'Change can be good,' Norv Turner says about additions to Vikings staff

“Change can be good,” said offensive coordinator Norv Turner yesterday when asked about the addition of two former NFL head coaches, Tony Sparano and Pat Shurmur, to his offensive coaching staff this winter.

After the Vikings finished 29th in the league in total offense a season ago, Sparano was hired to oversee the offensive line and Shurmur to coach the tight ends. But they are here to do more than that. They have worked with Turner to diversify an offense he has been running throughout his 25 years, many of them successful, as an NFL head coach or offensive coordinator.

“We try to sit down and talk about the things we’ve done, a lot of the things we’ve done that haven’t shown up in games, and then incorporate some of the things [they have] done well in [their] past,” Turner explained.

Turner confirmed what Zimmer had suggested at different points during the offseason, that Sparano would help him tweak the run game and Shurmur, who has worked under Andy Reid and Chip Kelly, will bring some fresh ideas that could help improve the NFL’s 31st-ranked pass attack.

“Tony has brought a little bit different of a style of running game. He is very detailed and very specific in how he wants to do things, which I think is good for our guys. We are keeping the things that Adrian [Peterson] does best, but we’re certainly expanding the running game,” Turner said. “Same thing in the passing game. Pat has been exposed to some different things.”

Turner got a little defensive about the passing attack, bringing it up after a question about getting running back Jerick McKinnon involved the offense.

“I know there’s a lot of talk about where we were ranked in pass offense and a lot of different things and how we were one-dimensional,” Turner said. “There’s a lot of games we had great balance. I look at our best games and we played good against some good defenses and good teams.

“We want to be able to do that for 16 games. We had some games where we weren’t balanced and some games where we didn’t play very well at all. We want to be more consistent and we want to do whatever it takes to win a game. Some games maybe that means Jerick gets more carries. Some games that means Jerick gets the ball thrown to him. Maybe some games we have Jerick and Adrian in the backfield together. It’s about putting a plan together that helps you win and certainly enough has been talked about in the passing game. We want to be more balanced like we were in a number of our games where we did have good offensive production. We want to be more consistently balanced and get everyone involved.”

It will certainly be interesting to see once the real games start if Sparano and Shurmur’s input have influenced Turner’s thinking in a significant way.