The Vikings had another early playoff exit yet again and it was all because of their defense. Minnesota fell to the Giants 31-24 in the wildcard round of the playoffs. What has been the biggest problem for the Vikings was their defense, whiched ranked 31st in the league. Led by Ed Donatell, the team gave up a ton of yards and points. In games against teams like the Giants and Patriots they made mediocre quarterbacks look like all-stars. It was horrendous all season long.
What O’Connell Said After The Game
After the game in a press conference, head coach Keivn O’Connell was asked about Ed Donatell after mentioning evaluating the defense. He was asked if “one of the things potentially on the table is who’s coaching the defense?”. O’Connell responded by saying
“I just think Ed tried to do the best he could in this year across the board installing the defense and the scheme that we had kind of manifested together and hoped that it would come to life, and he worked his absolute tail off and his commitment to trying to make some adjustments and improve was there each and every week all season long. So, I’m going to look at every aspect, special teams, offense, defense, personnel with Quace all across the board. How we can improve schematically you know all those things are for really a different time and different conversations once we’ve had a chance to kind of collect ourselves and evaluate what took place this year.”
With this statement from O’Connell, I’m not going to overreact. Look, he’s not going to go out to the podium and just throw Donatell under the bus. That’s not how this is done. He’s handling the situation professionally as any head coach should. Hopefully he’s aware of what needs to be done and will make the decision after evaluating his team. Hopefully he will see that someone new is needed to make real changes to the defense to take the next step to becoming a real Super Bowl contender for next season.
Ed Donatell Should Have Been Fired A Long Time Ago
Awhile ago I said I understood why Donatell wasn’t fired, because it was too late in the season to make such a drastic change. Now, I can say I was wrong, and he really should have been fired after the Colts game. The Vikings have suffered defensively because of Ed Donatell’s incompetence.
There is talent on this defense; Duke Shelley, Eric Kendricks, Harrison Smith, Danielle Hunter, Za’Darius Smith and the list goes on and on. This is a talented group with the wrong scheme. They should have been much better than they were. Yes, there were injuries that hurt the defense, specifically the secondary. This defense while a bit on the older side can still play at a high level.
This is a group that I don’t expect needs to overhaul a ton. They have great playmakers and a lot of them proved this while being one of the worst defenses in the league. The fact they were this bad was almost disrespectful to the players and their talent. These guys were much better than what the stat sheet said, and it was unfortunate that Ed Donatell had to waste this season with them.
What Went Wrong Against The Giants
I know there were other things that happened in the game, like Cousins’ decision to throw it short on fourth and eight that sealed the game for the Giants. The main thing was the defense couldn’t stop New York. The Giants outgained Minnesota 431 to 332 yards. The Vikings couldn’t stop Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley, forcing the offense to have to match the Giants score for score. They couldn’t, and it was because they played a defense better than their own.
In the end as I said early this week, the offense and special teams were unable to make the plays they needed to in order to pick up the slack from the defense. There’s definitely a bright future for this team next year. If they fire Ed Donatell and fix the defense this team should be right where they were this year (and with a much harder schedule). This team is very good, and they got the coach and talent to make it to the Super Bowl. They just need to fix up a few things, and this team could be hosting a Lombardi in a little over a year.
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