2010 Season Predictions

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!

Tarvaris Jackson for Brady Quinn?

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.

Brett Favre might be good

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...

Fun with numbers (again)

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 quarterback conundrum

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.

Monday night pre-reactions

Brett Favre will play the entire first half against the Houston Texans on Monday Night Football tomorrow. Since I've got some time now, I've decided to be proactive with my analysis of Favre's play with three possible reactions:

a) Favre plays well (roughly 150+ yards, 2+ TDs, 0 Int.)

Granted, it's just one preseason game, but it's nice to see that there might actually be something to Favre's whole "I don't need training camp" mentality. Coming off his lackluster debut last week, he needed to show something, not really because the team needs hit to do well right now, but because they need to convince the anti-Favre faction (like yours truly) that he actually can be a force for good and not for evil. I still have my reservations, and I still don't know that he can hold up for the entire season (not to mention 2010), but right now, I'll take any good I can get.

b) Favre plays OK (100-150 yards, 0-1 TDs, 0-1 Int.)

Granted, it's just one preseason game, but Favre still certainly needs some work with his team. His hit-and-miss play isn't what I, for one, am looking for from a guy making $12 million this year; Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels probably could have done the same for a lot less. There's still room for improvement, and the deal might not be a total waste, but I expect more. Here's hoping Favre can get enough done over the next two weeks and be ready to perform in Cleveland for the season opener.

c) Favre plays poorly (less than 100 yards, 0 TDs, 2+ Int.)

Granted, it's just one preseason game, but is this why we endured the months of drama? Yes, the Favre-backers will point to it being a preseason game (and that every missed pass was the receivers' fault), but come on -- at least some of the blame has to go on the QB. Yes, it is still just the third week of preseason, but if this doesn't look better (next week against Dallas and most importantly, week 1 against Cleveland), this could go down as the worst transaction in Vikings history since the Herschel Walker trade.

Yes, I know that not all my statistical benchmarks cover all situations, but they should mostly suffice.

The debut

Honestly, I won't write too much into four passes in a pre-season game (and Kevin Seifert does a good job of explaining those four passes here), but suffice to say Brett Favre didn't do anything to change my opinion of his eroding skills Friday night against the Chiefs. That said, I did fill in two spaces on my Favre Bingo card, which is a little disheartening considering the brevity of his debut.

But wow, didn't Tarvaris Jackson look good? I only watched the first half (and thanks to the guys at Awful Announcing for the streaming video!), so I didn't see the long TD pass to Darius Reynaud. Admittedly, he stayed in the game long after the Chiefs' starters had departed, but it's still a little depressing to think that he could be the best quarterback on the team. I wonder what uniform he'll be wearing next week?

The pain! Make it stop!

It's like a disease that just won't go away.

ESPN is also reporting that Brett Favre's agent, Bus Cook, says that Favre still has no intention of going to the Vikings and that the Vikings' front office hasn't made any offers to Favre since breaking off talks a few months ago. So, in all likelihood, this is just a few players spreading rumors after being dissatisfied with the team's quarterbacking in Friday's preseason game against Indianapolis, despite Sage Rosenfels looking solid and Tarvaris Jackson slightly less so.

Chris Mortensen also reports that, according to some Vikings players, that Favre would have joined the team if he could have avoided training camp, which is sticking with his M.O. of doing as little work as possible to play on Sundays. His legendary status as a classic improviser has been so ingrained in him by the media and fans that he doesn't believe he needs to practice or learn a playbook, he'll just do something wacky when a play breaks down and, even if he throws a left-handed interception, people will just shake their heads at him and smile. It's just "Brett bring Brett," after all.

What is needed is for that paragon of discipline, Brad Childress, to speak to his team (and, only somewhat less importantly, the media) and say this to them: "Brett Favre is not joining this team. Our quarterbacks are Sage Rosenfels, Tarvaris Jackson, and John David Booty. That is not going to change. End of story. Deal with it." Of course, that will only be effective if Vikings' management takes the same stance, which, at least for the moment, appears to be the case. But, as always with Brett Favre, things can change at any time, and we won't know anything for sure until the first regular-season game, against Cleveland, on Sept. 13.

The non-news update

Two things happened in Vikingland over the weekend. One is important but not unusual, and the other is probably even less important but will have the strong likelihood of erecting mountains where molehills once stood.

* Percy Harvin agreed to a five-year deal with the Vikings today, after missing just two days of training camp. While it's certainly good to have Harvin in camp, his lateness in securing a contract hardly registers as a blip on the notability radar. All the usual pleasantries are brought up in the article ("Coach Brad Childress has said that it was important for Harvin...to get into camp as soon as possible"; "Segal [Harvin's agent] said his client was ready to hit the field immediately") but Harvin's participated in all the team's other off-season activities so his absence will have no effect on his performance this season and beyond. Furthermore, 11 of 32 first-round picks have yet to sign deals with the teams that drafted them, all of them higher picks than Harvin.

I've been skeptical of Harvin, partially due to his off-the-field issues and partially because I lack the confidence to believe in Brad Childress and Darrell Bevell's ability to use him properly. And there have been legitimate rookie holdouts in the past. But if Harvin does have a subpar year, it won't be because of this insignificant "holdout."

* Then there's the story that won't die. This article, which is the top story on ESPN's NFL page, cites the usual contempt the media has for the Vikings' quarterback situation, lamenting the absence of Brett Favre, who we all know would have led the Vikings to a 17-0 record in the regular season and won the Super Bowl twice in the same year. It was posted at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Which is about the same time I heard news of this. And yes, for the first time in my life, I got legitimately worried about Tarvaris Jackson's health.

It wasn't because of the severity of the injury. It's supposed to be a grade 1 (least severe) MCL sprain, meaning that, at most, Jackson will probably miss a little practice and then be back in action. The article even says, "Jackson missed the Vikings’ practice on Saturday night. If he can’t go for the team’s lone practice on Sunday, [Sage] Rosenfels and [John David] Booty will get all the work." Can't be all that serious if they're not even sure he's going to miss any time.

But why should that stop ESPN from reigniting the speculation that nobody wants to hear? When I watched the evening SportsCenter, here's how the lead story went, in a conversation between the lead anchor and a reporter on the scene at Vikings' camp (sorry for not remembering the names):

Anchor: What's the word on Jackson's health?

Reporter: They're saying it's a grade 1 MCL sprain. [10 seconds on how minor that is]

Anchor: I have to ask -- have there been any phone calls to Hattiesburg from Viking camp?

Reporter: Oh, I bet there have been plenty!

Ha ha. I changed the channel at that point. Because you all know that, if Tarvaris Jackson develops an ingrown toenail or Sage Rosenfels gets indigestion, it'll be time to panic and call up ol' #4.

If a legitimate injury happens to both Jackson and Rosenfels, then I would actually be a little more on board with the notion of calling up you-know-who. Since that hasn't happened, well, there's not much to report.

Can you win with mediocre QB play?

In all likelihood, the Vikings will have mediocre quarterback play in 2009. Some people (myself included) think that would have been the case whether or not the team signed Brett Favre, but even the most ardent Sage Rosenfels/Tarvaris Jackson supporters admit they aren't going to turn into Peyton Manning or Drew Brees overnight. With most Viking fans thinking the 2009 version of the team is the strongest in a long time at running the ball and playing defense, the common wisdom is that the only thing potentially holding the team back is the quarterback.

But how much will the quarterbacking hold the team back? There have been plenty of teams, even in the recent, pass-happy NFL, that went a long ways -- and even all the way -- with so-so quarterbacking and a stout defense and/or running game. Recent versions of Baltimore, Chicago, and Tampa Bay teams all spring to mind.

Here are the list of quarterbacks who've acquired Super Bowl rings in the last decade:

Ben Roethlisberger
Eli Manning
Peyton Manning
Tom Brady
Brad Johnson
Trent Dilfer
Kurt Warner

Three of those, I'd say -- Warner, Peyton Manning, and Brady -- have played at an elite level for a good chunk of their careers. Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, and Johnson have been OK-but-not-great, and then there's everyone's favorite whipping boy, Trent Dilfer. That makes over half of the SB-winning quarterbacks of the last decade in the above-average-but-not-great category. Could Sage or Tarvaris fall into this category and maybe play well enough, with a good supporting cast, to take the Vikings to the promised land? Of course, they could -- anything's possible, after all -- but this is still a pretty small sample size to go on and there were several teams that almost made it to the big game, if not for a small blip along the way in the playoffs. If not for the "Tuck Rule" and the "Proehl Rule," we might see Rich Gannon or even Shaun King (!) on this list.

So how good can a team be with iffy quarterbacking? I decided to set the bar of a "good team" as a team that either a) won at least 12 games in the regular season; or b) advanced to its conference championship game (or beyond). That would qualify any team that had a good regular season or a good postseason, at least by most people's definitions, and both criteria would be above and beyond anything the Vikings have done since 2001. Frankly, I'd be happy with that.

60 teams meet these criteria over the last 10 years. I judged their passing prowess both by their team passer rating and their Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt. Here's the list, sorted by passer rating.

Year	Team	PassRate	ANYA
2004	Indianapolis	119.7	8.7
2007	New England	116.0	8.0
1999	St. Louis	106.6	7.3
2005	Indianapolis	103.3	7.3
2001	St. Louis	102.2	6.8
2004	San Diego	102.0	7.0
2006	Indianapolis	101.0	7.4
2003	Tennessee	100.3	7.2
2003	Indianapolis	99.0	6.8
2002	Oakland	97.2	6.5
2007	Dallas	97.1	6.5
2005	Seattle	96.8	6.5
2004	Philadelphia	96.4	6.5
2008	Arizona	96.1	6.5
2007	Indianapolis	96.1	6.5
2007	Green Bay	95.9	6.6
2001	San Francisco	95.0	6.1
2006	New Orleans	94.9	6.9
2000	Minnesota	94.7	6.3
2001	Green Bay	94.1	6.4
2004	Pittsburgh	93.2	5.9
2006	San Diego	93.0	6.3
2004	New England	92.5	6.4
2003	Kansas City	92.4	6.6
2000	Oakland	92.0	6.1
2005	Pittsburgh	89.4	6.1
2005	Denver	88.9	6.3
1999	Indianapolis	88.5	6.4
2005	Jacksonville	88.4	6.0
2006	New England	88.3	5.6
2008	NY Giants	88.2	5.7
2005	Carolina	88.1	5.9
2002	Green Bay	86.6	5.3
2002	Tampa Bay	86.3	5.3
2002	Philadelphia	85.9	5.4
2001	New England	85.3	5.0
2008	Carolina	84.7	6.4
2006	Baltimore	84.6	5.6
2003	New England	84.3	5.4
2002	Tennessee	83.9	5.5
2001	Philadelphia	83.4	5.0
2001	Pittsburgh	83.4	5.6
2000	Tennessee	83.2	5.6
2000	NY Giants	83.1	5.4
1999	Tennessee	83.1	5.7
2008	Baltimore	82.8	5.2
1999	Jacksonville	82.3	5.5
2008	Pittsburgh	81.9	5.1
2008	Philadelphia	81.4	5.4
2007	San Diego	81.3	5.1
2003	St. Louis	81.0	4.9
2003	Philadelphia	80.5	5.1
2003	Carolina	79.6	5.2
2008	Tennessee	78.8	5.5
1999	Tampa Bay	76.5	4.0
2001	Chicago	76.0	4.5
2006	Chicago	73.5	4.7
2007	NY Giants	73.0	4.3
2000	Baltimore	72.7	3.9
2004	Atlanta	72.0	4.1

Super Bowl-winning teams are indicated in bold. The average for this list is 89.3 passer rating and 5.9 ANYA. Surprisingly, for Super Bowl winners, the averages are 87.3 and 5.7. Super Bowl winners were actually worse, on average, than the typical "good team" over this span, at least in terms of quarterbacking!

The last two Super Bowl winners have actually been some of the worst teams at passing the ball, at least in the regular season. Eli Manning had a spectacular 2007 postseason, but Ben Roethlisberger didn't, and, again, that 2000 Baltimore team was laughably bad. We also tend to forget that Tom Brady really wasn't all that early in his career, as evidenced by the so-so showings of his 2001 and 2003 championship teams; those teams were 6th and 1st in points allowed, making Brady more of a "game manager" than a truly elite player in those seasons.

The average league passer rating over this span is somewhere in the high-70s range, so most of these teams at least featured slightly above average passing games, but, with the exception of Peyton Manning's 2006 Colts and Kurt Warner's 1999 Rams, and arguably, Brady's 2004 Patriots, most of the teams to win the big game have featured solid, but not spectacular passing.

Here are some notable quarterbacks' career numbers. Remember that the average QB on a "good" team from 1999 to 2008 had an 89.3 passer rating and 5.9 ANYA:

Brett Favre: 85.4, 5.9
Tarvaris Jackson: 76.5, 5.0
Sage Rosenfels: 81.2, 5.7

Favre's numbers certainly are better than the others', but he's still only about average, or slightly below. Even Jackson and Rosenfels grade out better than Trent Dilfer and Eli Manning in their Super Bowl years. When you take recent events into consideration -- like Favre over the past four years (79.5 passer rating, 5.0 ANYA) and Jackson's late-2008 surge, he looks like even less necessary.

A number of things still need to come together for the Vikings to make an impact this season, but central to all discussion will be the quarterback play. While it would certainly be nice to have a better quarterback situation than what the team currently has, there's (still...still) no evidence to suggest that Brett Favre would have improved the team or even if he was all that necessary to start with. The Vikings have two quarterbacks who, provided they don't completely fall off the wagon, are capable of leading an otherwise-talented team to a good season or even the promised land of the Super Bowl, even if they don't improve much on their career numbers.

It's over...maybe

So, now that the story of the summer has concluded, the Vikings can just go back to preparing for the upcoming season without the specter of Brett Favre hanging over their heads. Now, Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels can compete for the starting job without looking over their shoulders at the retired legend waiting in the wings.

Right?

Well...

It doesn't take three months to determine you can "never get over the mental hump" of another season, as Favre said -- well, OK, for Brett Favre, it might, but even that's stretching a little bit. More likely, the Vikings didn't offer him enough money or offer to rename the team the "Minnesota Bretts" or whatever absurd additional clause he demanded for his services (guaranteed starting job, perhaps?).

And then there's this. If you don't throw up a little watching this video, well, then I don't know you.

He is going to stay retired. However, he told [Steve] Mariucci that he is going to keep throwing and that he is going to continue to work out. He says he is torn about his decision. Mooch asked him about, "What will you feel like tomorrow when you wake up after having made this decision," and Brett replied to him, "I wonder how I'm going to feel about this tomorrow morning."

And then Rich Eisen laughs. He laughs hard. So, after, let's say, 80 days of waffling, he's not "mentally prepared" to come back to the NFL. 81 days, though? That might be completely different. Or it might not. Who know?

I used to work with a guy who was almost late with everything. Almost late with projects for work, almost late to the airport, almost late for appointments. It wasn't because he was slow or overworked, it was because he'd waste time -- literally, I'd drift by his computer in the afternoon and see him working on an online crossword puzzle or somesuch -- and then, he'd rush through it, pull something together at the last minute and, because he worked so hard and was so tired after everything he put into it, he'd come off looking like a hero for getting it done.

That guy reminds me of Brett Favre.

I have no doubt -- none -- that as soon as the first significant injury to a quarterback for a contending team happens in the NFL (to a team that isn't run by a desperate or incompetent coach -- I doubt Bill Belichek would have called Favre's number last year after Tom Brady went down), we'll be right back into Favrewatch. Favre doesn't want the grind of training camp or to put the same work into the season that everyone else does. He just wants to ride in as the conquering hero, the cavalry surging over the hill, the golden boy rescuing a team from itself. And if he happens to play poorly, well, that's not his fault...the poor guy's having to learn an offense on the fly, how could he be expected to do that?

Answer: By being in training camp, practices, and so on all off-season and not pretending he doesn't need them.

Still, whatever may come tomorrow -- and you better believe something will come -- the Vikings are back to where they were three months ago with Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels. And regardless of what you think of either of them, you better hope neither of them goes down with an injury in the preseason.

Another possible implication

I'm probably dwelling too much on the worst-case scenario, but consider this:

Tarvaris Jackson is a free agent after 2009. Suppose that, somehow, he emerges as a good quarterback this year -- either the team doesn't sign Brett Favre and T-Jack wins the starting job or Favre does come in and is replaced by T-Jack, either due to injury or ineffectiveness.

So, after the 2009 season, you're Tarvaris Jackson and you're a relatively sought-after free-agent quarterback. Will you sign with:

a) The team that tried to cast you aside twice to pursue an aging legend; or
b) One of 31 other options.

Of course, another alternative is that T-Jack does nothing to make the Vikings wish to retain his services. One way or another, I'd wager that 2009 will be T-Jack's last season in purple. Maybe that's not a bad thing, but you never know.

Fun with numbers

Using the Historical Data Dominator:

* Only Eric Dickerson, Edgerrin James, and Earl Campbell have ever rushed for more yards in their first two seasons in the league than Adrian Peterson.

* Peterson already ranks ninth on the team's all-time rushing leaders list, and could vault all the way up to fourth if he amasses more than 1,445 yards in 2009.

* Bernard Berrian was a major deep threat in 2008, but he doesn't compare to John Gilliam in Vikings lore. Among pass-catchers with at least 25 receptions in a season, Gilliam owns the #2, #3, and #4 seasons in yards per reception. Berrian clocks in at #9.

* Who's the Vikings' single-season leader in receptions by a tight end? Nope, it's not Steve Jordan. Not Jermaine Wiggins. Not even Byron Chamberlain. It's Joe Senser. Who?

* Last year, I ran a comparison using the HDD and comparing quarterbacks with numbers similar to Tarvaris Jackson's in his second year. Running a similar comparison based on last year's numbers gives me a much smaller, not to mention less favorable (John Fourcade?!) list, partially because of Jackson's limited playing time.

Expanding the comparison to take Jackson's three years and total stats into account, I get this larger list of "similar quarterbacks" through their third years. The results are a little more favorable -- Steve Young and Roman Gabriel stand out -- and includes several decent-but-not-great QBs who experienced some success in their careers: Steve Beuerlein, Bobby Hebert, Elvis Grbac, and Kordell Stewart.

I tried the same trick with Sage Rosenfels, but it's an iffier proposition with him, because there aren't very many eight-year veterans who have only thrown 500-odd passes. His list is understandably small and undistinguished and includes a few QBs -- like A.J. Feeley and Matt Cavanaugh -- who were career backups given the occasional chance to start, with predictable results. This only further cements my notion that Tarvaris Jackson is probably the best option the Vikings have at QB.

* And finally...here are all the seasons ever turned in by 40-year-old quarterbacks. Gee, good thing we don't have one of those!

The case for Tarvaris Jackson

Brett Favre. Sage Rosenfels. Tarvaris Jackson.

No, that's not just a naked attempt to SEO-itize this post (though if you want to click on it a few thousand times, I won't stop you). Those are the three men who could start at quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings in their first regular-season game of 2009, September 13 against Cleveland.

I have no idea which one will be the starter. Nobody does. There are plenty of opinions out there, though, about who should be the starter. A lot of Vikings fans want Brett Favre. Most of those who don't, or who don't think the Vikings will sign Favre, favor Sage Rosenfels.

Tarvaris Jackson, meanwhile, has been left out in the cold. That might be just, but then again, it might not. At the very least, Tarvaris Jackson should still be an unanswered question for the Vikings, not a foregone conclusion.

For most purposes of this discussion, I'm not going to include Brett Favre. First of all, he's not on the team. Also, people who want Favre want him, and people who don't want him don't, and no argument is going to change either side's opinions. It's no secret where I stand on the matter, but that's more due to the current state of Favre's play (and health) than an intrinsic hatred of #4. If we could get the 1999 Brett Favre instead of the 2009 Brett Favre, I'd fly down to Kiln, kidnap Deanna Favre, and hold her ransom until Brett joined to the team.

As a result, most of my discussion will be to compare Tarvaris Jackson to Sage Rosenfels, which are currently the two best options the Vikings have at quarterback. (Jay Cutler ain't walking through that door.) I have no particular dislike of Sage. My issue is that I feel too many people feel that he represents an automatic upgrade over Tarvaris Jackson, not so much because Rosenfels is that good -- even hardcore Sage-backers agree that he's not -- but that Jackson is that bad, that he's utterly useless to an NFL franchise and that Rosenfels is clearly the better option. People are more "anti-Jackson" than they are "pro-Rosenfels."

Why is that? Here are the main arguments against Jackson, as I see them:

1) Rosenfels is strong armed and more accurate than Jackson. I haven't watched enough of Rosenfels to really be able to judge his arm strength, though Jackson looks pretty good here. In terms of completion percentage, he does have an edge on T-Jack (62.5 to 58.4).

But look at the career splits for Rosenfels: 49.5% completion percentage as a Miami Dolphin, compared to 65.6% as a Texan. The sample size is small, admittedly (only 109 passes with the Dolphins), but he almost certainly got a boost moving from the moribund Dolphins offenses of 2002-2005 (which Gus Frerotte also had a hand in) to the Houston Texans and having Andre Johnson and Owen Daniels to throw to. Yes, I said Owen Daniels. Few things have the potential to drive up a quarterback's completion percentage like having a tight end who's caught 133 balls over the past two seasons. and Steve Slaton sucking up 50 balls in his 2008 rookie season didn't hurt either.

Compare that to the receivers Jackson has had during his starting career. For reference, look at that video again. And clearly, Jackson has had some very inaccurate days. But are those days in the past? Well...

2) Sure, Jackson looked good in December of 2008, but he did it against some poor defenses. True. For the record, T-Jack was 57 of 89 (64.0%) for 740 yards, 8 TDs, and 1 interception in effectively 3 1/2 games, for a passer rating of 115.4.

Obviously, that's really good. But his best games came against Detroit (in one half), Arizona, Atlanta, and the Giants. In terms of opposing passer rating in 2008, those teams were #32, #30, #18, and #7, respectively. And the Giants played their backups for most of the second half.

Regardless, this is a huge step up from Jackson's previous performances, whether against good or bad pass defenses. Given a full season against a wide variety of defenses, I wouldn't expect him to have a 115.4 rating, but, given the rest of the Vikings' strengths, 30 points lower than that would be acceptable. (Jay Cutler, FYI, had an 86.0 passer rating in 2008.) But you can't completely discount his strong finish to the season because they were against soft defenses. Good quarterbacks should carve those kind of teams up.

3) Jackson was awful against the Eagles in that playoff game. Get rid of him. Yes, he was awful. So were a lot of quarterbacks against the #4 defense, by opposing passer rating, in 2008. Eli Manning actually had a worse game against the Eagles the next week, but I haven't heard any calls for his ouster.

A related note is that Jackson clearly doesn't have "it," where "it" is defined as what it takes for a quarterback to "win the big one," "take his team to the next level," and so on, as evidenced by his poor play in that playoff game. At one point in their careers, Steve Young, Peyton Manning, Jim Kelly, and Warren Moon were all also given such labels. Jackson is almost certainly not as good as those quarterbacks, but history should have shown by now that applying such an all-encompassing label to a quarterback -- especially after just one career playoff game -- is ludicrous. Granted, Kelly and Moon never won a Super Bowl, but I wouldn't mind having either on my team.

(And it's not like Brett Favre has never had a bad playoff game.)

4) Rosenfels just looks better than Jackson as a quarterback. I've been over this before. I don't care if you're 6'4" tall with a rock-solid jaw, dashing good looks, and a physique like a god or if you're short, squat, have a deformed head, and only one leg. I care if you're a better player. That's all. Anyone who's read the first chapter of Moneyball should be familiar with that concept.

(OK, so maybe a one-legged QB would be ineffective. But he'd still be more mobile than Kelly Holcomb.)

Rosenfels looks more poised, looks more effective, looks more like a quarterback is supposed to look (and I guess he's not unhandsome, in a "good ol' boy" kind of way), but is he actually a better quarterback that Tarvaris Jackson? That's the only point that should matter. Gus Frerotte looked good, too, until he kept throwing one interception after another. (Speaking of which, if you want to persist that Frerotte should have regained his starting job because he was 8-3 as a starter, I remind you that Jackson was 8-4 as a starter in 2007.) Rosenfels has a ghastly 5.2% career interception percentage, compared to Jackson's 3.4% and even Favre's 3.3%, and that doesn't count the infamous Rosencopter. I hate to use the terms, but the Vikings need a "game manager" more than they need a "gunslinger."

But I think the bigger point is the debate of "scrambling QB" vs. "pocket QB." And, you know what? I think scrambling QBs are overrated and generally less effective that pocket QBs. But that doesn't mean every scrambling QB is worse than every pocket QB. The point is that a scrambler has to also be a good passer to be a good QB. I think Michael Vick, Vince Young, and (maybe) JaMarcus Russell have clearly shown that you can't just run around in the NFL and be effective; you also need to be a good passer.

Recent "scrambling QB" failures like that are why we're predisposed to think less of scrambling QBs nowadays. We've forgotten how good players like Donovan McNabb, Steve Young, Randall Cunningham, Steve McNair, and even (for some seasons, at least) Daunte Culpepper were, and how they generally had their best seasons, passing-wise, when they cut back a little on their running and learned how to pass.

5) Jackson will never learn to be a good QB. Here's the crazy idea: Maybe he already is.

Maybe sitting on the bench for two months, observing, learning, studying was good for him. Maybe he took everything he learned and applied it to have the best month of his career, even if he did stink it up against the Eagles. Frankly, I'll take a quarterback who's good for 4 out of 5 games.

Remember the Brian Billick quote that sparked this article? Billick said that he can determine whether a quarterback will be successful "between the 24th and 30th game" and that Jackson was right about in that vicinity.

Maybe he's right. Maybe what we saw out of T-Jack in December is the "real" T-Jack. Maybe that's the quarterback he can be, even if his performance will be mitigated against stronger opponents.

It's anecdotal, I know, but compare Drew Brees' first two seasons as a starter to the rest of his career. He was so bad those first two years that the Chargers drafted Phillip Rivers to replace him. Absolutely nobody could have predicted that Brees would explode and become one of the NFL's best quarterbacks.

For an example a little closer to home, remember loathing Visanthe Shiancoe? Around week 3, I think every Vikings fan was ready to trade him for the proverbial warm six-pack and a bag of used jock straps. He's maybe not a Pro Bowl-level talent now, but in the span of about two months, tight end went from a "need" for the Vikings to a "strength." And it wasn't because of Jimmy Kleinsasser.

Jackson's not likely to match Brees, but it's a sign that it can happen, that a mediocre player can suddenly and dramatically improve his game after a significant time off -- in Brees' case, it was between the 2003 and 2004 season. In Jackson's, it might have been his two-month hiatus from the starting job.

(It was also said that Brad Childress didn't talk to Jackson at all during his benching. Knowing Childress as we do, maybe that was the best thing that could have happened to Jackson...)

Hoping for such a transformation is often just that -- hope. After all, we'd all like for our mediocre three-year veteran to suddenly become a Pro Bowl-caliber player. Most of the time, though, he doesn't. But I'd hate to see Jackson case aside after the best stretch of his career and then (almost predictably for Vikings fans) go somewhere else and do really well.

There are a whole lot of "maybes" in this article. Maybe Rosenfels is good because of who he threw to. Maybe Jackson found what he needed to become a good quarterback. Maybe Jackson only did well because he was playing against poor defenses. They could all be wrong. Tarvaris Jackson might still be the same scatterbrained, low-accuracy, disaster of a QB I thought he was entering the 2008 season. If that's so, then he should be replaced.

My only point is that, since that Eagles game that ended the season, the sentiment among Vikings fans (not to mention the media) has generally been that Jackson must be replaced and that the quarterback position is the only thing holding the Vikings back from a run at the championship. I want to cast doubt into that surety. I want you to examine exactly why you don't think Tarvaris Jackson should be the Vikings' QB going forward and solidify your position using analysis and facts, not emotions and feelings. Maybe you'll be right anyway. I'm willing to accept I might be wrong about T-Jack.

Are you?

The nightmare refreshed

Le sigh.

Here we go again.

Fortunately, we don't have a head coach who believes he can take a quarterback from a Division I-AA school and turn him into the next Donovan McNabb. Or that he can take a rookie with an unorthodox skill set who likes to smoke pot more than he likes to play football to the point of getting himself tested positive at the NFL combine and mold him into a superstar.

And I'm sure we don't have a head coach who thinks he can take a nearly 40-year-old selfish attention whore of a quarterback who's committed to nobody but himself and his own legend and who's only had good season out of his last four and return him to his glory days.

I'm sure we don't have a head coach like that.

Sigh.

In truth, I think the chances of Brett Favre landing with the Vikings this time around are pretty close to nil. What bothers me is, now that the possibility's been raised, every other Vikings fan and media member will try to convince themselves that Favre would be a good choice for the Vikings, or really for any other NFL team.

Don't kid yourself into believing that. Even if you don't believe in Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels, nothing Brett Favre did last year should convince you that he wants anything but a shot at the Packers and to pad his legacy. From his tearful "retirement" (the first one) to his "Why did you abandon me?" mindset toward the Packers to his poor play as the season wore on -- or as it moved past, say, September, after which he had 10 touchdowns and 18 interceptions -- there is no reason whatsoever to believe that Brett Favre should be a Viking.

Don't buy into the "late-game heroics" hype. Yes, he's roasted the Vikings on more than one occasion, but his record against us is a so-so 17-14. His career passer rating in "late & close" situations is a subpar 69.1. And, the big thing -- to come from behind late, you have to be...well, behind. Certainly, that's sometimes the defense's fault, but tossing four interceptions through the first three quarters just so you can have a game-winning TD pass in the fourth doesn't qualify as "heroic" to me. More like "mediocre."

Favre is a great quarterback, and deserving of the Hall of Fame when (if) he retires. But every great player reaches the age at which he can no longer carry on as he did in his youth. The problem with Brett Favre is he's like a child who wants candy for dinner. He's going to keep getting it until someone tells him "no." Let's hope the Vikings can play the responsible adult.

Welcome, Sage Rosenfels!

It's official -- Sage Rosenfels is a Minnesota Viking, and a reasonably well-paid one as well, after agreeing to a two-year, $9 million contract with the team following a trade with Houston that sent the Vikings' fourth-round pick to the Texans.

Reaction from Vikings fans seem to be generally positive, though I still caution against thinking that Rosenfels is some savior, and that he's a significant upgrade over Tarvaris Jackson. He's definitely a different style of quarterback than Jackson, but saying he's "better" overall simply ignores his deficiencies -- most notably his relative immobility and propensity for turnovers -- while lambasting Jackson who makes fewer mistakes but looks "worse" doing it.

That said, Rosenfels probably is a better overall QB than Jackson, but this isn't like replacing Ryan Leaf with Peyton Manning. Jackson's not the worst QB in the world, no matter how he looks, and Rosenfels isn't spectacular, despite his big arm. Still, with no other major free-agent acquisitions on the horizon for the Vikings, sending a middle-round pick and spending $4.5 million a year over two years on a guy who might be a good QB (and at the least is a better backup plan than Gus Frerotte) is a decent deal. Fact of the matter is, there wasn't an elite quarterback available, and Rosenfels likely represents one of the better options.

The best-case scenario for the Vikings is that Rosenfels turns into a latter-day Rich Gannon, another QB who got only occasional chances to start the first part of his career, showed equal parts promise and poorness, and, in his mid-30s, found the right team and right place to blossom as a star player in the latter years of his career. Rosenfels turns 31 next week, while Gannon was 33 when he finally secured a starting job with the Oakland Raiders in 1999, going on to have four straight excellent seasons with the silver-and-black. If we could get four seasons of stellar -- heck, I'll settle for "steady" -- play from Rosenfels, I'd consider it a success.

Right now, nobody knows exactly what we'll get from Rosenfels, and we won't know that until the games start up in September. Now that he can rely on his running game and defense to help him win games, he could develop into a dependable QB, and he might even have the talent to sniff the Pro Bowl. All this depends on whether he can reign in the bad plays, however, avoid the crazy mistakes -- oh, and beat out Jackson in training camp, which might be harder than it appears. This one ain't decided yet, folks.

Rosenfels vs. Jackson

With Sage Rosenfels set to join the Vikings as soon as the trade can be consummated -- 12:01 Eastern, Friday morning, to be exact -- many fans are already predicting that he'll easily oust Tarvaris Jackson as the Vikings' quarterback. While that may yet happen, it shouldn't be the slam-dunk, no-questions-asked decision some think it ought to be.

Somewhat conveniently, both quarterbacks have career pass attempt totals that are about in line with a full season's worth of passes, albeit for a rather pass-happy team: 561 for Rosenfels and 524 for Jackson. This allows us to compare their stats, side-by-side, with no real manipulation needed and to consider how they'd look if they really were single-season stat lines.

Rank	Cmp	Att	Pct.	Yards	TD	Int.	Sack	Yds.	Rush	Yds	TD	Fum
Jackson	306	524	58.4	3442	20	18	41	204	95	476	4	14
Rosenfels	351	562	62.5	4156	30	29	19	127	45	98	1	11

I've italicized the better numbers for each quarterback. Yes, I realized Jackson's better rushing numbers come with more attempts, but I don't think anyone will dispute that Jackson's a better runner than Rosenfels.

In this rather simple comparison, the numbers come out in favor of Rosenfels, 6-3. He's racked up more yardage, at a better rate per attempt (7.4 to 6.6) than Jackson; even his yards per completion is slightly better (11.8 to 11.2), showing that that's not just the result of Jackson's mediocre completion percentage. While clearly not a better runner than Jackson, Rosenfels has nonetheless done a much better job of avoiding sacks, going down at about half the rate of Jackson and fumbling with less frequency.

But there are negatives to Rosenfel's superior numbers, the most glaring of which is his interception total. If this were a full season's stats, 29 interceptions would be practically unacceptable for a starting quarterback. I've not seem him play much, but it's possible that part of the reason for Rosenfels' lack of sacks comes from him throwing the ball away and into coverage, thus resulting in the very negative play (interception) instead of the somewhat negative play (sack).

In any case, for all that Vikings fans -- such as this one -- complain about Jackson's prediliction for turning the ball over, it's clear that Rosenfels is markedly worse at protecting the football. Assuming that 2/3 of each player's fumbles were recovered by the defense (the typical NFL rate), that would give Jackson about 10 lost fumbles to Rosenfels' 8 for their careers. That gives Jackson 28 turnovers and Rosenfels 37. That's a rate of 4.2% for Jackson (when dividing turnovers by attempts+sacks+rushes) and 5.9% for Rosenfels. Finally, we can look at the rate stats for each QB. Rosenfels clocks in with an 81.2 passer rating and 4.48 TYA. Jackson's a 76.5 and 4.13, so the slight edge there goes to Rosenfels.

Still, if there's anything the Vikings need at the quarterback position, it's someone who doesn't turn the ball over and gives the defense and running game a chance to win (i.e., more of a "game manager" than a "gunslinger"). Rosenfels, at least through the first part of his career, doesn't fit that mold. Perhaps, as a career backup, he's been trying to "force" plays to make himself look better and impress in his limited playing time (the "Rosencopter" again comes to mind). With Adrian Peterson to hand off to and a world-class defense backing him up, perhaps he won't feel the need to try and do so much in Minnesota. (Then again, he won't have Andre Johnson to throw to anymore.) And there's little doubt he's got a stronger arm and looks better in the pocket than Jackson.

But, as I've said before, looks aren't everything. Rosenfels is probably better than Jackson, but only marginally so, and if the turnovers come in bunches in 2009, Brad Childress will need to do whatever he can to save his job -- even if that means going back to the safer, more careful Tarvaris Jackson. And who ever thought that would be the case?

Byron Leftwich?

In looking over the Vikings' QB options for 2009 (while not completely ruling out Tarvaris Jackson, there definitely needs to be a Plan B that doesn't go by "Gus") there are all sorts of options being thrust out there -- and I don't really like any of them.

Matt Cassel? Too expensive. Matt Hasselbeck? Too broken. Derek Anderson? Too lousy. Jeff Garcia? Too old. Brett Favre? Too Brett Favre.

So what I'd ideally like is a guy who isn't very expensive, reasonably healthy, not a bad player, fairly young, and isn't Brett Favre. And Byron Leftwich passes nearly all those tests.

I admit that when his name first came up, I thought, "Ew." As a former top-10 draft pick, much, much more was expected of Leftwich than the so-so numbers he put up in Jacksonville. After more careful consideration of his numbers, though, I'm warming to the notion of Leftwich as overrated as a top-notch draft pick, but underrated as a useful NFL quarterback.

First of all, I firmly believe that the next Vikings QB should be one who is excellent at avoiding interceptions. Given Minnesota's running game and defense, the priority should be on keeping possession of the ball and not making bad mistakes; I'd rather have a QB who throws 15 TDs and 10 interceptions than one who throws 30 TDs and 20 interceptions.

Byron Leftwich has a career 2.6% interception rate, ranking him seventh among active QBs. The top two names on that list -- Jason Campbell and David Garrard -- are living off single fluky low-interception seasons, likely not indicative of their actual ability to avoid picks, so you could reasonably say Leftwich is a top-five QB when it comes to avoiding picks.

With the Steelers having to choose between Charlie Batch (who was injured in the preseason but was a capable backup to Ben Roethlisberger) and Leftwich, he could be released and be looking for work, meaning he'll come cheap. He just turned 29 in January. And he's not Brett Favre.

And his overall numbers -- including a career 80.3 passer rating, which isn't great, but is good enough if you keep your picks low and have a strong supporting cast (like this guy and his career 81.6 rating did) -- is serviceable enough. I had thought he took too many sacks, but his career 5.6% sack rate is lower than the league average (around 6%), and that's after playing the last two years behind subpar offensive lines.

But then there's the injury issue. Leftwich has never played a full 16-game slate, starting 13, 14, 11, and 6 games in his career as a starter for the Jaguars. That's an average of 11 games a year. Maybe the last two years of relatively light use have allowed him to heal and he'll be more durable, but even if he hasn't, is it the end of the world if he only starts 11 games for the team? Tarvaris Jackson (and maybe John David Booty) could be adequate for a month's worth of starts. If we don't commit a ton of money to Leftwich, then the team isn't carrying much dead money if he doesn't play a full season.

Finally, there's one last detail regarding Leftwich. In 2003, the Vikings had the #7 overall pick. In one of the most famous "WTF?" moments in Vikings history, the team was late in getting their pick up to the commissioner, and the Jaguars -- who picked 8th -- rushed up to select Byron Leftwich at #7. Next, the Panthers rushed up to pick Jordan Gross at #8. The Vikings finally recovered -- nicely, I might add -- taking Kevin Williams at #9, though there was talk they'd draft Jimmy Kennedy, who went to the Rams at #12. It would be karmically humorous for Leftwich to land in a Vikings uniform after all, especially with Kennedy joining the team last year and possibly figuring into the Vikings' plans.

Well, it's funny to me, at least.

Perception vs. performance

Last week, Grant's Tomb posted a link to an article in which Brian Billick offered his opinions on Tarvaris Jackson in an interview on KFAN. You can read the article here, but the main points I want to bring up are encapsulated in the following excerpts:

Billick said he abides by the Bill Walsh theory that you can usually tell if a quarterback is going to be a long-term success somewhere during his second year as a starter. "Between the 24th and the 30th game," Billick said.

Vikings quarterback Tarvaris Jackson has started 20 games and played in 25 during his three-year career.

And:

In his radio interview, Billick self-deprecatingly noted that "I pretty much in nine years in Baltimore proved I knew nothing about quarterbacks." But if the Vikings were to ask him, Billick said he has two concerns about Jackson's long-term: His career completion percentage (58.4) and his dwindling accuracy in the fourth quarter of games.

"Looking at Tarvaris Jackson, I've seen him play. I think he's an impressive young man. Certainly adds some dimension to the game. The thing that concerns me is the completion percentage. Over his career, he's less than 60 percent. And there may have been a lot of reasons for that. The other thing is that as the games went on and the difficult situations began to mount, that that's when his accuracy seemed to suffer. Couple games that I saw, third-down conversions were pretty good early, then at the end of the game things got tight. Those are all things that have to be factored in."

Now, I understand that the bolded statement isn't exactly what Billick said -- he didn't specifically reference Jackson's fourth-quarter accuracy or performance, instead going with the nebulous "then at the end of the games things got tight." Even so, this sent me running to T-Jack's career splits page, which offers up the following facts:

Completion % by quarter:
1st: 63.7 (1st best)
2nd: 54.8 (4th)
3rd: 56.3 (3rd)
4th: 59.2 (2nd)

Pretty clear by that that his accuracy doesn't decline in the fourth quarter. Let's look at his passer rating:

Passer rating by quarter:
1st: 81.8 (2nd)
2nd: 67.8 (3rd)
3rd: 63.6 (4th)
4th: 89.0 (1st)

And, just for fun,

TYA by quarter:
1st: 4.67 (2nd)
2nd: 3.87 (3rd)
3rd: 3.72 (4th)
4th: 4.90 (1st)

(Jackson's third-down passing numbers do seem to bear out Billick's analysis -- they're pretty awful -- but I'd be curious to see how the league does in that situation. I'd imagine third-down passing is generally one of the worst splits around, league-wide, since you're having to get a certain amount of yardage and are more likely to make a mistake or come up short.)

Wow. Could it be that T-Jack is the kind of guy you want in the 4th quarter when the game's on the line? Probably not, but he's at least not worse late in the game, as Billick seems to insinuate (and he certainly needs to improve in the second and third quarters of games). And, if Billick is right about his statement of when a QB "puts it all together," hasn't T-Jack just done that, at least in that final month of the season (Yes, he was bad in the playoff game against the Eagles; Eli Manning was worse the next week, and is there anyone out there who wouldn't take Manning over Jackson?), which is pretty close to the time when Billick thinks you can tell if a QB's got "it"? Basically, if Billick said those things in general, instead of referencing Jackson specifically, I would think he's endorsing T-Jack, not dismissing him.

But we all know T-Jack's a lousy quarterback, right? We've seen him play, haven't we? The wild running around? The deer-in-headlights look? I know I sure felt better when the team inserted Gus Frerotte into the lineup, with his calm demeanor, smooth dropbacks, and strong-armed throws --

-- that usually found their way into the arms of a defensive player. Give me a scattershot QB with good numbers over a guy who "looks good" any day.

See, the thing is, I think we've grown too used to people's perception of what a player should be and gotten too far away from what a guy really is. Frerotte looks like a far, far better quarterback than Jackson, without question. But he isn't. This isn't to say that either of them should be in the team's long-term plans, but dismissing Jackson just because he doesn't "feel" right isn't the answer either. If we do that, then we also have to dismiss Steve Smith (too short), Dwight Freeney (too small), Cris Carter (too slow)...and, although he's before my time, I've heard that some defensive players were outraged at how Fran Tarkenton played quarterback. How dare he run around like that! Quarterbacks are supposed to stand in the pocket? Doesn't he know that?

It's obviously a stretch to link Jackson to any of those great players, but I hope my point is made. Maybe Jackson's fine December performance was a fluke or too much a factor of the defenses he played. But, if Billick's right, and you can start to tell if a quarterback's good based on his play around his 25th game, maybe we can tell that now with Jackson. And it might be a good review.

A case of one-game-itis

Last year about this time, you couldn't hear enough good things, not just from the Vikings coaching staff, but from Vikings fans, about how Tarvaris Jackson might have turned things around and would be a good for the Vikings at the quarterback position in 2008. Most of the optimism centered around his "stellar" 8-4 record as a starter in 2007, but a portion of fans (whom I argued with frequently) pointed at his comeback against Denver in the last game of the season.

Trailing 19-3 in the fourth quarter, Jackson led the team on two late TD drives, each with a two-point conversion, to tie the game at 19 and send it into overtime. To hear some people talk about it, that very good half a quarter nullified the mediocre to bad other 11 7/8 games he'd started, showcasing his "intangibles," his "leadership," and other claptrap and ensuring he'd have a great 2008. After a solid (but short) preseason, the consensus was strong again that he'd turn in a good season and lead the Vikings to the promised land.

We all know how that went. He wasn't altogether horrific in his first two starts of the season, but was bad enough to (rightfully) be benched in favor of Gus Frerotte, who led the team as far as he could before getting injured and giving way to the seemingly new and improved Tarvaris Jackson, who played three and a half games of excellent football to close out the regular season and secure a division title and playoff spot for the Vikings.

Now, after what happened last year -- that is to say, that Jackson was bad mostly all year, showed a very brief spurt of excellence near the end that led people to believe he was good and to trust in him, only to have him revert to form at the start of the next season -- you'd think that, regardless of how he played against Philadelphia in the playoff opener, that fans would remember his good final month of the season and be behind him -- at least partially -- going into 2009.

Nuh-uh.

Most of what I'm seeing out there is the same kind of talk I heard after week two -- namely that, unequivably, Jackson must go. Forget those good games he played at the end of the year. Forget his 95.6 passer rating over his last five games (which includes the Philly game). Forget his 8-2 TD/Int. ratio. His last game was awful. Therefore, he's no good.

Really, have we learned nothing?

First and foremost, fans need to understand that Tarvaris Jackson's play wasn't the only reason the Vikings lost. For the second week in a row, Adrian Peterson had one and only one good carry -- his 40-yard touchdown run, to go with his 67-yarder against the Giants. 12 of his 20 carries against the Eagles went for two yards or less. Combined, Peterson and Chester Taylor ran for just 89 yards on 31 carries -- a 2.9 average -- if you take out the 40-yard run, and, in the second half, when the Vikings were shut out, the two running backs managed just 24 yards on 10 carries.

That's not the fault of the quarterback, people, though it may not have been the fault of the running backs, either. The offensive line routinely allowed multiple defenders into the backfield, making it difficult for any runner to gain yardage. Jackson was only sacked once, but he rarely had time to comfortably look downfield and pick out receivers, and do we need to talk about Matt Birk's bad snap that essentially ended the game for the Vikings?

All this came against the #4 scoring defense in the league, so it's understandable that any team would struggle on offense against them. And, given the horrific state of the Vikings' special teams, it's a tribute to the defense that they were even in the game at all in the final quarter. But Tarvaris Jackson shouldn't necessarily receive the brunt of the criticism for this loss, just as he should never have received the lion's share of the praise for the team's record in his starts in 2007.

Now, I'm not saying that Tarvaris Jackson should be a stone-cold lock to start for the Vikings in 2009. Ideally, I'd like to see Gus Frerotte replaced with a slightly less fossilized quarterback who can compete with Jackson in training camp while John David Booty bides his time on the bench and, in perfect world, develops to the point that he can compete for the starting job. In any case, if you thought Tarvaris Jackson was a halfway decent quarterback a week ago, there's no reason for you to think otherwise after a game where the entire offense -- quarterback and the other 10 guys -- fell flat.