Defensive Indifference

Are you still here?

2011-09-03T19:26:00.001-04:00

Want to know where I've gone? You should look over here. Read this if you're confused.

The Price of Randy Moss

2010-10-10T10:47:00.003-04:00

Here's a quick guess at what a third-round pick -- which was apparently the going rate for one of the best WRs in history -- is worth.

Here are all third-round draft picks from 1991 to 2000. It can be assumed that all of these players have completed their careers or, in a few cases, we've seen enough of them to get a reasonable idea of how successful they've been. We can use PFR's Approximate Value as a guideline, sorting by CarAV to see who the best third-round picks were. The top five are:

Terrell Owens - 116
Jason Taylor - 115
Ronde Barber - 110
Aeneas Williams - 104
Curtis Martin - 101

If the Vikings actually gave up a player of that caliber for a few years late in Randy Moss' career, then it was a bad move, for certain. (I'll ignore the 7th-rounder the Vikings got from New England.) But those are just five players, out of 323 3rd-round picks, or about 1.5% of all picks. Sorted by AV, here are the number of players, and their percentage of all 323 picks:

100+: 5 (1.5%)
80-99: 5 (1.5%)
60-79: 9 (2.8%)
40-59: 27 (8.4%)
20-39: 65 (20.1%)
0-19: 212 (65.6%)

That means that about 2 out of every 3 3rd-round picks are essentially valueless -- players who achieve a career AV of less than 20. The 20-39 isn't much better, and the 40-59 tier hardly represents players you would regret not having on your team; the high end of that bracket gives us players like Ray Buchanan, James Jones, Brian Griese, and Darrell Jackson -- useful, but not overly significant.

Here's another way of looking at it: Coming into this season, Randy Moss has averaged about 14 points of AV per year, and that includes his hideous years with Oakland. Assuming the Vikings have him for three years, and assuming some decline in his skills -- with years of 12, 10, and 8 AV, that would give him 30 points of AV, which would make him better than 255 of the 323 3rd-rounders (78.9%) in our sample. So, you could say that there's about a 4-in-5 chance that this was a good deal for the Vikings and a 1-in-5 chance that the player the Pats get -- which will, we hope, be a late 3rd-rounder -- will be good enough to offset the loss of Randy Moss.

I'm happy with those odds.

2010 Season Predictions

2010-09-09T18:56:00.004-04:00

So that "going to post more" semi-promise. Yeah, not so much.

But, on the eve of the 2010 season, the first game of which features the Vikings, I thought I should at least briefly share my opinions on the Vikings chances this season and the NFL as a whole. Unfortunately, I don't share the optimism that most of my brethren seem to.

I hate to sound like a naysayer, but I feel the Vikings have declined this offseason, while the Packers look to be really, really good. Our secondary is limping to the starting line, the offensive line (and Pat Williams) is still too fat, Adrian Peterson still fumbles, Sidney Rice is hurt, Brad Childress is still the head coach...

Oh, and yeah, there's that guy who's closer to retirement age than he is to college age. He's still a douche, and his ankle is already hurting.

As improbable as it was that Brett Favre would have the season he did at age 40, it's even more improbable that he'll do it at the age of 41, which he hits a month from tomorrow. Toss in the fact that he doesn't think Brad Childress knows how to run an offense (a point that I agree with him on) and the notion that, even if he's good, his body might not hold up all season, and only the homer-est of homers would have trouble acknowledging that the 2010 Vikings are walking a fine line between excellence and simply very-good-ness.

All is not lost, however, even if #4 doesn't perform up to snuff. The 2008 Vikings went 10-6 with Tarvaris Jackson and Gus Frerotte at the helm, and Peterson and the defense are enough to at least get us that far. Unfortunately, I don't know that they'll get much farther than that, unless everything comes together like it did last season.

My prediction: 10-6

Overall NFL Predictions (and very brief summaries):

AFC East
1. NY Jets - y
2. New England - x
3. Miami
4. Buffalo

The Jets probably aren't as good as everyone thinks they are, but they're good enough to get this far.

AFC North
1. Baltimore - y
2. Cincinnati
3. Pittsburgh
4. Cleveland

Sorry Pittsburgh, but you could be really bad this year.

AFC South
1. Houston - y
2. Indianapolis - x
3. Tennessee
4. Jacksonville

Houston has to get it done one of these years, right?

AFC West
1. San Diego - y
2. Denver
3. Oakland
4. Kansas City

I don't see any of these teams doing anything notable.

NFC East
1. Dallas - y
2. Washington
3. Philadelphia
4. NY Giants

Dallas is the only really good team here, IMHO

NFC North
1. Green Bay - y
2. Minnesota - x
3. Detroit
4. Chicago

Jay Cutler is really not good.

NFC South
1. Atlanta - y
2. New Orleans - x
3. Carolina
4. Tampa Bay

Don't sleep on the Panthers.

NFC West

1. San Francisco - y
2. Arizona
3. St. Louis
4. Seattle

See AFC West.

AFC Championship: Baltimore over New England
NFC Championship: Green Bay over Dallas
Super Bowl: Baltimore over Green Bay

See you in five months!

I don't usually use the d-word, but...

2010-07-20T20:39:00.001-04:00

You know you're a douche when even your agent calls you a "goddamned drama queen":

And yes, I realize that complaining about media coverage of Favre while linking to an article about Favre is ironic, but none of it would be necessary if he wasn't such a douche.

Douche.

How many idiots does it take to make a bad draft pick?

2010-07-17T19:38:00.005-04:00

My answer: one.

On the other hand, it takes a lot of idiots to make a good draft pick.

And at the heart of this discussion are Jimmy Clausen and Colt McCoy and why I'm OK with the Vikings not drafting either one of them, even with their pressing long-term needs at quarterback.

Confused? Good! Now, let me explain.

First, when I say "good" or "bad" draft pick, I mean that a player was drafted lower (good) or higher (bad) than he probably should have been. By this definition, Peyton Manning wasn't a good draft pick. He was picked #1 overall, which was probably about right. The same goes for Adrian Peterson, who was the #7 overall pick, and could arguably be called the #7 best player in the league right now. Similarly, Sam Manuel, the last pick of the 1996 draft who never played a game in the NFL, wasn't a "bad" pick -- he was picked right about where he should have been.

Now consider someone like Troy Williamson. #7 overall, has done squat in his NFL career...clearly a "bad" pick. On the flip side, there's the #199 pick in the 2000 draft, Tom Brady. He was a "good" draft pick.

Most teams probably had Williamson much lower on their draft boards than #7. But the Vikings, thinking themselves "smarter" than everyone else, had him pegged very high and chose him with the #7 overall pick. In other words, it can be argued that 31 of 32 NFL teams were "smart" about Williamson, and it only took one "idiot" team to overdraft him and make him a "bad" pick.

Now, look at Brady. Every NFL team passed on hi, multiple times. Clearly, this was not a good decision. The Patriots finally picked him -- making them the "smart" team and the other 31 teams "idiots." Even so, Brady is an anomaly. 6th-round draft picks don't normally go on to Hall-of-Fame careers. Nobody was commenting on how Brady was a "steal" when he was drafted. 30 of 31 teams didn't even want him on their roster, and the Patriots didn't even care to expend a pick on him until the draft was nearly over.

Clearly, the Patriots did well by drafting Brady. But it's not like they possessed some kind of prescient knowledge that he would go on to the type of career he did. If they did, they would have drafted him much earlier. At most, they were hoping for a capable backup and, perhaps someday down the road, Drew Bledsoe's replacement.

All of which brings us back to Clausen and McCoy. The Vikings could have drafted either player but chose not to do so. Instead, Clausen went #48 overall to the Panthers, while McCoy slid to the third round and was picked in the #85 slot by the Browns. Along with Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow, who were taken before the Vikings' first draft pick, both were considered potential future franchise quarterbacks. All four were featured extensively on ESPN, including a "QB school" run by Jon Gruden, where he broke down each QB.

My question is: If they're so good, how could every NFL team pass on them -- some multiple times?

Yes, not every team needed a quarterback, but I count about 17 possible picks before Clausen went and 25 before McCoy was drafted by teams that could have potentially gone after a QB (including several by Cleveland before the team took McCoy). If these two players are so good and were, according to many draft "experts," undervalued and "steals" by the teams that picked them, then why did it take so long for them to be drafted? I clearly didn't spend weeks breaking down each player, but I came away from his session with Gruden unimpressed. Both might be decent QBs -- and certainly better than what the Vikings look to have under center in 2011 -- but I don't think we "missed out" on either player. Chances are that both of them were "decent" draft picks, picked right about where they should have been.

(And only time will tell if the Denver Broncos were smarter than the likely 31 of 32 NFL teams who didn't think Tim Tebow was worthy of a first-round pick. Given those odds, I'd be pessimistic about Tebow's chances.)

2000 Draft Revisited

2010-07-11T11:50:00.004-04:00

We all (OK, I) like to talk about how silly it is for the NFL pundits to grade the draft hours, or even minutes after teams have made their selections. We all (really, all of us!) know that you can't give a team an A- or a C+ or an F on its draft until several years have passed and those rookies have turned into All-Pros or unemployed free agents. Unfortunately, nobody ever really keeps track of what the draftniks of the world have had to say and hold them accountable for their predictions of draft success.

Yeah, I'm gonna go there.

Here is Peter King's draft report card from the 2000 NFL Draft. After 10 years, I think we can get a pretty good idea of how these teams actually did in the draft. To evaluate the draft, I'll be using Pro-Football-Reference's Approximate Value (AV) system to sum up the total value of a team's draft picks. AV is a decent measure of overall value of a player, whether he's a quarterback, offensive lineman, safety, tight end, whatever. It's not perfect, and, for purposes of tracking the draft, it doesn't account for players who leave a team via trade or free agency, but it's a reasonable way to measure draft success, and, since the draft was 10 years ago, most players taken in it have played the bulk -- if not all -- of their careers, giving us a good measuring point to determine their overall success.

Here's the draft list, sorted by AV, with Peter King's placement listed first and the team's top pick, as determined by AV:

King	Team	TotalAV	Top Player	AV
14	NY Jets	280	John Abraham	68
6	Green Bay	257	Chad Clifton	61
23	Chicago	235	Brian Urlacher	97
11	San Francisco	212	Julian Peterson	64
7	Pittsburgh	199	Plaxico Burress	66
19	Denver	196	Deltha O'Neal	47
16	Baltimore	188	Jamal Lewis	69
15	NY Giants	183	Cornelius Griffin	59
9	Tennessee	172	Keith Bulluck	68
2	Seattle	168	Shaun Alexander	68
8	New England	167	Tom Brady	104
17	Arizona	156	Thomas Jones	58
31	New Orleans	156	Marc Bulger	57
12	Jacksonville	153	Brad Meester	50
25	Minnesota	146	Chris Hovan	57
21	Carolina	131	Deon Grant	54
18	Cincinnati	131	Neil Rackers	45
1	Oakland	131	Sebastian Janikowski	50
24	Indianapolis	128	Marcus Washington	53
13	Philadelphia	111	Corey Simon	47
4	Washington	111	LaVar Arrington	61
10	Cleveland	110	Dennis Northcutt	41
22	Detroit	96	Reuben Droughns	27
20	Kansas City	96	Greg Wesley	38
28	St. Louis	94	Brian Young	42
27	San Diego	87	Damion McIntosh	39
29	Atlanta	66	Mark Simoneau	31
5	Buffalo	64	Sammy Morris	26
3	Tampa Bay	60	Cosey Coleman	27
26	Miami	59	Todd Wade	39
30	Dallas	34	Mario Edwards	24

The biggest issue with AV, IMO, is that it doesn't rate kickers (or punters), and there were three kickers and one punter who were drafted in 2000 -- first-rounder Sebastian Janikowski (Oakland), along with Neil Rackers (Cincinnati), Paul Edinger (Chicago), and Shane Lechler (Oakland again). I decided to go with a very simple rating of 1 AV per 20 points scored for each of these kickers. The very best players ever in the NFL have AVs around 150-200 for their careers (Jerry Rice is 250), and that would put the best kickers -- the ones around 2,000 career points at about 100 AV, which seems fair for kickers. As for Lechler, I semi-arbitrarily gave him an AV of 40 -- less than Jano, but still appropriate, I think, for a guy who's been probably the best punter of the last 10 years.

Some observations:

It's not hard to rule the roost when you have four #1 draft picks, as the Jets did in 2000. None have gone on to truly spectacular, HOF-worthy careers, but the foursome of John Abraham, Chad Pennington, Shaun Ellis, and Anthony Becht have a total AV of 208, which would be enough for fourth place alone -- not bad for one round!
Lechler and Jano save Oakland from having a truly abysmal draft; without my AV assignments to those two, the Raiders would have mustered just 41 total AV from their other picks, good for #30 (of 31) on the list. Still, they were probably a tad overrated by King.
Meanwhile, King's worst draft grade went to New Orleans, and probably deservedly so. Marc Bulger never played a down for the Saints; without him, the team's total AV drops to a mediocre 99, with Darren Howard (42) as the only notable.
Several of King's lowest grades -- St. Louis (28), San Diego (27), Atlanta (29), Miami (26), and Dallas (30) -- actually do rank among the worst drafts of 2000. Dallas' picks are especially putrid. Admittedly, they only had five picks, and #49 was their highest, but still... only sixth-rounder Mario Edwards made any kind of NFL impact.
King doesn't think much of Chicago's draft. "Brian Urlacher had better be great," he said, and he is, at least when he's healthy.
"he'll be a better pro than Ron Dayne" is what King said about Shaun Alexander. Uh, yeah.
His opinions of Tampa Bay's and Buffalo's drafts, though, were a little overly optimistic. "Cosey Coleman's an eight-year starter after Randall McDaniel retires," he said. Not bad -- Coleman started for six years with the Bucs and Browns. Then he said, "Corey Moore, will be one of those classic Bills picks (they always get a very good player after the first round, every year), the kind of player GMs will regret passing on." Moore played two years in the NFL, one for Buffalo and one for Miami.
One very good player can really skew a team's overall ranking. If not for Tom Brady, the Patriots would have had a total AV of 63, and their best player would have been Greg Randall (17).
Tee Martin and Danny Farmer also get big props for Pittsburgh.
The "uninspired" Vikings draft turns out OK. Unfortunately, Chris Hovan and Fred Robbins wind up playing much of their football outside of Minnesota, forcing the team to rely heavily on free agency for much of the decade, with mixed results.

Anyway, King's analysis of the draft is pretty much what you'd expect: some hits, some misses, overall reasonably good (as anyone can do just by observing draft position and possessing some football savvy) but generally uneven. And, like the Buffalo observation, a whole lot of "this guy is a hidden gem"-type commentary that's easy to ignore when the guy doesn't pan out (which happens 99% of the time) and is highly recounted when it's right. Shame he didn't get on the bandwagon of that Brady guy. Still, I suggest you read the full article if, for nothing else, a trip down nostalgia lane.

The not-so-triumphant return

2010-06-19T12:11:00.005-04:00

Hey there. Been a while.

I won't get too heavily into what's been keeping me away from here. Don't worry, it's nothing drastic -- I'm not dying, I'm not in prison, I'm not getting married. I've just been busier at my job than ever before and I just didn't have the energy to try and keep up a blog when I went home in the evenings. I can't guarantee that I will now, but I'd like to still post occasionally, when the mood strikes me, which has been rare as of late. Just don't expect three to four posts per week, like I used to do.

In the meantime, if you're new here, or relatively new, you might have missed out on some of my crude attempts at analysis over the past few years. Now that fantasy football season is nearly upon us again (and I actually work for a company that produces fantasy sports magazines, though not in that department), all the tired old theories are being trotted out again as to why a player will have a better/worse season in 2010. So I thought I'd take a little time to refresh you on what I think on such matters, backed up by more than just selective memory and wishful thinking.

Here are my two most significant findings for you to keep in mind this fantasy football season:

1) The running game has virtually no effect (statistically, at least) on the passing game and vice versa. Don't believe it when someone says, "Running back X will have a great season now that quarterback Y is on his team!" This is often quoted when a RB does have a good year when a new QB arrives (or an old QB does well) and never mentioned when a RB has a bad year with a good QB (or a QB has a bad year with a good RB). For the statement to be true, it must apply in a majority, if not all cases. I got into it a little bit with someone on the PFR blog lately but decided to bow out since my research was a little crusty and spread out.

And here is that old, crusty research! Enjoy!

http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/06/can-brett-help-adrian.html
http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/06/brett-adrian-part-2.html
http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/06/you-cant-un-learn-things.html
http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/07/non-statistical-opinion-on-great-debate.html

If you can only read one, read the second one. It contains most of the significant data.

2) A wide receiver's performance has nothing to do with other wide receivers on his team. Larry Fitzgerald will probably see his numbers drop this year, but it won't be because Anquan Boldin left. The absence of Kurt Warner will have a much bigger effect. A complimentary wide receiver (or good-hands tight end) has little to no effect on a player's stats. I covered that concept here:

http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/07/does-great-fantasy-receiver-need-2.html
http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/07/revisiting-receivers.html

When it comes to premises like these, I still think it's a case of people just trying to sound smarter than they are or, in the case of fantasy football, trying to make it seem like they're getting a great or emergent player as a great draft pick. Don't buy into it. Remember, Matt Forte was supposed to have an awesome year once the Bears landed Jay Cutler.

Oh yeah, speaking of Jay Cutler...

http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-broncos-are-6-0.html

And here's one last fun little Cutler/Kyle Orton comparison:

Broncos' #1 QB passer ratings:
2008 (Cutler): 86.0
2009 (Orton): 86.8

Bears' #1 QB passer ratings:
2008 (Orton): 79.6
2009 (Cutler): 76.8

Still think that was a good deal, Bears fans?

RBIs and Touchdowns

2010-03-20T13:14:00.005-04:00

Joe Posnanski recently posted a nice article about the relative lack of value of RBIs, something that virtually any baseball fan with more than rudimentary knowledge of the game understands. These two paragraphs, in particular, helped solidify in my mind a similar idea I'd had for a while about football:

But it really isn’t so. Take this situation: One out, Rick Manning cracks a line drive single. Duane Kuiper hits a high chopper in front of the plate, he’s out, but Manning takes second. Jim Norris, with first base open and two outs, works for a walk. Manning and Norris move up on a wild pitch. Pitcher works around Andre Thornton, and he walks. Then, with a 3-1 count and the bases loaded, the pitcher has to throw a fastball that catches too much of the plate, and Rico Carty rolls a single between short and third, scoring two runs.

That’s a fairly typical sequence, I would guess. In our mind and in our statbook, Carty is the hero — two RBIs. He is, in fan and media shorthand, RESPONSIBLE for those runs. But he isn’t. Carty’s single didn’t make those two runs happen. Those two runs scored because of a series of events, and Carty’s single was just the last of those events.

I've emphasized that last sentence to drive home the notion that I have the same feeling regarding touchdowns. Last season, Adrian Peterson had 1,383 yards, a 4.3 average, and 18 touchdowns. In 2008, he had 1,760 yards, a 4.8 average, and 10 touchdowns. And I'd wager that at least a third of football fans would point to his 18 TDs in 2009 as a positive sign, despite the lower yardage and yards per carry.

I don't. I think they're meaningless, except to fantasy football players -- kinda like the RBI is to fantasy baseballers.

We've all seen drives where the quarterback passes and the featured back runs the ball down to the 1-yard-line. Then, in comes Mike Alstott (or Jerome Bettis or Craig Heyward) to plunge it in from the one. Alstott is the Rico Carty of this scenario. To paraphrase JoePo: Alstott's run didn’t make that touchdown happen. That touchdown was scored because of a series of events and Alstott's run was just the last of those events.

To be certain, there are times when the player scoring the touchdown is the "hero" of the drive and fully deserving of the stat bump and the accolades that come with scoring the TD. But taking another look at Peterson's 18 TDs in 2009, nine of them came from one yard out and only four came from further than five yards out. Peterson's good, to be certain, but a lot of backs could have scored from that distance, just as a lot of players can hit a single -- like Rico Carty did -- and drive in two runs in JoePo's scenario. All of which isn't to say AP's not a great player. He is, but it's not because he scored 18 TDs last year.

This is also why I've been slow to adapt to the notion, now professed by the guys at Pro-Football-Reference, that a TD should be worth 20 adjusted yards (instead of 10). To me, a touchdown doesn't require much more skill than any other run and shouldn't be rewarded in the stats. Yes, it is more difficult to gain a yard on the one-yard-line than it is on the 50, and I'm willing to give the 10-yard bump for that, but 20 just seems like too much to me.

Finally, JoePo goes on in his article to name a few situations where teams that added players who had poor averages put up big RBI numbers actually scored fewer runs the next season. I thought I'd see if there was any similar correlation in football. I did a search of players who scored more than 15 rushing TDs ("high RBI totals") but averaged fewer than 4.0 yards per carry ("low batting average/OBP") and got this list of nine players. (The Redskins apparently love these guys!) Did they improve their team's scoring the year they scored so many TDs? Let's see:

John Riggins: 24 TDs in 1983
1983 Redskins: 33.8 points per game
1982 Redskins: 21.1 ppg

Terry Allen: 21 TDs in 1996
1996 Redskins: 22.8 ppg
1995 Redskins: 20.4 ppg

George Rogers: 18 TDs in 1986
1986 Redskins: 23.0 ppg
1985 Redskins: 18.6 ppg

LaDainian Tomlinson: 17 TDs in 2004
2004 Chargers: 27.9 ppg
2003 Chargers: 19.6 ppg

Shaun Alexander: 16 TDs in 2002
2002 Seahawks: 22.2 ppg
2001 Seahawks: 18.8 ppg

Pete Banaszak: 16 TDs in 1975
1975 Raiders: 26.8 ppg
1974 Raiders: 25.4 ppg

Lenny Moore: 16 TDs in 1964
1964 Colts: 30.6 ppg
1963 Colts: 22.6 ppg

Karim-Abdul Jabbar: 16 TDs in 1997
1997 Dolphins: 21.2 ppg
1996 Dolphins: 21.2 ppg

Lendale White: 16 TDs in 2008
2008 Titans: 23.4 ppg
2007 Titans: 18.8 ppg

Well, that's not quite what I was expecting. In every situation except one (the Dolphins scored exactly 339 points in both 1996 and 1997), the team in the high-TD year scored more points than in the previous year -- and it usually wasn't even close. My only redeeming thought is that, unlike an "RBI machine," a high-TD featured runner can score around a third to a quarter of his team's points, compared to accounting for only about one-sixth to one-seventh of a team's RBI total, which is all most hitters can manage. Thus, with an outlying high-TD season, a high-TD back can have a bigger impact on his team's overall scoring than the RBI machine. I might also claim that five of these nine players were just barely under the 4.0 yards per carry mark (3.87 or better), so it's not like they were truly awful. And I'm not looking up any other team-related improvements that might have accounted for the increase in scoring. If I found a way to incorporate Adrian Peterson's 2008-09 seasons into this mix, I'd see that the Vikings scored 470 points in 2009 (when Peterson scored 18 TDs) and 379 in 2008 (when Peterson scored 10 TDs). But I think we all know who was responsible for that.

Maybe a wider search using this list (greater than 12 rushing TDs and less than 3.75 yards per carry) would shed some more light on the subject, but that's for another day. I'll still draft AP #1 overall in my fantasy football league, but I'll prefer if he has a season like 2008 than like he did in 2009.

Super Bowl XXXIII redux

2010-03-14T15:26:00.003-04:00

I've been playing around with the NFL SimMatchup on WhatIfSports.com lately, where you can match up any two teams in history and play a simulated game with them, just to answer the question: If Denny Green (and not Gary Anderson) hadn't lost the 1998 NFC Championship Game for the Vikings, how would they have fared in the Super Bowl against the Denver Broncos? Better than the Falcons, who got hammered 34-19 in a game that wasn't even as close as the score indicated.

It's easy to set up and sim games (if you're setting up this particular game, set 1998 Denver as Away, 1998 Minnesota as Home and select Pro Player Stadium at 70 degrees), and my first result was this 24-17 Denver win.

All right, so that's not very encouraging. But at least it was a far more exciting game than the real result, with Denver scoring the go-ahead TD with just five seconds remaining.

Still, small sample size, blah blah blah, so I ran nine more sims to get a full 10-game sample to play with. The results were:

Denver 24-17
Minnesota 18-13 (six Gary Anderson field goals)
Minnesota 23-16 (Cris Carter TD catch with 0:25 left)
Denver 24-21
Denver 27-20 (24 of game's 47 points in the fourth quarter)
Minnesota 28-17
Minnesota 23-17
Denver 54-41 (!!!!)
Denver 44-24 (Terrell Davis 239 yards rushing)
Minnesota 17-14

That's five wins apiece for each Denver and Minnesota, with an average score of Denver 25, Minnesota 23.2. And nearly all of them exciting, close affairs.

A few more notes on that insane 54-41 game:

* The game started off slowly, with Denver leading just 7-0 after the first quarter. The single-quarter scores after that were Minnesota 17-13, Denver 14-3, and Minnesota 21-20.

* Terrell Davis ran for 292 yards, which would have been an NFL single-game record at the time, and three touchdowns.

* Randall Cunningham countered with 396 yards passing and 3 TDs, 141 of it going to Randy Moss.

* Total offense: Denver 567, Minnesota 493, for a total of 1,060 yards.

* In a game like this, you'd have expected to see a few turnovers and long returns setting up or outright creating scores, but there were no turnovers and didn't appear to be any TD returns on kicks or punts.

* In a show of poor sportsmanship (which can probably be chalked up to the game algorithm just trying to score as much as possible), Denver kicked a field goal on the final snap of the game while already possessing a 10-point lead, to inflate the final score from 51-41 to 54-41. Boo, Dan Reeves!

Anyway, this is just one of the cool things you can do with the SimMatchup, and thanks to the guys at the Pro-Football-Reference blog for pointing it out to me. They've got their own interesting application for the SimMatchup planned, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. I'll definitely be rooting for the 1998 Vikings!

Tarvaris Jackson for Brady Quinn?

2010-03-10T13:55:00.004-05:00

The Browns are looking to deal Brady Quinn and want a quarterback in exchange.

Tarvaris Jackson is essentially done in Minnesota, whether or not Brett Favre returns.

So, why not?

I'm not as low on Quinn as others are -- playing for that awful Cleveland team will make anyone look bad. I don't know if his 53.2% completion percentage and 5.2 yards per attempt last year were his fault of the fault of his receivers, but he avoids turnovers (just nine interceptions in 353 career attempts and four fumbles on 45 career "touches") and he just looked too good in college to be a complete NFL bust. Give him Sidney Rice, Bernard Berrian, and Visanthe Shiancoe to throw to and Adrian Peterson (and LaDanian Tomlinson?) to hand off to, and he'll have to look better.

Besides, the Browns already have Seneca Wallace. With T-Jack, they could have the most mobile quarterbacking in the league, which they'll probably need.

Busy day for the NFC North

2010-03-05T18:48:00.004-05:00

As a "final 8" team in this new uncapped year, the Vikings don't look to be too active in free agency this offseason. But the other teams in the division aren't as restricted, as was evidenced by today's flurry of activity by two of the Vikings' divisional rivals.

Well, by one of our divisional rivals and the Lions.

Here's my opinions, in order of increasing importance, of the five free-agent moves made today by the Bears and the Lions.

5) Lions sign WR Nate Burleson. Apparently learning nothing from the Seahawks, who got nine more catches and 31 fewer yards in four years of Burleson than the Vikings got from him in three, the Lions handed Burleson a five-year, $25 million contract. He did have a respectable 63 catches and 812 yards for the Seahawks last year but also missed three games, following a one-game 2008 season. And the Lions continue to show why they're in last place, year after year.

4) Bears sign RB Chester Taylor. If you're surprised I rank this transaction so low, consider this: The Bears already have a decent third-down back in Matt Forte (120 receptions in two seasons), Taylor will turn 31 just after the start of the season, and he's averaged 4.0 and 3.6 yards per carry his last two years with the Vikings. If the Bears plan to make him their featured back, consider that Taylor managed just 4.0 yards per carry his one year as a featured back (2006), which was vastly inflated by his 95-yard run against the Seahawks; he managed just 3.7 yards per carry on his other runs that year. I'm really appreciative of what Taylor did in his four years with the Vikes, but his age, Adrian Peterson's new-found receiving skills, and the presence of Albert Young and Ian Johnson to take over the backup role made him eminently expendable.

(Strange note: In my copy of Madden NFL 2009 that I played four seasons of last year, Taylor signed with the Bears during the 09-10 offseason. Now, if Tarvaris Jackson can just lead us to the Super Bowl, my game will be uncannily accurate...)

3) Lions sign DE Kyle Vanden Bosch. Two years ago, Vanden Bosch was coming off three seasons of 12.5, 6.5, and 12.0 sacks. Since then, he's managed just 7.5 sacks, and the Titans' scoring defense sank to 28th in the league last year. Granted, he instantly improves the Lions' defense -- not a difficult task -- but he's not the playmaker he used to be.

2) Bears sign TE Brandon Manumaleuna. Chester Taylor won't do much to improve the Bears' running game, but Manumaleuna might. He's not much of a pass-catcher, but he's blocked for the likes of LaDanian Tomlinson and Marshall Faulk during some of their biggest years. On the bright side, this means that Greg Olson's career as a Bear is almost virtually done, as he'll likely be traded for a draft pick, so, in the short term, one wonders if the "trade" is a wash.

1) Bears sign DE Julius Peppers. All of the other transactions involve so-so players or don't provide significant upgrades to their teams. This one's the biggie, though, and I, for one, am not looking forward to Peppers making our QBs run for their lives twice a year. My only consolation is that Peppers turned 30 in January (by comparison, Jared Allen is two years younger), but as was evident in the Panthers' game against the Vikings in December, he can still give any offensive coordinator nightmares.

Still, in general, I think that most of these moves -- Peppers excepting -- aren't the kind of big-impact deals that can completely change a team. The only team I'm really worried about in our division going into next year is the Packers, who, in winning seven of their last eight regular-season games last year, might not need much in the free agency market to give the Vikings a run for their money in 2010.

Lazy Sunday miscellaney

2010-02-28T10:25:00.003-05:00

Vikings OK waiting on Favre's decision.

Like we have a choice.

* If Brett Favre returns and throws more than 100 passes, he will become just the fourth such quarterback to do so at the age of 41, joining Warren Moon, Vinny Testaverde, and Doug Flutie, as seen here.

* Speaking of Testaverde, I find it interesting that it may be a while before we see another QB inducted into the Hall of Fame. There were no passers among this year's finalists, and among quarterbacks who retired from 2005 to 2008, only Testaverde, Drew Bledsoe, and Steve McNair have anything resembling a chance at the HOF, and I'd say all are iffy prospects, at best. The potential inductees in 2015 will include Kurt Warner and possibly Favre.

* How good was Favre's 2009? Only four QBs in the history of the NFL have had a season of more than 30 TDs and fewer than 10 interceptions, as Favre did in 2009. All of them came in the last decade. All except Favre went to the Super Bowl that year.

* And if Favre doesn't return? Well, there's Donovan McNabb dangling out there, Sage Rosenfels, and Tarvaris Jackson are in-house options -- and let's hope this scenario doesn't play out. We already have enough running backs, we don't need to draft one in the first round.

Cris Carter and the Hall of Fame

2010-02-20T19:12:00.004-05:00

Cris Carter isn't in the Hall of Fame yet, and that doesn't sit well with some people. And by some people, I mean "most Vikings fans," as can be evidenced by the outpouring of confused indifference to seething rage by bloggers:

Daily Norseman

Purple Jesus Diaries

I'm sure there are more out there. Even last year, I expressed my own "meh" at Carter's lack of enshrinement. Then, something interesting happened. I changed my mind. Sort of.

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in Pro-Football-Reference's HOF roundtable discussion. I and the other panelists were asked a series of questions about this year's nominees, including who we thought should be enshrined. The two obvious answers were Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice, and then we had three other choices to make.

First of all, I don't believe in the "only one player per position" HOF "rule." If you're good enough to be in the HOF, you deserve to go in, regardless of who else is going in. With that in mind, my other three choices were Dermontti Dawson, arguably one of the top five centers of all time; Shannon Sharpe, who revolutionized the tight end position; and then, I decided to choose one of the wide receivers who were eligible: Carter, Tim Brown, or Andre Reed.

As much as I was a Cris Carter fan (when he wasn't being a sanctamonius whiner), I decided to approach this problem as objectively as I could, and the yardstick I tried to use to measure the three wideouts was yards per team pass play. I used YPTPP last year to determine the WR who had the best yardage totals given what he had to work with in his team's playcalling. To wit, a WR who accumulates 1,200 yards on a team that throws the ball 400 times (YPTPP = 3.0) performed much better, in my opinion, than one who got 1,200 yards on a team that threw 600 times (YPTPP = 2.0).

That's a little tougher to measure over a full season than it is over a single season, though, and there are (obviously) more ways that an already imprecise measurement like this could go wrong. Still, I thought I could at least take a shot at it and see if, as I expected, Carter and Brown measured out about the same while Reed would be left in the dust.

I looked over the careers of each man (Carter, Brown, Reed), trying to focus only on the seasons during which they were starters for most or all of their games; in this way, I could be assured that they were on the field for virtually all of their teams' passing plays. In the case of years where a player was a starter but didn't play every game, I would multiply his team's passing plays in that season by a fraction equal to that player's starts/16 in that season. For instance, I only count 12/16, or 3/4 of the Vikings' pass plays in 1992 (when Carter missed four games) against Carter's total.

The "active years" for each player:

Carter: 1988-1989, 1991-2001
Brown: 1992-2003
Reed: 1985-1989

(I skipped Carter's 1990, where he only started five of 16 games. Since he only racked up 416 yards that season, it probably isn't going to hurt his chances any.)

Over those time spans, I came up with the following yardage totals and the number of passing plays that player's team had during those spans (with adjustments for missed time, as noted above):

Carter: 13,336 yards; 6,995 team pass plays (1.91 YPTPP)
Brown: 13,182 yards; 6,237 team pass plays (2.11 YPTPP)
Reed: 13,095 yards; 6,957 team pass plays (1.88 YPTPP)

Wow. That's not what I was expecting.

"But what about the touchdowns?" you might ask. "That's all Cris Carter did, at least according to Buddy Ryan!" Carter has 130 career touchdowns, to Tim Brown's 100. Not a huge margin, but what if we add in 20 yards per TD (the accepted conversion rate, according to PFR) over the same time spans noted above? That's 124 TDs/2,480 yards for Carter, 86 TDs/1,720 yards for Brown and Reed both.

Carter: 15,816 yards; 6,995 team pass plays (2.26 YPTPP)
Brown: 14,902 yards; 6,237 team pass plays (2.39 YPTPP)
Reed: 14,185 yards; 6,957 team pass plays (2.13 YPTPP)

That gets Carter closer, but still no HOF cigar. And none of this takes into account Brown's relatively productive first four years and final year in the league (122 catches, 1,752 yards, 14 TDs) or his time spent as a punt returner (326 returns for 3,320 yards and 3 TDs). It's tough for Viking fans to admit, but Cris Carter was simply the third-best wide receiver in this potential HOF class. Granted, the inane voters didn't even vote in the second-best WR, but that's another story.

BTW, here's how Jerry Rice stacks up in YPTPP, using his numbers from 1986-1996 and 1998-2003:

Rice: 21,461 yards; 9,164 team pass plays (2.34 YPTPP) (without TDs)
Rice: 25,261 yards; 9,164 team pass plays (2.76 YPTPP) (with TDs)

Yeah, he was pretty good.

Winter vs. Berry: The Results!

2010-02-13T17:52:00.004-05:00

Here's a post nearly six months in the making. And boy, have I been salivating over this one.

Back in November of 2008, I stumbled across ESPN fantasy "guru" Matthew Berry's "bold predictions" for the upcoming season, most of which were so absurd as to be laughable. I wonder if he drafted Ben Obamanu and Troy Smith for his fantasy team. Probably not. At the end of the season, I dissected his predictions and the results were, shall we say, less than stellar. Of his 41 "real" predictions, only three came true, an abysmal 7.3% rate.

But hey, who was I to talk? It's not like I made any predictions. So, when Berry posted his 2009 predictions, one for each of the 32 NFL teams, I decided not just to track them but to try and guess which ones I thought would come true and which ones wouldn't. At the end of the season, I'd see who was more right. He'd score a point for every prediction he got right, and I'd score a point for each of his predictions that I agreed with that was right and each one I disagreed with that was wrong.

And now comes the day of reckoning. Here we go! Berry's prediction is below, followed by my Yes/No vote on, on the next line, Berry's and my results -- Y for a correct prediction, N for an incorrect one. When talking about fantasy points and ranks, he's probably talking about the scoring in the ESPN fantasy leagues, but I don't play those and don't have access to them, so I'll be using the scoring and ranks as used on player pages on pro-football-reference.com.

Chris "Beanie" Wells stays healthy enough to get at least 1,000 total yards and eight touchdowns. YES.

N/N. 936 yards and 7 TDs. Very close, but I'm going to be strict.

Roddy White will lead the NFL in receiving yards. YES. Bold, but I like it. Jake Delhomme is due for a meltdown, and that'll hurt Steve Smith.

N/N. He was 13th.

Joe Flacco finishes the year as a top-12 fantasy quarterback. NO. Flacco is highly overrated because his defense is good.

N/Y. According to PFR, he was 17th. And slightly less overrated, but still overrated.

Terrell Owens finishes the year outside the top 25 fantasy wide receivers. You heard me. NO. I think he'll be down a bit, but even Trent Edwards can't screw him up too badly.

Y/N. According to PFR, he was 26th. But I'll play fair and count it as a "No" for me.

Jonathan Stewart finishes with more fantasy points than DeAngelo Williams. NO. Williams is overrated, thanks to his huge TD numbers, but he'll still get more carries and points than Stewart.

Y/N. 193 to 179, according to PFR. At this point, Berry leads me 2-1. Oh noes!

Devin Hester and Greg Olsen combine for 1,800 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns. NO. Jay Cutler can't fix the mess that is the Bears' receiving corps.

N/Y. Not so much. 1,369 and 11.

Chris Henry has a better fantasy season than Laveranues Coles. NO. Of course, the Jets lost Brett Favre so they don't know how to pass any more.

N/Y. I debated tossing out this question entirely in the scorekeeping, considering what happened to Henry falls outside the normal bad luck of an injury. But he was out hurt when he died anyway and probably wouldn't have made up the 82-36 margin Coles "won" the matchup by.

Jamal Lewis has 1,400 yards and eight touchdowns, or the equivalent fantasy points. NO. Nice to throw in the "or the equivalent" phrase to CYA, but I still think Lewis is done.

N/Y. 588 yards, zero(!) TDs, and retired. Can't get much more done than that.

Without T.O. in town, Tony Romo has the best fantasy season of his career. NO. I think Romo will be fine, but the man had 4,211 yards and 36 TDs two years ago. That's tough to top.

N/Y. According to PFR, Romo had 334 fantasy points in 2009, compared to 371 in 2007.

Peyton Hillis will end the year with the most fantasy points of any Broncos running back. You heard me. YES. Hey someone's gotta run the ball in Denver.

N/N. Hillis had 54 whole rushing yards. Ick.

Brandon Pettigrew finishes the year as a top-15 fantasy tight end. YES. Bad/young QBs love a good tight end.

N/N. He was #25.

Ryan Grant goes for better than 1,500 total yards and 10 touchdowns. NO.

N/Y. 1,446 yards and 11 TDs. If he gets a point on me for T.O., I claim a point on him here.

Eighty-five receptions and 1,000 yards for Owen Daniels. NO. Daniels is really good and really underrated, but the Texans still have Andre Johnson.

N/Y. Daniels had 40 catches and 519 yards in eight games, so he might have managed it had he stayed healthy.

Anthony Gonzalez, whose career high in receiving yards is 664, doubles that this season. NO. A Colts WR might have 1,300 receiving yards, but it'll be Reggie Wayne.

N/Y. But T.O. wasn't my worst WR draft pick in that league! Yes, I drafted Gonzalez, too. Thank heavens I found Miles Austin a month into the season.

David Garrard will be a top-10 fantasy quarterback this year. Just like last season. YES.

N/N. PFR says Garrard was 15th in 2009 and 12th last year. At this point, Berry's on an 0-10 streak.

Matt Cassel will not be. In fact, he finishes outside the top 15. YES.

Y/Y. This wasn't exactly the toughest prediction. The Chiefs will regret this move for years to come.

Anthony Fasano, meet the end zone. You two will find each other 10 times this season. YES. Sure, why not?

N/N. Because he's Anthony Fasano, that's why not! He had 2 TDs.

Bernard Berrian gets more than 1,200 yards and nine scores. NO. Having Brett Favre means Berrian won't have to settle for those weak-armed QBs like the ones he had last year that limited him to a paltry 20.1 yards per reception, second-best in the league.

N/Y. Favre was better than expected, but all his big plays went to Sidney Rice and Percy Harvin. Berrian had 618 yards and 4 TDs.

Eight hundred yards and seven touchdowns for Joey Galloway. YES. If he's healthy Galloway can catch 800 yards' worth of passes from anyone.

N/N. Yeah, about that. Galloway had 67 yards playing for Pittsburgh and New England.

Pierre Thomas is a top-10 fantasy running back this year. And Saints fans start wearing berets to games. You heard me. YES. But I'll disregard the beret thing.

N/N. He had a nice season but was in a three-way RB committee in New Orleans. #20 according to PFR.

Brandon Jacobs scores 20 touchdowns. NO. How will the Giants get that close to the end zone with Eli Manning battling Brett Favre for the league interception lead?

N/Y. More like 6 TDs. And FWIW, Eli doubled Brett's interceptions, 14-7.

Dustin Keller gets 800 yards, eight touchdowns and is one of the top eight fantasy tight ends this season. YES.

N/N. 522 yards, 2 TDs, and #20. So much for my theory about young QBs and tight ends.

More than 1,500 total yards and eight scores (or the fantasy points equivalent) for Darren McFadden. NO. I dunno, but I think we're going to look back in 10 years and find that Felix Jones was the better Alabama RB who entered the league in 2008. Plus, being with the Raiders automatically subtracts 25% (or more) from your fantasy potential

N/Y. 602 yards and 1 TD.

Brian Westbrook plays all 16 games. NO. Hasn't happened yet, see no reason to start now.

N/Y. 8 games.

Trendy preseason favorite Rashard Mendenhall finishes with fewer fantasy points than Willie Parker, Mewelde Moore and Heath Miller. YES.

N/N. Goes to show what we know. Mendenhall had 185 points, Miller 115, Parker 51, Moore 45.

Philip Rivers ends up with 225 fantasy points or fewer, which last year would have put him ninth among quarterbacks. (To put that numerically, I think he throws for fewer than 3,400 yards and 25 touchdowns). YES.

N/N. I don't know why I was so down on Rivers. He had 4,254 yards, 28 TDs, and 331 fantasy points.

Shaun Hill wins the starting quarterback job, throws for 3,000-plus yards and has at least 26 total touchdowns. NO. He'll be the starter, but he won't get those kind of TD numbers.

N/Y. Well, he was the starter for 6 games, notching 943 yards and 5 TDs.

T.J. Duckett scores double-digit touchdowns. Julius Jones has more than 1,200 total yards. Both have solid fantasy value this year. You heard me. NO. I could believe Jones, but absolutely not Duckett.

N/Y. Jones had 885 yards (and yes, I drafted him in that league) and Duckett didn't play.

Donnie Avery has more than 1,000 yards receiving. And yes, I know he's injured and most likely will miss the start of the season. That's how much I like him and the Rams' revamped offensive line. NO. But I don't like Marc Bulger.

N/Y. 589 yards for Avery.

Antonio Bryant finishes outside the top 30 of fantasy wide receivers. YES.

Y/Y. 50th. Not exactly a stretch, prediction-wise.

Nate Washington, on the other hand, finishes inside the top 30. YES.

N/N. 41st.

More than 1,000 yards and six touchdowns for Chris Cooley. NO. Put simply, expecting 1,000 yards from any TE is asking for trouble.

N/Y. 332 yards and 2 TDs. If he only would have tripled his numbers...

Results
Berry nails 4 of his 32 predictions, an awesome 12.5% correct. A few, notably the Wells and Grant predictions, are close enough to essentially be correct, and a few (like Daniels) were ruined by injuries, but, at best, he'd only have about 25% correct. Combined with last year's 3-for-41, that gives him a cumulative 7-for-73, or 9.6% success rate, thus proving that the fantasy prediction business is something pretty much anyone can do. How can I get a job doing this?

Meanwhile, I score on 18 of 32, largely on the strength of my calling "BS" on 16 of Berry's 28 incorrect predictions. But even at the start of this exercise, I felt a little funny just going off someone else's work. Ideally, I would have made predictions of my own and, at the end of the season, we would have compared our predictions and seen who got the most right.

The problem with that is that it would have been tough to judge the "riskiness" of my predictions. Is it more of a reach to say that Bernard Berrian will have 1,200 yards and 9 scores or that, say, Visanthe Shiancoe will be a top 5 tight end? (He was #6, according to PFR.) I'd hate for my predictions to be too timid (or too risky) and for the comparison to be less equal than it could be. But hey, if Matthew's reading this, I'd love a "prediction competition" for next year. Especially since it looks like I won't have to do much better than a 10% success rate.

2009 NFL Predictions Revisited

2010-02-11T18:32:00.004-05:00

Earlier this week, I looked back at my Vikings predictions for 2009, and now it's time to revisit my overall predictions for the 2009 NFL season.

AFC
AFC East Predictions
1. New England - y
2. Buffalo - x
3. Miami
4. NY Jets

AFC East Actual
1. New England - y
2. NY Jets - x
3. Miami
4. Buffalo

Someone will have to explain to me why I was high on Buffalo. At least I got it right when I said New England will rebound and Miami will regress.

AFC North Predictions
1. Pittsburgh - y
2. Cleveland
3. Baltimore
4. Cincinnati

AFC North Actual
1. Cincinnati - y
2. Baltimore - x
3. Pittsburgh
4. Cleveland

Another stinker of a division, and another "What was I thinking?" regarding Cleveland. I thought at least one of their QBs would be good.

AFC South Predictions
1. Tennessee - y
2. Indianapolis - x
3. Jacksonville
4. Houston

AFC South Actual
1. Indianapolis - y
2. Houston
3. Tennessee
4. Jacksonville

My faith in the Titans was sorely misguided, though they still might have the best O-line in football. Titans' QBs were only sacked 3.1% of the time, and their primary running back had a pretty good year, I heard. They can even make Vince Young and Kerry Collins look passable.

AFC West Predictions
1. San Diego - y
2. Oakland
3. Denver
4. Kansas City

AFC North Actual
1. San Diego - y
2. Denver
3. Kansas City
4. Oakland

Hey, there's one division champ I got right! I also said, "Oakland, Denver, and Kansas City could all finish under .500," and Denver just barely avoided that sentence, with an 8-8 record (after a 6-0 start, a collapse of Vikings-esque proportions).

NFC
NFC East Predictions
1. Philadelphia - y
2. Dallas - x
3. NY Giants
4. Washington

NFC East Actual
1. Dallas - y
2. Philadelphia - x
3. NY Giants
4. Washington

Not too bad, and very nearly perfect, if not for Philly's collapse in the final game of the season against Dallas (which I'm not complaining about, mind you). "And I think that the loss of T.O. won't hurt the Cowboys as much as people think." Granted, unearthing Miles Austin helped a bit.

NFC North Predictions
1. Minnesota - y
2. Green Bay
3. Chicago
4. Detroit

NFC North Actual
1. Minnesota - y
2. Green Bay - x
3. Chicago
4. Detroit

Spot on! Except for Green Bay making the playoffs, though I did say that "I admit that I'm very close to picking Green Bay as my wild card, but I think the defense will let them down just a little too often this year." The defense gelled, and the Packers were (sadly) very good.

NFC South Predictions
1. Atlanta - y
2. New Orleans - x
3. Carolina
4. Tampa Bay

NFC South Actual
1. New Orleans - y
2. Atlanta
3. Carolina
4. Tampa Bay

"New Orleans has no defense and no running game." Yeah, they mostly fixed that, and it took them all the way to the championship. And how on earth did Carolina win eight games? Oh yeah, by benching Jake Delhomme...

NFC West Predictions
1. Seattle - y
2. Arizona
3. San Francisco
4. St. Louis

AFC North Actual
1. Arizona - y
2. San Francisco
3. Seattle
4. St. Louis

So maybe Arizona is for real, after all. Well, at least until Kurt Warner retires -- oh, hang on... "St. Louis might fight with Tampa Bay for the #1 draft pick." Silly me, I forgot about Detroit sneaking in with the #2 pick.

My mantra, as always, was that I must pick four new division winners each year. There were, in fact, five new division winners in 2009. If I was to take a very early look at next year, I'd say that Arizona, Cincinnati, and Minnesota (depending on the Vikings' QB situation, though with Green Bay's solid play, it may not matter) will have the toughest time repeating, with New England and Dallas (challenged by the Jets and Eagles, respectively) could also have issues. Those predictions are probably about as useful as 2011 Super Bowl odds, but hey, it's all in fun, right? Nobody's really being held accountable for any of this, are they?

Wait until this weekend.

2009 Vikings predictions revisited

2010-02-08T18:54:00.003-05:00

So, how'd I do?

Quarterback Prediction:
Brett Favre: 3,300 passing yards, 21 TDs, 19 Int.

Quarterback Actual:
Brett Favre: 4,202 passing yards, 33 TDs, 7 Int.

So I was a little off, but be honest -- you never saw this coming, did you?

There's little more that can be said about Favre's remarkable season, mostly coming after he crossed the age-40 threshold. I did somewhat predict his unpredictability, saying "he could be great, chucking 25-30 TDs, and he could be awful, chucking 25-30 interceptions." Technically, I was wrong, as he exceeded 30 TDs, but I wasn't exactly complaining. In fact, it was the most TDs Favre has chucked since 1997, and he set a personal mark in completion percentage and lowest interception percentage. Makes you wonder what he'll be like in 10 years.

Running Back Prediction:
Adrian Peterson: 1,450 rushing yards, 200 receiving yards, 14 TDs
Chester Taylor: 500 rushing yards, 300 receiving yards, 6 TDs

Running Back Actual:
Adrian Peterson: 1,383 rushing yards, 436 receiving yards, 18 TDs
Chester Taylor: 338 rushing yards, 389 receiving yards, 2 TDs

Here's one where I wasn't too far off, though Adrian Peterson's newly found skill as a receiver was a pleasant surprise. Believing that Favre wouldn't pass particularly well, I predicted higher rushing numbers for the Peterson/Taylor duo, which received 92.6% of all carries by Vikings running backs (if one counts Jeff Dugan and Percy Harvin as running backs). Overall, I predicted 2,450 total yards from scrimmage and 20 TDs for the duo, and they managed 2,546 and 20, so I'll call this one a win. If I was keeping score, that is.

Receivers Prediction:
Bernard Berrian: 55 catches, 900 yards, 7 TDs
Sidney Rice: 25 catches, 350 yards, 1 TD
Bobby Wade: 40 catches, 550 yards, 3 TDs
Percy Harvin: 20 catches, 300 yards, 2 TDs
Visanthe Shiancoe: 35 catches, 550 yards, 6 TDs

Receivers Actual:
Sidney Rice: 83 catches, 1,312 yards, 8 TD
Percy Harvin: 60 catches, 790 yards, 6 TDs
Bernard Berrian: 55 catches, 618 yards, 4 TDs
Visanthe Shiancoe: 53 catches, 556 yards, 11 TDs

I wrote, "Someone from the Vikings' second tier of receivers will have to step up this year... Sidney Rice shows occasional flashes but isn't reliable." Well, he's reliable now, and his Pro Bowl season definitely counts as "stepping up." If Favre retires, it'll be interesting to see how Rice's numbers respond, but he definitely proved me wrong this season.

If the previous category counted as a "win," this one definitely goes down as a "loss." I did somehow nail Bernard Berrian's 55 receptions and came within six yards of Shiancoe's yardage total, but Rice and Harvin exceeded all expectations and Berrian managed just a puzzling 11.2 yards per reception, after averaging nearly double that (20.1) in 1998. Other than the running backs, no other Viking receiver had more than 10 catches, and Bobby Wade had 36 catches for 367 yards and three TDs -- for Kansas City.

I don't have the energy right now to do a piecemeal dissection of the offensive line, special teams, and defense, so here's a Cliff's Notes looks at some of my best -- and worst -- predictions about those units for 2009.

"If Loadholt and Sullivan can get it done, the O-line could be one of the best in the league."

I've already discussed my opinion of the offensive line, which failed to open pretty much any holes for the second half of the season, even while it improved in pass protection. For the record, the Vikings were a mere 22nd in the league in yards per carry, and Vikings QBs were sacked on 5.8% of their dropbacks, 13th in the league. The line was average, at best.

"this has the makings to be a dominant defensive line, playing equally well against the run and the pass."

It had its moments, good and bad, but the defense began and ended, for much of the season, with the play of the defensive line. The starting foursome of Allen, Williams, Williams, and Edwards racked up 31 sacks, more than eight other entire teams.

"He'll probably never be considered an elite linebacker, but as long as he flies around the field like he does, I'll be OK with his lack of recognition."

That was in reference to Chad Greenway, who did indeed continue to fly around the field, leading the team in tackles.

"Unfortunately, as shown last year when Henderson went down (Napoleon Harris!), the team's depth at linebacker is almost non-existant."

For a rookie, Jaspar Brinkley did an adequate job filling in when EJ Henderson went down in December, and, depending on how Henderson's recovery from a broken leg goes, he might have more of a chance to build on his rookie season going forward.

"That could be a questionable decision in the future, with Winfield having just turned 32 and Griffin not being able to keep up with elite receivers at times last year, but both should provide at least decent play for a couple more years, provided the defensive line can keep quarterbacks on their toes."

By the end of the season, Antoine Winfield was a nickel corner and Cedric Griffin, while decent, again struggled in coverage when the defensive line couldn't produce pressure (though the weak safety play of Tyrell Johnson and Madeiu Williams contributed to these difficulties). With three of their four defensive backs (all but Johnson) locked into big-money, long-term deals (though Winfield's has a semi-"out" if he becomes a fifth DB), improvement in this area might prove difficult.

"Suffice to say, Longwell's earned his keep as a Viking."

Amen to that. In his four years in purple, Longwell has converted on 86.5% of field goal opportunities, including 26 of 28 this year. Tack on a league-high 54 extra-point attempts, and you have a 132-point season, the highest of the 13-year veteran's career. "Four more years!"

"the Vikings are turning to rookies Percy Harvin as their primary kick returner and Percy Harvin as the punt returner."

I'm not quite sure what I meant there, but Percy Harvin as a kick returner worked out fairly well, I'd say.

Projected Finish:
11-5, 1st in NFC North

Only off by one game, and that was with Brett Favre being mediocre. I think I expected more out of the defense and the running game to compensate, but however we got there, I'll take it.

Letting it sink in

2010-01-27T19:01:00.003-05:00

After a few days to absorb "the loss," I find that my opinion hasn't really changed much. The wound has healed slightly, and I'm moving on with my life. Just like Brett Favre. Or maybe not.

This paragraph, right here, will be the only thing I write from now until the start of the next season about whether I believe Brett Favre will return. My opinion: I don't know. Neither do you, and neither does he. We can all speculate, we can all guess, we can all read rumors, hear quotes, we can read on the Internet, hear on the radio, watch on ESPN, whatever. None of it means anything. Anything. Yes, he currently says it's unlikely he'll play again, but that's because he's tired, sore, and mentally exhausted right now. We've been through this before. By April, he'll be healed up and get that "itch" again and make some offhand comment to someone and then it'll be FavreWatch all over again. I'm willing to play out scenarios about the Vikings' quarterback situation going forward, and I'll include caveats about "If he returns," but all they'll be is speculation, just as if I was saying "If the Vikings draft a quarterback this year." It might happen, it might not. Until Week 1 of the 2010 season begins and Brett Favre is not suited up, then he is returning to play again. Until that time, I'm not interested in speculation. Really. Not at all. (In related news, Brad Childress won't set a deadline for Favre to return, which is like telling your boss that it's OK for him to take tomorrow off.)

Now that I've got all that out of my system, it pains me to admit that I can't really blame the NFC Championship Game loss on Saint Brett. Yes, those two interceptions, especially the one at the end of regulation were brutal, but even if he runs for a few yards on that play, as many have pointed out he could have, it would have left us with a 50-ish-yard field goal for the win. Ryan Longwell is certainly capable of making that in a dome, but it's not like Favre outright "lost us the game." He lost us a chance to win, yes, but probably no worse than the 50/50 chance we essentially had in overtime. I also don't blame the officiating crew who, despite some questionable calls in overtime, seemed pretty even-handed in dishing out the lousy calls all around, including a classic "roughing the Favre" penalty that even Troy Aikman didn't believe should have been called. Folks, when Troy Aikman thinks roughing the passer shouldn't be called, it ain't roughing the passer. And the Vikings' defense and special teams played surprisingly well, allowing just 257 yards from scrimmage and just one big kick return while completely bottling up Reggie Bush on punt returns. Even the playcalling was mostly good, if a little conservative late in the game.

No, the blame has to go around to guys like Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin, and Bernard Berrian, for their stunning inability to hold on to the football. None of Peterson's official three fumbles were recovered by the Saints, though he was probably to blame for the fumble at the goal line on a botched handoff at the end of the first half. That, as well as Harvin's and Berrian's fumbles all were recovered inside the 10-yard-line (either the Saints' or the Vikings') and it's easy to see that avoiding just one of those plays would have made a huge difference in such a tight game. Avoid all three and the game is likely a blowout for the Vikings.

It's amazing, though, to realize that even with five turnovers and a -4 margin, the Vikings were still just one play away from winning, which stands as a tribute to their overall strong play in other areas. This stands in stark contrast to their last NFC Championship Game appearance, the infamous 41-0 thrashing at the hands of the Giants in 2001. Even the agony of the 1999 loss to the Falcons seems more hurtful than this game, if only because we were supposed to win that one easily. This was a game on the road against a team with a superior offense and we practically dominated them. The manner of the loss is hurtful, but the loss itself seems less than unexpected.

But it's still a loss, and it's another gut-wrenching end to the season for the Vikings. I suppose I should be used to it by now. After all, statistically, only one out of 32 teams ever finishes the season the way it wants to, so the odds are always against us. But hope springs eternal, I suppose, and I'll be hoping again with the rest of you when September comes along.

Wait 'til next year.

NFC Championship Game: Overtime

2010-01-24T21:55:00.002-05:00

Saints win the toss. C'mon, pick six...

They're making way too much of this "inexperienced kicker" thing.

14:52. Well, that's not an optimal return. And Cedric Griffin's hurt. Yay.

14:07. If the Saints want to run twice when we lose our starting corner, that's fine with me.

13:12. Oh Tyrell Johnson, if you were only skilled, you might have grabbed that deflection.

12:56. When you blitz like that and get no pressure, you're in trouble. And I don't think Devery Henderson was ever touched. Got away with one there.

12:06. Pierre Thomas almost lost the ball. Now, does he only get the spot from where he semi-lost it?

I hope we'll see Brett in Miami, too.

Yeah, that's tough to overturn. Well, they're at the 41 and need about 10 more to put it in semi-comfortable field goal range.

11:45. Flag? Oh, hell. The receiver was diving back for the ball himself, he wasn't interfered with! Very, very weak call.

11:40. Loss of four? I'll take that!

10:49. Gain of 12 over the middle. That'll just about do it. Or was that an incompletion? How about a review?

Strange things we've seen in this game: 6 Viking fumbles, Brett Favre making bad plays, and Brad Childress using a timeout smartly.

"The ruling on the field will stand." Dammit.

10:19. And here we go. 40-yard field goal attempt to win the game. Let's hope for a repeat of Antoine Winfield's blocked FG against the Saints last year.

And now, Brad Childress uses a timeout stupidly. All is right with the world.

10:15. Nope. 31-28 Saints.

Well, that's it. Amazing that we made as many mistakes as we did and still had a chance in the end. Good-bye Brett. I hate you slightly less than I did at the start of the season.

NFC Championship Game: Fourth Quarter

2010-01-24T21:03:00.003-05:00

Somehow, I'm guessing the Saints will blitz.

14:53. I'd be happy enough with a Percy Harvin/Chester Taylor RB committee in this quarter.

14:10. Or maybe I wouldn't.

Seeing Favre limp around there worries me, though. He will never, ever take himself out of a game, no matter how much he's hurting. On the one hand, that's heroic, on the other, it can be really bad if he's too hurt to play effectively.

12:39. Third down and again, close but no sack. Touchdown. 28-21 Saints.

12:32. Is Favre rolling out really a good idea?

11:45. Peterson hit by -- yep, Darren Sharper.

11:17. Oh dear. We're starting to see Bad Brett. That should have been a pick.

11:05. I didn't think there was any chance that pass would work. Awesome catch by Bernard Berrian.

9:37. Oh. My. God. Time to break out the stick-um.

8:18. Head-up play by Brees, and could have been amazing for us.

On the bright side, all these fumbles by the Vikings means we aren't punting to Reggie Bush. (Hey, I'm reaching here...)

7:42. Last year, I was scared every time Tarvaris Jackson dropped back. That's how I feel now whenever Adrian Peterson -- or pretty much anyone else -- has the ball.

7:06. Big-time stiff-arm by Shiancoe!

6:29. Peterson juked a little too hard there, basically took himself down.

5:45. That could have been PI against Berrian or Porter, IMHO. Or maybe neither, after seeing the replay.

4:58. Now for some defense. Please, some defense. 28-28 tie.

4:52. Good kick coverage. That's the first step.

My fingers are actually trembling.

4:43. OMG sack! If only we could have recovered...

3:07. I think I'm more nervous on 3rd-and-18s than I am on 3rd-and-4s.

2:37. Two minutes, 37 seconds left. Time for a classic Favre drive.

I don't think even Katy perry gets me this excited.

1:55. Is this really the time to run the ball? We can't possibly be playing for overtime. Tell me we aren't playing for overtime.

1:43. Bernard Berrian is having the game of his life.

1:31. Perfect pass by Favre, perfect catch by Rice.

1:06. 33 yard line. That's just about in FG range!

0:19. Adrian, you can't stop and go here. Go forward, get two yards, if that's all you can do. It's fine, really. He just wants to hit a home run every play. And we really better pass on third down.

0:19. 12 men in the huddle? What is that?!

0:07. DO NOT THROW LATE OVER THE MIDDLE!

I mean, it's not like a 45- to 55-yard field goal would be automatic, but at least give it a chance! On to overtime...

NFC Championship Game: Third Quarter

2010-01-24T20:19:00.003-05:00

These first-half stats are brought to you by Mass Effect 2.

14:49. I wish Commander Sheperd had been on the field. He/she would have actually tackled Courtney Roby better than Tyrell Johnson. Or maybe would have just shot him, depending on whether he/she was a paragon or a renegade.

14:04. And Pierre Thomas shakes off Pat Williams(!) for a six-yard gain to put the Saints in the red zone.

12:56. I'm surprised more teams don't use that extra lineman as a blocker. 21-14 Saints.

12:56. Yeah, that was a pretty bad call on that touchdown.

10:54. Naufahu Tahi is my hero!

10:20. And so is Visanthe Shiancoe!

9:37. Anthony Herrera whiffs on his block. Possibly because he was too tired from getting outside because he's really fat.

8:15. This is the Visanthe Shiancoe drive! (and a slight hold on the defender)

7:35. Adrian held on to that one. 21-21 tie.

Not that I think he shows favorites, but I wonder who Roger Goodell's favorite team is. He has to have one, right?

7:22. I think that's the first official "hit" on Drew Brees.

6:40. False start. Phew.

6:29. I always thought it was a rule that a punt returner never, ever goes inside the 10. Ever. But I've seen it seemingly a ton this year.

5:39. That's it. Take Adrian Peterson out of the game. Now.

4:09. That's a really dubious penalty. I used to call those Roughing the Favre when they were called against us and they made me crazy. And you know it's dubious when Troy Aikman thinks it's a bad call.

1:59. Triple coverage. Interception. Ack.

Addendum: He hit him below the waist! That's a penalty, dammit! A stupid penalty, but a penalty!

And the fourth quarter begins. With Tarvaris Jackson possibly under center. (And Katy Perry makes me feel dirty.)

NFC Championship Game: Second Quarter

2010-01-24T19:24:00.004-05:00

14:33. Even Brett's earplugs are purple. How cute!

14:07. And here's Chris Myers with an update on the purple earplugs. That's some reporting!

13:29. And now, a punt. Hold me, I'm frightened.

13:21. Fair catch. Phew.

13:03. 3rd and 10, someone get a hand on Brees, and it's a 28-yard gain. Nothing infuriates me more than an almost-sack on third down.

11:00. When #64 goes in motion, you know it's a running play.

10:30. A touchdown on that drive seemed almost inevitable. 14-14 tie.

I ate about 2/3 of a pizza for dinner about an hour and a half ago. That's suddenly seeming like an unwise decision.

10:22. So maybe they don't always run when #64 goes in motion...

9:44. Brett Favre leads the league in fake-passes-followed-by-fake-handoff-followed-by-a-pass-es.

9:03. And Sidney Rice's arms grow to six feet long!

8:24. Adrian Peterson and Darren Sharper are joined at the hip today.

5:22. Lynell Hamilton isn't going to gain a yard on 3rd-and-1 against our defense. I mean, really.

4:29. Gratuitous Deanna Favre shot. She's in the stands? She couldn't get a box?

3:51. We are going to need more than 14 points against the Saints. We really are.

3:36. Oh, Ben Leber. I would have forgotten all the nasty things I said about you on the Pierre Thomas touchdown if you'd intercepted that pass.

3:28. 3rd and 1. Bet they don't give it to Lynell Hamilton.

2:44. Reggie Bush, meet Pat Williams.

2:07. So, when the Viking jumped into the neutral zone, why didn't the Saints snap it? That was the point!

I'm spending my downtime looking at pictures of Katy Perry. I think I like the one in the green bikini the best.

1:52. You can't advance a muff, and the whistle was blown. That's a penalty, Saints fans. The ball was dead.

1:38. Big third-down toss and catch by Berrian and Favre.

1:24. Brett's accuracy on downfield throws is...lacking. Berrian was wide open.

1:13. REGGIE! REGGIE! REGGIE!

0:56. Oh, phooey. And he had a nice hole to get to the end zone. Crap, crap, crap.

And that's the half. Back to Katy.

Stream of consciousness blogging: NFC Championship Game

2010-01-24T18:39:00.004-05:00

It's like the comments section of a post, but only I'm invited.

Joe Buck calls the Superdome "the loudest building in football." He clearly forgot where he was last week.

14:50. The key to the Vikings' offense is, obviously, the early inclusion of Jim Kleinsasser.

13:34. There was a time when I would have been upset at four straight passes to start the game. Not any more.

11:35. That screen looked good until John Sullivan missed not one, but two defenders.

10:50. An Adrian Peterson sighting!

9:35. Whoop! Sorry about that, Darren Sharper! 7-0 Minnesota.

Six months ago, I hated the Brett Favre Sears commercials. Now I kinda like them. That's very, very depressing.

8:55. Really can't give Drew Brees that much time, even if it was incomplete.

7:51. K-Will almost tipped that one.

7:00. When Pat Williams jumps offsides, it should probably be a 10-yard penalty.

6:30. Missed tackle by Ben Leber = Saints touchdown. 7-7 tie.

On the other hand, those "tiny hands" Burger King commercials still freak me out.

6:15. OK, maybe they could run just a little bit.

6:11. Sure looked like there was contact...ah, there we go.

6:03. Bernard Berrian finds the spin button on his controller!

5:37. They call a personal foul on hitting Harvin, but not Favre? Uh...(amended: OK, so it wasn't)

4:20. Favre won't need a uniform if we play another game, he'll be purple all over.

2:53. That might have worked if Phil Loadholt wasn't 800 pounds.

2:11. Favre. Rice. TOUCHDOWN!!! 14-7 Minnesota.

2:05. Blatant hold against Tyrell Johnson on the kickoff return that goes uncalled.

1:27. Man, that reverse could have been outstanding!

And the Vikings take over at the 15 as we go to the second quarter. This post is already too long, so I'll start another!

Don't expect big numbers from Adrian Peterson

2010-01-24T16:55:00.003-05:00

One final thought before the big game...

The common belief among just about everyone is that Adrian Peterson will finally have a big game, one he hasn't had in a while, against the Saints and their so-so rushing defense (4.49 yards per carry allowed, 26th in the league). Problem is, we've been waiting for AP to have that kind of day for over two months. He's only had one game with more than four yards per carry -- and that was just nine carries for 54 yards against the Giants in the last game of the season -- since running over the Lions to the tune of 18 carries for 133 yards (7.39 YPC) on Nov. 15.

In 17 games this year (including last week's playoff game against Dallas), Peterson has only faced one team that's allowed more than the Saints' 4.49 yards per carry during the regular season, and that was the Browns back in week one. However, five other teams averaged more than 4.4 YPC against, so those are probably comparable. The exact numbers are:

Opponent	AP YPC	Team YPC vs.
Cleveland	7.20	4.57
Arizona	1.46	4.49
Carolina	2.92	4.44
Detroit	6.13	4.42
Detroit	7.39	4.42
St. Louis	4.50	4.40
Chicago	3.40	4.33
Chicago	3.92	4.33
NY Giants	6.00	4.19
Seattle	3.42	4.15
Dallas	2.42	3.97
Cincinnati	3.73	3.94
Pittsburgh	3.83	3.87
San Francisco	4.47	3.64
Green Bay	2.20	3.59
Green Bay	3.88	3.59
Baltimore	6.50	3.43

Four of the "easiest" rush defenses AP faced -- Arizona, Carolina, and Chicago twice -- came in the second half of the season, and he averaged 1.46, 2.92, 3.40, and 3.92 yards per carry in those games. So I'm less than optimistic about the predictions regarding his "sure-fire" breakout game against the Saints today. If the Vikings win, it will likely be how they've won for most of the second half of the season: with the defense and on the arm of Brett Favre.

Hey, you don't suppose we could play the Lions again, do you?

NFC Championship Game Facts

2010-01-21T19:19:00.005-05:00

This year's NFC representative in the Super Bowl will be either a team that hasn't been to the big game in 33 years or a team that has never been there. Either way, that's kinda cool.

The most points ever scored in an NFC Championship Game is 66, when the 49ers beat the Cowboys 38-28 in January 1995. There's a reasonable chance that will be exceeded on Sunday.

Only the Cowboys (14), 49ers (12), and Rams (9) have been in more NFC Championship Games than the Vikings (8). The 49ers and Cowboys have squared off five times in the game.

Road teams are 13-26 in the NFC Championship Game.

The last time Brett Favre was in an NFC Championship Game (1998), Drew Brees was a sophomore at Purdue and Percy Harvin was nine years old.

Chester Taylor had more combined rush-receive yards (727) in 2009 than Reggie Bush (725).

I am officially tired of typing "NFC Championship Game."

And then there were four

2010-01-17T20:26:00.004-05:00

Well, you can forget about talks of "hot" teams and streaks and all that nonsense and how much impact it has on the playoffs. Teams on 11- and four-game winning streaks (San Diego and Dallas) lost, while the four teams that won this weekend were a combined 4-8 in their last three games of the regular season. Among them were the Vikings, who put a 34-3 throttling on the Dallas Cowboys to go to their first NFC Championship game since the 2000 season.

At this point, I don't even care that the Vikings are a pass-first team and are almost completely impotent at running the football. You'll still hear the usual tripe about how the Saints "must stop Adrian Peterson," but he's currently playing like, at best, the third-best player on the offense, behind Brett Favre and Sidney Rice. Even Chester Taylor looked better the few times he touched the ball on Sunday.

On the bright side, the Vikings will play a team next Sunday that was 22nd against the run in total yardage and 26th in yards per carry, and gave up a 70-yard run on the first play from scrimmage on yesterday's game. The Saints, in fact, were 18th in scoring defense and 25th in total yards allowed (the Vikings were ninth in both categories), and, for all their offensive firepower, scored just 40 points more than the Vikings, or less than a field goal per game. And while it is a road game, playing in a dome suits the Vikings just fine. This has all the potential makings of a high-scoring, but close game.

But that's the future. For now, I'm just basking in the heady glow of knowing that the Vikings are just 60 minutes away from their first Super Bowl in 33 years. And despite my better judgment, I'm actually believing it can happen.

Streakers come to Minnesota

2010-01-13T18:58:00.003-05:00

If I was completely impartial and unbiased, I would probably say that the Vikings are the most likely home team to lose this weekend. Dallas has been hot for the last month, the Vikings have been hit-or-miss, and Tony Romo is that type of elusive quarterback who gives our pass rushers nightmares. (Remember the Jeff Garcia Tampa Bay game in 2008? Yeah, I've tried to forget it, too.) The oddsmakers would seem to agree with this, making the Vikings just a 2.5-point favorite, the lowest of all the home teams.

Fortunately, I'm not impartial and unbiased. Well, I am, and I do think the Vikings will struggle, but the team that I think will really have troubles this week is New Orleans because they've struggled even worse than the Vikings down the stretch.

Here are the results of the Saints' last five games:

23-10 loss @ Carolina (where the starters barely played)
20-17 loss vs. Tampa Bay
24-17 loss vs. Dallas
26-23 win @ Atlanta
33-30 win @ Washington

The tight Atlanta win came without having to face Matt Ryan or Michael Turner and the Washington win...well, it was against Washington. That's five straight weeks of subpar performances, including two wins against teams they should have dominated. And then there was that Tampa Bay loss.

So I think Arizona has a better than average chance of beating the Saints, especially on the fast surface of the Superdome. So, what about those "hot" Cowboys? Well, they beat New Orleans, which, as previously mentioned, may or may not be impressive. Then they shut out Washington -- no great feat -- and twice hammered Philadelphia, which came into their week 17 contest on a six-game winning streak. So much for being "hot."

A few years ago, I did a study on streaking teams in MLB and the NFL to see if there really was any correlation between being on a win streak and whether a team would win its next game. The correlation in baseball was virtually nil. In 2005, a team that had won six or more games actually won its next game less than 50% of the time. Football, with its smaller sample size, was a little more volatile. Over the five seasons I looked at, a team with a four-game or higher win streak was 107-54 (.664) in its next game.

So, what's all that mean? That Dallas's win streak means less than the fact that the team is talented. So are the Vikings. (And consider that San Diego, on an 11-game winning streak, is still not favored to win the Super Bowl.) I think the "buzz" over the Cowboys playing well in December and January and the Vikings being so-so over that same time span is enough to influence people to think that the Cowboys are the better team. But we're all too smart for that, right?

Let's hope so.

Vikings' top players of the decade

2010-01-10T12:17:00.004-05:00

So I'm back, moved in to my new apartment in Dallas, complete with the two most vital ingredients for keeping me sane:

1) Internet; and
2) Coffee

All is well.

What is a little troubling, though, is that the Dallas Cowboys are now 2-0 since I moved down here. Hopefully, they'll be 2-1 soon. But I'll worry about that later. For now, I'll stick with something easier. With the regular season over, I thought I'd use Pro-Football-Reference's Player Season Finder, I thought I'd look up the Vikings' top contributors during the 2000s. It'll be a fun look back at seasons past and some of the leaders might surprise people.

Passing Yards
1) Daunte Culpepper -- 20,162
2) Brad Johnson -- 4,635
3) Brett Favre -- 4,202
4) Tarvaris Jackson -- 3,643
5) Gus Frerotte -- 2,847

Passing TDs
1) Daunte Culpepper -- 135
2) Brett Favre -- 33
3) Tarvaris Jackson -- 21
3) Brad Johnson -- 21
5) Gus Frerotte -- 18

It's a sign of how much the QB position has been a revolving door since Culpepper left that Favre rates so highly on these lists after just one season. No other Vikings QB threw for more than 1,000 yards or 10 TDs in the decade.

Passing Interceptions
1) Daunte Culpepper -- 86
2) Brad Johnson -- 19
3) Tarvaris Jackson -- 18
4) Gus Frerotte -- 17
5) Brett Favre -- 7

And yet Favre ranks fifth on this list, one ahead of the immortal Spergeon Wynn. These are crazy times we live in.

Rushing Yards
1) Adrian Peterson -- 4,484
2) Michael Bennett -- 3,174
3) Chester Taylor -- 2,797
4) Daunte Culpepper -- 2,470
5) Robert Smith -- 1,521

Honestly, I was a little surprised to see AP at the top of this list, after just three seasons with the team. It's been an even longer road for the team to find a replacement for Robert Smith than it has been to find a replacement for Daunte Culpepper (which, admittedly, isn't over).

Receiving Yards
1) Randy Moss -- 6,416
2) Cris Carter -- 2,145
3) Sidney Rice -- 1,849
4) Nate Burleson -- 1,789
5) Jermaine Wiggins -- 1,659

Then again, it's been an even longer road to find a replacement for Randy Moss. Sidney Rice isn't exactly on his level, but in becoming the Vikings' first 1,000-yard receiver since Burleson in 2004, he's definitely the best we've had in a long time.

Touchdowns
1) Randy Moss -- 62
2) Adrian Peterson -- 41
3) Daunte Culpepper -- 29
4) Moe Williams -- 23
5) Chester Taylor -- 21

Moe Williams sighting! Visanthe Shiancoe is 6th with 19. Cris Carter owns the Vikings record with 110 TDs, something Peterson might already have his sights set on.

Points
1) Ryan Longwell -- 448
2) Randy Moss -- 374
3) Gary Anderson -- 275
4) Adrian Peterson -- 246
5) Daunte Culpepper -- 182

Just think: if we hadn't signed Ryan Longwell, Gary Anderson would probably still be kicking for the team...

Sacks
1) Kevin Williams -- 48.5
2) Lance Johnstone -- 41.0
3) Jared Allen -- 29.0
4) Ray Edwards -- 21.5
5) Chris Hovan -- 17.0

Amazingly, Chris Hovan is still in the NFL. Well, he's in Tampa Bay...

Interceptions
1) Darren Sharper -- 18
2) Antoine Winfield -- 15
3) Corey Chavous -- 14
4) Brian Williams -- 12
5) Brian Russell -- 11

Ex-Packers Sharper and Longwell lead two categories, and Brett Favre looks good in all the passing categories. I'm not sure what that says, other than nyah-nah-nah-nah-nah!

And finally...

Yards per punt
1) Chris Kluwe -- 44.40
2) Mitch Berger -- 44.21

Nobody else even managed 100 punts or 40 yards per punt in a Vikings uniform. Maybe they should have played more World of Warcraft.

Clash of egos

2009-12-30T16:28:00.004-05:00

Last post of 2009 for me and probably the last post for a while in 2010. Don't worry, I'm not quitting blogging (no matter how bad the Vikings play). Instead, after 4 1/2 years in NASCAR-land (Charlotte), I'm moving to Cowboy-land. Yes, I'm about to become even more "displaced" of a Vikings fan that I was when I started this blog, with a move to Dallas to start my new job with Beckett Media, not to write about sports but to write about entertainment titles and video games. So it'll probably be a week or more before I get settled in and am good to go for a resumption of blogging -- try not to jump off the cliff without me!

I was heartily amused by the picture gracing the top of Greg Easterbrook's TMQ column this week. While I don't agree that the reason for the Vikings struggles is Brett Favre's diva-ness, I still can't understand how anyone would think he wasn't running the show -- or at least thought he was running the show -- from day one.

"Brett, we have a deadline for you to sign by."

"No thanks."

"OK, well how about this deadline?"

"No, that doesn't work for me either?"

"Will this deadline do, Brett?"

"Yeah, maybe. You know, forget about it, I'm not coming back."

"OK."

"How about now? Please?"

"Well, since you asked so nicely..."

By Easterbrook's reckoning, Favre has "sabotaged" his recent teams by disagreeing with his head coaches over playcalling and possibly other aspects of the game. But look at who he's disagreed with. Eric Mangini and Brad Childress aren't exactly Bill Walsh and Bill Parcells. Given the choice between Favre calling the shots and Childress, I have to say at this point I have more confidence in Favre, as evidenced by that goal-line sequence in Monday night's game.

Easterbrook mentions a similar concept in last week's TMQ in reference to Peyton Manning's playcalling for the Colts:

But here, TMQ thinks, is the real reason the Indianapolis attack is so hard to stop, generating 23 victories in its last 24 games: Manning is the sole NFL quarterback who calls his own plays. [Offensive coordinator] Tom Moore says he radios in "suggestions" to Manning, and he's not being cute. Many plays drawn up by Moore and Manning have multiple options -- any one of several things can happen, depending on the defense. When Manning comes to the line, he chooses which variation to use. Most of the time, Manning simply calls whatever he wants to call. Often several of the receivers are running "sight adjustments." They don't have a specific pattern called at the line -- rather, they run what seems likely to be open given the defensive set.

Having Manning call his own plays is extremely effective. Obviously, many quarterbacks lack his level of ability. But TMQ thinks the real reason more NFL quarterbacks don't call their own plays is coaching bureaucracy. The coaches want to be in control, and maintain their illusion of possessing super-ultra-secret insider knowledge. No mere player could call a down-and-out -- only coaches have that kind of skill! By not letting quarterbacks call their own plays, NFL teams concede an advantage to the Colts. Which, needless to say, is fine with the Colts.

There should be absolutely zero questions that Brad Childress thinks himself a god among coaching and openly bristles at the notion that a mere player -- even one was experienced as Brett Favre -- could possibly call a game even remotely as well as he could. I don't think that Favre should call everything, but in key situations, he should be given more control than Childress is almost certainly willing to give.

Whatever the reason for the Vikings' troubles of late, I don't believe it has anything to do with Brett Favre's ego or lack of ability (but don't tell that to ESPN, which on Tuesday morning applied the headline "Fading with Favre" to the highlights of the Monday night game). As crazy as it seems, Favre probably isn't the biggest egomaniac on the Vikings' sideline, and that's a little scary to think.

(Oh, and congratulations to the Vikings' eight Pro Bowlers. The Pro Bowl -- now with extra meaninglessness!)

A tale of two halves

2009-12-29T09:45:00.003-05:00

I was thinking about the Tennessee Titans last night.

The phrase people used to describe the Titans during their second-half resurgence this season was that they'd "dug a hole" so deep at the start of the season by going 0-6 that even their remarkable 7-2 run since wouldn't be enough to get them into the playoffs.

By that same measure, the Minnesota Vikings dug themselves into a hole in the first half Monday night by playing the worst half of football I'd seen them play all year. Offense, defense, special teams -- absolutely nothing worked for the entire half, in which the team could only manage about 100 yards on offense while allowing the Bears to march up and down the field. At that point I was already thinking of making plans for the third weekend in January, since I knew I wouldn't be watching the Vikings in the playoffs' second week.

Then came the second half. Somehow, the team that had sleepwalked through the last month or so was replaced with the team that we'd seen during the seasons first three months. That team featured Adrian Peterson running free, Brett Favre zinging passes downfield, and Sidney Rice catching everything. That team scored 30 points in the half. That team looked like a playoff-caliber team. That team looked unstoppable, at least on offense.

The special teams, unfortunately, looked also like a throwback -- a throwback to the 2008 unit. A missed extra point and poor kick coverage allowed the Bears to get back into the game but, oddly, when the Vikings got the ball back with five minutes left to go and needing a touchdown to tie the game, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time: confidence. Of course Brett Favre was going to lead the team down for a game-tying touchdown. It's what he does. And waiting until fourth down with 16 seconds left to go to do it? Brilliant.

Then came the final stanza. Would we see the first-half Vikings or the second-half Vikings? I didn't know if I should be confident or pessimistic. I figured there was an equal chance of both and, unfortunately, we got the latter. The Bears were in field goal range immediately and it only took a miracle for them not to score on their opening drive. Then, just when I thought a healthy dose of Adrian Peterson would be just what the doctor ordered in OT, it was pass, sack, sack, punt. The next time, the Vikings got the ball to AP for the first time in the extra period, only to have him cough it up yet again and hand the Bears the win.

Certainly, there's more blame to go around to just lump it all on Peterson. The special teams, as mentioned, were horrible. (A bobbled snap and a 15-yard punt? Really, Chris Kluwe?) The announcing team mentioned that Antoine Winfield could be beat one-on-one downfield, which the Bears took full advantage of on the game's last play. And, other than one good tackle, Jaspar Brinkley again looked like a poor replacement for EJ Henderson. And then there was that offensive line that played in the first half, which was definitely not the same five guys who played in the second. I refuse to believe it.

Yet strangely, despite the loss and the fact that the Vikings now need help from Dallas to get a first-round bye, I feel strangely confident. That second half showed me that the team can actually look and play like a good team again, something I didn't think possible after the last few weeks. Yes, they're still fading down the stretch, but they showed at least a little something to give me hope. Maybe it's a false hope, as often is the case with Minnesota Vikings teams, but I'll cling to it for a little while longer. It's all I've got right now.

Random pregame thought

2009-12-28T19:54:00.001-05:00

I hope Brett Favre throws for 6 touchdowns tonight. Not just because I want the Vikings to win or that I particularly like the guy but, man, the media's pounced on this whole Favre-vs.-Brad Childress "storyline" like a mother bear pouncing on a hunter endangering her cubs. Only I think the bear-mauling would be less painful (and over much quicker).

Vikings get late Christmas present

2009-12-28T11:05:00.002-05:00

With the Saints improbably losing to the Bucs on Sunday, the Vikings are suddenly alive for the #1 seed in the NFC again. On the even brighter side, if the Bucs could travel to the Superdome and beat the Saints, I don't feel too bad about the Vikings' chances to do the same, so a #2 seed would also be a nice consolation prize. In any case, if the Vikings can nail down that #2 seed (or better), it guarantees that the only outdoor game they might be playing January will be in Miami for the Super Bowl. Now if only Denver could have come through and beaten the Eagles, our weekend would have been complete...

Oh right, except for that pesky detail of beating the Bears tonight.

The down side to the wacky weekend? It guarantees that Brett Favre will get no rest, as both the Vikings' remaining regular-season games will have impact for the team. To which I say: fine. Every game is expected to be meaningful, and a quarterback is expected to play all 16 games in a season. If the quarterback can't play a full season, then that's a negative that needs to addressed. In a sense, I've found it a trifle odd that everyone was so concerned about Favre's durability this year. I mean, the guy's only probably the most durable player ever. But if part of his playing well was supposed to entail him getting rest at the end of the season, well, most teams don't have the luxury of resting their starters at the end of the year; in fact, apart from the Colts, the only teams that can do that now are making vacation plans for January. Favre's been excellent, but if we only rented a three-month quarterback, then maybe we should have made other plans. At least he'll (probably) get a week off before his first postseason game in purple.

About that Viking who always fades in December

2009-12-24T11:15:00.003-05:00

No, not Brett Favre. Here are Adrian Peterson's yards per carry by month:

	2007	2008	2009	Career
Sept	5.0	5.1	6.1	5.3
Oct	6.9	3.9	4.2	4.8
Nov	8.3	5.3	4.3	5.4
Dec	3.8	4.8	3.0	4.0

I think that a part of AP's issues might come from his oversized offensive line being out of shape by the end of the season. And it is only a three-year trend, so maybe it doesn't mean anything (and he was still pretty good in December of '08, even though his 4.8 YPC was the second-lowest in any month that season). But it's been brought up a few times that AP's "violent" running style might shorten his career -- could be that it shortens the period that he's useful in any given season.

* Next, I'll talk about the Vikings' head coach. And I'll also bring up Brad Childress.

How anyone could be surprised that Brett Favre is running the show, or at least thinks he's running the show, is beyond me. Over the Vikings' months-long courtship of Favre, several "deadlines" were set and just as many were missed. Hint: A deadline doesn't mean anything if you don't enforce it. Favre was able to come in when he wanted and how he wanted, which likely bore only passing resemblance to when and how the Vikings wanted him. He set his own deadlines and made the decisions that best suited him, not the team. This notion of Favre being his own boss was fine so long as the team was winning, but now that there's a rough patch, suddenly everyone is shocked and amazed that there's a "power struggle" behind the scenes. As far as I'm concerned, there is no "struggle"; Brett Favre's been in control since day one, and that's unlikely to change.

All of which brings up the question of whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, you have the self-serving "diva" of a quarterback; on the other, it's the smug and arrogant head coach who's accomplished very little but has been richly rewarded. I'm not sure who I want to be on top of that pyramid.

But in the end, winning cures all ills. If the Vikings finish strong and have a strong playoff run, then all this talk of a "power struggle" will go away. If the team loses to the Bears and/or Giants and then gets bounced out of the playoffs in the first round, then things will get even uglier.

Theory #287 why the Vikings can't run the ball

2009-12-22T15:00:00.003-05:00

Our offensive linemen are too big.

You'll hear it at least once per broadcast, the announcers' open astonishment at the mammoth sizes of Minnesota's tackles. Bryant McKinnie is 6'8", 335 lbs. Phil Loadholt is 6'8", 343 lbs. Toss in Steve Hutchinson (6'5", 313), John Sullivan (6'4", 301), and Anthony Herrera (6'2", 315) and that's an average of 6'5 1/2" and 321 pounds per lineman -- and that' s not taking Artis Hicks' 6'4", 335 lbs. into account. Guys this big should be able to move mountains or, failing that, defensive lineman.

But they're not. And it took this video for me to figure out why.

Chris Johnson is having a spectacular year. Talent-wise, you'd have to think Adrian Peterson is at least on par with him -- perhaps a little slower, but also a little stronger. But where Peterson is struggling, Johnson is thriving. Watch the play that starts at the 0:58 mark. Johnson takes a screen pass and starts running downfield with the ball. Admittedly, he doesn't turn on the jets right away (as he shouldn't), but even so, two of his lineman run downfield with him for about 30 yards! For the record, that's #54 Eugene Amano (6'3", 310 lbs.) and #68 Kevin Mawae (6'4", 289 lbs.) running with him.

Now, name any of the Vikings' linemen -- much less two -- who could even remotely run downfield with Adrian Peterson. (Maybe this is why we don't call may screen passes.) Granted, Kevin Mawae's a future Hall-of-Famer, but, along with Amano (LG) and Mawae (C), the Titans starters include LT Michael Roos (315 lbs.), RG Jake Scott (295 lbs.), and RT David Stewart (318 lbs.). That's an average of 305 lbs. per lineman, or about 16 pounds lighter per player than the Vikings' line. And not only is Chris Johnson on his way to 2,000 yards, but Titans quarterbacks have only been sacked 14 times this year (and only 12 times last year), fewer than half of the 31 sacks Brett Favre has endured in 2009. All this with a line whose heaviest member (Stewart) would be about two missed meals away from being the second-lightest member of the Vikings' line.

I'm no offensive line coach, but I'm thinking it's true that bigger isn't always better. Clearly, there have been some huge lineman, tackles in particular, who have had very long and productive careers (Johnathan Ogden comes to mind), but once you tip the scales over 330 or so, you might be treading a fine line between power and agility. And even the biggest offensive lineman needs agility to react to blitzing linebackers and to move the pile downfield.

Or at least not to get completely owned by Julius Peppers for 60 minutes.

Mauled by Panthers

2009-12-21T09:19:00.005-05:00

It's probably just as well that I didn't go to see the Vikings game last night.

In a game riddled with mistakes, misplays, and poor decisions all around, the Vikings played probably their worst game of the season in a 26-7 loss to the Carolina Panthers. It's no longer a fluke, either: The Vikings officially cannot run the football, and while there are many theories, I think it still starts with the offensive line play. Compare the "holes" Adrian Peterson had to run through last night against an injury-depleted Carolina defensive line to the wide gaps Jonathan Stewart had against the vaunted, all-Pro-studded defense of the Vikings. "Run the ball and stop the run" is a tired old adage, but if it has any value, it's clear that the Vikings can no longer do either, which leaves them one-dimensional on offense and vulnerable on defense.

That one dimension on offense is still pretty good, at least when Brett Favre can find time to throw the ball. Other teams (minus the Packers) have figured out that they need to double-team Jared Allen on every play, but the Vikings were seemingly unable to come to the same conclusion regarding Julius Peppers. Peppers was usually matched up against the rookie Phil Loadholt or, even worse, against Artis Hicks, with little to no help from a guard or running back, and the results were predictable. Even so, Favre and the Vikings can't win by passing every down, but unless they solve what's wrong with the running game, they'll have to.

Then there's the defense, which is no longer the stout run-defense unit that we're used to seeing, giving up 100+ yards on the ground each of the last three games. Jaspar Brinkley has shown that he can read the play and shoot the gap. Now, if he could only wrap up and make the tackle, he might actually be a good player, but in the meantime, the team will continue to miss EJ Henderson. Also, while it may seem shocking to some, a fat 37-year-old defensive tackle isn't playing so great. Or, as I say a year ago:

As for Pat Williams, he ideally only plays on "35 to 40" plays per game, or about half the team's defensive snaps. Hey, I love watching the guy swallow up a running back as much as the next guy, but should we be paying $7 million a year for a part-time player, even if he is a Pro Bowler? That sounds like the epitome of "sell high" to me.

Apparently, the Vikings believe in "keeping a guy one year too late" instead of getting rid of him "one year too soon." Oh, and I hate Steve Smith.

The #1 seed, briefly dangled in front of our eyes, is now just a distant dream that relies on a confluence of miracles to achieve. The #2 seed, once ours for the taking, is now dangerously close to being yanked away from us. And any hopes of resting Brett Favre are all but dashed unless the Eagles misstep next week against Denver.

And just to top off the crappy weekend, I got bounced out of the playoffs of one of my fantasy leagues last week and out of my other league's this week. Great time to have your worst game of the season, Drew Brees!

A distinct lack of Flair

2009-12-17T14:02:00.003-05:00

I am such a wimp.

The forecast for Sunday in Charlotte is low of 25 and high of 42. Now, being the good, hardy Minnesota boy that I am, 25 degrees above zero doesn't frighten me. Heck, 25 degrees below zero doesn't frighten me either -- I've gone out in that and worse than that.

But here's the deal. I could go to the Panthers game on Sunday. I know a season ticket holder who's willing to sell me his. So, I could go and watch the Vikings in person, which would entail:

1) A good deal of money spent on the tickets
2) A good deal of money spent on parking and potentially food
3) Sitting on my butt in near- or below-freezing weather for 3-4 hours at night (As everyone knows, the way to deal with cold weather is to keep moving; I was fine walking to school in subzero temps as a teenager but the 15 seconds I had to stop for traffic were excruciating.)
4) Dealing with downtown Charlotte traffic
5) Rooting for my team in a hostile environment; and
6) Probably not getting home until around midnight

All that is weighted against sitting at home and watching a game in the comfort of my own home on national TV. It's really not that hard a decision once you get right down to it. If this game were an afternoon game in October or something, I'd probably be all over it. (I might have been able to get out to the game the last time the Vikings played in Charlotte, in which case, I could have witnessed this infamous game, in which Chris Gamble effectively ended Daunte Culpepper's career and Steve Smith effectively ended Fred Smoot's relevance.)

So, I think I'll go ahead and enjoy this one at home, even if it means missing out on the Ric Flair safety video I saw the last time I went to a Panthers game (a preseason Panthers/Steelers game in 2006); I couldn't find it online, so you'll have to settle with a fan's video of the Nature Boy celebrating a Carolina Panthers goal.

Woooooooo!

Thank you, 49ers

2009-12-15T13:40:00.003-05:00

The 49ers gave the Vikings a nice holiday gift this year, in the form of a 24-9 whipping of the Arizona Cardinals. To be fair, the Cards beat themselves, making seven turnovers and making me more confident that, apart from New Orleans and maybe Philadelphia (which just frightens me based on last year), I don't think there's an NFC team the Vikings can't handle, and handle fairly easily at home once the playoffs start. (More on the Vikings' playoff potential seeding at the end of this post.)

Around this time of year, once teams start clinching home-field advantage and other playoff positioning, the inevitably tired conversations pop up about whether teams should rest their players or keep playing hard. This year, with two 13-0 teams, the talk is even more spirited. There are, in effect, four possible outcomes, and three of them are bad:

Team rests its starters:
A) They then win their first playoff game -- Good call, coach, they needed the rest!
B) They lose their first playoff game -- Coach, you were too soft on them!

Team doesn't rest its starters:
A) There's a crucial injury in a "meaningless" game -- What were you thinking playing that guy?
B) There are no injuries -- Whew, we got away with that one!

Remember when the Patriots were 15-0 a few years ago and played all-out in that Saturday game against the Giants? What if Tom Brady or Randy Moss would have been injured during that game? It would have gone down at Bill Belichick's second-worst decision ever (after the 4th and 2 this year, of course).

There are simply so many variables that can happen during a game or games that any talk ascribing any particular meaning or consequences to whether guys play or not during their "meaningless" games is just that -- talk. No matter how it's approached, if something bad happens, it will be because the coach played guys he shouldn't have or didn't give them enough rest.

I especially "love" the argument that guys need to keep playing to stay sharp and if they lose in the first round (result B from above), it was because they got too much rest at the end of the season. Consider this: Suppose that Peyton Manning was hurt in, say, week 8. We'll assume it's a type of injury that wouldn't be expected to linger or otherwise affect his football performance when he comes back, say a poke in the eye or a concussion (which I realize is bad, but once you recover from it, it doesn't generally hamper you like, say, a dislocated shoulder or broken leg). When he comes back in, say, week 12, everybody expects him to be at full strength and to play like he always did. Even Peyton himself, who's been able to work out this entire time and still do pretty much everything expected of him except get out on the field, would think that he'll be perfectly fine when he comes back. And he probably will. If he's a little off or has a bad game, hardly anyone would attribute it to rust or other consequences of missing three weeks.

Ah, but now it's week 15 of the regular season. If Peyton misses the next three games -- strictly on a voluntary basis -- and the Colts lay an egg in their playoff game, it'll be because they "took those three games off," and that will be the beginning and the end of the discussion as to why the team lost. Never mind that most teams that do rest their starters do so because they're good teams that have secured a high seed and have the ability to rest them and usually progress far in the playoffs. It's only the failures that we notice and that we try to ascribe some higher meaning to, other than, "The other team was better."

All of which brings us back to the Vikings. If they can beat Carolina next week and if Philadelphia loses either of its next two games, and the Saints can somehow find a way past Dallas and Tampa Bay at home, then, by the time the Vikings take the field against Chicago on Monday night in 13 days, the NFC standings would look like this:

1) New Orleans: 15-0
2) Minnesota: 12-2
3) Philadelphia: 10-5

No other team in the conference could be better than 10-5 except the Packers, who could be 11-4, but the Vikings would still hold tiebreak over them in the division. Thus, the Vikings would be locked into the #2 seed, with two games left to play, thus allowing them to give vital rest to Brett Favre -- who will probably play enough to keep his streak going -- Adrian Peterson, and other vital members of the team. And if that makes the team go 12-4 and keeps everyone fresh for the playoffs, I'm all for it.

If the Saints lose two of their next three games, the Vikings could run the table and tie them at 14-2 and own a better conference record, thus winning the tiebreaker and securing the #1 seed. There's about zero chance the Saints lose to the Bucs at home in two weeks, so that would require them losing to Dallas at home and one the road against Carolina, an unlikely proposition.

But hey, it doesn't hurt to dream.

Vikes bounce back, bounce Bengals

2009-12-14T09:00:00.003-05:00

That's how a team with championship aspirations bounces back from a tough loss against a playoff-caliber team at home!

(Can I just say, too, that I always appreciate the color combination when teams play each other. Dallas blue/silver versus Philadelphia green/white is nice. Green Bay green/gold versus Chicago blue/white is nice. Vikings purple/gold versus Cincinnati orange/black is hideous. I don't know why it bothered me so much.)

I know the Bengals' passing game isn't what it used to be, but limited Carson Palmer to 94 yards passing is sweet.

Adrian Peterson wasn't exactly explosive, and still only managed 3.7 yards per carry, but I'll definitely take it over last week's debacle.

The Vikings' 210 total net yards allowed was their second-lowest total this year, only exceeded by the Chicago game (169).

The last time the Vikings whupped the Bengals this badly in the Metrodome, Vikings' running backs coach Eric Bieniemy was in the building, but as a member of the opposition. As a side note, this was the only game of the 1998 season that I missed, as I was working that weekend. Somehow, I wasn't worried.

I'm still debating whether I want to go to the Panthers game next week. I probably have the chance to get a friend's season tickets, and the stadium is just a few miles down the road. But I'm weighing against it the fact that I'll be sitting at night in 40-ish degree weather for three-plus hours (I know, I know, I've become soft) when I could be sitting at home in relative comfort for a lot less money. If this game were in the afternoon in October, I'd go in a heartbeat. As it is, I'm iffy. Any suggestions?

Around the Internet on Thursday

2009-12-10T11:10:00.002-05:00

In keeping with a tradition on this blog of regurgitating other people's hard work and creativity on a Thursday (going back one whole week!), here's some of what I've been reading this week:

First, the professionals:

* ESPN's Greg Easterbrook had an interesting observation with regards to teams extending mediocre head coaches part of the way through their "breakout" season:

Halfway through his first season as Notre Dame coach, Charlie Weis had a 5-2 record and immediately was offered a 10-year contract extension containing guaranteed payments that the school and its athletic donors now regret. Less than halfway through the 2008 NFL season, Dick "Cheerio, Chaps" Jauron had a 5-1 record and immediately was offered a three-year contract extension containing guaranteed payments that Bills owner Ralph Wilson now regrets. What's going on here? Why grant coaches extensions when they are already under contract, only to fire them later and be stuck with paying off the rest of the deal?

What's going on is that the general manager or athletic director, by offering an extension when the team is winning, essentially says to the world, "I am a genius for picking this guy." Later, when the same coach becomes a flop, the same front office spins things as, "We gave him everything he wanted and he still failed -- this guy is a failure." The extensions are all about the athletic director's, or general manager's, ego.

He doesn't mention Brad Childress in the piece, but I'm sure every Viking fan who read it was thinking of him...

* Joe Posnanski tells us that Brett Favre can actually be honest, when he wants to. I'm still not sure that I'm buying it.

* ESPN's Kevin Seifert thinks the Vikings shouldn't panic after their loss to Arizona. I, for one, am trying to maintain an even keel. A loss at home to the Bengals, though, might send me over the edge...

And now, the talented amateurs:

* Earlier this week, I was thinking that it might behoove the Vikings to spend a little extra coin -- say, $3 million or so -- on a good nickel corner in the offseason. Vikings Gab then reminded me that, in a way, we're already doing that.

* PJD has some ideas for Chad Ochocinco's touchdown celebrations (which we hope he won't have a chance to use) this week.

* And Joe Fischer tells us that the Vikings should both panic (Arizona could beat us out for the #2 seed) and not panic (Super Bowl teams have often absorbed crushing defeats). That's just the kind of schizophrenic "Our team's good but we'll do our best find a way to be bad" thinking I expect from a fellow Vikings fan!

What's wrong with Adrian Peterson?

2009-12-09T18:45:00.003-05:00

First, the caveats: I am not a running back, offensive lineman, coach, or even a waterboy, nor have I ever been. What follows are nothing more than observations from a somewhat informed and moderately intelligent (maybe) fan. But it doesn't take much intelligence to realize something has gone terribly wrong with the Vikings' running game for the past month and a half and that the Vikings' star running back has looked more like Adrian Murrell than Adrian Peterson over that span.

First, the numbers: In his first six games, AP accumulated 683 yards at 5.1 yards per carry. In his last six, he's managed just 485 yards and 3.9 per carry -- which doesn't sound too bad until you realize that 133 of those yards came in one game against Detroit (which actually has a surprisingly decent rushing defense this year). Take that one game out and AP has just 352 yards on 105 carries, a 3.4-yard average. That's a far cry from the 5.0 or so a carry we're used to seeing from him and has turned the Vikings into a badly one-dimensional team, which may have finally caught up with them in Arizona.

(Though I again doubt the "wisdom" that says Brett Favre had a bad game because the Cardinals were stopping the run and forcing him to pass a lot. If the Cards are playing eight in the box and stuffing the run, shouldn't that make it easier to pass? Again, the whole "good rushing game helps the passing game and vice versa" argument fails to pass the logic test. The lack of a running game may have forced the team into too many 3rd-and-longs, which would certainly have contributed to a poor passing performance, but that wouldn't explain how the team did on first and most second downs.)

Having watched the Vikings and their suddenly anemic running game over those six games, here are my (likely misguided) on what's wrong with the team and with Peterson himself:

The offensive line isn't opening up holes. Seems obvious enough, but why? How can a team with two road-graders at the tackle position and an all-world left guard suddenly not be able to block? Are John Sullivan and Anthony Herrera (or Artis Hicks) that bad?

I wouldn't say so, because no matter where the team is running, left, right, or center, the blocking is subpar. There's no push up the middle (When's the last time you say the Vikings' O-line move the line of scrimmage two or three yards downfield?) and outside runs are usually stopped before they can get started. Meanwhile, watch any big Chris Johnson run this year, and you'll see either a hole open up for him or a seal on the outside that allows him to turn the corner and run to daylight. Remember when we had an offensive line that could do that?

I don't know what the solution is, but this is one that's hard to pin on AP, at least. Or is it?

AP's slowing down. At least half a dozen times a game, it seems like AP gets just enough of a crease, starts striding downfield -- and then a tackler emerges from out of nowhere to get a piece of his leg or knock him down and he's limited to a three-yard gain. Again, maybe this is just my feeble observations or my expectation that he could do better, but these kind of plays seem to happen with frustrating regularity these days. If AP just had a little more juice or just could make a slight adjustment to his trajectory, he could avoid that tackler and rip off a big run. Clearly, at this stage of the season, every player is playing hurt, running backs especially, but maybe AP's got a little bit more of a hitch in his get-up than he'd like everyone to know and it's hurting his ability to make those sudden moves when he does have a hole to run through, however small. He's also getting caught from behind more times than I'd like to see. It's neat that he can run over William Gay, but is his physical running style costing him speed?

Cut the cutbacks. His TD run against the Lions notwithstanding, the cutback just hasn't been there for AP, but he keeps trying it anyway. It's a simple premise, really: If you stop running, the defense can catch up to you easier. I know that the line isn't opening up lanes for him to run through, but stopping and then trying to run in another direction where there isn't any room doesn't solve anything. I'd rather see AP run straight ahead into the line and hope that he can squirt through the other side or run over someone than cut back into another defender. And speaking of running straight ahead...

Stop running sideways. Going all the way back to the Steelers game, I was lamenting the stretch play every time it was run. The Vikings have stuck with it, though, to their detriment. It has all the potential of a pass to Naufahu Tahi, and usually can't even match the guaranteed three yards that play gets. In fact, I think this play has lost yardage more often than it's gained any. AP's lack of acceleration and the offensive line's inability to get out and throw blocks -- this isn't Matt Birk pulling from center any more -- have relegated his play to an automatic loss of down.

The next time the Tennessee Titans are on TV, watch how Chris Johnson runs and how his line blocks for him. It's amazing to see someone get that much open space, and I wonder how we can get back to that kind of rushing attack. I hope it happens over the next month or so, or else the Vikings will be in for yet another early preseason exit.

Vikings/Cardinals

2009-12-07T12:49:00.003-05:00

Well, that was ugly, on several levels.

* The Vikings' secondary without Antoine Winfield (and, arguably, with him) isn't good enough to shut down opposing passing games without a pass rush. Last night, Kurt Warner barely got a finger laid on him and the results were predictable. Nearly 300 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, no sacks, and 8.9 yards per attempt. Toss in 4.5 yards per carry on 25 rushing attempts, and it's a wonder Arizona only put up 30 points. The announcers hyped the Minnesota defensive line, but it was the Arizona offensive line that clearly won the battle in the trenches.

* Meanwhile, Minnesota's offensive line continues to disappoint, again failing to open up any holes for Adrian Peterson, who was held to a season-low 19 yards on 13 carries. It seems like Peterson's good for one of these awful games every season (here's 2008's and 2007's), so hopefully he's got it out of his system, though I'm skeptical. I'll be writing more on AP's sudden collapse later this week.

* E.J. Henderson. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I watched the play where he sustained the injury but didn't see what happened to him. When they replayed it in slow motion, I had to turn away. This makes two season-ending injuries for E.J. in the last two years, and while we can always hope he'll come back next year and regain his form, he was a step down from his usual dominant self for most of the year, and it might be asking too much for him to come back from another devastating injury. The Vikings should definitely be thinking linebacker in the early rounds of the 2010 draft.

* Finally, Brett Favre had that kind of game we all thought he would have. Admittedly, it's hard to fault the guy when the team is so one-dimensional offensively and he has to air it out 45 times because the score is so lopsided. Still, he could have easily doubled his interception total, if Adrian Wilson had held on to a few more ill-advised attempts. Last week, I mused that Favre's low interception total wasn't just the result of luck and that he'd had only three or four of those "oh shit" kind of throws that should have been intercepted all season; he just about matched that total last night.

On the bright side, Dallas losing keeps the Vikings two games up in the fight for a #2 seed and first round bye, though we'll have to outpace Arizona, who now holds the tiebreak edge. New Orleans is virtually out of reach at this point, though they've shown vulnerability the last few weeks. Here's hoping Cincinnati isn't as good as their record indicates and that the 'dome crowd can help the Vikings get back on a winning track next week.

Visual stimulus

2009-12-03T13:59:00.004-05:00

Why should I use all those big and complex words when I can entertain you with pictures -- some moving, some not?

From the college ranks: At least this guy didn't get called for a false start.

I know I've ragged on Pro-Football-Reference lately for their overabundance of advertising, but check out the Fantasy Minute video in the lower right of their home page. Bonus points if you can keep your eyes on the upper half of the video. HBWHOF, take note.

Purple Jesus Diaries includes some lolVikes pictures at the end of this post. My contribution:

And finally, for old times' sake, the best call ever in the NFL.

Plusses and minuses of alternative stats

2009-12-02T16:56:00.006-05:00

Warning: Shameless plug for a guy who says he likes my blog -- see, I can be bought for just a few kind words (dollars don't hurt, though)!

Looking over Luis's new QB rating system, as well as his article on the NY Times' Fifth Down, I like it and I get what it's saying but I find it -- I don't know, not confusing, per se, but complex. Which is, naturally, how any system to rank a quarterback is probably going to be, including both traditional passer rating and my system. But I tend to think of it as relatively simple. Is that because I made it myself and I'm intimately familiar with it? Without trying to sound boastful, I naturally think of my system is good, and not just because I spent hours coming up with it and think it's some sort of statistical masterpiece.

I feel that any new statistical measure, if it's going to achieve resonance with the masses, should be both 1) something the masses can compute with minimal effort and 2) something where they can get a concept of what the value means. By "something they can compute," I mean that it should be something the average fan could figure out, like third-down conversion rate in football or WHIP in baseball. My second point means that the value should have meaning; the fan should understand what they're looking at. Third-down conversion rate is just that, and needs no additional definition. So is WHIP; it's essentially how many baserunners a pitcher gives up in an average inning. Something like OPS is a little more squirrely, but if you know the component parts of it (OBP and SLG), you can say someone has a .900 OPS and get an idea that he probably has around a .400 OBP and .500 SLG, and you know what those mean.

Most quarterback rating systems fail the first test. Unless the formula is mind-bogglingly simple and involves very few variables, it's relatively indecipherable to the common fan. The second aspect -- comprehension of what the number means -- can be a little easier to wrangle. Traditional passer rating at least lets you think that a "100" is good, and people like round numbers. A lot of alternate QB systems (mine included) use some form of yards per attempt (including or not including sacks, interceptions, fumbles, TDs, and so on in some way) as their result and that, too, is something most people can grasp. (Passer rating has, I think, become mainstream simply because it was the first attempt to quantify the many aspects of a QB's stats.)

The other thing I tend to dislike about alternate statistical systems is any "imaginary" aspect, simply because, to me, it seems like mostly blind guesswork and highly subjective. Usually, these comes in the form of strength-of-schedule adjustments or, in the case of certain baseball stats like xFIP, what stats the player or team "would have" accumulated if he'd played with a league-average defense (or pitching staff or running game or whatever). Those are, IMHO, fun to look at, but are ultimately unreliable as definitive measures. I understand that Brett Favre's great numbers this season are due, in part, to his playing against a relatively weak schedule, but how good would he be against a league-average schedule? 95% as good? 80% as good? 71.6% as good. Nobody knows. It's just speculation, and I prefer to use "real" stats in my arguments, not guesses. If I can't tell where the numbers are coming from, the average fan probably can't either, and that's going to hurt the acceptance of any new stat. Any "imaginary" stat almost certainly fails point 1) (easy to compute) and 2) (understandability) -- and don't get me started on "intangibles."

This brings me to the subject of this post and something I almost always dislike seeing in any statistical system: negative numbers. They usually crop up in stats that try to say a player or team is better or worse than average and, in the process, fail both of my criteria for a stat that's "acceptable" to the masses:

1) Something the masses can compute. This may come as a surprise to us statheads, but, as someone who's comfortable with math and has had to work with people who aren't, the average joe has trouble working with negative numbers.

2) Something people can understand what it means. With very few exceptions (negative yardage comes to mind), all stats accumulate in the positive. What will someone understand better: that Adrian Peterson averages 4.7 yards per carry or that he averages +0.6 yards above average per carry? Both are true, but one is what actually happens in the game (he gains yardage) and one is just a stat (he gains more than the average back).

I might be wrong in all of this. Maybe the issues I have with "new" stats is just my issue and not something that most people have. The thing "we" -- meaning those of us who try to innovate with new stats and can understand how complex stats are computed -- sometimes get lost in our own heads and can't see how others wouldn't understand our glorious ideas. I'm not bashing anyone's stats, and I know my own ideas need refinement; rather, I'm typing all this because I think these are issues we'll all need to address if we want "our" stats to achieve widespread use. Maybe in a hundred years, passer rating, obtuse as it is, will fall out of vogue with football fans and some other system will supplant it as the standard by which quarterbacks are rated (wins notwithstanding). But it'll have to be something that's palatable not to statheads like us, but to Joe Six-pack.

Vikings pass on running -- as they should

2009-11-30T17:43:00.004-05:00

The Vikings rolled over the Bears 36-10 yesterday, completely dominating Chicago in every facet of the game (well, minus a couple of special teams gaffes), but, as usual, the run-pass balance was questionable. Counting his one sack, Brett Favre dropped back 49 times while handing the ball off 31 times...

And, based on how the Vikings ran the ball, I almost think we should have passed more.

First of all, don't be deceived by that raw number: 49. Minnesota ran 83 official plays (discounting penalties and including three kneeldowns) to Chicago's 38 and dominated time of possession, 40:55 to 19:05. You're going to have a lot of passes and runs when you run that many plays. To wit, 59% of the play calls on Sunday were pass plays, not far off from the 56.7% league average. So don't look at "49" and think that Brett Favre was overworked.

That said, there's something just not quite right with the Vikings' running game. Adrian Peterson has averaged 4.2 yards per carry over his last five games, but that number is inflated by a 7.4 yards per carry average against Detroit. His averages in the other four games? 3.8, 3.9, 3.4, 3.4. Serviceable, but not what we've come to expect.

The bulk of the blame has to go on the offensive line, as I can't remember the last time I saw it open a hole for Peterson or get a two- or three-yard push on an opposing defensive line. As such, Peterson's only positive runs seem to be on cutbacks (usually after running up the back of his own linemen) or on runs to the outside. Only Peterson's speed and athleticism have allowed him to manage even three-plus yards per carry in those four games. At the start of the year, you could have said that teams were selling out to stop Peterson and were willing to take their chances with the Vikings' passing game, but a) They've been doing that for the last three years; and b) The way Brett Favre is playing, that's really, really, really stupid. A professional football coach can't take that approach and expect to win -- and I guess, 10 out of 11 times this year, they haven't.

And then there's the fumbles. Seriously, can we get Tiki Barber to come in and tell Peterson how to stop fumbling? Oh, you're not comfortable carrying it in your left arm. Well, get comfortable, son. Or ride the bench.

Maybe it's just a temporary stutter in Peterson's so-far majestic career; it's not like Jim Brown and Barry Sanders were great every Sunday. But Peterson seems to go through stretches like this every year, where he looks average at best, and it's hard to figure out why. I haven't run a pass-vs.-run analysis this year like I did each of the last two years because I've been busier and it takes a while to put together, but maybe I'll get to one this week. If I do, for the first time in a while, I'll probably find that the Vikings are passing a lot more than they're running, and it'll be a good thing.

Hot new Internet game!

2009-11-28T15:30:00.012-05:00

Hey everyone!

Remember when Pro-Football-Reference.com was the no-clutter, find-what-you-need-and-get-out web site that was so much simpler and easier to use than the big-name sites like ESPN.com and Yahoo.com? Are you like me and bummed that, if you're not careful where you wave your mouse, a typical page now looks like this:

What a mess! Bob from Iowa writes,

"I know the stats are under those ads somewhere, but they're so gosh-darn hard to find! I wish there was an easier way to use the site without having to click on all those silly ads to close them!"

Well, worry no more! No, you can't get rid of those obtrusive roll-over ads, but you can play the newest game that's sweeping the nation! Welcome to the Pro-Football-Reference.com Maze Craze! Just look at this example game board:

Just avoid all the banner ads that will cover up your page and click, click, click your way to stats nirvana! Isn't that fun, kids? It'll be just like the old days of PFR! You know, like last June?

(Seriously, I really appreciate everything PFR's done through the years and still love their site, and I understand that the guys want to take advantage of advertising revenue opportunities... but could they do it without making their site so difficult to use? It's gotten so bad that I now find myself trying to avoid rolling over the ads on other sites just because I'm afraid they'll spring up and obscure half the page. And we won't even get into the ads they have with sound. I click more times on a page to close or quiet ads these days than I do to actually find information and that, to me, is a massive failure.

And yes, I also realize that the Snickers ad isn't a roll-over. I just somehow couldn't find one in that spot when I did this up, having captured the other image a few days ago.)

Prediction prediliction

2009-11-25T14:07:00.002-05:00

This year's pre-season prediction contest on the Pro-Football-Reference.com blog had an interesting format. You grouped the 32 NFL teams, along with four "wild card" entries into 12 groups of 3. For each group, multiply their wins at the end of the season together and score one point for each group under that group with a lower score. Highest total wins.

Here's my entry (found in comment #6) and their scores through week 11:

1. NE/Phi/Pit (252)
2. Ten/Min/Atl (180)
3. Ind/NO/SD (700)
4. GB/Dal/PLA (259)
5. Chi/Sea/PLN (74)
6. Mia/Ari/HCA (157.5)
7. NYG/Jax/Bal (180)
8. SF/Cle/Buf (12)
9. Den/Hou/Car (120)
10. Oak/Was/NYJ (36)
11. Cin/Det/HCN (25.7)
12. TB/StL/KC (3)

Ideally, you'd want to have the highest number on top, all the way down to the lowest number in the #12 group. My entry looks a bit chaotic, but it currently is worth 54 of a possible 66 points, which seems pretty good but probably isn't the best of the 40+ entries. Some salient points about my entry:

* Having Indy and NO in the same group makes for a killer score that's sure to beat out everyone underneath it even if it costs me two points from the groups above.

* My #2 was looking absolutely dreadful before Tennessee showed a pulse a month ago. If they can finish with 7-8 wins and Atlanta can revive itself, that group could post a near-perfect 9 points for me (discounting that powerhouse #3 group).

* On the flip side, Denver and Houston crashing back to earth are doing wonders for my #9 spot.

* Seattle and Chicago -- you fail me.

* I thought Cleveland would be better than Cincinnati this year. Ouch. Cleveland is murdering my #8 spot. Meanwhile, thanks to Detroit and weak teams with new head coaches in the NFC (the HCN wild card), Cincinnati and its 7 wins isn't doing much damage stuck down in my #11 spot.

* And you can't argue with my #12: 1, 1, and 3 are the win totals of Tampa Bay, St. Louis, and Kansas City. Nice!

So close to uniqueness

2009-11-24T11:36:00.003-05:00

The Vikings and Seahawks could have made history last week, if Seattle would have converted on its two-point attempt in the fourth quarter. There's never been a 35-11 game in NFL history. Instead, we'll have to settle for being in the seventh 35-9 game ever. Yawn. Had the Vikings kicked one more field goal, it would have been the ninth 38-9 game in history and, amazingly, the fifth such contest in Seahawks history.

Yes, I love the Game Score Finder on PFR, couldn't you tell?

Brett Favre might be good

2009-11-22T17:46:00.003-05:00

Now that's the convincing win over a subpar team that everyone was looking for...

Even the most die-hard Brett Favre-backers couldn't have predicted this kind of season. 21 touchdowns versus 3 interceptions and a 112.1 passer rating makes folks like me look pretty silly for dissing him early in the season. And after seeing Tarvaris Jackson play for a quarter-plus and look like the Division 1-AA quarterback that he is, it's pretty clear that Favre's not only an MVP candidate for the league as a whole, but he's probably the most valuable player on the Vikings. I could live with Chester Taylor for a while if Adrian Peterson went down, and Ray Edwards has stepped it up enough to make me feel good if the team lost Jared Allen, and the defense has weathered the loss of Antoine Winfield for the last month or so. But right now, Favre is playing as well as he ever has in his career and Tarvaris Jackson (not to mention Sage Rosenfels) would be a huge step down.

It doesn't hurt that Sidney Rice and Percy Harvin are both also looking like stars, and Visanthe Shiancoe has quietly become one of the better pass-catching tight ends in the league. The only negative in the passing game is the looking-like-a-bust Bernard Berrian, who's a distant fourth option in the passing game. I'm also a little concerned at the lack of explosive plays from Adrian Peterson, but I think that's more the fault of the offensive line, which rarely seems to open up holes these days, and some iffy playcalling -- could we please stop calling that stretch play? I'd rather we passed to Naufahu Tahi, that's at least a guaranteed three yards.

One down, six to go. Remember the "poison pill" contracts the Vikings and Seahawks exchanged four years ago? The Vikings' offer to Steve Hutchinson required the Seahawks to make him the highest paid offensive lineman in the league if they retained him. In retaliation, the Seahawks offer to Nate Burleson -- a seven-year, $49 million deal -- would only pay out the full amount if Burleson played seven games in Minnesota during the length of the contract. This was his first game in Minnesota, so if he can manage six more games there over the next three-plus years...

(Really, not that I'd want it to happen, but I sort of hoped that, if the Vikings did move then the Seahawks would move to Minnesota and Burleson's contract would be paid out. I know, they'd release him first, but it would have been cute.)

Next week is the third of the Vikings' three post-bye home games. As I laid out a little while back, the Vikings can practically wrap up their division with a win against Chicago next week. If Chicago beats Philadelphia tonight to go to 5-5 and the Packers win next week against Detroit to go to 7-4, then a Vikings win next week would make them 10-1 with five games to go and in control of all tiebreakers in the division. Chicago would be 5-6 and effectively six games back, putting them out of contention, while Green Bay would be essentially four games back, meaning they'd have to go 5-0 while the Vikings go 1-4 (or worse) or go 4-1 while the Vikings go 0-5. I like our chances.

Of course, if the Bears beat the Vikings, that changes things a bit, but let's not dwell on that...

Four more years!

2009-11-20T10:46:00.004-05:00

If you're an owner with a head coach who's got a 32-25 career record and has never won a playoff game, what do you do?

Lock him up through 2013 while making him one of the highest-paid coaches in the league, that's what.

Maybe by 2013 Tony Dungy will want to come back? Please?

(In other news, the decision to move Thursday night games to NFL.com is working out great. I just now remembered that there was a game last night. Now. 11:04 a.m. Friday. And I live in Charlotte!)

Childress adds new wrinke to offensive playbook

2009-11-19T13:47:00.001-05:00

Really, I could see Brett Favre lobbying for this play. I seriously could.

An Emmy-winning performance

2009-11-17T18:03:00.003-05:00

While there's little outright complaining, there seems to be an undercurrent of mild grousing about the Vikings "only" beating the Lions 27-10 on Sunday and not putting the game out of reach until the 4th quarter. In fact, it seems like the Vikings always struggle with the Lions, despite coming out on top in each of the last five meetings between the teams.

My opinion is that a 17-point win is a 17-point win. The Vikings played just fine in Sunday's game, even if it took a while to make the game a pseudo-laugher. Consider some of the other games this past week that matched two teams where one was thought to be clearly superior than the other and yet barely eked out a win:

Miami 25, Tampa Bay 23
New Orleans 28, St. Louis 23

and a few that rank as outright upsets:

Washington 27, Denver 17
Cincinnati 18, Pittsburgh 12
Carolina 28, Atlanta 19
Green Bay 17, Dallas 7

And arguably the New England/Indianapolis and San Diego/Philadelphia games. Against those, I'll take a 27-10 victory any day.

* After the Vikings, my favorite three offenses to watch this season are, in order: Miami (love the Wildcat), New Orleans (for its sheer firepower), and -- wait for it -- Cleveland.

Watching the Browns' "offense" is like watching a good disaster movie, but without the obligatory hot chick. (I will still watch The Day After Tomorrow just to see Emmy Rossum.) I honestly think that Brady Quinn still has some potential in the league and could be a nice pickup for a team (possibly a team in purple) in a couple years when he finishes out his rookie contract, but the combination of terrible play calling (even MNF resident cheerleader Jon Gruden was criticizing the 827th one-yard route the Browns called last night), terrible receivers, and terrible offensive line play give him zero chance to succeed. Until that changes, the Browns offer better comedy than anything Jay Leno can provide on late-night TV.

* 20 carries for 41 yards Thursday for Matt Forte, making his season average 3.4 yards per carry. Good thing Jay Cutler will improve the running game in Chicago!

* Sorry, I'm still thinking of Emmy Rossum. I have to go now...

Vikings win division without even playing

2009-11-09T08:37:00.002-05:00

It's not technically over yet in the NFC North. But, thanks to losses by Chicago and Green Bay on Sunday, it would take a few minor miracles for the Vikings not to claim their second straight division crown in 2009.

Here's how things currently stack up:

Minnesota: 7-1
Chicago: 4-4
Green Bay: 4-4

With eight games left to play, Minnesota holds three-game leads over both Chicago and Green Bay and owns the tiebreaker over Green Bay (making for an effective four-game lead over the Packers). Let's assume the Vikings can handle Detroit and Seattle the next two weeks at home. We'll also assume that Green Bay beats Dallas and San Francisco and Chicago beats San Francisco and Philadelphia -- neither of which are sure bets and are, at the very least, a higher caliber of opponents than the Vikings face. That would make the standings:

Minnesota: 9-1
Chicago: 6-4
Green Bay: 6-4

going into Minnesota's home tilt with Chicago in week 12. Now, let's assume the Vikings win that game (and GB wins again vs. Detroit). Now the standings are:

Minnesota: 10-1
Green Bay: 7-4
Chicago: 6-5

With five games left to play, Minnesota has an effective four-game lead over Green Bay and an effective five-game lead over Chicago. Why five games? Simple. If Minnesota beast Detroit and Chicago, Minnesota now owns tiebreaker over Chicago. The Vikings would be 5-0 against their division, while Chicago would be 1-2. Even if the Vikings lose to Chicago later in the year and the Bears win the rest of their divisional games, the Vikings would still have a 5-1 divisional record to Chicago's 4-2.

And all that has to happen for this scenario to play out is for Minnesota to beat Detroit and Seattle (pretty likely) at home. Even if Chicago and Green Bay go 2-0 over their next two contests -- hardly a sure thing -- the Vikings are still sitting pretty. If either team goes 1-1 or, even better, 0-2, it all but sinks their hopes of winning the division. And that's awfully nice to hear before mid-November.

The bad, the bad, and the ugly

2009-11-03T17:34:00.004-05:00

I'm out of town until Saturday. With the Vikings having a bye and sitting pretty at 7-1, I thought I'd have some fun at the expense of the bad -- really, really bad -- teams in the NFL.

* The Browns fired their GM, who was apparently picked by their coach (shouldn't that be the other way around?) and won't start Brady Quinn because they don't want him earning an $11 million bonus if he takes 70% of his team's snaps. Derek Anderson, meanwhile, is historically bad.

* When the Chiefs wanted to get younger two years ago, they traded 26-year-old Jared Allen to the Vikings. That was confusing. Trading 33-year-old Tony Gonzalez made more sense, though I couldn't figure out why you'd want to trade possibly the best tight end ever and a pillar of your community. Gonzalez, for the record, trails only Roddy White in receptions and receiving yards for the Falcons. But at least the Chiefs got younger, right?

Well...as if gobbling up 29-year-old Bobby Wade after the Vikings waived him, the Chiefs have claimed 31-year-old Chris Chambers. If their plan is to trade away great receivers and acquire mediocre ones, then they're right on target...

* It was about what you'd expect in a Rams vs. Lions matchup: With Detroit trailing 3-0, Matthew Stafford threw an interception into the end zone. Defensive back James Butler took the ball out of the end zone, ran back in to avoid a tackler, where he was then tackled by Kevin Smith. 3-2. It's the second time I can recall an offensive player scoring a safety. Philadelphia wide receiver Charles Johnson did it in this game, 10 years ago.

* If he had enough attempts to qualify, Vince Young would be the lowest-rated passer among active quarterbacks (69.0). He's also 18-11 as a starter. I know passer rating doesn't include rushing yards, but that's still messed up...

* The Redskins made it through the "easy" part of their schedule -- Giants, Rams, Lions, Bucs, Panthers, Chiefs -- with a 2-4 record. Those teams have a combined 11-34 record. Counting their game against Philadelphia last week, their next six opponents -- Eagles, Falcons, Broncos, Cowboys, Eagles, Saints -- have a combined 32-10 record. Can you say "2-10 record"?

* And oh, those Buccaneers. They rank 28th in the league in scoring, but that should be nothing new to Tampa Bay fans. Amazingly, in 34 years, the Bucs have only ranked in the top 10 in scoring once, in 2000.

But hey, at least their coach doesn't assault women.

For the first time, Vikings celebrate Favre winning in Green Bay

2009-11-01T22:53:00.005-05:00

Apart from a third quarter that had me swearing like George Carlin, the Vikings dominated the Packers in Lambeau Sunday, putting another lopsided number on the scoreboard in a 38-26 road victory that puts them at 7-1 going and in solid command of their division going into the bye. Brett Favre was nearly flawless, Percy Harvin had several big returns and a great TD catch-and-run, Adrian Peterson had just enough explosiveness in him to make a difference, and the defense...well, the less said about that third quarter, the better.

I figured going into the game that one of two things would happen: that Brett Favre would have an amazing performance and add to his improbable highlight reel that includes his Monday Night win after his father's death and his 6 TD game with the Jets last year; or that he would have an absolutely horrid performance -- at least three interceptions and possibly an injury, in a bit of karmic justice that would make Earl Hickey cringe. Fortunately, it was the former.

On the other side of the ball, the absence of Antoine Winfield can't fully explain the poor coverage, poorer tackling, and generally poor effort by what is rapidly becoming one of the more porous defenses in the league. We expect Benny Sapp and Karl Paymah to suck, but when Chad Greenway is missing tackles and Jared Allen hardly sniffs the quarterback for a whole half, something is wrong. And, while not a defensive play, let's pretend what Brian Robison did on that kickoff return never happened.

Against teams with a pulse (discounting Cleveland, Detroit, and St. Louis), the defense has given up 24, 23, 31, 13 (I'll discount those two return TDs in the Pittsburgh game), and 26 points. Elite defenses don't get routinely shredded by opposing quarterbacks, and right now -- and arguably, all season -- the Vikings have not had an elite defense. They have an exciting defense, one that picks up sacks in bunches and is pretty good at forcing turnovers, but that doesn't mean they're great. This unit definitely needs work during the bye week; Leslie Frazier's got his work cut out for him.

And I'll take a little time to gripe about the officiating again. On the play when the Vikings were called for roughing the quarterback, the defensive end was clearly held by the right tackle. So, not only was it a horrible call on the roughing, but also a horrible non-call on the holding. Even Troy Aikman, he of many concussions, thought the roughing call was lame. That should say something.

In the end, though, a win's a win, Green Bay has been swept, and the Vikings hold a commanding lead in their division. Even if the Packers beat the Bucs next week (likely), they'll be two games back for real and, thanks to the sweep, effectively three back. The Bears host the Cardinals next week, which is hardly a gimme, so they will be two (if they win) or three (if they lose) back after next week.

And the Vikings' next three opponents coming out of the bye? Detroit, Seattle, and Chicago, all at home. 3-0, or at least 2-1, over that run is highly probable. In fact, the Vikings don't even need to leave Minnesota again for over a month, not until a December 6 contest in Arizona. Home cooking sure tastes good when you're 7-1.

You can go home again

2009-10-30T17:37:00.004-04:00

So today, I thought, "How well does a QB fare against a team that he previously won a Super Bowl with?"

The answer: Not too shabby. Here's my attempt at a comprehensive list, but since this is just for fun, I make no claims that there isn't an error or two. The record in parentheses indicates the QB's record on the road -- in other words, at his old stomping grounds.

Kurt Warner vs. the Rams: 5-2 (3-0)

Joe Montana vs. the 49ers: 1-0 (0-0)

Jim McMahon vs. the Bears: 2-0 (1-0) (both with the Vikings, ignoring this one-attempt game)

Jeff Hostetler vs. the Giants: 1-1-1 (1-1)

Trent Dilfer vs. the Ravens: 0-2 (0-1) (ignoring this game, where he threw just one pass -- hey, remember when a lot of people were up in arms about the Ravens letting their Super Bowl-winning quarterback go?)

Brad Johnson vs. the Bucs: 1-0 (0-0)

Ken Stabler vs. the Raiders: 0-1 (0-1) (in a playoff game, no less)

And some guy vs. the Packers: 1-0 (0-0) -- no, not Bart Starr

That's a total record of 11-6-1, including 5-3 at the QB's old stadium. Don't talk to me about small sample size, that's great news for this weekend!

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that it hasn't happened more often. If not for Kurt Warner winning a Super Bowl in, essentially, his first year in the league and then moving on to play for a team in his old team's division, we'd only have 11 such games instead of the 18 we currently have. If only we'd gotten Brett about five years ago...

I'm looking forward to Tom Brady's career with the Jets in 2013-2016.

I can't come up for a title for this one

2009-10-27T09:45:00.003-04:00

Vikings coach Brad Childress dressed up as a female flight attendant during the team's flight to Pittsburgh on Saturday, ESPN reported. The coach donned a wig, blue nylons and lipstick (framed around his beard).

(Thanks to Daily Norseman for the link.)

This is the mark of a coach of a 6-1 team with a contract extension on the table? Why sure, Bill Parcells and Bill Walsh did this all the time! Those jokesters!

At least he didn't pull his pants down.

Passing Unfancy: Vikings/Steelers

2009-10-25T19:59:00.006-04:00

The defense wasn't a problem on Sunday. Even with Antoine Winfield out (for a while, it seems), the Vikings held the defending Super Bowl champs' offense to a reasonable 259 yards and 13 points.

Unfortunately, the Vikings offense had the ball during the game too, and that rarely ended well. To wit:

* My father's name is Ronald, so whenever I see referee Ron Winter calling a game, I joke that he's my dad. If that's true, he's off my Christmas list this year. The most egregious bad call was the tripping penalty on Jeff Dugan, a play that I, my Steelers-fan friend, and the entire crew of NBC's Football Night in America, thought was an awful call. It negated a go-ahead touchdown pass to Sidney Rice, and three plays later, Brett Favre was sacked, stripped, and LaMarr Woodley was running to the end zone.

Also, earlier in the game, Benny Sapp was called for a 15-yard roughing call when he dove at Ben Roethlisberger just as he was heading out of bounds. He left his feet as Roethlisberger still had one foot inbounds, though he made contact after the quarterback was out of bounds. Dubious call, I thought, but since quarterbacks aren't allowed to be hit any more, I tried not to grouse too much...

...until a few minutes later, when Favre was shoved to the ground after releasing the ball. No flag. Again, it wasn't the most egregious sin, and one that shouldn't be a penalty in the NFL, but usually is. I hate to harp on officiating and use it as an excuse, but this was one of those kind of games where every questionable call seemed to go against the Vikings.

Except that tripping call. That wasn't questionable at all.

* When the Vikings weren't having penalties (11 in all) called against them or turning the ball over and giving up 6 points to the opposing defense, they were calling plays. Pass plays. All. The. Damn. Time.

Starting with the fifth drive, in the second quarter, here was the Vikings' play selection:

Fifth drive:
Run; pass; pass; pass; pass; pass; pass; pass; pass; run; run; pass; run

Sixth drive:
Pass; run; pass; pass; pass; run

Seventh drive:
Run (kneeldown at end of half)

Eighth drive:
Pass; run; pass; pass; pass; pass; pass; pass; pass; run (penalty); run; pass; pass

Ninth drive:
Run; pass; pass

Tenth drive:
Run; pass; pass; pass; pass; run; pass (penalty); pass; pass; pass; pass; run; pass; pass (penalty); pass; pass; pass

Discounting the kneeldown, from 10:34 in the second quarter until the Woodley touchdown at 6:23 in the fourth, the Vikings called 39 passes and 13 runs. Adrian Peterson had 11 runs (one negated by a penalty) and 2 receptions over that span. Five of those runs came with the ball spotted inside one team's five-yard line (four goal-line carries against the Steelers and one with the Vikings backed up on their own three), so Peterson only really had six chances for a big play for over half the game -- eight if you count his receptions (and I'm sure William Gay does).

With Bernard Berrian and Percy Harvin ailing, instead of handing off to the best player in football, Brad Childress called plays designed for Greg Lewis, Jim Kleinsasser, and Naufahu Tahi, with predictable results. The Vikings never trailed by more than three during this span, and their last drive in the first half (#6) started with 3:30 on the clock, and actually included two runs in six plays (one a draw on third and long for Chester Taylor). Yes, there were some long-yardage plays in there, when passes seemed obvious, but again, are you better off running with Peterson or Taylor in those situations or tossing it to Tahi and Kleinsasser? And how exactly did you get in second-and-long and third-and-long? Perhaps by not running the ball as much as you should?

This was what I feared more than anything once it became obvious that Brett Favre could still get it done. Brad Childress desperately wanted to throw all the time when he had Tarvaris Jackson as his quarterback, so you knew that he was salivating over the possibility of throwing 50+ times a game with Favre in the game, and that's exactly what he did. The Vikings called 23 runs and 55 dropbacks (passes plus sacks), with 10 of them coming with the Vikings down and three and a half minutes or less in the game, when an all-pass approach is appropriate. Removing those and Favre's kneeldown, it was a 45:22 pass:run ratio. There is no way the Vikings should have a 2:1 pass:run ratio unless the score is out of hand or Peterson (and probably Taylor) is hurt. No way at all.

I know there are a lot of worthy choices, but this is Brad Childress's worst-called game ever. My friend and I kept saying, "This one will be a run. It has to be a run." We were rarely correct. People will say that the two Pittsburgh defensive TD returns and the questionable penalties were the reasons we lost, and while they didn't help, the team shouldn't have been in a situation where those two plays decided the game. This one goes on the coaching staff and a horrendous job of play calling.

Let's hold off on that contract extension talk, shall we?

Why the Broncos are 6-0

2009-10-23T16:21:00.003-04:00

The simple answer is, of course, "Their amazing defense and a really lucky play against Cincinnati." But consider the following two quarterbacks, each with the same number of pass attempts:

Quarterback A: 4,526 passing yards, 25 TDs, 18 Interceptions, 86.0 passer rating, 6.8 adjusted yards per attempt

Quarterback B: 3,937 passing yards, 24 TDs, 16 Interceptions, 79.6 passer rating, 6.0 adjusted yards per attempt

Which one is better? Quarterback A, but not by a large amount.

Now, suppose my team has quarterback B. I'll trade him to you for quarterback A. Not a good deal for you, but, depending on circumstances, maybe one you would make...

Oh, and I'll also throw in two first-round draft picks and a third-rounder. Can you toss me a fifth-rounder, maybe, just to even things out a bit?

I bet you're taking that deal.

Quarterback A's stat line belongs to Jay Cutler in 2008. B's stat line is Kyle Orton's stat line in 2008, adjusted to have the same number of attempts as Cutler. The reason Cutler's numbers looked better in 2008 was solely because of his high number of attempts. Plug Orton in for another 200-odd attempts in 2008, and his numbers start to look like Cutler's.

When the deal was made, I was skeptical of both sides. The conventional wisdom of Cutler as a franchise quarterback still lingered in my brain, despite my certainty that his "big numbers" were more the result of his number of pass attempts. Orton, meanwhile, while not great, was reasonably efficient in 2008, few people could dispute that he enjoyed a better receiving corps (Brandon Marshall and Eddie Royal) in Denver than Orton did (Devin Hester and Greg Olson/Matt Forte) in Chicago.

(The Vikings also were supposedly interested in Cutler, and he probably would have been an upgrade over Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels, but I was hoping we wouldn't give up the house to acquire him.)

Admittedly, we're only looking at one season's worth of stats here, but that's about all we can do. Orton was awful in his rookie year, starting for the Bears in place of the injured Rex Grossman, and played sparingly in his second year. For Cutler, one year looks pretty much like the other. I'm too lazy to compute all sorts of advanced stats, but his passer rating his first four years in the league (counting this one) are 88.5, 88.1, 86.0, and 86.9. Decent, but not something I'd want to give up three high draft picks and a reasonable quarterback for.

So far, Cutler's performed reasonably well (the opener in Green Bay aside), but he's still looking like about the same passer he was in Denver -- willing to put it up all the time, but interception-prone. Meanwhile, we do harp on Denver's defense, and it's amazing, but Orton has nine touchdowns versus just one interception and a passer rating over 100. I don't think he's that good, but far too many people were just thinking of him as subpar, if not outright bad, going into this season.

But hey, look at how much Cutler is helping the Bears' running game. Matt Forte's 3.4 yards per carry is clearly the result of improved quarterback play.

So the next time you hear someone say Denver's just having a good season because of their defense, know that that's just part of the story. For years, it seemed like the Broncos could make any running back into a 1,000-yard back. Nowadays, maybe they can make any quarterback into a Pro Bowler...

Time to clock Big Ben

2009-10-22T16:26:00.003-04:00

It's looking more and more like Antoine Winfield won't be in the starting defensive backfield for the Vikings when they travel to Pittsburgh on Sunday, and that could be trouble, if the second half against the Ravens was any indication. We've always had our reservations about Brad Childress' and Darrell Bevell's ability to think outside the box and craft a quality offense for the Vikings; this week, it might be up to Leslie Frazier to figure out a way to get enough pressure on Ben Roethlisberger to make up for Winfield's absence.

Roethlisberger represents a serious matchup problem for the Vikings. Yes, he holds on to the ball too long and takes a lot of sacks (3rd highest sack percentage among active quarterbacks, and highest among anyone who could be called a starter), but because of that -- and because defensive players tend to bounce off his 240-pound frame -- he keeps plays alive and completes a lot of downfield passes. He currently leads the league with 9.1 yards per attempt, which, if it holds out, would make him the third quarterback this decade (and only 11th since the merger) to average better than 9 yards per pass. He's already #3 among active quarterbacks, and his 12.6 yards per completion is the 2nd-best career mark in the NFL among active quarterbacks.

In other words, this game has all the appearance of mimicking the type of game we had against the Green Bay Packers, where Aaron Rodgers was sacked eight times but had 384 yards passing. As long as the final score looks roughly the same, I'll be happy.

On the bright side, no Steelers quarterback has ever thrown for more than 300 yards against the Vikings. In fact, only one has ever managed as many as 250, and it was a while ago. That probably owes more to the fact that the teams don't play each other very often, and both have been known for their defenses (and, in the Steelers' case, their running games) than for high-flying aerial attacks. Vikings QBs haven't fared much better over the years.

Unlike Baltimore, the Steelers still have a defense, though they'll be missing DE Aaron Smith, a major key to their 3-4 who's out for the season. Without him, Adrian Peterson has a very solid chance of topping 100 yards, despite the Steelers' allowing only 74.5 yards per game on the ground. That's skewed somewhat by the 16 yards San Diego put on them in week 4. Without Smith, even Cleveland managed 91 yards on the ground, though 45 of that came from Josh Cribbs in the wildcat. I'd expect a somewhat lower-scoring game this week -- maybe just in the 20s for each team. And hopefully more for the purple.

I don't mean to alarm anyone...

2009-10-20T18:56:00.004-04:00

But here's what happened the last time the Vikings started 6-0.

That won't happen again, of course.

We play the Cardinals in week 13, not week 17. And Nate Poole, may he burn in whatever hell he fears, hasn't played in the NFL since 2005. And there's no more push-out rule. And we have the most fun-loving quarterback in the league, who would never let his defense fall asleep like that.

(The guy's been great, I'll admit. But three hours of Dan Dierdorf praising him is more than anyone should be subjected to. Even Nate Poole.)

The 2004 version of the Vikings fared about the same, getting off to a 5-1 start before going into a nosedive and finishing the season 8-8. Beating the Packers at Lambeau Field in the playoffs was sweet, but it was still another case of the Vikings being just good enough to avoid embarrassment, but not enough to be actually good -- a hallmark of the Mike Tice ".500 and out" regime. In total, the 2003-04 Vikings were 11-1 through week 6 and 6-14 after.

Could they face a similar fate this season? We all want to say "of course not" because all we see is a very good team now and can't imagine a 3-7-like finish. But we felt the same way in 2003 and 2004, and every team that starts out well (like this one and this one) can't possibly fathom the ridiculous notion that they'll collapse down the stretch. "All that matters is wins," they'll say, no matter how ugly the wins or how weak the opposition, only to earn their "overrated" label in the second half.

(That is, by the way, a corollary of my NFL Predictions Rule. In addition to "Always pick four new division winners every year," I espouse "At the midway point, a team at 6-2 or better will fade down the stretch and finish at 9-7 or so." Last year, I picked the Redskins, the year before the Lions. The Broncos are looking mighty tempting this year.)

The questionable play of the defense the last few weeks is a major red flag that teams quarterbacked by Ben Roethlisberger, Jay Cutler, Kurt Warner, and Eli Manning might exploit better than teams quarterbacked by Shaun Hill, Kyle Boller, Brady Quinn, and Matthew Stafford did. And then there's Aaron Rodgers -- wait, I think Jared Allen just sacked him again. Still, at this point, I think even JaMarcus Russell could complete half his passes for 150 yards against us. And that's saying something.

In short, the Vikings are ripe for a fall. (And please don't tell me it won't happen because you-know-who is in purple. Remember the Jets last year?) With two tough road games on the slate next, we could be in for a little disappointment after a hot start, though I'll admit I would have been overjoyed to be 6-2 going into the bye. The second-half schedule looks reasonably soft, but that 2003 team lost to four teams with 4-12 records, so anything is possible. I really hope they won't be "that team," but after years like 2003, 2004 (not to mention 1996 and 1997), I won't truly feel good about our record until we've played 16 games.

Then Gary Anderson can miss a field goal in overtime in the NFC Championship Game.

6-0...but just barely

2009-10-18T16:21:00.004-04:00

At the start of the season, you might have thought the over/under for the game to be around 30, but I wouldn't be shocked if each team managed 30 points.

I said that yesterday, but I wasn't hoping it would turn out quite like that.

At the start of the season, I thought our defense would win games for us and that Brett Favre would lose them, but I'm turning nearly a full 180 on that assessment. I continue to be amazed by Favre's play, especially his affinity for Sidney Rice, who had a career-high 117 yards receiving on Sunday. And Adrian Peterson was his usual excellent self, bracketing his performance with a pair of good runs in the first and final Vikings scoring drives and finishing with 143 yards on 22 carries.

But what in the name of Carl Eller and Joey Browner is happening with the defense?

We can now officially dismiss the notion that the Vikings' mediocre defensive numbers (14th in yards/game and 9th in points per game) is due to the team giving up chunks in garbage time or with backups in the game. This weeks excuse du jour will be the absence of Antoine Winfield. Karl Paymah certainly looked overmatched and Tyrell Johnson rarely provided any help at safety, but Winfield alone couldn't have made every play. The disastrous fourth quarter, which nearly cost the team the game, was a study in missed tackles, bad downfield coverage, and inability to get off blocks. The final tally: 385 passing yards for Joe Flacco, 194 total yards for Ray Rice, and three Baltimore TDs in just over five minutes.

Rice's numbers are especially galling. Except for his two touchdown runs of 22 and 33 yards, he was completely bottled up, with eight other carries for 22 yards. For a while, it looked like the old Vikings rushing defense was back. Then, suddenly, big holes materialized and Rice strode virtually untouched into the end zone.

Now, the Vikings, who have played all three of their home games against teams with winning records and have squeaked out wins against all three (3 points vs. S.F., 7 points vs. Green Bay, and 2 points vs. Buffalo) have their next two on the road against 4-2 Pittsburgh and 3-2 Green Bay (which will likely be 4-2 after a road trip to Cleveland next week). Both teams have their flaws, but both also like to throw the ball. Let's hope Winfield (not to mention Peterson and Percy Harvin) comes back soon.

Battle of the Purple, 1998

2009-10-17T15:17:00.005-04:00

So, the Vikings play the Ravens tomorrow. Despite both teams having a reputation for defense, and both are doing fairly well defensively, neither has been as stifling as might have been predicted. The Vikings are 14th in the league in yards/game allowed, and 9th in points per game allowed. The Ravens are 10th and 12th in the same categories, respectively. There are certainly caveats in those numbers -- the Vikings have only played one good offensive team (Green Bay) but have also given up a lot of yards and points in garbage time -- but it's safe to say that neither team is at the top of the defensive ranks for fantasy football leagues.

Meanwhile, the Vikings are 3rd in the NFL in scoring and the Ravens 5th. At the start of the season, you might have thought the over/under for the game to be around 30, but I wouldn't be shocked if each team managed 30 points. Even so, we probably won't see anything as crazy as the first meeting between these two teams, a 1998 contest that the Vikings won 38-28.

Ah yes, the 1998 Vikings. We remember them well. And this December Vikings/Ravens contest was a typical game for a team that averaged 34.75 yards per game (surprisingly, just a hair more than the 31.2 this year's team is managing). But the offense sputtered a bit in this game, scoring "just" two touchdowns and getting six field goals from Gary Anderson.

Oh, and then there was that first quarter.

Take a look at the box score. After an Anderson field goal, Baltimore's Corey Harris returned the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown to put the Ravens up 7-3. The Vikings kicked another field goal on the ensuing drive and kicked off again. This time, it was Patrick Johnson who brought the kickoff back to the house, putting the Ravens up 14-6. At this point, the special teams looked so bad, you might have thought Paul Ferraro was the coach. (It was actually Gary Zauner.) But on the ensuing Baltimore kickoff, Minnesota's David Palmer (no, not the fictional president) took it back 88 yards for a touchdown of his own. One missed two-point conversion later (nice decision, Denny) and the quarter ended 14-12...

...with three kickoff-return touchdowns. I'm going to bet that's a record for a single quarter, if not a game.

The Vikings scored the next 23 points, part of a 29-point unanswered stretch, and the 10-point margin at the final gun belied the fact that this was a very lopsided game. I'm not betting on three kickoff-return touchdowns (or six+ field goals by Ryan Longwell), but a 38-28 score? Yeah, I could buy that.

Play of the Day

2009-10-12T11:06:00.004-04:00

Some people will tell you that the play of the game from yesterday's rout of the Rams was Jared Allen's fumble-recovery-TD. But astute fans who stuck around until the end know that the most improbable, the most unbelievable, the most "How on earth did that happen?" play was, in fact...

Naufahu Tahi's 32-yard catch and run in the late fourth quarter.

Let's put this into perspective. Going into Sunday's game, Tahi had a career 52 yards on 19 receptions, a stellar 2.7 yards per reception. With his 32-yard gain, his career numbers explode to 84 yards on 20 carries, with a Randy Moss-like 4.2 yards per catch!

I know that adding Brett Favre was supposed to help the passing game (and that it was actually Tarvaris Jackson who threw the pass to Tahi -- work with me here), but if his mere presence can even turn Naufahu Tahi into a receiving "threat," then the Vikings are nigh-unstoppable.

Happy birthday (and anniversary)

2009-10-10T11:33:00.004-04:00

Happy 40th, you old coot.

Meanwhile, 20 years ago, while the Brett Favre in that picture (or thereabouts) was celebrating his 20th birthday, the Minnesota Vikings were, by all appearances, deep in discussions with the Dallas Cowboys regarding a monumental trade that would reverberate through the NFL for years to come.

Yes, it's been nearly 20 years to the day since the infamous Herschel Walker trade. The deal went down on Oct. 12, 1989 and, while it did pave the way for the Cowboy championships of the early '90s and hamstring the Vikings' development for a similar period of time, it did have the positive effect of, for whatever reason, getting me interested in football. The graphic of a bunch of Viking helmets vs. 1 Cowboy helmet on SportsCenter that night somehow grabbed my attention and sticks with me to that day. That Sunday, I watched...well, not my first Vikings game, technically...but it was the first one that I really paid attention to as a fan and tried to understand and enjoy.

Plus, it was against Green Bay. What better way to break into the realm of Viking fandom than to watch the Vikes trounce the Pack 26-14. Interestingly, it was Walker's second straight game against the Packers, having played them as a Cowboy the previous week. With Dallas, Walker ran for just 44 yards 12 carries; with Minnesota, Walker ran for 148 yards on 18 carries, his third-highest single-game total ever and the most he'd ever have as a Viking. It was all downhill from there.

When a team makes a trade for an aging. past-his-prime veteran, we often hear that the reason is not just to add that player's eroding skills to the team but also as a PR move to sell tickets and generate interest. Ken Griffey Jr. didn't do much to boost the Mariners' on-field product in 2008, but he likely evoked a lot of nostalgic thoughts in Seattle. Will Shaquille O'Neal really help Lebron James and the Cavaliers this season on the court or is he just in Cleveland for his charisma and draw at the ticket office? Oh, and then there was that guy the Vikings picked up this year who's starting to look like he might have actually been worth the hassle.

Herschel Walker was 27 when he was traded -- a bit long-in-the-tooth for a running back, but not overly so. The price in players and draft picks was a net +8 for the Cowboys (1 player and 4 picks from the Cowboys vs. 5 players and 8 picks from the Vikings), and, when you look at who the Cowboys selected with those draft picks -- Emmitt Smith, Alvin Harper, and Darren Woodson, most notably -- it could only be termed a disaster for the Vikings (though we did net Jake Reed with one of the picks we got from Dallas). Walker was run out of town just two and a half years later and the entire affair lives on in NFL front-office infamy.

But it did get people talking, and keeps them talking to this day. And it got at least one person interested in the on-field product, even if that product was damaged goods. Maybe it wasn't such a bad deal after all.

What's in a typical drive?

2009-10-08T17:26:00.005-04:00

This post is about drives in the NFL. So, naturally, I'll be closing it out by talking about baseball.

A few months ago, I wrote an article about the merits of "grinding it out" versus "airing it out." In that article, I made the assertion that "I read somewhere that the typical NFL game has about 10 drives per team. I'm too lazy to do any real research on that, but it seems about right."

Well, I decided to get over my laziness and see what I could find out, not only about how many drives a team tends to get, but what the results of those drives usually are. I also read somewhere that about 1/3 of drives result in scores for the offense (probably in some article espousing the merits of the current overtime system), and I wanted to see if that matched up, too.

So, with a lot of help from Pro-Football-Reference's 2008 season stats (and a little help from ESPN.com's 4th down stats), I simply added up every "drive-ending occurrence" I could find. I counted a "drive-ender" as any instance of a:

Rush/Receive Touchdown
Field Goal
Missed Field Goal
Lost Fumble
Interception
Safety
Turnover on Downs
Punt
Blocked Punt

What I didn't count:

* Touchdown returns, since those aren't "drives" for the offense

* End-of-half/game drives that didn't result in one of the other options (like a FG attempt). The main reason was because I didn't have stats for them. But I don't think this is a huge problem. These drives usually fall into one of two categories: non-attempts to score, like kneeldowns or "protect-the-ball" runs, which I have no problem omitting; and actual attempts to score by teams in desperation at the end of the game. These should be counted, but, each team probably only experiences a few drives like this per year; often, they turn it over on downs or have a turnover before the clock runs out. Only plays that fail to score a TD on the last play of the half on 1st-3rd down should be counted, and those are really relatively rare.

So, with that exception, I should have compiled the results of every drive in 2008. And the results are:

Drive	Number	Pct.
Touchdown	1122	20.4%
FG	845	15.4%
Missed FG	155	2.8%
Lost fumble	328	6.0%
Interception	465	8.5%
TO on downs	231	4.2%
Safety	21	0.4%
Punt	2307	42.0%
Blocked punt	13	0.2%

TOTAL DRIVES	5487
Drives per team	171.5
Drives per team/game	10.7

Scoring drives	1967	35.8%
"TO" drives	1213	22.1%

My early estimate -- that 1/3 of drives result in scores -- isn't too far off, as 35.8% of drives in 2008 resulted in either a touchdown or a field goal. But look at the last row. I count a "TO Drive" as a drive that ends in a very bad result for the offense: a turnover (fumble, interception, or downs), blocked punt, missed FG, or safety. In fact, your team has a better chance of bungling an offensive possession than it does of scoring a touchdown! 22.1% seems strangely high for me, but then again, I don't watch many Cleveland Browns games (ha!).

Bonus stat: The average drive scores its offense 1.89 points, if you count a safety as -2 points for the offense (and if you don't, it only raises the average by less than 1/100 of a point).

I'm also pretty close on my "10 drives per game" metric, although that 10.7 statistic would probably be pushed over 11 if it included those game-ending and half-ending drives I'm omitting. I also thought about baseball while putting this together. With 16 games in the NFL season and 162 in the MLB season, people often equate each game in the NFL to 10 MLB games, such as by saying that a three-game losing streak in the NFL is like a 30-game streak in MLB. When I was putting this together, I thought of the 10 drives/game concept and wondered if you could possibly equate each drive to an individual MLB game.

The answer is "yeah, if you're into that." With about 171 drives per season (maybe closer to 180 if we include the "invisible" drives), it's a fair comparison. And it makes one-game playoffs (which the Twins should be experts in by now) even more statistically dubious for their sample size. Imagine that two NFL teams finish with the same record on top of their division. Forget tiebreakers or even a tiebreaker game. We'll determine the division champion by giving each team one drive! It'll be just like a college football overtime game! I love what the Twins did on Tuesday night, but, in the grand scheme of things (especially when you consider how they won -- in extra innings with the lead flip-flopping back and forth), those two teams were identical in ability and the Twins got lucky, thanks to the results of an extremely small sample size.

I warned you there'd be baseball.

Now that's what I'm talking about!

2009-10-06T08:57:00.004-04:00

When I lived in Wisconsin for three years, a fellow Vikings fan said to me, on a Monday morning in the office after the Vikings had beaten the Packers, "There's nothing I like to see more than sad Packer fans."

I don't know if Packer fans worldwide are more sad than they are enraged by their team's shoddy performance last night. Give credit to the Vikings pass rush, Jared Allen and his 4.5 sacks in particular, but no quarterback should be forced to spend time behind that purgatory of an offensive line. And any lingering Brett Favre fans in Packerland should have pretty much completely expunged whatever lingering love they had for #4 as he carved up the Packer secondary like...well, like he's carved up the Viking secondary for years.

Yes, I said it. I can grouse about Adrian Peterson's lousy 2.2 yards per carry (and fumble), or about the Vikings' letting the Packers back into the game late, or about Brad Childress's awe-inspiring new way to fail. (We didn't challenge because you couldn't get the red flag out of your pants?!? Are you actually an NFL head coach or just some guy the Wilfs found on the street outside the Metrodome?) But, apart from an interception that was overturned by a dubious pass interference call in the end zone, Brett Favre played a flawless game, completing 77.4 percent of his passes for 271 yards and three TDs, pump-faking the Green Bay defense to death while not taking a single sack. And he even threw passes consistently more than 6 yards downfield. Gee, this guy might actually have something left in the tank, at least in October. I'll have to reserve final judgment for January, though.

Admittedly, the Vikings got some help from the officials. In addition to that "pass interference" call, there were a few more that seemed almost suspiciously like some kind of "We have to make sure Favre wins" conspiracy by the NFL and ESPN. In total, the Packers were flagged for seven infractions while the Vikings, officially, only were hit with two yellow hankies, for a total of 10 yards. That said, when Jared Allen wasn't getting to Aaron Rodgers, especially on those final two Packer scoring drives, he was often egregiously held by the Packers' third-string left tackle, which was about the only way he could stop the man.

And how about that Sidney Rice? When we play pickup basketball, I want him on my team!

There were a few more flaws -- and some good plays -- in the Vikings' performance Monday night, but for now I'm happy to gloss over them and bask in the glow of a 4-0 team that's enjoying a two-game lead in its division and has a bye next week...

Wait, we play St. Louis? Same thing.

Showdown

2009-10-05T10:50:00.003-04:00

I hear there's some big football game tonight. I don't know, have you guys heard anything about this?

All kidding aside, I'll be turning ESPN on at about 8:37 p.m., and not a minute earlier, so as to avoid the HYPE (there's so much, it uses capital letters) that will be spewing out incessantly all day long. Here's hoping that I won't have to mute the TV when Official Cheerleader of Monday Night Football Jon Gruden is canonizing Brett Favre.

Short post today, as I don't want to get too heavily into the HYPE machine myself. I'll have more thoughts and analysis tomorrow, which will be the beginning of the 27-day countdown until Brett Favre goes to Green Bay to play the Packers at Lambeau. Then we can all relax.

They should stick to making beer

2009-09-30T13:11:00.001-04:00

From this link:

ESPN hopes to hype records for its Green Bay-Minnesota game Monday night. Literally. ESPN, says spokesman Mike Soltys, will announce that on next Monday's broadcast of its ESPN2 SportsNation (5 p.m. ET), it will try to set a record for the most mentions of Brett Favre on a TV show — with Guinness World Records now looking for the current record. Some records should never be broken. …

As if I needed another reason to tune out ESPN this week...

The post that never was

2009-09-28T18:37:00.004-04:00

My blog post was about 90% written in my head before "The Play" yesterday. In it, I was going to lay into Brett "five yards and a cloud of RAC yardage" Favre and his mediocre play. I was going to make fun of everyone who was chirping about his 77% completion percentage and 110 passer rating and how "all he does is win" when he completed barely 50% of his passes and led the offense to just 13 points (20 minus Percy Harvin's TD return).

Then Favre and Greg Lewis made all that moot.

On the one hand: Happy to be 3-0!

On the other hand: Unhappy because the "Favre is God" crowd will be even more insufferable than usual.

(On the third hand: Disgusted at the media-gasm likely to propagate over the next week leading to Packers/Vikings on Monday night.)

I can try to counter with all sorts of reality-based arguments. Like that, 9 times out of 10, Greg Lewis doesn't make that catch or his left foot scrapes the back goal line. Favre made a hell of a throw -- and probably the first I've seen all year that I would put beyond Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels -- but one pass, which required a miracle catch by a receiver can't overshadow the rest of the drive, game, or season, in which Favre hasn't looked like a quarterback you'd want to pay $12 million for.

But I'll stick with this one simple comparison, to illustrate how much of a difference one play can make, especially this early in the season:

Passer rating A: 94.5
Passer rating B: 87.8

Adjusted Yards Per Attempt A: 6.6
Adjusted Yards Per Attempt B: 6.0

Yards per attempt A: 6.0
Yards per attempt B: 5.6

Yards per completion A: 9.3
Yards per completion B: 8.9

Situation A is Favre's actual stats. Situation B is his stats if Lewis doesn't come down with the ball (and with one extra game-ending incompletion thrown in). That 87.8 passer rating is nice, but it would still be only 15th in the league. With the Lewis catch, he's 16th in AY/A and would be 22nd without it (just ahead of Tom Brady, for whatever that's worth). Brett Favre's numbers still look pretty good, but he's one unlikely play away from looking average, at best.

But regardless of what was likely to happen, what did happen is that Favre made a play as improbable as just about any we've seen and delivered the goods the first time he was really asked to do so in a Vikings uniform. For that I'm grateful and happy. I'm just not ready to crown him yet.

Deep thought of the day...

2009-09-27T16:28:00.002-04:00

WTF

San Francisco 89ers

2009-09-25T17:59:00.005-04:00

I started watching football in 1989. In those heady days, George Bush (the first) reigned as president, the U.S.S.R. still existed, Thursday night on NBC was real "must-see TV," thanks to The Cosby Show and Cheers, and I was a huge Debbie Gibson fan. (Shaddap!)

And the San Francisco 49ers were the best football team on the planet, by far. And I've never really gotten over it.

Even though I only started watching football full time in '89, I can vaguely remember the Vikings' playoff games against the 49ers in the late '80s. There was the improbable victory in the '87 playoffs, which was followed by a pair of thrashings in '88 and '89. And then there was this game in 1988, from which you've almost assuredly seen this highlight. Sorry, Mike Vick, but you don't have the best run of all time by a QB against the Vikings. (In fact, you probably don't even have the second-best, but I can't find video of Vinny Testaverde's absurd 48-yard TD run against the team in this game.)

Joe Montana, Roger Craig, Jerry Rice, and even Steve Young are all long gone. Jeff Garcia and Ricky Watters and Terrell Owens all had their moments, but, for the better part of this decade, the 49ers have been a mediocre to bad team. Still, I still can't help but feel something special every time the Vikings play the 49ers. As a tribute, and because I wanted to play around with PFR.com's Play Index, here are some notable Vikings-vs.-49ers all-time stats:

First, unless I've missed something (entirely possible), the Vikings have played the 49ers 39 times in the regular season since 1960, and the teams are, rather unusually, deadlocked at 19-19-1.

The Vikings have only had 2 100-yard rushers against the 49ers. 49er RBs have achieved the feat 9 times, but not since 1992.

The 49ers also lead the 100-yard receiver contest, 14 to 9.

300-yard passers have been very rare in the rivalry, with just 3 for San Fran and 2 for Minny.

You might be a little surprised to see which 49er is tied for the most sacks in a game against the Vikings, instead of the other way around.

Meanwhile, the all-time leader for TDs for the Vikings against the 49ers is someone I've never heard of. On the other side of the coin, I think I have heard of this guy.

And only one guy has ever had just 200 all-purpose yards against the 49ers as a Viking. C'mon Adrian (or even Percy), you can do better than that!

Finally, a little music to get you jacked up for the game! I promise, it's not Rick Astley

When Canadians attack

2009-09-24T19:58:00.004-04:00

One of the silliest paragraphs I've read in a while, from the keyboard of Yahoo! Sports' Jon Krawczynski:

Even with Brett Favre at quarterback, [Adrian] Peterson is the key to the Vikings offence. He draws so much attention from opposing defences who stack eight or nine men near the line of scrimmage that he opens things up for the passing game.

First, yay Canada? "Offence" and "defences"?

Second, there's nothing about our passing game so far this year that resembles anything has "opened up." And the Vikings' running game has really opened up the passing game since AP arrived, hasn't it? I mean, our guys are throwing for 5,000 yards and 40 TDs every year!

And third....well, there's this:

The Vikings' leading tackler practised on a limited with pads on, but defensive co-ordinator Leslie Frazier said he believes Henderson will be fine.

"Practised." Like, take off, eh? And he practised on a limited...what? A limited-time offer? A limited partnership? The Limited?

But you gotta love those "co-ordinators."

The NFL hits the Oregon Trail

2009-09-23T08:48:00.001-04:00

You've probably already seen it on Daily Norseman, but just in case...

Motoring through Motor City

2009-09-21T17:36:00.004-04:00

Pardon the late commentary on yesterday's win over the Lions. My best guess is that I picked up something at the sports bar that's left me coughing, sniffling, and nigh exhausted since about halftime of the late games yesterday, and not in any real mood for doing much of anything, including blogging. It'll probably be another early bedtime for me tonight, too.

(Cheap shot alert: Yesterday did prove, though, that I'm a better wide receiver than Troy Williamson, who, as we all know, can't even catch a cold. And he won't be catching anything else for the rest of this year, either. His first two years in Jacksonville: eight catches, 64 yards and four kick returns for 84 yards. And we thought his time in Minnesota was bad.)

But the Vikings did play yesterday, and played generally well, though it would be nice if they'd show up for the first half of games. They've actually been outscored 23-17 in the first half of both their games this year. But they've made up for it with a 44-10 scoring margin in the second halves of their two games this year. And while Detroit and Cleveland aren't exactly powerhouses, going 2-0 on the road to start your season is very nice indeed.

I still like E.J. Henderson, but Chad Greenway might be the team's best linebacker. If he would have fielded that onside kick near the end of the game cleanly, he might have gone for 6, to go with his two interceptions.

Still, it's not all perfect. Maybe I'm being greedy after all these years of seeing running games absolutely shut down, but I'm a little worried about the team's sudden "vulnerability" to the run. Kevin Smith averaged 3.5 yards on 24 carries this week, to go with Jamal Lewis's 5.2 last week on 11 carries. That's exactly 4.0 yards per carry (35-140) to the two teams' primary running backs. Are we sure the Williams Wall hasn't been suspended?

(Here's a crazy thought...when the Vikings went up by a couple touchdowns, I was actually glad that the Lions would have to pass instead of run. With the Vikings giving up a total of 315 yards passing through two games, they might be better against the pass than they are against the run now. Weird.)

Then there's Brett Favre.

His long pass for the game went for 13 yards (to Sidney Rice), and, though his first two games, he's thrown for 265 yards on 48 pass attempts (37 completions). That's an average of just 5.52 yards per pass attempt, not too far off the league average of 6.2, but that doesn't take his (excellent) completion percentage into account. His 7.16 yards per completion is well below the league average of 10.64 (and his personal Y/C of 11.36). Essentially, the Vikings have absolutely no deep passing game, which I thought was why Brett Favre was brought in. You know, to open up the running game, which has been horrible these two ga -- oh, wait. It hasn't.

But, while he's been limited, you have to give credit to Favre for what he has accomplished. He's throwing almost exclusively short, which inflates his completion percentage (a league-leading 77.1%) and hasn't contributed a single turnover. The team being 2-0 doesn't hurt his cause, either. I can't even get worked up too much over the sacks, which are for minimal yardage (4.1 each), seem to be as much the offensive line's fault as anything, and may be helping to contribute to the lack of interceptions. He's been solid, but let's face it: Did you really think Brett Lorenzo Favre would be this good of a "game manager"? Highly unlikely.

The upcoming schedule is still mostly soft. Of the next four games, three are at home, with the only road game being against the Rams, who look worse than the Lions these days. 4-1 or even 5-0 seems likely once Baltimore comes to town in week 6, and maybe the "extended preseason" will help Favre adjust to his new surroundings and become a quarterback worthy of a $12 million paycheck. The thing is, I'm not sure at this point I want him to.

Lion in wait?

2009-09-19T11:29:00.003-04:00

So...the Lions.

We should win. It should be fairly easy. Right?

And, while it's a mostly meaningless stat, the last time Brett Favre lost to the Lions in a home game was -- never. He's 16-0 at home all time against Detroit, even if all those games took place in Lambeau Field. And Barry Sanders won't be suiting up in Honolulu Blue tomorrow.

But we remember last year. We remember the Vikings escaping the Lions with a pair of close victories, 12-10 and 20-16. And nobody wants to be "that team," the one that the Lions finally break their 18-game losing streak against.

(The record for consecutive losses is 26, set by the 1976-77 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If the Lions keep losing, then they'll be on a 25-game losing streak and looking to tie the record, in week 10 against -- you guessed it -- the Vikings.)

It should be fun to watch Matthew Stafford run for his life from the Viking defenders, hopefully never finding sufficient time to hook up with Calvin Johnson. Yes, the Lions scored 28 points last week, but that was against what can only charitably be called a "defense," or whatever it is that New Orleans puts out on the field when its opponents have the ball. The real Vikings defense -- discounting a punt-return TD and a garbage TD when most of the starters were out -- only allowed two field goals against Cleveland last week, and one of those came after the Browns got a short field on the failed surprise onside kick at the start of the game (which I don't think was an awful idea).

So we should stifle what passes for the Detroit offense. And Adrian Peterson should run wild. And Brett Favre should look like the Brett Favre of old, playing the defense like a pinball machine.

So why do I feel so nervous?

Fun with numbers (again)

2009-09-17T17:27:00.002-04:00

I haven't had much of a chance to play around with Pro-Football-Reference.com's new Play Index tools, but their recent blog post about week 1 stats inspired me to examine the Vikings' week 1 win over Cleveland in more detail:

* The Vikings have had 49 Week 1 games. Adrian Peterson's 180 yards is the highest total for a Viking running back in the team's first game. In fact, AP, holds three of the top 10 rushing totals for the franchise in Week 1 -- not bad, considering he's been in the league three years.

* In fact, only 13 players overall have rushed for 180 or more yards in Week 1. You all remember Norm Bulaich, don't you?

* Only three Vikings have had three rushing TDs in Week 1, as AP did, and only six have scored three TDs in Week 1 overall.

* On the other side of the coin, Brett Favre had the 45th most passing yards from a Vikings QB (in 49 games) in Week 1. Tarvaris Jackson checks in at #36 and #40.

* On the bright side, only 16 Vikings QBs (with at least 10 attempts) have gone without an interception in Week 1, as Favre did Sunday.

* OK, it's a little artificial, but no Viking has ever has ever had a stat line like Percy Harvin did Sunday in Week 1. It's fairly common overall, though.

The Great Boycott

2009-09-15T09:29:00.003-04:00

My mother threatened this when I talked to her a month or two back. But I didn't think she or my dad would actually follow through. Here's a rough transcript of a phone conversation with my dad from last night:

Me: So, what do you think about that new quarterback of ours?
Dad: I'm not even following the Vikings any more. I've been a Vikings fan for 40 years and I can't believe they went out and got that guy. I'm not paying any attention to them while he's on the team.

Mom wasn't home so I couldn't get her exact reaction. But I have to say, this is about as emotional as I've heard my father in years (even if it's closer to 50 years that he's been watching the Vikings than 40) and it scared me a little. He's already had one heart attack, he doesn't need another.

Do you know anyone else who's boycotting the Vikings while #4 is in town? Or at least is significantly diminishing their fandom because of it?

Vikings enforce Brown-out

2009-09-13T18:04:00.005-04:00

Now that's how you start a season.

Adrian Peterson had a great day, with a highlight-reel 64-yard run to put the effective nail in the coffin, and the defense stuffed the Browns' offense until a late, garbage-time TD. The quarterbacking and special teams? Well, that's another matter. But first the good.

Adrian Peterson. What more is there to say? Even if you want to stick AP with the "inconsistent" label, he had 116 yards on 24 carries, a 4.8 average, if you take away his 64-yarder. And boy, was that run a thing of beauty, especially the part where he casually threw aside the last Cleveland defender and then turned on the jets to outrun everyone to the end zone. Right now, there's definitely nobody in the NFL with his combination of strength and speed, and there might not have ever been anyone with his physical skills. And to think some idiots wanted the Vikings to take Brady Quinn in the 2007 draft...

("Some idiots" should include a link to my post on my SportingNews blog dating back to the '07 draft where I expounded just that idea. But SN is unavailable due to heavy traffic related to the start of the NFL season. Yet another good reason why I don't use that blog any more.)

The defense. Apart from that late Cleveland TD, when mostly backups were in the game, the defense allowed just 188 yards, forced three fumbles and a pick, and sacked Quinn five times. This unit looked lights out in the preseason and, apart from a 73-yard Cleveland drive in the second quarter, the first unit stymied the Browns all day long. (But see below.)

The rookies. I may be coming around on Percy Harvin. With Bernard Berrian out, he was practically our #1 receiver, and while his numbers -- 3 catches for 36 yards (and a TD) and 2 rushes for 22 yards -- weren't huge, he had that "exciting" look every time he touched the ball. His 33-yard average on three kick returns wasn't too shabby, either.

Phil Loadholt also looked good at right tackle. I'll admit to not paying too much attention to line play, but he did nothing to embarrass himself (unlike Ryan Cook most of last year) and when I did pay attention to him, he seemed to handle his man cleanly. A key factor in my appreciation for Percy Harvin will be the play of Phil Loadholt, to make me feel better about the team passing on Michael Oher in the first round. So far, so good.

And while he's not a rookie, how about Darius Reynaud? Oh my goodness, we might have a kick returner and a punt returner! And to think we gave up on Maurice Hicks...

Those were the good. Then there's the not-so-good:

Punt coverage. Let's get this one out of the way. Really, apart from that second-quarter TD return by Josh Cribbs, who's maybe the best return man in the game, the coverage units did pretty well. Cribbs' other two punt returns netted exactly zero total yards, and he managed just 23.3 yards on six kickoff returns. But hoo boy, did it seem like more of the same after that TD. I'll still hold my breath every time Chris Kluwe boots one...

The rush defense. OK, so they weren't exactly shredded, but how on earth does Jamal freakin' Lewis manage 5.2 yards per carry against us? Unacceptable!

Him. Wasn't Brett Favre supposed to stretch the field and keep the defense from stacking the line against Adrian Peterson (who never had any good rushing games with our usual assortment of medicore QBs)? Memory may fail me, but I can only recall about three or four passes that went longer than 10 yards downfield, with a lot of dump-offs and short passes and way too many sacks (4) for the number of dropbacks (25). I'd say two of the sacks weren't Favre's fault, but on the other two (the first two, if I recall), he had plenty of time.

Now, there are a few legitimate reasons for Favre's mediocre play. One is, as previously mentioned, the lack of Bernard Berrian. And Brian Billick (we'll get back to him in a minute) brought up a semi-good point when he mentioned that the reason Favre took one of his sacks was so that he wouldn't toss up one of his well-known no-chance passes for a sure-fire turnover. Finally, with Peterson running the ball like he did and the defense playing as well as it did, Favre didn't need to take big risks and go down the field with any risky plays; to his credit, I didn't see any of those "oh no"-type passes from Favre.

But if he's not going to provide an extra dimension to the passing game, why is Brett Favre here? Did he do anything today that Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels couldn't have done? We'll never know, of course, but if all we wanted from a QB is 110 passing yards per game, we sure didn't need to cough up $25 million for it. Last year, the Vikings' lowest net passing yards in a single games (subtracting sacks) was 104. Today, it was 85. This is progress?

(And going back to Brian Billick...I believe he had three "That's just Brett being Brett"s, two "He's only been here a month"s, and two or three "He needs to work with his receivers"es. Let the excuses ~~begin~~ continue!)

Cleveland's probably not a good team. Still, it's good to know that even when the QB is barely contributing, the Vikings can put up 34 points. It was a team effort -- offense, defense, and special teams -- and if the team looks like this all year long, I won't be disappointed.

Here we go!

2009-09-12T16:57:00.002-04:00

The start of the Vikings' 2009 season is less than 24 hours away, tantalizingly close. All the months of speculation, rumor, disappointment, and joy (though not necessarily in that order and not necessarily relating to the same events, depending on your point of view) are nearly ended. Starting tomorrow, the games count. Starting tomorrow, predictions and opinions become fact.

So it's just a short post for today. No stats, no worrying, not even a last chance to poke fun at Brett Favre, though I will have my bingo card handy -- OK, so maybe that is one last chance. But he can make me somewhat less grumpy with a good performance tomorrow. Heck, I might even believe he can get it done, at least for the games in which he chooses to play.

OK, I'll stop now. Are you ready for some football?

2009 Minnesota Vikings Preview

2009-09-09T15:02:00.004-04:00

While my NFL season predictions are usually significantly off, I've done a better job in recent years with my in-depth predictions and analysis of the Vikings going into the season:

2007 Vikings Predictions
2007 Results

2008 Vikings Predictions
2008 Results

Except where Adrian Peterson is concerned, I've done pretty well, injuries aside, in predicting individual stats of players and overall performance of the team, position by position. This year, I intend to be 15.37% better, with a margin of error of less than 6.71%.

(And I didn't just make those numbers up -- they've been in use for centuries.)

Here we go...

Quarterback
Brett Favre: 3,300 passing yards, 21 TDs, 19 Int.

Not much to talk about here, right?

As with all my position predictions, they're based on a full season of play, with no significant injuries or benchings. Whether Brett Favre will hold up for a whole season is unknown, but regardless of the quarterback, the Vikings passing numbers will probably look something like the above line, with maybe slightly fewer TDs and interceptions if Tarvaris Jackson plays a good portion of the season and higher interceptions if Sage Rosenfels is permitted to throw the ball (which he probably shouldn't be).

On the one level, Brett Favre will turn 40 a short time into the season, and 40-year-old players aren't particularly durable, especially ones who are coming off arm surgery. On the other hand, this is Brett Favre we're talking about, arguably the most durable player in NFL history. Still, if I had to put money on it, I'd bet on him missing maybe two to three games with injury and Tarvaris Jackson doing a reasonable job as a fill-in.

Truthfully, Brett Favre could swing either way -- he could be great, chucking 25-30 TDs, and he could be awful, chucking 25-30 interceptions. Unfortunately, there's absolutely zero chance of him being benched, because it's clear that he's got more pull than Brad Childress, so, barring an injury, he'll be under center all season.

Position grade: B-

Running Back
Adrian Peterson: 1,450 rushing yards, 200 receiving yards, 14 TDs
Chester Taylor: 500 rushing yards, 300 receiving yards, 6 TDs

The numbers for Adrian Peterson might seem a bit low, especially after he ran for 1,760 last year. But remember that, going into last year, nearly everyone (myself included) thought he would miss at least a few games (at the best) with an injury. Now, after being healthy for 16 games last year, everyone believes Peterson will do the same in 2009 and have completely forgotten his health concerns of 2007.

I believe that Peterson is neither especially fragile nor especially durable. Like most running backs, he'll probably miss a few series here and there, and maybe a game or two; with luck, the Vikings will do well enough that they can afford to rest him late in the season. Also, with Brett Favre in the lineup, the team will probably pass more, cutting into his numbers even further (because we all know that AP won't have a huge year just because Favre "opens up the field" for him).

Thus, we have my fairly conservative yardage total for Purple Jesus, along with a nice complementary stat line for Chester Taylor, whom I drafted in both my fantasy leagues this year, just in case the worst case scenario occurs. After doing his time on the practice squad, Albert Young has made the team as the #3 running back, with Ian Johnson lurking on the practice squad and ready for a call-up if something happens.

Position grade: A

Receivers
Bernard Berrian: 55 catches, 900 yards, 7 TDs
Sidney Rice: 25 catches, 350 yards, 1 TD
Bobby Wade: 40 catches, 550 yards, 3 TDs
Percy Harvin: 20 catches, 300 yards, 2 TDs
Visanthe Shiancoe: 35 catches, 550 yards, 6 TDs

Bernard Berrian gets paid a lot for a guy who's never had 1,000 yards receiving in a season -- and this year he might not, just for the simple reason that Vikings QBs will have a number of good-but-not-great targets to throw to this season.

Someone from the Vikings' second tier of receivers will have to step up this year. Bobby Wade is reliable but unexciting; Sidney Rice shows occasional flashes but isn't reliable; Percy Harvin might be exciting, but it remains to be seen if the Vikings will use him properly; and wide receivers Jaymer Johnson and Darius Reynaud will be used mostly on special teams. Visanthe Shiancoe emerged last year as an above-average target and, as Mark Chmura and Bubba Franks can attest, Brett loves throwing to his tight ends in the red zone!

Still, the offensive focus of the team will still be on the run, thus limiting any spectacular passing numbers from the receiving corps. It's amazing how much you have to rein in your predictions when you've established a likely maximum passing total for the team (in this case, about 3,500 yards) and have so many players to spread out your predictions for. This unit may still surprise in 2009, but it'll probably be mostly Bernard Berrian (on the weekends he's not invisible, as he was all too often last year) and whoever has the hot hand on a week-to-week basis.

Position grade: C+

Offensive Line

It's a changing of the guard in Vikingland, as Matt Birk finally steps away from his center position, after 11 years in purple. (Technically, he'll still be wearing purple, but you know what I mean.) Second-year man John Sullivan replaces him, while rookie Phil Loadholt mercifully steps into the right tackle spot previously held by the likes of Ryan Cook and Artis Hicks. I've only seen a little of Loadholt in preseason, but I'm impressed by the footwork and mobility from such a huge man. At the very least, he has to be an upgrade over Cook.

(Though I could ask why, if it only took $12 million over three years to keep Birk, why didn't we re-sign him? It's not like we didn't have twice as much money to throw at another aging star...)

The left side of the line is solid as ever, with Steve Hutchinson and Bryant McKinnie. If Loadholt and Sullivan can get it done, the O-line could be one of the best in the league.

Position grade: B+

Defensive Line

Here's where the real fun begins. Jared Allen is a beast. Pat Williams and Kevin Williams are probably the best interior tackle combination in the league. And Ray Edwards...well, he's all right, I suppose. As I said last year, he's effectively interchangeable with Brian Robison, and the pair combined for 7.5 sacks. Assuming that suspensions don't rob us of the "Williams Wall" in 2009 -- and it looks like they won't -- this has the makings to be a dominant defensive line, playing equally well against the run and the pass.

Backups Jayme Mitchell, Fred Evans, and Letroy Guion hopefully won't see too much time on the field, but even if they do, the presence of the other members of the line could open up some nice opportunities for them. Overall, this is going to be a fun group to watch, swallowing up running backs (perhaps literally, if Pat Williams has skipped lunch) and chasing opposing QBs all day long.

Position grade: A+

Linebacker

If EJ Henderson can recover from the dislocated toe that cost him most of 2008 -- and really, unless you're Deion Sanders, a bad toe doesn't sound like a career-threatening injury -- he might still only be the second-best linebacker on the field for the Vikings in 2009. In Henderson's absence, Chad Greenway emerged as a force to be reckoned with in 2008, notching 84 tackles and 5 1/2 sacks and seemingly being in on every play, both on his side of the field and elsewhere. He'll probably never be considered an elite linebacker, but as long as he flies around the field like he does, I'll be OK with his lack of recognition.

Ben Leber fills out the other linebacker spot, and he's an underrated player who I think would get more attention if he didn't have such stellar teammates. Unfortunately, as shown last year when Henderson went down (Napoleon Harris!), the team's depth at linebacker is almost non-existant. Erin Henderson, Jasper Brinkley, and special-teams ace Heath Farwell are penciled into the backup spots, but that pencil will need an eraser if something goes wrong with the "big three." Let's hope it doesn't.

Position grade: A-

Secondary

With Darren Sharper signing with New Orleans, Tyrell Johnson steps into his vacated safety spot. Johnson looked a little overwhelmed at times last year, having to start as a rookie in place of the injured Madieu Williams. Hopefully, he's used that extra year to learn the position and can take over admirably for the departed Sharper. Williams, his safety-mate, was solid after returning from a back injury that cost him the first half of the season.

The other two corners are the same as last year, if not a little more well paid. Both Cedric Griffin and Antoine Winfield signed big deals in the offseason that will keep them both in Viking purple for years to come. That could be a questionable decision in the future, with Winfield having just turned 32 and Griffin not being able to keep up with elite receivers at times last year, but both should provide at least decent play for a couple more years, provided the defensive line can keep quarterbacks on their toes. And Winfield should be good for at least half a dozen or so highlight-reel tackles each year.

As with the linebackers, depth is a major issue at the position. Benny Sapp and Karl Paymah will likely compete for the nickel and dime spots, and neither one exactly inspires confidence. An interesting player is third-round draft pick Asher Allen, tabbed as "Antoine Winfield, Jr." because of his relatively small size (5'10").

Position grade: B

Special Teams

Speaking of Darren Sharper, remember when the Vikings signed him in 2005 and everyone thought, "Oh, no, a Packer!" (Well, I did anyway.) Then we signed Ryan Longwell in 2006. And this year...well, you know. Suffice to say, Longwell's earned his keep as a Viking, converting 84.3% of field goal attempts in three years, including 6-of-6 last year from over 50 yards. Do you think he prefers the dome to Lambeau Field?

Chris Kluwe had an up-and-down year last season. His 47.6 yards per punt were phenomenal, but he was often blamed for several huge returns, including four touchdowns. While I'll admit that hang time is a good thing, the difference between "booming a punt" and "outkicking the coverage" is usually dependent on how well the rest of your team covers downfield. A healthy Heath Farwell, who missed all of last season, should do wonders for the coverage unit.

After a predictably awful year of letting Maurice Hicks return kickoffs, the Vikings are turning to rookies Percy Harvin as their primary kick returner and Percy Harvin as the punt returner. Both might switch off at the position in 2009, with Darius Reynaud likely also getting some touches as a return man.

Position grade: B-

Overall
Let's face it: Even without Brett Favre, this was looking like the most stacked Vikings team in recent history. The addition of Favre will probably provide confidence, if not actual performance, to an already potent team, but health, as always, will be a key component to a successful season.

So far, at least, the Vikings have been fortunate in that regards. Going into last year, Heath Farwell and Madeiu Williams were unavailable, and EJ Henderson only lasted until the fourth game. While none of them are as important to the team as Adrian Peterson or Jared Allen, enough little injuries can pile up to the point that they have a significant effect on the team. And three of the Vikings' main issues from last year -- special teams coverage, pass defense, and poor middle-linebacker play -- can be, in part, directly attributed to those three injuries.

Then there's the quarterback position. I won't get into my views on Brett Favre -- you're either sick of them already or you agree with me 100% -- and there's no way to actually simulate how the Vikings would have been with Favre and without him. I stand by my assertion, though, that any positive effect he has on the team will be strictly mental. People, probably including opposing defenses and coaches, will respect the name of Brett Favre, even if the player is a shell of his former self. His half-game-plus of play against the Texans was nice, but that needs to carry on over a full season, or about 30 times as much as it did two Mondays ago. I'll try to resist the urge to throw something at the TV every time he makes a bonehead play (especially when the announcers write it off as "having fun" or other nonsense), but this could be the most trying season ever for me as a Vikings fan -- amazing when you consider that, by and large, the team's got a very good chance of going to the Super Bowl.

At the very least, this team won't be boring this season, that's for sure.

Projected Finish:
11-5, 1st in NFC North

2009 NFL Predictions

2009-09-08T15:14:00.004-04:00

I'll give the same disclaimer (or excuse) for these predictions that I gave last year: Predictions are silly and only half-educated guesses that are only revisited by the predictor when they go spectacularly right. Of course, I won't be like that; I'll actually revisit mine in February, but that's a long ways off. For now, bask in my half-educatedness!

y - Division Winner
x - Wild Card

AFC East
1. New England - y
2. Buffalo - x
3. Miami
4. NY Jets

Sure, there's a school of though that says the Patriots won't come all the way back to where they were in 2007. And they won't, but a healthy Tom Brady should be good for at least 12-13 wins. Miami overachieved last year, I think, and the Jets will have a rookie QB under center, which rarely works unless you only consider last year. The Bills in the playoffs? Sure, why not? Terrell Owens is always good for his new team, at least for a year.

AFC North
1. Pittsburgh - y
2. Cleveland
3. Baltimore
4. Cincinnati

After Pittsburgh, this is a tough division to call. Cincinnati and Cleveland both had a ton of injuries last year and should rebound fairly well, while people will soon realize that Joe Flacco wasn't really all that good. Still, I could see 2-4 in just about any order. (What a cop-out!)

AFC South
1. Tennessee - y
2. Indianapolis - x
3. Jacksonville
4. Houston

Just because nobody expects Tennessee to repeat, I have to pick them. What people don't realize is the amazing offensive line they had last year -- Titans QBs were only sacked on 2.6% of their dropbacks in 2009, compared to a league average of 5.9%. And I think the loss of Tony Dungy will weaken Indy just enough to keep them as a 10-11 win team. Jacksonville probably wasn't as bad as it showed last year, and I'm tired of waiting for Houston to finally do something.

AFC West
1. San Diego - y
2. Oakland
3. Denver
4. Kansas City

Like the AFC North, here's another sure-fire division winner and three also-rans. The difference is that I think the AFCN teams might be pretty good, overall, while Oakland, Denver, and Kansas City could all finish under .500.

~~Joe Buck Division~~ NFC East
1. Philadelphia - y
2. Dallas - x
3. NY Giants
4. Washington

I think Philly has the potential to be the best team in the NFC (along with another you can probably guess), largely on the strength of their defense. And I think that the loss of T.O. won't hurt the Cowboys as much as people think, while the loss of Plaxico Burress has already shown that it hurts the Giants. And the Redskins? Well, who knows what Daniel Snyder's doing up in DC.

NFC North
1. Minnesota - y
2. Green Bay
3. Chicago
4. Detroit

Even Brett Favre can't screw this team up too badly -- I think. I admit that I'm very close to picking Green Bay as my wild card, but I think the defense will let them down just a little too often this year; still, 9-10 wins is likely. The QB with the second-most interceptions in the league in 2008, behind Favre, was Jay Cutler. This probably means that the Packers' defense is a nice sleeper pick in fantasy football. But not the Lions' defense. Stay away from the Lions' defense. (OK, really, I think any team, the Lions included, are capable of about 4 wins.)

NFC South
1. Atlanta - y
2. New Orleans - x
3. Carolina
4. Tampa Bay

New Orleans has no defense and no running game, but man, can Drew Brees chuck it! Still, those shortcomings will be enough to keep them out of the top spot in the division, which I think goes to Atlanta, which only helped itself by bringing aboard Tony Gonzalez to help out Matt Ryan. Jake Delhomme is Brett Favre, Jr., capable of easily losing a game with an interception-fest, like he did in the playoffs against Arizona last year. I think this year will be more "bad Jake" than "good Jake." Tampa Bay is the definition of "rebuilding." Remember what I said about the Lions winning maybe 4 games this year? The Bucs would likely kill for that.

NFC West
1. Seattle - y
2. Arizona
3. San Francisco
4. St. Louis

I agonized over this one for a while, but in the end I picked Seattle to rebound from its injury-plagued 2008, in part because I needed to pick a fourth new division winner and in part because -- let's face it people -- nobody really knows how Arizona suddenly played well last January after being kicked around like a rag doll in December. San Fran's a trendy pick this year, but I don't know if I buy them just yet. And St. Louis might fight with Tampa Bay for the #1 draft pick. Marc Bulger looks absolutely finished.

Well, that's it! Check back with me in six months to see how stupid I was!

Minnesota 23, Pauluscuse 20 (OT)

2009-09-05T18:41:00.004-04:00

Just wondering if anyone else caught the game between the University of Minnesota and the Pauluscuse Pauluses, which were quarterbacked by Greg Paulus, who used to go to Paulus University to play Paulusball but transferred to where he Paulused up as a kid and Paulused his high school Paulusball team to the Paulus championship when he was just a wee Paulus?

Wait, Minnesota won the game? I wonder if they snuck that information in while they were Paulusing Greg Paulus. And by "Paulusing" I mean *expletive deleted*ing his *expletive deleted*.

UPDATE: And it looks like John David Booty, as well as several others, is now unemployed, which looks to me to be the right move. Thanks to Vikings Gab for the heads-up.

The quarterback conundrum

2009-09-04T12:47:00.004-04:00

Four quarterbacks and (probably) only three spots to keep them. What's a team to do?

It's not news that the Vikings are asking teams about a potential trade for Tarvaris Jackson before the Saturday cuts. If the return is what we're hearing -- at best, a second-day, probably 5th round or later pick -- then that limits their options greatly. If the team can't work out a trade for Jackson, one of the other QBs has to go, and Brett Favre won't be one of them. And because Sage Rosenfels is on the hook for $9 million over the next two years, he probably won't go either. That leaves Jackson and John David Booty as the odd men out.

(By the way, can I just take a minute to say how much I hate Yahoo's new team page layout? Let's see, no schedule, no pulldown list so I can easily float to other teams' pages...good job taking useful features away just so I could be sure to know that Taylor Melhaff has been cut!)

No matter what happens this year, there is basically zero chance of Tarvaris Jackson being a Viking in 2010. He's in the last year of his rookie contract and, really, if you'd been treated the way he had -- being cast aside not once but twice this offseason -- wouldn't you like to get a fresh start somewhere else? This is probably also the limiting factor in trade talks. Any team that acquires Jackson will only have his services, probably as a backup QB, for 2009, with no guarantee that he'll stick around past that, or even that you'll want him to stick around. That doesn't give the Vikings a lot of leverage.

But the Vikings are a team that's thinking of winning the Super Bowl this year. Teams don't often go to their third-string quarterbacks, but if something happens to Favre and if Rosenfels can't get it done, who would you want leading the team in December? Say what you will about Jackson, but I think we'd all have more confidence in him right now than in Booty.

So could Booty survive a trip to the practice squad? Memories are fresh of the Vikings trying to sneak Tyler Thigpen there a few years ago, only to have the Chiefs snatch him up on waivers. At this point, Thigpen looks like at least a decent backup QB/spot starter -- not bad for a seventh-round pick, but not exactly someone we're regretting losing. Booty's name recognition as a former USC quarterback probably would make it even tougher for us to stash him away on the practice squad, but would there really be any harm done in losing him? As I pointed out just after he was drafted, fifth-round QBs rarely develop into anything resembling a quality player, so his loss would probable have minimal impact. And he's not going to be the starter next year either, not with Favre and Rosenfels around, so do we keep him sitting around for a total of three years collecting dust and then hope he can turn into something useful?

I say no. Unless he shows something amazing in tonight's final preseason game, I think the Vikings' best option is to try and stick Booty on the practice squad and hope he gets through. If he doesn't, it's not a big deal -- we can replace him easily enough with a second-day QB pick in next year's draft. Whoever that is will have a year of tutelage under Favre and Rosenfels and then might be ready to contribute in 2011. Otherwise, quite frankly, John David Booty is just wasting a roster spot for the next two years.