There's been a ton of discussion lately about the Vikings and the Lions and the posters on the Den have been a bit miffed about the positive press the Queens are getting while the Lions seem to get every "Joey must put up or else"type of article written. So after a LONG thread, I decided to chime in with my view of the Vikings season this year. Let's just say I have a very different view of their chances than most media outlets have...
Here's the problem I see looming with the Queens O this year - their big-play O will see a significant downturn in production. And yes, it's all related to losing Randy Moss.
If all you lost was Randy's production, it would be one thing, but you lose so much more...
- They lost the one receiver who demanded to be double teamed that they had. This double team freed up many other options on the field as a safety would always have to cheat toward Moss. That frees up the RB's lanes, puts the other WR's in single coverage against a #2 or 3 CB, and guarantees a TE will have a LB trying to cover them. Without Moss, all those formational advantages are gone, making the other players on the Queens that much easier to cover.
- Moss was Culpepper's safety blanket - Pepper knew with Moss out there if he was in trouble, he could chuck it deep and there was a good chance something good would happen. The threat of an INT was minimal as Moss could simply out jump nearly every defender for the ball. Heck, you even played him at CB in a few games to stop Hail Mary passes, and I even remember him intercepting one. Moss made CB's look silly on deep passes the way Barry Sanders used to make entire defenses look silly trying to stop him. Now you have no one who can even remotely come close to filling that role.
- Opposing teams game plans got a lot easier. Now, instead of having to create junk D's to account for Moss on every play, they can go back to playing a very conventional style of D. There's no more cramming to install a few D packages before a team plays the Queens. The Base D's will work.
- The Queens O has been big-play based for several years. In a previous post I mentioned that you take away the 7 big plays they had in the extra-point game, and the Queens had 56 plays for 195 yards (3.5 per play) in the rest of the game. How well do you think the Big Play O will work without it's best playmaker? I'd be nowhere near as well.
- Finally, the Queens replaced him with perennially underachieving Travis Taylor and a Rook with great speed, but horrible stats. Neither of these guys even comes close to holding Randy's jock. Yet somehow people in Minnesoter think there won't be a dropoff in Culpeppers stats.
Based on the huge impact to the O, plus the well described by other posters problems with your old D Vets, I have a very negative view about the Queens. Personally, I am picking the Queens as my 'Flop' team for 2005. I think they have the best chance to go from the playoffs to picking in the top 10 in next years draft of all the playoff teams. I see them being an injury to Culpepper away from a 49ers - Dolphins type year. And I see no way that Tice is coaching them in 2006. Mark my words, as I'll add them to my blog - 2005 will be a year to forget in ViQueen land...
No comments:
Post a Comment