Vikings offensive coordinator John DeFilippo has been fired, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). DeFilippo was a hot name in coaching circles after helping to guide the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory last year, but things have not gone according to plan in Minnesota. 
[RELATED: Vikings’ George Paton Remains Top GM Candidate]
After the Vikings were blown out in the NFC Championship game by the Eagles, they hired Philly’s quarterbacks coach to oversee their offense. They also gave Kirk Cousins a historic three-year, fully guaranteed contract with the expectation that he would greatly outperform Case Keenum. Cousins, so far, has not lived up to the deal, and the Vikings seem to think that DeFilippo is partly to blame.
Vikings quarterbacks coach Kevin Stefanski will replace DeFilippo as OC, according to Albert Breer of The MMQB (on Twitter). Stefanski becomes the fourth offensive coordinator to serve under Mike Zimmer since 2014, following Norv Turner (quit), Pat Shurmur (hired away by the Giants), and DeFilippo (fired).
The midseason change is far from ideal, but Stefanski has been with the team since 2006 and was a candidate for the OC position before DeFilippo was hired, so he’s qualified for the role. Stefanski was also a top candidate for the Giants’ OC post in February before the Vikings denied their request for an interview.
DeFilippo’s dismissal comes hours after an embarrassing 21-7 loss to the Seahawks. The defeat dropped their playoff odds to just 57%, according to FiveThirtyEight, ramping up the pressure in advance of this week’s tilt against the Dolphins. The good news here is that the Vikings still control their own destiny – wins over the Dolphins, Lions, and Bears would clinch their spot in the postseason.
This wasn’t a banner year for DeFilippo, but he figures to be a popular target for teams yet again this offseason. The 40-year-old may or may not get head coaching interviews, but he’ll probably be in the mix for multiple OC vacancies.
DeFilippo has been criticized for relying on the pass too much and ignoring the run game, but it’s worth noting that he was without star rusher Dalvin Cook for much of the fall. The offensive line has also been shaky and it’s fair to wonder whether GM Rick Spielman did enough to bolster the unit in the offseason.
You can fire all the coaches you want but if you can’t put an offensive line together that can pass block and open some holes for running your not gonna win simple huh
They should fire whoevers genuis idea it was to pay Kirk who is slightly above average, like one of the best QBs. That team is handicapped by his deal
Agreed. Which is exaxtly why they should have kept Keenum and fixed their other spots.
Zim has publicly said, over and over, that the playcalling has been imbalanced. Cook has looked good in his few carries the past two weeks and the playcalling has been very predictable this year.
Damn, things went south in Minny QUICK! Also, I didn’t realize that the Cousins contract was fully guaranteed. Bears are running away with the division with a rookie head coach, meanwhile McCarthy is OUT in GB and Minny just fired their OC. Raise your hand if you predicted that before the season started.
Could/should be a 3rd new OC for the NFC North too. Cooter can go now.
I hope they keep Jim Bob, i’m gonna his hearing that sweet name 100 times every thanksgiving broadcast from detroit.
He was the hot name for head coaching vacancies I thought.
Not any longer. His play calling was pretty bad & Cousins & him weren’t on the same page. Just Minnesota Sports being Minnesota Sports
i think it has more to do with minnesota than their OC. can’t move cousins though, easy decision to make, blame the OC. he’ll get a new job quickly.
I’m hearing DeFilippo is Jets’ next head coach.
Let’s blame a coach when you have a QB who has had flashes but never figured it out. Minnesota paid the market rate for an average QB and got burned. Never understand why teams think QB’s like him and Flacco are worth that kind of dough.
Obviously, you aren’t really watching Viking games. Cousins is an “under center” QB, that thrives on play-action. DeFlip runs most of his offense out of the shotgun (or pistol). I blame DeFlip for not understanding his QB and running plays that highlight his skills. But I also park blame on Zimmer and Spielman…go with what you have on D, and draft some O-Linemen. The Vikings first 3 picks better be blue chip OL, and the better spend FA money on OL. If they end up with 4 new starters on the line next year, it should be a good thing.
I don’t understand the ego of coaches. Take Belichick…he makes sure his coaches gameplan to the strengths of their players. They don’t try to fit a square peg into a round hole. Case in point is Patterson. He can do electric things with the ball in his had, but is terrible at running routes. So just HAND him the ball and let the magic happen. Not going to score a TD on every play, but at least continue to move forward.
Cousins it’s a dink/dunk guy that will occasional shoot it down field, similar to Alex Smith. I watched the game against New England, and all he wanted to do was throw/complete 4yd passes just to pass the completion %. Same thing he did in Washington, he’s doing in Minnesota. There’s a reason he has such a poor record vs good teams.
Saying that a QB is a dink/dunk type should not be read as that QB being bad. The Patriots have lived off of the offense for quite a few years…and people consider Brady the GOAT. The problem here is that with a porous offensive line, you cannot run RPOs, because the defense knows it can run roughshod over the O line, so it doesn’t “trick” them like it is supposed to. DeFlip was just to arrogant (or maybe pushing his system to hard) to realize that he had to make adjustments.
The best coaches plan to the strengths of their players, not force them to do things they are not good at. Now don’t get me wrong, DeFlip has a good system, but like any good system, you have to have the right players that fit in it. Cousins does not fit in that system. DeFlip will get another OC job before the beginning of next year…and I still believe he will be a head coach before long. As long as he learns from this fiasco. And now hopefully Stefanski (who has been with the Vikes for YEARS) sees what he has in Cousins, and playcalls to his strengths.
Strangely Kirk Cousins is astonishingly good in a bombs away offense. He has a very strong arm. The issue is that he just wilts under pressure (not just defensive line pressure but big game pressure). Under stress, he can’t make his reads and makes bad decisions or even drops the ball.
Adding hurries to the mix and it gets back fairly quickly. Cousins is not a leader of men (the other players can sense his discomfort in the big games) nor a big game quarterback (he lost all four bowls at Michigan State after good regular season records). The last one was technically a win as Georgia flubbed enough field goals and the Michigan State defense bailed Cousins out of both a late interception and a late fumble (par for the Cousins course). It’s a good game, 2012 Outback Bowl 33-30 in overtime and it’s on YouTube.
Watch it back to back with the Seattle game and you’ll see Cousins hasn’t changed much since college. Don’t think he’ll change much in the pros. He’s all religious, teetotaller and overly anxious. He needs to get loose a bit. He’s working at the edge of his intelligence trying to read a modern NFL defense at speed.
An OC should try to remove as much decision-making from Cousins as possible as he’s a physically capable athlete. Not sure what to do about the lack of leadership on offense Cousins brings to a team (his temperament reminds me of Angelo from Measure from Measure). There’s something seriously wrong there.
Both of you, well said:
Excellent points^^^^^
Nooooooo – a lions fan
I would expect additional fallout during the off-season in Minnesota. Their player payroll topped all other teams at 172.1MM and the Colts have a better record with the 28th ranked payroll of just 119.7MM. Add to that cap status for next season which has the Colts north of 125MM while the Vikings have about 10MM.
John DeFilippo was not the problem the problem is the Vikings have an overrated not to mention grossly over paid quarterback. Cousins has always choked in prime time and with the game on the line this has never changed and never will the Vikings will be behind the eight ball as long as cousins is on their payroll. I said back in March if he got a guaranteed contract it would be the biggest mistake team would make and now looks like I was proven right. The book on cousins even in Washington wise did not care about wins and losses only cared about padding stats.
How many Vikings games have you watched beginning to end the last few seasons?
Case Keenum has a limited skill set but he’s a gamer. Trading him out for Cousins at double the money was about the silliest move Minnesota management could make. How wonderful that $14 million difference (signing price Keenum in Minnesota) would look invested in the offensive line instead.
Coaches can say the playcalling was predictable but if you have the right people on the field it does not matter. Look how many years the patriots were a pass only offense but yet no one could stop them even when they knew what was coming. The head coach and the quarterback are to blame, DeFilippo will move on and will land with the team either as an offense of coordinators or a head coach and will look like a genius.
A genetically engineered hybrid superquarterback grown in a lab using DNA from every HOF quarterback…. could not do anything standing behind the Vikings O-line.
That was what made Bradford so amazing a couple years ago… he had to fire a pass off about as quickly as his nervous system could process the commands or he’d be eating turf.
Cousins is a terrible QB and Minnesota should have known better.
Terrible is very strong language. Cousins is a middle of the road QB, in the same category as Keenum but with less potential in the big games (but better in the standard tilts against weaker opposition).
The problem is that he’s being paid the same as Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and Russell Wilson. He’s being paid significantly more than Tom Brady or Aaron Rogers. Did no one in Minnesota review the game tapes of all the big games in Washington over the last three years? Cousins’s weak game under pressure and nervousness is clearly visible in almost all of them (there was one win in Dallas where he looked pretty good).
In a cap centered league that means Minnesota is running at a $10 to $15 million deficit in available cap in relation to available talent for the duration of the contract.
Just because you pay a quarterback the big bucks doesn’t mean it’s always his fault it’s not his fault that the bike games cannot get an offense of line that can block away for passing or running pretty tough to throw the ball down field when you got half the defense on your ass cousin is not perfect for sure but it is an all his fault