5 reasons the Minnesota Vikings can save 2016 season without Norv Turner

3. The Writing Has Been On The Wall For Awhile

Questions about Turner’s play-calling patterns date back to a loss to the Arizona Cardinals last season. Bridgewater openly wondered about the play-calling in that narrow loss, so belief in Turner on the field may have been slowly eroding all-around.

The hiring of two former head coaches during the offseason opened some eyes, with Pat Shurmur coming in with the eventual title of tight ends coach and Tony Sparano coming in as offensive line coach. That points to head coach Mike Zimmer being open to new ideas and acknowledging what he doesn’t know, as he did by hiring Turner as offensive coordinator in the first place, and Turner was surely tentatively on the hot seat if he was not open to new ideas from Shurmur and Sparano.

Turner may have stayed on as Vikings’ offensive coordinator to keep the door open for his son, quarterbacks coach Scott Turner, to directly succeed him as offensive coordinator. That turned out to be a dangerous idea, or at least a dangerous assumption about his own job security, so Turner needed to go before things deteriorated further. As it were, Scott Turner will remain as Minnesota’s quarterbacks coach.