Who do you want as OC and DC?

The offensive coordinator
Any back-and-forth about the dismal 49ers game can’t ignore the fact that overall offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski, now the next head coach of the Cleveland Browns, oversaw a unit that was more productive than anything the Vikings had seen since they employed a Hall of Fame quarterback during a career year. Minnesota ranked eighth in points scored this year and sixth in points per drive, the highest they’ve ranked in either category since 2009 under Brett Favre.

Stefanski’s system was far from perfect — the team had one response when play action was taken away, and that was the screen game. When that also got shut down, the Vikings found themselves fighting left-handed and without recourse. They need to do a better job of planning for and overcoming teams that bite on the quarterback on bootlegs but have the talent up-front to stop the run.

But that will be someone else’s concern now. The Vikings will be looking for their fifth offensive coordinator in as many seasons, with a stated desire for continuity while also potentially starting back at square one when it comes to the learning curve of their new hire. It’s looking increasingly likely that offensive assistant Gary Kubiak’s son, Klint Kubiak, will be the offensive coordinator, which would mean the Vikings once again have a first-timer in the role.

While promoting from within can resolve some of the concerns with continuity — the language will be the same, and the core concepts will likely remain in the offense — that’s not really the concern. Cousins has spent a lot of time in wide zone, play-action heavy West Coast offenses, so he’s always had that type of continuity. Rather, the specific idiosyncrasies of the coordinator, along with the bumps on the road they’ll have learning on the job, will always take time to overcome.

Systems aren’t magic. We’ve seen a number of West Coast offenses, including those reliant on play action, fail. Sean McVay has struggled to get more out of Jared Goff this year in Los Angeles, while Cousins’ initial run with Washington couldn’t end in a long-term deal despite working with Matt Cavanaugh, another West Coast disciple.

Whatever you think is the extent of Gary Kubiak’s influence over the team’s offensive success, the fact that the Vikings implemented elements of Kubiak’s system into their offense doesn’t diminish Stefanski’s skill at wielding it — especially as he owned many of their passing concepts.

The Vikings organization loves Stefanski, who’d been with the team since 2006 through several head-coaching changes, and it seems unlikely that the amount of respect he’s generated within the facility could happen if he was simply a paint-by-numbers play caller for Gary Kubiak, who explicitly takes steps back from doing the grunt work of being an offensive coordinator. Not only that, Stefanski’s role in the offense gave him veto power over everything, from concepts to game plans, while the play calling ultimately rested with him.

All that is to say, the Vikings will have to adjust whether it’s Klint Kubiak or someone else. That person very well could design a better offense for the Vikings, with better play calling and more flexible game plans. But the team once again starts at a disadvantage after losing Stefanski.

Defensive coaching staff
The offensive side of the ball isn’t the only place the Vikings will have to answer some questions. After Zimmer resisted the pressure to give up play-calling duty to defensive coordinator George Edwards, the Vikings have decided Edwards’ contract should expire without renewing. Unlike Stefanski, Edwards didn’t receive much attention outside of the organization when it came to serious calls for head-coaching gigs,and has never been the lead candidate for an available job.

This might be because Edwards has less to do with the defense than Stefanski does with the offense. While questions about the roles both played on their respective side of the ball are fair given the opacity of the organizational structure in the building, that doesn’t mean their situations are comparable. The fact that Zimmer called plays while Kubiak didn’t isn’t the only difference between the two situations, either.

Edwards never had the kind of organizational power Stefanski was able to deploy in his first year as a coordinator. Edwards didn’t generate or lead game plan discussions like Stefanski, nor did he have veto power over any major decisions. He didn’t drive the direction of the defense, as Stefanski did with the offense.

Still, the Vikings will lose something by seeing him go. His relationship to the assistants around him and lead role in developing the talent the Vikings acquired on the defensive side of the ball impacted the organization in ways that may be difficult to replace, and they could be looking at another hole in the structure of their coaching staff that might be replaced by a first-time, younger coach — quite possibly another coach’s son in Adam Zimmer.

A potentially more critical loss is long-time defensive backs coach Jerry Gray, who is also departing. He’s played a big role in the technical development of the Vikings secondary, and though they’ve taken a step back this year at cornerback, they’ve largely played well and demonstrated remarkable development over the years. And the safety play has been elite, even when excluding all-world Harrison Smith from the evaluation.

It could even be the case that losing Gray will mean a lot more to the team’s prospects than losing Edwards, despite Gray’s theoretically junior status to Edwards. The Vikings will have to reach out to find qualified candidates in that role and may have to go with someone without the chops Gray provided.