vikings/nfl

Whats the point of this if you have your corners consistently giving a 10 yard cushion to the receivers and allowing them to catch the ball in front of the corner, to the left of the corner, to the right of the corner and then letting the receiver run right past them and catch a deep ball. But I guess that is just the way to play the "Butter Defense" of the Vikes! I guess in practice the corners are able to cover receivers to give them a false sense of security, but wait a minute, the Vikes don't have any quality receivers other than Harvin and I'm sure they keep him out of practice to prevent injury. How much longer do we have to put up with corners who can't cover and receivers who can't get open deep? Maybe they should devote some time to practicing some plays that have both AP and Harvin in the game at the same time at crunch time! Think last week's game was the last one that was winable on the schedule. Going to be a long wait to draft day next spring, Vikes should be in the running for being on the clock as soon as the gun sounds at the Super Bowl.

If the front four doesn't provide adequate pass rush, this secondary and linebacker corps is simply not talented or disciplined enough to cover receivers that long, regardless if they are in zone or man. None of the current Vikings secondary players were ever considered "ball hawks" at any point in their careers, so on the rare occasion they have a chance to intercept a pass, they typically don't. What this leads to is double-digit play drives and a slow defensive death. The Vikings essentially stood pat in terms of upgrading defensive secondary personnel, outside of adding two rookies from Notre Dame, who were part of a collegiate pass defense that gave up 23 TDs and picked off 8 passes against opposing QBs in 2011--eerily similar to the Vikings putrid pass defense in 2011: (34 TDs, 8 INTs). Disgusting.

Oh, I forgot to mention they added rookie CB Josh Robinson, who wowed everybody with a 4.2 40 yard dash at the combine and hasn't done anything notable in a game situation, preseason or regular season, since. We all should have anticipated this pass defense performance. After putting up one of the worst passing defenses in NFL history last year, all they did was take a flyer on a couple of street free agents who didn't make to the final roster and drafted three rookies from Notre Dame and Central Florida. Upgrading the pass defense simply was not as high a priority as moving Charlie Johnson to guard and drafting a rookie LT apparently was, and we are witnessing the embarrassing fallout from those decisions. If we cannot contain dudes like Cecil Shorts and Donnie Avery, virtual no-names, we have no shot against Megatron, Brandon Marshall and Jordy Nelson later this year.

Only the 0-16 Lions' pass defense was rated lower in NFL HISTORY than the 2011 Vikings passing defense was, yet Spielman ran out and spent $25 million on an oft-injured TE in John Carlson!

Frazier and Spielman banked on a healthy Winfield and a focused Chris Cook to help the pass defense improve, yet it looks just like it did through the first handful of games in 2011 when they both were on the field together--POROUS!

Just do it all perfect and it works!

Time to use Audie Cole! The kid has it!

They've been running this defense for 6 years and they still don't have the players to make it work. EJ was a quality linebacker before the injuries but he was always a downhill thumper, not an Urlacher type. Same goes for Brinkley. And our secondary still stinks no matter how many Cover 2 style players we draft.

I can't figure out if the Vikes are just bad coaches or if they're still really young and don't yet have the players to play their defense, or offense. I really like Fraiser. I really want him to succeed. And you don't have to be a rah rah type to do well in the pros. But so far his teams do not come out and play with the sense of urgency other teams do. Are they young or just a very average team?

Either Frazier doesn't have the talent to run his scheme or his scheme doesn't work anymore. Saying things like, "You do it because you've done it enough to where you know that the linebacker can make the play, along with safety help," Frazier said. "And we got neither in that instance."That's ridiculous. You know the linebacker can make the play? Well they haven't been for quite some time. Some quarterbacks fail and they take their coach down with them. In our case, it might be Cover 2 failing and taking Frazier with him. And that might be alright.