FinSaint

Did you watch the game? The points allowed do not reflect how the defense played as an unit in this game. They were forced to play too many snaps, given a short field to protect on numerous occasions, and were exploited by injury subs.

Would you say that the Bucs defense played well? They only allowed 17 points, so I guess they played pretty well? Of course, they did allow AP to run for 128 yards with only 15 carries while Martin ran for 135 yards with 29 carries... and that was against a Bucs' defense that averaged something like 75 allowed rushing yards per game if I remember correctly (I could be wrong, but I remember it being something like that before the Saints played them).

The difference was that the Vikes didn't have a passing offense to speak of, and that offense had a number of 3 and outs when the defense had just given the team another chance to comeback with a good defensive series. So, it's all argumentative when we are only looking at the stats, but my subjective view of the game was that while the Vikes' defense didn't have their best game of the season - they were far from being bad or the reason why the Vikes lost that game.




The Vikes have a new defensive coordinator and a new defensive line coach, so I do think that's a considerable turn over from last year, especially when people largely consider the Vikes' D front 4 to be their major strength.

Naturally, they haven't blown up the system they had in place, because that would've been crazy as the defense wasn't bad to begin with. Alan Williams (the new DC) worked with Frazier in Indianapolis in 2005-6 with the defensive secondary, so it would only be logical that they have similar tendencies to begin with if they were able to work together and were willing to do it once again. But he began his NFL coaching career in Tampa under Dungy, so you can pretty much trace his pedigree back to Tampa 2. And that is a major difference between the defensive philosophies between Frazier - who developed his secondary coaching skills in Philadelphia, Cincinnati and later in Indianapolis under Dungy - and Williams. But there is another significant difference in that Williams is now the defensive play-caller and not Frazier, and he definitely has his own playbook to call those plays from and his own tendencies when it comes to different situations.

As someone who has followed the Vikes for number of years, never even missing a single preseason game - I can tell you that I've seen a number changes implemented this year that are a deviation from what Frazier has been doing the last couple of years, but that is naturally my own subjective view which I admit is not 100% scientific in nature.

So to answer your statement... no, I do not think they are running Frazier's system, at least in the sense that Frazier's system wasn't really completely his to begin with as he himself built on what was already in place when he came to Minnesota. But I do admit that the changes are not as big as with the Saints' defense moving from GW's scheme to Spags' - I was just not agreeing with your statement that the Vikes are on their 6th year with the current system, because that statement is false as I have tried to explain. But, ultimately, I guess that as well depends on the definition we give to the term "defensive system."

"I'm not bashing people, I'm bashing their opinions because in my opinion their opinion is wrong" - Danno