I watched most of the Viking games. Cousins looked every bit as good as advertised in the first half of the season. He locked on to Thielen and had success. He completely went away from that strategy around game 8. From what I have gathered that clear change in offensive strategy came from the Head Coach, Zimmer, and possibly other offensive coaches. The team lost a couple of games in that early stretch mainly due to the defense, but Thielen was getting all the national attention. I doesn't take much for coaches to doubt white athletes even when they have record-breaking success - somehow they will get blamed for the teams shortcomings. These geniuses made a conscience effort to "spread the ball around" and get more "balance" to the offense. It makes no logical sense because the offense was thriving feeding Thielen. About the same time the incredibly over-rated RB Dalvin Cook returned from injury and there was a clear effort to make him the focal point of the offense. Cousins, however, did nothing to stop the change in strategy - he may have even agreed with it for all I know. Unfortunately I have to repeat a saying from an old high school coach: Winners find a way to win and losers find a way to lose. Cousins has a terrific arm, but I think he may just be a loser upstairs. In the lose to the Bears, he targeted Thielen 4 times, 3 of them were very positive plays and one was a complete misfire by Cousins who quickly and publicly threw a tissy-fit at Thielen. Never mind Treadwell, Robinson, and Cook who ran wrong routes, drop balls, and showed a lack of effort all season long - they still got plenty of targets and no public shaming ever. The Chicago game was a microcosm of the entire second half of the season. I hope I'm wrong but Cousins sure did look like a hopeless loser this season.
Great post. All of a sudden something went haywire with an offensive formula that was working very well, one based around the superstardom of Adam Thielen. Was it deliberate, or stupidity? All of a sudden the o-line couldn't block well enough for Cousins to throw even short passes to Thielen?
And when Cooks finally returned and began to look half-decent after two seasons marred by injury, the offense still stunk. Why not go back to Thielen as the centerpiece of it, with Diggs as the secondary star receiver? The presence of Diggs made Thielen's stardom easier for DWFs and the media to accept, and it
was finally accepted. The NFL is filled with stupidity because of the always looming presence of the Caste System, but what happened to the Vikings seems mostly like stupidity caused by a deliberate decision to avoid Thielen having a season for the record books. It would have been like Christian McCaffrey threatening the hallowed rushing records of Walter Payton, Emmitt Smith, Jim Brown, etc.
I wouldn't call it a conspiracy, more just the way things are done in the NFL, where the "locker room" and the taboos against Whites looking like Hall of Famers at certain positions are almost always considered and rigidly enforced. Every White person in public life, no matter their occupation, knows the rules regarding race they must abide by.
Will anyone here be surprised if next season the Vikings move from their current status as the NFL's relatively "White friendliest" team, including cutting the two backup White receivers they carried this season, and that Thielen never again approaches the production he accumulated the first half of 2018?
