sibelius

Honestly if I'm the Vikings I'm more attracted to Johnson because I don't have to change my playbook.

there goes that "fans" language again, whatever that means. speaking for myself and myself only, my issue is not that Kruger took the money, it's the comment about being "misused." That's like saying if I can convince a company to make me their CEO and pay me the market rate for the position, it's their fault that I wasn't qualified and they should've given me mid-level management duties because obviously that's where I'm most effective...while continuing to pay me CEO money. The company paid me for my potential, I didn't live up to it, so they fired me. I got my bonus check, they cut their losses. Nobody was "misused."

Mike Wallace is a prime example...he wanted more than he was worth, leveraged incompetent teams/FOs for it, washed out of both and is now in a good situation based on his actual market value. Yet he had nothing but good things to say in public about those orgs because grown ups understand they have nothing to gain by publically throwing others under the bus. The Browns were a mess before him and will be long after. He wanted to get paid and went to a garbage team to do it. The rest was inevitable. The top guys in this league adapt to their system and take ownership of their play. On bitterness...not really sure what you're driving at? I've never been clear on what people around here mean when they refer to this nebulous group of "fans." Are you referring to me? Who are these fans? Aren't we all fans? It's a mystery...or a straw man...who knows?

Right but as with any player there's a level of realism that needs to come into play here. They both overpaid him and "misused" him, but I would argue they had to use him as a 3-down player—which he is not capable of and at no point in his stint here did he show the contrary—because the economics of any team can't justify paying a guy that much just to rush the passer. Same thing happened to Doom. This situation was inevitable, he had to know that and the comment just feels like whining.

He's probably right but there is no such thing as as being "misused" when you're making 40 mil. If he thought the Browns were paying 40 mil for him to play on third down he was a fool.

If I'm Ozzie I'm on a conference call with the Vikings and Josh Johnson's agent signing his praises.

The only players on our roster we can afford to cut for pass rush help on the outside are Jeremy Butler, Carl Davis and Juice. Give me a late career, Trevor Pryce type interior rusher and I'll bite, otherwise keep it moving. The only player I see being flat out replaced is Powers. Beyond that I think we're rolling with what we have.

He's not going to IR, barring a setback. I agree.

I think KC is going to be a baller for us but he's the kind of guy that's going to need to be schemed to get to the QB to get him off tackles/guards. Judon is the type of guy that beat a tackle one-on-one. Correa's built to go against RBs/TEs. I think we'll see his real impact on the back half of games during the regular season.

Run early, run often. Build passing game chemistry with short, intermediate throws and blow the lid off with play action.

That's interesting, as you seem to be holding your breath to be proven right about everything except this football team being successful for whatever reason...under multiple aliases...for years now. Me? I'm gonna root for this team and go to war with the army we have.

Yea I agree. Cap is not an issue for us at this point but having a roster full of guys that we can count on to contribute is. Too many jobs/reputations on the line to hold on to guys for any other reason then that they are or can be counted on to be available—soon.

So we're doing that thing where we let one poster take the whole discussion down a rabbit hole? I love it when we do this. Groundhog Day is one of my favorite films after all. What do we think the odds are Pitta makes the team with the news about his finger? Harbs does not seem pleased with him and, frankly, we don't really need him. Other than sentimental value...cutting Pitta would help clear the logjam.

I agree with this and I think it's a huge misconception that the coaches are "making" guys play off. Pees is on record encouraging Jimmy to press back in '13 and as soon as he did...voila he started making more plays. I think the quote was "he has a technique (read: press) that if we can just get him to use more he'll be more effective." That said, I still don't think Pees has a clue how to get the most out of guys in the modern NFL. Exact same issue we had with Mattison except slightly better.

White seems concussed when he speaks; Ismail seems to be thinking, "If...keep...stringing...words...eventually...time...over;" and Sandusky sounds like he's just trying to be as affable as possible because he knows he sounds somewhat competent compared to the others. White needs to go and Ismail needs to take more pride in his craft. Sandusky is at his ceiling methinks but would be fine if someone else could pull their weight.

Can't PUP someone who's practiced already unless they've changed the rule so it actually kind of screws us.

Elam can't catch a break, it's insane.

I like Matt Elam. Always have liked him as a guy. Looking forward to seeing him put it together this year after a strong season and solid showings so far in preseason.

I think the writing is on the wall for Pees. Harbs' comment about "guys on the sideline being happy with 3 yard gains" was a dog whistle imo. Either this defense gets back to suffocating the run and creating turnovers or Frazier will be running the show after the BYE.

Definitely need to show Orr some love. Someone compared him to Scott and I think that's an apt viewpoint. Excited to see what he can do on Sundays.

I think he'll go to IR but I don't think there's anything phantom about it. Seems like a young guy that needs to work on his conditioning/nutrition a bit to compete consistently in this league. He got juked out of his cleats. Clearly has solid instincts, excited to see him next training camp.

Fair point. I guess I'm giving Levine a hard time because some seem to have such high hopes for him and we've been burned in that regard in the past (See: Melvin, Rashaan; Webb, Lardarius post-injury). I do hope that we're seeing isolated instances and not things that are symptomatic of lack of ability. And to stop being negative, Levine showed me a ton with that run back. He's clearly there mentally, I just hope he has the physical talent to consistently make those kinds of plays.

Totally get where you're both coming from, but to me this isn't judgment based on one game. This is based on 3 years of less than stellar secondary play and the reactions we've had to that collectively. Even in 2013 it was much more about the pass rush than the secondary.

Perhaps, but I would just call that getting beat by a perfect throw. It happens, but no need for the sugar in my opinion. Also, to say there was "no play" isn't totally true. Ed Reed made a career off diagnosing plays and beating the ball to the spot. Ed Reed was a generational talent I understand and that's a very difficult play to make, but there's always a play to be made. I guess I'm just tired of having guys that are OK, coupled with lowered expectations for what they should be able to do on the field.

Totally agree that it's a part of the game, I was just challenging the way we kind of make excuses for our guys.