Revisiting the Bradford Trade

pinfante79
Jersey Retired

Posts: 4,277

Likes: 1,736
Fan Since: Mid 80's

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 17, 2021 16:40:57 GMT -6 via Tapatalk

Quote

Post by pinfante79 on Nov 17, 2021 16:40:57 GMT -6

Nov 17, 2021 15:44:59 GMT -6 Jor-El said:

Nov 17, 2021 10:01:07 GMT -6 pinfante79 said:

I thought we wanted to be aggressive? Or do we only want to be aggressive when we're trying to take shots at a coach, a GM, a player, and so on?

Is not being aggressive the excuse they want to tell ourselves for not having the outcome that we would love to have? Or at times being too aggressive what we want to tell ourselves is our problem? Ladies and gentlemen we are all just blowing smoke up each other's asses, That's the moral of the story. Take a buzzword like conservative or aggressive and manipulate it to prove any point you want to think you are...

You're making a straw man argument against most of the Spielman and Zimmer detractors by saying, "You all want our team to be aggressive but then you dislike when they are or don't admit it when the aggressive approach doesn't work, like the Bradford trade."

bullsh*t - at least in my case. Yes, there are times when I and others have said the playcalling was too conservative or that Zimmer was not aggressive enough to hold a lead. But "aggressive" is not a RESULT I desire - it's a method that we may suggest as a means of reaching what we really want.

We want our team's management to be GOOD. SMART. Above all: Competent enough to win a championship. As far as aggressiveness, that means they should be smart enough to know when to be aggressive - or not.

The Bradford trade wasn't crap because of some oversimplistic idea like, "aggressive moves don't ever work". It failed because it was STUPID. I dug through it and wrote about it in the thread linked below, and the short version is that a trade for a new starting QB after training camp or in midseason has never worked. But Spielman didn't know that or thought he was smarter than the history of the NFL. He also traded for, as whoskmoon put it so well, "a bad QB that the team who had him didn't want", and had a horrifying injury history before he even got behind our inadequate OL.

link

No, we aren't hypocrites who just ask for "aggressiveness". We want a good GM and HC, and their results have damned the current ones.

You have a "good" coach and more than a "good" GM... The coach with this roster is a square peg in a round hole.

You want Superbowls. That's fair. But we have "good" we need a ring. There are other factors. Doug Peterson is "good" won a Superbowl, Bruce Arians is a f*cking dope, won a Superbowl (thanks to the goat), Kyle Shannahan a avg coach made the Superbowl, Sean Payton is "good" and that's being generous.

Point is you don't need perfection across the board. You need another pieces that fit well together, you need to stay relatively healthy, and a few lucky bounces or a hail Mary off the head if you don't have Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes...

Please don't follow me on Twitter @pi_Unmasked

FSUVike
Franchise Player

Posts: 3,202
Likes: 4,942

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 17, 2021 18:47:14 GMT -6 via mobile

Quote

Post by FSUVike on Nov 17, 2021 18:47:14 GMT -6

Nov 17, 2021 16:40:57 GMT -6 pinfante79 said:

Nov 17, 2021 15:44:59 GMT -6 Jor-El said:

You're making a straw man argument against most of the Spielman and Zimmer detractors by saying, "You all want our team to be aggressive but then you dislike when they are or don't admit it when the aggressive approach doesn't work, like the Bradford trade."

bullsh*t - at least in my case. Yes, there are times when I and others have said the playcalling was too conservative or that Zimmer was not aggressive enough to hold a lead. But "aggressive" is not a RESULT I desire - it's a method that we may suggest as a means of reaching what we really want.

We want our team's management to be GOOD. SMART. Above all: Competent enough to win a championship. As far as aggressiveness, that means they should be smart enough to know when to be aggressive - or not.

The Bradford trade wasn't crap because of some oversimplistic idea like, "aggressive moves don't ever work". It failed because it was STUPID. I dug through it and wrote about it in the thread linked below, and the short version is that a trade for a new starting QB after training camp or in midseason has never worked. But Spielman didn't know that or thought he was smarter than the history of the NFL. He also traded for, as whoskmoon put it so well, "a bad QB that the team who had him didn't want", and had a horrifying injury history before he even got behind our inadequate OL.

link

No, we aren't hypocrites who just ask for "aggressiveness". We want a good GM and HC, and their results have damned the current ones.

You have a "good" coach and more than a "good" GM... The coach with this roster is a square peg in a round hole.

You want Superbowls. That's fair. But we have "good" we need a ring. There are other factors. Doug Peterson is "good" won a Superbowl, Bruce Arians is a f*cking dope, won a Superbowl (thanks to the goat), Kyle Shannahan a avg coach made the Superbowl, Sean Payton is "good" and that's being generous.

Point is you don't need perfection across the board. You need another pieces that fit well together, you need to stay relatively healthy, and a few lucky bounces or a hail Mary off the head if you don't have Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes...

Rick Spielman is 'more than good'? His successor will have to find a Franchise QB and Rebuild all 3 Levels of the Defense. Franchise QBs are hard to find. But there's no excuse for the lack of developmental pieces on Defense.

Either you overpay Hunter at the expense of the rest of the Defense or you will need 2 DEs and a 3T. At least 1 LB. 2-3 CBs. That's not good GMing.

pinfante79
Jersey Retired

Posts: 4,277

Likes: 1,736
Fan Since: Mid 80's

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 17, 2021 18:57:16 GMT -6 via Tapatalk

Quote

Post by pinfante79 on Nov 17, 2021 18:57:16 GMT -6

Nov 17, 2021 18:47:14 GMT -6 FSUVike said:

Nov 17, 2021 16:40:57 GMT -6 pinfante79 said:

You have a "good" coach and more than a "good" GM... The coach with this roster is a square peg in a round hole.

You want Superbowls. That's fair. But we have "good" we need a ring. There are other factors. Doug Peterson is "good" won a Superbowl, Bruce Arians is a f*cking dope, won a Superbowl (thanks to the goat), Kyle Shannahan a avg coach made the Superbowl, Sean Payton is "good" and that's being generous.

Point is you don't need perfection across the board. You need another pieces that fit well together, you need to stay relatively healthy, and a few lucky bounces or a hail Mary off the head if you don't have Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes...

Rick Spielman is 'more than good'? His successor will have to find a Franchise QB and Rebuild all 3 Levels of the Defense. Franchise QBs are hard to find. But there's no excuse for the lack of developmental pieces on Defense.

Either you overpay Hunter at the expense of the rest of the Defense or you will need 2 DEs and a 3T. At least 1 LB. 2-3 CBs. That's not good GMing.

I like guys like Bynum, Dantzler, Lynch, Watts, Willekes, Kendricks has time, I'd bring back Pat Pete, Woods has been solid, Vigil is solid, and so on. We certainly aren't starting from scratch on defense. Look out for Patrick Jones to develop I REALLY liked him coming out, was glad we landed him.

We have some good young guys that a good staff should continue to develop.

Please don't follow me on Twitter @pi_Unmasked

Danchat
Content Creator

Posts: 19,037

Likes: 16,628

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 17, 2021 19:18:00 GMT -6 pinfante79 likes this

Quote

Post by Danchat on Nov 17, 2021 19:18:00 GMT -6

I like the idea of the trade - following a promising 2015 season, we seemed to have found the right coach and had a core of players that were hitting their prime, and we suddenly had a defcon 5 crisis two weeks before the season began. So Spielman went out and overpaid for a QB who could fill in for the next two seasons... I like the aggressiveness of attacking a need when the window to win a Super Bowl is open, but unfortunately the one guy available was a mediocre and injury prone QB.

It's hard to swallow the pill of not doing the trade, though. Starting Shaun Hill for the whole season would signal that they'd likely be going QB in 2017, having the new kid sit on the bench and learn the job to hopefully be fully ready for 2018... as a Twins fan, I understand how infuriating the mindset of "just wait, we'll be good in 2023!" is because it keeps getting repeated over and over. Back in 2014 we were excited about 2016, then in 2016 we had to wait for 2018, and so on. It feels like the core the Vikings built in 2015 would go to waste in 2016/2017 waiting for the QB to develop... and hoping he wouldn't be a bust.

So yeah, the thought process was right, but there were no viable options to save the QB situation, and thus Bradford was the guy and he flopped. Rule of thumb, don't expect a QB to be your starter/franchise QB if two teams have already given up on him. Maybe I (and others) have become too infatuated with the rare QB free agency success stories that we've deluded ourselves into thinking that Bradford and Cousins could be brought in and fixed up here. Just because the Saints figured out Brees doesn't mean we're going to find the next HOF QB out on the market.

comet52
Hall of Fame Candidate

Posts: 7,078
Likes: 8,706

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 17, 2021 22:03:53 GMT -6 via mobile Jor-El likes this

Quote

Post by comet52 on Nov 17, 2021 22:03:53 GMT -6

Nov 17, 2021 15:44:59 GMT -6 Jor-El said:

Nov 17, 2021 10:01:07 GMT -6 pinfante79 said:

I thought we wanted to be aggressive? Or do we only want to be aggressive when we're trying to take shots at a coach, a GM, a player, and so on?

Is not being aggressive the excuse they want to tell ourselves for not having the outcome that we would love to have? Or at times being too aggressive what we want to tell ourselves is our problem? Ladies and gentlemen we are all just blowing smoke up each other's asses, That's the moral of the story. Take a buzzword like conservative or aggressive and manipulate it to prove any point you want to think you are...

You're making a straw man argument against most of the Spielman and Zimmer detractors by saying, "You all want our team to be aggressive but then you dislike when they are or don't admit it when the aggressive approach doesn't work, like the Bradford trade."

bullsh*t - at least in my case. Yes, there are times when I and others have said the playcalling was too conservative or that Zimmer was not aggressive enough to hold a lead. But "aggressive" is not a RESULT I desire - it's a method that we may suggest as a means of reaching what we really want.

We want our team's management to be GOOD. SMART. Above all: Competent enough to win a championship. As far as aggressiveness, that means they should be smart enough to know when to be aggressive - or not.

The Bradford trade wasn't crap because of some oversimplistic idea like, "aggressive moves don't ever work". It failed because it was STUPID. I dug through it and wrote about it in the thread linked below, and the short version is that a trade for a new starting QB after training camp or in midseason has never worked. But Spielman didn't know that or thought he was smarter than the history of the NFL. He also traded for, as whoskmoon put it so well, "a bad QB that the team who had him didn't want", and had a horrifying injury history before he even got behind our inadequate OL.

link

No, we aren't hypocrites who just ask for "aggressiveness". We want a good GM and HC, and their results have damned the current ones.

There was a lengthy article afterwards-Peter King if I remember right- about what good close pals Ricky and Roseman were and how the trade never would have happened if they weren't such trusting, bosom buddies. As I said earlier, fleeced by a friend.

Plenty of people at the time thought the trade was bad for a myriad of reasons, not least of which was Bradford's history.

I'm here for entertainment purposes only

PurpleFloyd
Jersey Retired

Posts: 4,366
Likes: 2,094

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 18, 2021 6:54:23 GMT -6 via mobile suncoastvike and snotbubbles like this

Quote

Post by PurpleFloyd on Nov 18, 2021 6:54:23 GMT -6

Nov 17, 2021 10:01:07 GMT -6 pinfante79 said:

You know I'm just sitting here and thinking about something and I'm going to throw it out there....

In another thread somebody had made a comment critiquing Rick Spielman for trading for Sam Bradford.

And I think that exact line of thought is a lot of the problem with this fan base. Coming off the 2015 season and the way it ended and how we were young up and coming team and really to have a bright future we're all very excited heading into 2016. Teddy looks like he was going to take the next step in the preseason and we all expected that to happen. When before the season starts the poor guy's like explodes. We could have done one of two things, make a trade and obviously have to overpay for a starting quarterback, or just flush the entire season down the toilet and then figure it out from there but still need a QB.

Me personally, right or wrong, in that moment I did not want to sit through or completely wasted uninteresting season. I 100% was behind the Sam Bradford move. Of course we overpaid, with those circumstances, you either overpay or you flush your season down the toilet. I actually appreciate the aggressive move to try to save expectations and let's face it the season started off really well... I would absolutely love to see when we were sitting at 5 and 0 what people were saying...

Now we know how that ended up amd everything.... But now here is the problem that applies...

All year long this fan base has been complaining how conservative we are. I say it's a pretty damn aggressive move to go trade for Sam Bradford right before the season. The conservative approach would be to have done nothing and flush your season down the toilet etc....

So what is it people do you want to be conservative or do you want to be aggressive or do we all just really want to win a Super Bowl and we're always going to complain that the grass is always greener on the other side if it doesn't work out?

Furthermore, hypothetically let's say Bradford's health does not break down and let's pretend he makes it through the entire 2017 season. Where does that season end up? We will truly never know, but is having him for an entire 2017 season enough to land us one more win and put the NFC championship in our building? If it's in our building do we win? Do we advanced to the Super Bowl? Do we win a Super Bowl? We will all never know. But it would have been a hell of an aggressive move.

I thought we wanted to be aggressive? Or do we only want to be aggressive when we're trying to take shots at a coach, a GM, a player, and so on?

Is not being aggressive the excuse they want to tell ourselves for not having the outcome that we would love to have? Or at times being too aggressive what we want to tell ourselves is our problem? Ladies and gentlemen we are all just blowing smoke up each other's asses, That's the moral of the story. Take a buzzword like conservative or aggressive and manipulate it to prove any point you want to think you are...

I for one can say I was happy about the Bradford trade at that time. Even if it turned out to be wrong, I couldn't see the future and was concerned with 2016 and the expectations we had after 2015 we look like a very good, very strongly coached, up and coming team.

Food for thought 🤔

At the time there weren’t many options. I personally was confused by the Vikings drafting Teddy and putting him in Norv vertical offense when he was clearly a WCO dink and dunk QB with a marginal arm and hesitancy to throw deep because his deep ball accuracy was below average when they had Carr on the board who had a skill set that was a closer match.

So when Teddy went down the idea of getting Sam combined with our defense was what the team needed ( if he could stay healthy) Sam gave us an immediate down the field capability that we didn’t have from Teddy. The downfall was he wasn’t very durable and our OL was college level at best and he had to resort to short passes to stay alive so to speak. I have no problem with Rick getting Sam. I wasn’t much of a fan of getting Kirk but he stayed healthy and been better than any other QB over multiple years. I find fault in the staff for the constant turnover with the OCs and the perpetual back and forth from one scheme to another that always finds us with OL talent that doesn’t fit the way they are supposed to block.

I think if we had either an offensive minded coach or more consistency in choosing OCs who run at least similar offenses we would have more consistent results. On offense there has been either a new playbook or a new person designing the game plan every year. That’s the real thing that has hurt the offense

whoskmoon
Content Creator

Posts: 8,870
Likes: 7,219
Member is Online

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 18, 2021 7:23:09 GMT -6

Quote

Post by whoskmoon on Nov 18, 2021 7:23:09 GMT -6

Nov 18, 2021 6:54:23 GMT -6 PurpleFloyd said:

Nov 17, 2021 10:01:07 GMT -6 pinfante79 said:

You know I'm just sitting here and thinking about something and I'm going to throw it out there....

In another thread somebody had made a comment critiquing Rick Spielman for trading for Sam Bradford.

And I think that exact line of thought is a lot of the problem with this fan base. Coming off the 2015 season and the way it ended and how we were young up and coming team and really to have a bright future we're all very excited heading into 2016. Teddy looks like he was going to take the next step in the preseason and we all expected that to happen. When before the season starts the poor guy's like explodes. We could have done one of two things, make a trade and obviously have to overpay for a starting quarterback, or just flush the entire season down the toilet and then figure it out from there but still need a QB.

Me personally, right or wrong, in that moment I did not want to sit through or completely wasted uninteresting season. I 100% was behind the Sam Bradford move. Of course we overpaid, with those circumstances, you either overpay or you flush your season down the toilet. I actually appreciate the aggressive move to try to save expectations and let's face it the season started off really well... I would absolutely love to see when we were sitting at 5 and 0 what people were saying...

Now we know how that ended up amd everything.... But now here is the problem that applies...

All year long this fan base has been complaining how conservative we are. I say it's a pretty damn aggressive move to go trade for Sam Bradford right before the season. The conservative approach would be to have done nothing and flush your season down the toilet etc....

So what is it people do you want to be conservative or do you want to be aggressive or do we all just really want to win a Super Bowl and we're always going to complain that the grass is always greener on the other side if it doesn't work out?

Furthermore, hypothetically let's say Bradford's health does not break down and let's pretend he makes it through the entire 2017 season. Where does that season end up? We will truly never know, but is having him for an entire 2017 season enough to land us one more win and put the NFC championship in our building? If it's in our building do we win? Do we advanced to the Super Bowl? Do we win a Super Bowl? We will all never know. But it would have been a hell of an aggressive move.

I thought we wanted to be aggressive? Or do we only want to be aggressive when we're trying to take shots at a coach, a GM, a player, and so on?

Is not being aggressive the excuse they want to tell ourselves for not having the outcome that we would love to have? Or at times being too aggressive what we want to tell ourselves is our problem? Ladies and gentlemen we are all just blowing smoke up each other's asses, That's the moral of the story. Take a buzzword like conservative or aggressive and manipulate it to prove any point you want to think you are...

I for one can say I was happy about the Bradford trade at that time. Even if it turned out to be wrong, I couldn't see the future and was concerned with 2016 and the expectations we had after 2015 we look like a very good, very strongly coached, up and coming team.

Food for thought 🤔

So when Teddy went down the idea of getting Sam combined with our defense was what the team needed ( if he could stay healthy) Sam gave us an immediate down the field capability that we didn’t have from Teddy.

The most deep completions ever for Bradford in a season was 26 compared to Teddy's max of 25 that he threw last year, and Teddy actually was more accurate on deep attempts in 2015 than Bradford was and had only 2 fewer deep completions than Bradford. Bradford was not a good deep ball passer, he was a marginal one, similar to Teddy. Took his shots when they were there, but was content to live underneath.

The deep ball passing Bradford of 2016 was a myth and he in fact had a yard shorter depth of target than Teddy did in a similar offense.

I have no problem with Rick getting Sam

Bradford was an immobile check down machine on top of being injury prone and had been for years leading up to the trade, so it wasn't like Rick didn't know what he was getting. So I ask, how do you not have a problem with a GM trading a 1st + 36 million in cap for an ineffective QB who is hurt all the time? In theory it makes sense to not throw in the towel on the season, but practically there wasn't a QB available who was significantly better than the backup we already had.

whoskmoon
Content Creator

Posts: 8,870
Likes: 7,219
Member is Online

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 18, 2021 7:27:15 GMT -6

Quote

Post by whoskmoon on Nov 18, 2021 7:27:15 GMT -6

Nov 17, 2021 16:34:03 GMT -6 pinfante79 said:

Nov 17, 2021 15:45:55 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

The circumstances were starting a QB with better stats than the guy Philly wanted a 1st for and not making the playoffs or giving up a 1st in a draft with Patrick Mahomes for a crappy QB and not making the playoffs.

Lol yeah I'm sure you were clamoring for Mahomes too in August 2016... 🙄

He had 9 guys picked before him... At least say you were calling for Watson if you trying to blow smoke. Cmon man...😂😂😂

Yep, because talking about getting your next QB in the upcoming draft when yours suffered what looked like a career ending injury is a pretty crazy concept. What novel idea to look to replace your QB in the draft!

comet52
Hall of Fame Candidate

Posts: 7,078
Likes: 8,706

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 18, 2021 7:40:25 GMT -6 via mobile snotbubbles likes this

Quote

Post by comet52 on Nov 18, 2021 7:40:25 GMT -6

Nov 18, 2021 7:27:15 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

Nov 17, 2021 16:34:03 GMT -6 pinfante79 said:

Lol yeah I'm sure you were clamoring for Mahomes too in August 2016... 🙄

He had 9 guys picked before him... At least say you were calling for Watson if you trying to blow smoke. Cmon man...😂😂😂

Yep, because talking about getting your next QB in the upcoming draft when yours suffered what looked like a career ending injury is a pretty crazy concept. What novel idea to look to replace your QB in the draft!

True. Although the ultimate bottom line was that Bradford became just another Rick Spielman first round flop, albeit via trade instead of being picked off a draft board. The odds that Rick would save that pick and somehow turn it into Watson or Mahomes were slim to none.

I'm here for entertainment purposes only

Minniman
Moderator

Posts: 13,640

Likes: 8,137

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 18, 2021 8:58:40 GMT -6 suncoastvike and snotbubbles like this

Quote

Post by Minniman on Nov 18, 2021 8:58:40 GMT -6

I did not mind Spielman trying to trade for Bradford. I did mind what he paid for him.

Even worse, I had consistently harped on Spielman prior to that for not having two quarterbacks ready to go at the start of the season. The Vikings would not have been in this situation had they worked the quarterback position properly to begin with.

Logic is the beginning of wisdom - not the end.

Minniman
Moderator

Posts: 13,640

Likes: 8,137

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 18, 2021 9:16:09 GMT -6 suncoastvike likes this

Quote

Post by Minniman on Nov 18, 2021 9:16:09 GMT -6

Nov 17, 2021 14:55:35 GMT -6 NoresemanSam said:

Nov 17, 2021 10:01:07 GMT -6 pinfante79 said:

Of course we overpaid, with those circumstances, you either overpay or you flush your season down the toilet.

I don't think we overpaid. It was a first round pick for a talented QB with two reasonable years left on his contract.

Nov 17, 2021 10:01:07 GMT -6 pinfante79 said:

I for one can say I was happy about the Bradford trade at that time.

I was as well.

I actually believed Bradford had a few years left in the tank - if he could be protected. Bradford was a great quarterback from a clean pocket, and his injury history indicated he needed protection. The Eagles wanted to move him and move on to their young rising star, so the Vikings overpaid in draft capital to allow them to do so.

I was vocal at the time of the trade about Spielman getting "fleeced," and I had already had feuds with Vikings fans about how Spielman had failed in providing the Vikings with an even mediocre offensive line.

The two things that would have made this deal work for me were: 1) not overpaying for him, and 2) having an offensive line that could protect Bradford from his injurious history. Neither criterion was fulfilled.

Last Edit: Nov 18, 2021 9:16:41 GMT -6 by Minniman

Logic is the beginning of wisdom - not the end.

suncoastvike
Moderator

Some say I'm too laid back. Really, I'm just too lazy to argue with them.

Posts: 10,643

Likes: 7,201
Member is Online

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 18, 2021 9:39:22 GMT -6

Quote

Post by suncoastvike on Nov 18, 2021 9:39:22 GMT -6

Bradford was a walking...or limping surgery scar. We were pulling guys off the couch with equal injury issues in a attempt to field any kind of Oline. I didn't like the trade at 1st but was I'll admit, impressed that he finish that season off the IR with that level of protection. Then the 1st game of 2017 he put up like 350 yards, 3 TD's and I thought. Maybe this will work. Nope that was it. He never should have limped back on the field in Chicago. It was over for him mostly. So yes bad trade but was hopeful it might work.

Last Edit: Nov 18, 2021 9:42:41 GMT -6 by suncoastvike

If being a Viking fan was easy ~ everyone would do it.

wxman91 Practice Squad Posts: 187 Likes: 164	Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 18, 2021 9:55:05 GMT -6 via mobile Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by wxman91 on Nov 18, 2021 9:55:05 GMT -6 Derek Barnett, picked with our first, has a lower career AV per PFR than Pat Elflien who was picked in the third in that same draft.

comet52
Hall of Fame Candidate

Posts: 7,078
Likes: 8,706

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 18, 2021 10:30:55 GMT -6 Minniman likes this

Quote

Post by comet52 on Nov 18, 2021 10:30:55 GMT -6

Nov 18, 2021 8:58:40 GMT -6 Minniman said:

I did not mind Spielman trying to trade for Bradford. I did mind what he paid for him.

Even worse, I had consistently harped on Spielman prior to that for not having two quarterbacks ready to go at the start of the season. The Vikings would not have been in this situation had they worked the quarterback position properly to begin with.

Working the qb position properly is not something Rick has ever really done imho.

I think the thing that people overlook about Rick when focusing on this move or that is that he is a chameleon and a "pleaser." When ownership says go this way, he goes this way. When the coach says go that way, he goes that way. When Howie Roseman said "have I got a deal for you!" he said, "Oh great, how much do you want?!"

I don't know if Rick has ever had a master vision for the team or any strategy to implement such--what I mostly see is a guy who gets lucky sometimes but believes it was because he's a real sharp fellow, and sells it to a gullible ownership on that basis. The only vision since Zim was hired has been Zim's total emphasis on D at the expense of any other part of the team.

I think Rick mostly just lives by his wits and his ability to stay on the good side of those who butter his bread, like the politician he is. That's why there's a good chance that even if Wilf finally wises up and cans Zimmer, Rick will likely stick around to pick another head coach and run yet another draft, because it's always appeared to me that Wilf loves him some Rick, for 16 years now.

I'm here for entertainment purposes only

NoresemanSam
Veteran Minimum

Posts: 7,758
Likes: 4,749
Fan Since: Kapp was king

Revisiting the Bradford Trade Nov 18, 2021 11:10:44 GMT -6

Quote

Post by NoresemanSam on Nov 18, 2021 11:10:44 GMT -6

The only reason that Peyton Manning escaped the Colts is his neck problems and they thought he was done. Same with Drew Brees. Both won Super Bowls for their new teams. I can't blame Rick for rolling the dice on Bradford's knee history.

"There is no one most valuable Viking. There are 40 most valuable Vikings" - Joe Kapp upon refusing to accept the team MVP award