Vikes Throw It Away In Cincinnati - Deflated Ball?

There's no doubt that Flores deserves some blame with some of the defensive lapses in the last month in critical situations...when he only rushes 3 in critical situations and drops people into a 8-person shell, the D gives it up...Flores seems like he doesn't trust his instincts or the players in those situations and forces the opponent to make a throw and they have been...3rd and 21 today was the latest example...

...but, Flores is working with far less than what O'Connell is on offense. While it's true that Kevin has been working 2023 without Cousins and Jefferson, they still have a bunch of talent and a solid OL, whereas Flores is working with Hunter and...

Flores has gotten the most mileage out of the spare parts that he's been given and it's why he gets a bit more benefit of the doubt than O'Connell...

The offense hasn’t been as healthy for much of the year though, we went 13-4 with a healthy offense carrying the way with a bad defense and bad dc last year. Now with individuals making poor plays and turning it over (often backups) along with a banged up offensive line we will need to rely on the defense more obviously. Kirk and JJ and multiple olineman have been missing time. Today the offense overcame much of that to continuously put us in position to win but the defense failed.

Why don’t we consider the full context? Without injuries offense carries us beyond what many believed possible. With injuries and ridiculous amount of tos (often by backup level players) and the offense is still consistently moving the ball overall. If you want to consider the context of defensive talent then last year, injuries, and turnovers should be considered now. As I said despite the positives basically every loss KOC has been most blamed by fans. If you consider the injuries and turnovers and drops in the same way you do talent for the defense then I think it changes the outlook in a major way. Many are not consistent in looking at full context though, especially when it comes to KOC.

So we handicap koc from getting to help a young rookie qb before he even gets here? This is what I mean lol.

At some point this fan base needs to realize always blaming the hc isn’t productive. We need to blame ownership and the gm for the continuous lack of talent. For constantly prioritizing mediocrity over an actual long term plan. Koc is one of the most winning coaches in franchise history despite taking over a team that was below .500 and not adding major talent to it. Blaming him over everyone else for basically every single loss we have makes no sense.

Look at what is being said about an offense that has a backup qb/rb/rt playing and puts up over 400 yards with 24 points while holding the lead most of the game. Where the backup qb threw two bad interceptions in fg range which likely would have had us at 30 points without.

I don't know how Flores doesn't lead in this one. But, 21 4th quarter points and a ton of yards. Mullins should get a 1st start cobwebs defense. Still put the Vikings in the drivers seat, despite the mistakes.

Uh, no. He had 1 series, the 1st TD drive out of the 3 in a row, where he tried to get pressure with 4 guys and even 3 on at least 1 play.

The last 2 drives he went back to blitzing. They just couldn't get home. Pace, Smith. Metellus. Nobody could get home.

There's no Zone or Man Scheme on the planet that overcomes not getting pressure on the QB. Flores is using inverted Zones (which literally nobody else has been using, BTW) because he doesn't have a single legit Man to Man Corner (thanks Kwesi).

There are always holes in Zones. Always. He can invert them to confuse guys. But even backup QBs will find the soft spot when they consistently have 3+ seconds to throw, no matter if it's a standard Cover 2 or Cover 3 or an inverted one.

The reason things looked so bad today was that Cincinnati has 3 really good WRs. And a shifty back that can catch swing passes in one of the holes in the Zones.

Taylor had the right gameplan AND the right weapons to attack Flores' scheme. And it still took him over half the game to get it going.

Meanwhile, O'Connell has all 1st and 2nd Round Picks minus his QB and RB and can't take advantage of anything. Half the League has backups playing yet only Minnesota has an Offense that actually consistently looks like it.

Doooom!

Thanks, FSUVike! You have a way of explaining things to help give us a better understanding of what's going right/wrong and, more importantly, the "why" of it all. Greatly appreciated!

Also RT. The offense had 424 offensive yards with 24 points despite two very bad turnovers by the QB in the red zone. So in position for 30+ points without two terrible decisions. With 3:48 left in the 4th and a 7 point lead we were averaging 3 ppd which would rank us first in the entire league (over Dallas at 2.8). With those backups playing. 

I am going to go out on a limb and say that is better than most outcomes in similar situations by the offense...