I joked this off season that Darnold and Jones would go lead their teams to the playoffs. Cause that is always what happens with the Vikings. They develop winners for other teams but are too snake bit to win themselves.

Bold prediction: hawks win the super bowl because it makes Vikes look dumb AF

It is all eyes on JJ now and the pressure is really gonna be turned up. It is sink or swim moment. He’s had flashes of greatness. But more often than not, it has been disastrous.

I said last season that it would be great to have Darnold for another couple of seasons to develop JJ for the future.

Vikings fans are not looking forward to another block of “rebuilding” after we just got done “rebuilding” and that is looking like what the scenario is going to be.

I still think that KOC is a good coach and shouldn’t lose his job this season. If any of the higher ups should, it should be the GM

JJ is our starter til the end of the season. We see if he can improve or if he continues to regress. If he continues to flounder, they HAVE to move on next season.

If JJ is out with concussion protocol, obviously we start Minnesota Max as long as we gotta and see what he can do.

As I said before, the Vikings, sans JJ seem to be in “win now” mode with what we have. Older, experienced players. JJ is the major outlier. Inexperienced and young and he is the decision maker on offense. And it would seem that we cannot win with him.

So here is my final take on they should do now

Decades of getting so close, finally satisfied, curse broken. The taste of victory would be sweet enough to mask the ashen taste of defeat for quite some time.

Vikings fans are STARVED for a super bowl. If KOC delivers on that, no matter how bad the next season is or even the next couple seasons, his job would be safe for awhile, just on the bowl win alone. We could immediately enter a rebuild and go 0-17 two seasons straight and it would be fine.

Big hypothetical here: Let’s say, the Vikings kept Darnold, won the division, playoffs AND finally got to hold that Lombardi trophy this year. KOC could ditch probably every one save for Jet and Thielan and Darnold and nobody would blink.

And yes, I understand that this is basically his rookie year. And I know lots of the greats had a terrible rookie season. Tarkenton, Favre, Manning, Aikman, etc. This is exceptionally bad. JaMarcus Russell numbers bad (and I’m also a Raiders fan, I’m no stranger to catastrophic failure).

The fact is, JJ is playing scared. His throwing mechanics are off by just enough to cause an impact on where his throws go. When he has time, he holds the ball way too long, doesn’t seem to be making the right reads or going through them in the proper order. He is overwhelmed in many ways.

It isn’t all play calling though. A lot of it has to fall on JJ unfortunately. Yes WRs drop passes, but getting sacked and throwing picks is.

The Vikes are on the older side of teams right now. And we have Jet in his prime as well as a couple of other very good receivers. Proven winners.

Last year, our defense was one of the best in the league and specifically in the turn over game.

Then of course is our offense. 1st down: run for a few yards, 2nd down: blown up play often resulting in a yard loss, 3rd down: short pass dropped or long bomb over thrown.

And the Vikings are looking to have a really awful losing season. Now granted, we have been hit with the injury bug like crazy, have had our whole starting O-line for like 2 games tops. Not to mention our defense hasn’t been able to take the ball away, pretty much at all this season.

Cause here’s the thing, the hawks are pretty much a lock for the playoffs and they are fighting for the division with arguably the best team in the NFL right now (Rams). Darnold looks more than solid. He looks competent, composed. Good. At least most of the time.