Ragnarök -> RE: General Vikes Talk (2/19/2019 11:46:57 AM)
|
To expand on one thought from D rant above... At start of season I commented on how I felt the impact of cutting Robison would have and most everyone here scoffed at me, correctly pointing out he was old and likely lost a step, was not a key piece in scheme of D. Well Brian's play on the field may not have been a strong point, his veteran presence on sidelines and in the locker room was sorely missed. I didnt watch a bunch of the podcast segments he did but one could see that he lightened the whole atmosphere in the locker room. I was actually communicating with Brian in Spring prior to him being cut and he was very excited about the upcoming season, his final year in the NFL. He took a drop in salary to stay on one more year and just had his 100k Ranger bass boat wrapped fully in Vikings motif. All is conjecture, but in talking with other writers for Vikings fan pages there was mutual agreement that the way Robison was cut sent a bad vibe through the locker room and impacted much more than the organization likely imagined. Zimm is old school and didnt see value in what Robison brought, maybe even viewed some of his social media antics as an unnecessary distraction overall. Front office saw an aged vet that could be replaced with younger up and comer. they totally missed just what Brian fully brought to the table as the longest tenured Viking on a relatively young team. Make no mistake there were ripples sent through the team with the move, and likely the one who most felt the loss of a good friend and mentor was Everson Griffen. While no one fully knows why Griff had his issues he suffered, having his buddy Robison there for support may have made a difference in the outcome overall... Again I get that some of you will just snicker and dismiss my ramblings as just that, as you did when I first posed the thoughts back when preseason started... Something seemed off with the team all year, especially on D, guys just were not playing with fire and passion as we had previously seen. Was it a hang over from getting their ass handed to them in NFC conference game and likely chewed out and rode hard in Spring by coaches? Was it something a miss with team chemistry? As we lost an unseen coaching commodity in Tony Sporano with heavy impact being felt through the season on offense, in some ways the blind sided cutting of Robison may have caused similar ripples on the D side. In the end I hope all of you can appreciate just what Brian Robison contributed to the Vikings in his career and wish him good thoughts of a bright future as he finds life after football chasing his dreams in competitive bass fishing.
|
|
|
|