Vikings need to figure out issues before 2019 season

The Minnesota Vikings were one of the heavy favorites to go to the Super Bowl. Barring major injuries, Minnesota was supposed to be making a deep run into January and perhaps February, getting one game further than it did a year ago.

The moves were major. General manager Rick Spielman went out and landed Kirk Cousins — the plum of the free-agent class — for three years and $84 million, fully guaranteed. Cousins was going to be a significant upgrade over Case Keenum, who ended up making $36 million over two years with the Denver Broncos. Spielman also signed Sheldon Richardson to bolster an already deep and dangerous defense. All the pieces were in place to actually improve upon a team that went 13-3 and lost in the NFC Championship Game.

And then the bottom fell out. Minnesota ended the season at 8-7-1, culminating in a brutal and embarrassing Week 17 loss to the Chicago Bears. The Vikings needed only a home win against a team playing with nothing on the line, and they managed to bungle that in the ugliest of fashions. Cousins didn’t throw for more than 100 yards in the first three quarters, leading to both he and the rest of the offense being booed off the field.

Going into the offseason, Minnesota still has one of the most talented rosters in the league. Cousins isn’t elite but he’s a top-15 quarterback, surrounded by a bevy of skill players that include Dalvin Cook, Kyle Rudolph, Stefan Diggs and Adam Thielen. Spielman would certainly like to upgrade a porous offensive line, but everything else is all systems go.

Perhaps the main reason for the Vikings struggling so much had to do with the sideline. Mike Zimmer is a respected head coach, but nobody had a more trying year. Zimmer fired offensive coordinator John DeFilippo with only three games left in the regular season, replacing him with longtime assistant Kevin Stefanski. Even before the season began, tragedy hit the staff when offensive line coach Tony Sparano passed away a mere two days before camp began.

This week, Zimmer talked about how that loss hurt the Vikings in ways that continued throughout the year, per NFL.com.

“Quite honestly, the death of Tony Sparano really kind of threw things into a little bit of a downward spiral, only because this guy was a type-A personality,” Zimmer said, via the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “He was very innovative in the running game. He had a strong voice in that room. He had a strong voice with me. Yes, I do feel like we lost a little bit of our identity (with him gone).”

With another free agency class and the draft looming, Minnesota has to get it right this time. After investing so much in Cousins, the Vikings have no choice but to go all-in over the next two years.

For them, the work to rectify previous errors begins now.