicate what worked for other teams, and look at strategies that failed as being branded with a scarlet A.
I do think that the Vikings could trade him, but I am expecting that the market will be modest.
Otherwise, I also don't quite agree with the common refrain here that Spielman was a garbage drafter. Plenty of good players that he drafted, and it isn't his fault that in many cases the gems that he drafted (e.g., Marcus Epps, Jayron Kearse) were cut only to find success on other teams. Feels like we are going to keep on blaming Spielman for as many years as we can get away with it, but just because that is easy doesn't make it correct - the wAV that Rick drafted is significant and does not indicate a clear failure.