When it comes to the most exciting moments in recent Minnesota Vikings history, the 2019 playoff win over the New Orleans Saints is toward the top of the list. Minnesota was the underdog, hanging on to a late lead in the Superdome. The game went to overtime. Unlike the last meeting in New Orleans, the Vikings won the coin toss to receive the ball.
After a 43-yard pass to Adam Thielen, Kirk Cousins threw the game-winning touchdown on a fade to Kyle Rudolph. Vikings fans were euphoric. Stefon Diggs did the “Choppa Style” dance in Sean Payton’s face. Cousins belted his “You Like That?” catchphrase and life was good. But like Randy Moss’ disgusting act in 2005, this game had an interesting dynamic. The win helped the Vikings live another day, but it extended the status quo in Minnesota.
It denied an alternate reality where Kevin Stefanski and George Paton led the Vikings.
Eventually, Minnesota fired Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman. But it’s interesting to wonder how the Stefanski-Paton regime would have turned out. Would the Vikings have been in a better spot than they are today?
To understand this, you have to go back to the 2019 season. The Vikings started the season with a 6-2 record, but they had trouble cementing themselves as true contenders. Zimmer’s team had grown a knack for losing to backup quarterbacks. They had a Week 4 loss to Chase Daniel and a Week 9 loss when the football gods replaced Patrick Mahomes with Matt Moore.
The Vikings almost suffered a third loss to a backup quarterback when Brandon Allen and the Denver Broncos built a 20-point lead at U.S. Bank Stadium. But Cousins led a comeback in what some may call “The Gatorade Game.”
However, the Green Bay Packers beat them 20-13 on national television in Week 16. That led some to believe the Vikings had hit their ceiling. Jason La Canfora reported that “ownership there is getting frustrated” with being “good…but not great” under Zimmer. The speculation reached a fever pitch in the weeks leading up to the playoff game as NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport hinted that the Dallas Cowboys were interested in trading for Zimmer to replace Jason Garrett.
Normally, this just becomes a footnote tucked into the back corner of the internet. But this made sense for the Vikings because they had two replacements lined up for Zimmer and Spielman.
Stefanski had a long history with the Vikings, joining the team when Brad Childress was hired in 2006. After working his way up the ladder working with just about every position on the offense, Stefanski was named interim offensive coordinator after they fired John DeFilippo 2018. Minnesota gave him the full-time job the following season.
Although Zimmer hired Gary Kubiak to be an offensive consultant to help Stefanski, his approach impressed many who wondered what would happen if he became a head coach.
Stefanski, 37, could have brought a breath of fresh air into the franchise that had seemingly become stale. But the Vikings could have also doubled down by replacing Spielman in the front office.
Like Stefanski, George Paton started with the Vikings as the director of player personnel in 2007 and became assistant general manager in 2012. After becoming the vice president of player personnel in 2015, offers to become a full-time general manager started to pile up. But Paton wanted to wait for the right opportunity.
Minnesota seemed like a good spot thanks to his knowledge of the franchise and his work under Spielman. The biggest shortcomings of Spielman’s tenure, which included reckless extensions and poor drafting, hadn’t started yet. However, adding a younger voice in the room could have pushed the franchise forward and out of the middle ground they had landed with the current regime.
Put everything together and there was a feasible path toward Stefanski and Paton taking over in Minnesota – until the Wilfs issued a statement prior to the game with the Saints.
The words “we have every intent” raised Windy Fingers across the country. However, the Vikings made sure that nobody would find out what the Wilfs truly meant.
Zimmer devised one of the greatest game plans of his tenure, moving Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen to the inside to generate more pressure. Cousins played one of the best playoff games of his career, managing the offense and creating big plays when he needed to. Dalvin Cook paced the Vikings on the ground. Despite blowing a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter, Minnesota pulled off the upset.
Nobody was more impressed than ownership, who started dealing out extensions like Oprah on a bender. Cousins got an extension. Zimmer got an extension. Spielman got an extension. Cook got an extension. Everybody got extensions – except for Stefanski and Paton, who took other jobs.
From there, everything turned into a big game of what if.
The Cleveland Browns hired Stefanski as head coach, and he immediately endeared himself to the downtrodden franchise. After going 6-10 in the final year of Freddie Kitchens’ tenure, Stefanski led the Browns to an 11-5 record. They earned their first playoff berth since 2002 and their first playoff victory since 1994. Many thought the best was yet to come.
But there were many obstacles that got in the way. The first was a relationship that soured with Baker Mayfield and a reliance on the running game. The Browns signed Nick Chubb to a three-year, $36.6 million extension before the 2021 season and traded three first-round picks, a third-round pick, and three fourth-round picks to the Houston Texans for Deshaun Watson before signing him to a five-year, fully guaranteed $230 million contract.
After a successful first season, Stefanski is 15-19 over his last two seasons. He’s currently rumored to be on the hot seat right next to Paton, who became the Denver Broncos’ general manager.
After a year of observation, Paton fired Vic Fangio and replaced him with an offensive coach in Nathaniel Hackett. Perhaps this was a ploy to lure Aaron Rodgers to Denver. However, Hackett was highly regarded and followed the same path that gave Stefanski his head coaching job in Cleveland.
With his head coach in place, Paton moved aggressively to find his quarterback, sending Drew Lock, Shelby Harris, Noah Fant, two first-round picks, two second-round picks, and a fifth-round pick to the Seattle Seahawks for Russell Wilson. Immediately, he signed Wilson to a five-year, $245 million fully guaranteed contract extension.
The move bombed. Hackett struggled as a head coach and Wilson struggled to acclimate to his new team. The Broncos went 5-12 and have a 12-22 record under Paton. He replaced Hackett with Sean Payton, but it’s unclear whether that will be enough to get the most out of an underachieving team with little cap space or draft capital.
Looking at each situation in a vacuum, neither Stefanski nor Paton have found greener grass outside of Minnesota. Still, it’s interesting to see how both situations would have worked out if they were together – especially if they had remained with the Vikings.
The Vikings would have remained dedicated to the running game, and it likely would have led to a big contract for Cook. With Stefanski on the sidelines, Paton would have had the competent coach he didn’t have with Hackett. Having Cousins already in Minnesota would give them an established quarterback and the picks could have been used to build a stronger roster.
However, this would have led to more immediate success as opposed to long-term success. The Vikings were at the end of a window in 2019 and Zimmer himself mentioned that football was “a young man’s game” after a divisional-round loss to the San Francisco 49ers the following week.
The Vikings sent defensive stalwarts Linval Joseph and Xavier Rhodes out the door, and they had to rely on young talent – especially on defense – during the 2020 season. Cousins got off to a brutal start, which could have convinced Stefanski and Paton to look elsewhere for a quarterback. That could have sent Cousins somewhere else and brought Wilson, Watson, or another disgruntled quarterback to Minnesota.
But that would have been counterproductive. The Vikings didn’t have the infrastructure to support a highly paid quarterback. Perhaps Stefanski would have reconciled a relationship with Diggs, who slammed his helmet in frustration during the win. But then Minnesota wouldn’t have been able to select Justin Jefferson in the draft, leaving Diggs’ massive contract on the payroll.
With a high-priced quarterback contract and the possibility of burning draft picks to acquire him, it leaves the Vikings without the type of flexibility that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has tried to create this offseason.
Although the Vikings have yet to get out of the NFL’s middle ground, there’s no evidence they would be in a better place had they stuck with Stefanski and Paton. That means Rudolph’s catch might not have been as damaging to the long-term state of the Vikings, and they could be in for a better future under their current regime.
