Vikings vs. Bears -- Sorta-hafta-win game

Big showdown with the Bears Sunday night...with a win, the Vikings would be 7-5 with a one-game lead in the division and only Detroit remaining on the divisional schedule. If we assume the Vikings beat Detroit next week (even if the Williams boys are suspended), then they'd be looking at an 8-5 record, 4-2 in the division, and a surprisingly good chance of winning the division, even with a slip down the stretch during that tough December schedule.

If the Vikings lose the game, however, that pretty much ends their division-title chances for the year and puts a serious crimp in their overall playoff plan. At 6-6, the Vikings would be essentially two games behind the 7-5 Bears, who would have swept the Vikings for the season. With at least three other +.500 teams in the NFC that aren't leading their divisions, that would put the Vikings at least in fourth place in competition for two wild-card spots. Not good.

So while I loathe the term "must win" (If the Vikings lose this week, everyone will say that next week's game is a "must win" to keep their faint playoff hopes alive, and so on, and so on, every week until they're actually eliminated from playoff contention. If you can lose a "must win" game and still stay alive, then guess what? It wasn't a "must win"!), this game is pretty close. Fortunately, it's at home, where the Vikings are 4-1 this season, and while the Bears are 3-3 on the road, two of those road wins came against Detroit and St. Louis. All signs would seem to point to a Vikings victory, but you know how that usually goes with this team. Here's hoping for another 14-0 lead in the first two minutes!

* Probably the most cringe-inducing moments in Sunday night's game will come when the Vikings punt to Devin Hester. Interestingly, though, Hester's averaging just a mediocre 6.3 yards per punt return, and has actually been taking off kickoff returns. Nevertheless, expect every announcer and every fan in the Metrodome to expect Chris Kluwe to kick away from Hester, regardless of how effective he actually is.

* The pro-football-reference.com blog recently had a post about unique game scores in the NFL, prompted by that 11-10 Pittsburgh/San Diego game a few weeks ago, and in the process introduced a bunch of neat new toys for finding game scores. Read the post to get all the links, but, for instance, here's the list of all 30-12 games in NFL history, including last week's Vikings/Jaguars game. (That Chicago Bears/Pottsville Maroons game in 1927 was a real barnburner!) Specifically, as it relates to the Bears/Vikings, their earlier 48-41 contest was the first in NFL history with such a score.

My favorite "WTF?" score has to be 5-0, which has occurred three times, including twice in fairly recent times. And then there's this 7-2 gem from 1993, the third of its kind, appropriately between two teams with a combined record of 3-23.

* Another possibility for the Vikings' 2009 QB I hadn't considered: Tim Tebow. Granted, he'll have to declare for the draft and he'd have to slip to the Vikings' pick, but after the Brady Quinn incident in the 2007 draft, anything's possible.

And count me as someone who's not interested. I think Tebow, like Alex Smith in Utah, is a product of Urban Meyer's spread offense and think it unlikely that he'll be even remotely as good in the pros as he is in college. Might be that he could be successful as a part-time QB/part-time WR/slash/Wildcat type of player, but until an NFL player with quarterbacking skills officially declares himself to be that type of player, as opposed to a full-time QB, I don't see it happening.

Your 2009 Minnesota Vikings QB

Yesterday, I proposed that, while neither were who I'd want leading my team, Gus Frerotte really isn't that much better than Tarvaris Jackson. It's almost a certainty that the Vikings will look elsewhere for QB help in the off-season, and there are several intriguing choices out there. True, we've still got five games left in the 2008 regular season, and a lot can happen in that time, but everyone else is speculating about who the Vikings will put under center, so why not me?

Donovan McNabb. The most obvious choice, and the one that's gained a lot more momentum in the wake of his recent falling out with the Eagles -- and I can't really understand why. Yeah, he's had a lousy game and a half, going back to the Cincinnati game. But that's just six quarters! He's still got an 81.1 passer rating and, if you take out his last two games, that number jumps up to 91.3. Even with his recent struggles, he's only thrown interceptions on 2.2% of his career passes, third among active players (behind the very inexperienced David Garrard and Jason Campbell, both of whom will come back down to earth), and if there ever was a team that just needed a QB who didn't turn the ball over and relied on his defense and running game, it was the Vikings.

Naturally, you can't just ignore a few games though. McNabb has thrown five interceptions in his last two contests, and the Eagles are a mediocre 5-5-1. However, in the team's five losses, they've given up 23, 24, 36, 36, and 41 points -- hard for any quarterback to win those games. The 13-13 tie (and Donovan's lack of knowledge of the NFL rulebook) is unfortunate, but hey, sometimes guys just lay eggs. He's got exactly three games in his career with three interceptions, and that was one of them. Meanwhile, he's thrown for zero or one interception in 109 of 127 games played. He's a good player, even if Philly doesn't believe it and, even at 32, has been mostly healthy the last two seasons.

Donovan McNabb represents probably the best short-term fix for the Vikings at the quarterback position, and hopefully would come fairly cheap in terms of compensation (say, a 2nd-round draft pick). But there are other options...

Kyle Orton. Don't laugh. Another possible target for McNabb is Chicago, and if that happens, both Kyle Orton and Rex Grossman will be free agents. Orton's had a very solid 2008, throwing just four interceptions and, yes, I don't like talking about quarterback records when it's obvious the rest of the team is what won the game, but he did take the 2005 Bears -- an all-running, all-defense team -- to a 10-5 record as a rookie, while accumulating some awful numbers. I'm willing to think that means that, even as a rookie, he was able to not make the deadly mistakes to cost his team the game, and he's only improved through the years. And he'd likely be a much cheaper free agent than...

Matt Cassel. With back-to-back 400-yard passing games, Cassel's suddenly on everybody's radar. He'll be a free agent next season and, despite the rumor I've heard that says the Pats might try to trade Tom Brady and keep Cassel (which I also wouldn't be completely against), I think Cassel tests the free-agent waters this off-season, and should have plenty of takers.

I just don't think the Vikings should be one of them. The question I ask is, "It'll be nice to have Cassel, but does he come with Randy Moss and Bill Belicheck?" Even with them, his passer rating is an OK-but-not-spectacular 90.5, and he only has 13 TD passes in 11 games. He's surprisingly mobile (53 carries for 199 yards) but has been sacked a league-high 34 times at an 8.7% clip. And his 400-yard passing games come in contests where he's thrown 51 and 43 passes, Buyer beware. Beware a lot.

And then there's that other guy. You remember him, don't you?

Michael Vick. Someone is going to take a chance on Vick in 2009, but I don't think it should be the Vikings. Putting aside the PR nightmare, consider this: Vick wasn't actually that great of a quarterback with the Falcons and he hasn't played in two years. How good do you think he'll be for his first year or so back in the league? He's simply not a good choice for a team that's trying to content immediately, but I wouldn't be surprised if he surfaces with a rebuilding team in need of a spark like Kansas City or Detroit. In fact, I think he's a perfect fit for the Lions, who can't sink any lower, can they? And they need a draw at the gate to avoid more home blackouts. Imagine Michael Vick and Daunte Culpepper on the same field together. Heck, even I'd pay to see that.

These are, naturally, just a few of the options out there to fill the QB position in 2009 for the Vikings. John David Booty will still be around, waiting for his shot, and who knows what the draft will bring? The Falcons and Ravens have shown that you can succeed with a rookie quarterback right out of the gate, if you have a pretty good team supporting him, so maybe the Vikings will go that way with their first pick, now that they're not as worried about hurting poor Tarvaris Jackson's feelings. And with Brad Childress and Darrell Bevell hopefully out of the picture, the sky could be the limit for the Vikings quarterback in 2009, whoever he is.

Even if it's Kyle Orton.

Slipping off the Gus Bus?

Gus Frerotte isn't going anywhere, at least not for the rest of the season and while the Vikings are in contention for a playoff spot. However, following my initial optimism regarding good ol' Gus, he's been the author of several lackluster passing efforts and is the proud owner of a 75.0 passer rating, with more interceptions (12) than touchdown passes (11) in nine starts. And, after being knocked out of the game three times Sunday, Frerotte was replaced for one handoff by Tarvaris Jackson. What would happen if Frerotte were permanently replaced, either by coaching decision or injury? Would there really be that much more of a dropoff with Jackson or even John David Booty in the lineup?

The answer is, "Probably, yes." But it might not be that much.

When I first lauded Frerotte's performances, he looked collected, calm, and accurate in the pocket. But after seeing him throw behind or at receivers' feet for the last few weeks, and that awful interception on a rollout in Sunday's game, I wonder if Frerotte only looked that good compared to Jackson's ridiculously bad numbers. In 2008, Frerotte's completed 58.3% of his passes to Jackson's 51.7%, but Jackson's numbers were only in 60 attempts. For his career, T-Jack's a 57.2% passer and, if Troy Williamson didn't completely suck and Visanthe Shiancoe looked the first two weeks of the season like he's looked the last month, he'd probably push 58%. So that's practically a push -- an ugly push (league average is 61.3%), but a push nonetheless.

Passer rating is similarly close. Gus has a 75.0 this year, right around his 74.4 career average, while T-Jack was 65.7 (68.6 career). But, especially when comparing Tarvaris Jackson and Gus Frerotte, the ability to run must be taken into account. Frerotte's TYA this season is 3.83, while Jackson's is 3.74. (Yes, that's different than what's in the linked post; I realized an error I'd made in the spreadsheet and fixed it.) That's virtually no difference; Frerotte's slightly better passing numbers are nullified by his greater preponderance for taking sacks (on 8.9% of dropbacks, as compared to Jackson's 7.7%) and lack of running ability (18 carries for 6 yards, compared to Jackson's 11 for 65).

Oh, and Frerotte's 6-3 as a starter this year, but you should know how I feel about bringing that up.

Am I saying that Frerotte should be benched in favor of Jackson? Absolutely not? But I no longer fear the idea that he could get hurt and the Vikings' fate could be in the hands of Tarvaris Jackson. Because, really, Frerotte hasn't played much better than Jackson for the last month or so (nine interceptions in his last five games), so it really couldn't be much of a drop-off. And, shockingly, Frerotte's pass attempts the last four games have been 18, 28, 20, and 20, after starts of 28, 43, 36, 33, and 40, so the passing game isn't figuring too heavily into the Vikings' game plan, which is as it should be.

(It's sort of like dating an ugly girl, hating it, and then moving on to a slightly more attractive girl, kinda liking it, realizing that ugly girls aren't so bad, and being open to the idea of dating the original ugly girl. She's still ugly, but dating the "mostly ugly" girl hasn't killed you, so maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Of course, this analogy makes Drew Brees roughly equivalent to Marisa Miller, so maybe I should stop here.)

Make no mistake, with Gus Frerotte being 37 years old and getting whacked like he did Sunday at Jacksonville, the time will still come this season that the Vikings will have to rely on Tarvaris Jackson to do something more than just hand off a couple of times to Adrian Peterson. And really, now that I've realized what we've truly got in Gus Frerotte, I'm OK with that. My tolerance for suck goes up every week I watch the Vikings' quarterback play.

Vikings tame Jaguars

The Jacksonville Jaguars are consistently rated as one of the least popular franchises in the NFL, despite their generally winning ways. After the show they put on for their hometown fans yesterday against the Vikings, it's easy to see why.

With a 14-0 lead before two minutes had elapsed in the game, the Vikings practically cruised to a victory over the bumbling Jaguars, 30-12. Between the turnovers (5), penalties (8 for 81 yards), and missed field goals (2), the Jags shot themselves in the foot over and over and the Vikings were good enough to take advantage of an extremely sloppy team.

The Vikings were far from perfect, however. Gus Frerotte seems to be getting worse with age, throwing many inaccurate balls and lobbing up a terrible interception while getting battered around and knocked out of the game three times. After the third one, crazy as it sounds, I was actually optimistic about seeing Tarvaris Jackson come in. That's how bad Frerotte's been lately.

And, while I'm not against the early benching of Adrian Peterson -- if he broke the team rules, he should be punished -- Brad Childress again showed how utterly unwilling he is to run the ball unless absolutely necessary. There were 29 called runs in the game (17 to Peterson, 9 to Chester Taylor, 2 by Bernard Berrian, and 1 QB sneak) and 24 called passes (20 passes, 3 sacks, and 1 QB scramble). More runs than passes, yes, but barely...and the Vikings led the entire game! The "best" decision? With the Vikings enjoying a first-and-goal on the one, Childress called a play-action pass. Frerotte dropped back and was immediately dropped for a 10-yard loss. A field goal followed three plays later. Unbelieveable. Brad Childress, why don't you want to run the ball? Please answer that. Please. I'm begging you.

Then there's the defense, which gave up way too many third-down conversions, some of them on long yardage. The Jacksonville run game was shut down, as usual, but that was largely due to Jacksonville abandoning the run early, due to their big deficit. For the early parts of the game, David Garrard had all day to throw or, like Jeff Garcia a week before, was able to avoid pressure and either scramble for yards or find a receiver downfield. His final numbers -- 27-45 for 317 yards, 1 TD and 2 interceptions, along with 4 sacks -- aren't that great, taken from a standpoint of averages, but they hide the fact that the Jags pretty much had their way with the Vikings' pass defense all day and was only stymied by turnovers and penalties.

And where to start on punt coverage? I think I just won't.

Really, this was about the least dominating 18-point win you'll ever see in football. Jacksonville outgained the Vikings by nearly 100 yards (321 to 226), added another 211 yards on returns (compared to 55 for the Vikings) and only lost the time of possession battle (30:29 to 29:31) on the Vikings' final kneel-down "drive."

Next week is a big Sunday night game against Chicago, which, even in week 13, can have the effect of virtually ending the Vikings' playoff hopes. A loss against the Bears puts the Vikings at 6-6 and, having been swept by the Bears, would put them effectively two games back of the 7-5 Bears, with a brutal December schedule upcoming. A win puts the Vikings at 7-5, one game up on the Bears and, depending on the Packers, could put them in sole charge of the division.

But that's getting ahead of ourselves. For now, we'll just have to root for the Saints. And, since I need Drew Brees to get my fantasy team five points, I don't think I'll have a problem with that.

I can't make this stuff up

Good lord, would I pay money to see Troy Williamson and Brad Childress go at it.

It would probably boil down to Troy punching Brad in the head a lot, since his hands are made of stone, and Childress doesn't use his brain anyway.

Vikings in tight situation

Pat and Kevin Williams are still suiting up for the Vikings against the Jaguars on Sunday -- for now.

Actually, since suspensions are usually handed out early in the week, it's pretty much guaranteed that the Vikings will have the Williams' services this week for certain. And Jared Allen only received a $25k fine (not a suspension) for his hits on Aaron Rodgers. And the Jaguars, at 4-6, represent one of the "easier" games on the Vikings remaining schedule, so the team should have a pretty good chance of winning and they need to win, to provide a little bit of a boost in the standings before the inevitable suspensions are handed down. To do so, the team will have to contain the Jaguars' #1 offensive weapon.

No, not Fred Taylor, or Maurice Jones-Drew, or David Garrard. I'm talking about tight end Marcedes Lewis, all 22 catches and 306 yards of him.

Why is Lewis so important? Because, since E.J. Henderson was lost for the season, opposing tight ends have torched the Vikings. Here are the stats for teams' primary tight end since Henderson's week four injury:

Billy Miller (NO): 4 catches, 61 yards
Michael Gaines (Det): 2-24
Greg Olsen (Chi): 6-74 (and 3-59 to Desmond Clark)
Owen Daniels (Hou): 11*-133*
Donald Lee (GB): 1-6
Jerramy Stevens (TB): 6*-84*

* Career high

That's a total of 30 catches for 382 yards over six games to opposing teams' primary tight ends. Prorate that out over 16 games and you get 80 catches for 1,019 yards, so, in effect, the Vikings defense is turning opposing tight ends into the equivalent of Tony Gonzalez or Antonio Gates. Ugly. At this rate, maybe David Herron should get more playing time over Napoleon Harris in the middle.

Any chance we can convince Jack Del Rio to suit up for us this weekend? No? Damn.

Average is as average does

In a mediocre division with three .500 teams (and the Lions, who only barely resemble an NFL team), the Vikings are still in the race. They can still make the playoffs, win their division, and then, who knows? Teams have come back from worse starts than 5-5 or gone into the playoffs after so-so regular seasons (think last year's Giants and the 2005 Steelers) and gone all the way, so maybe, just maybe, the Vikings can close out strong and ride a late-season surge deep into the playoffs. It could happen.

I just ain't betting on it.

The Vikings season is, for all intents and purposes, over. I know, that's a strong statement to make with six games still remaining on the docket, but really, does anyone believe any more that this team is going anywhere? You can't take an entire half off, like they did yesterday against Tampa Bay, and still think you're a good team. You aren't.

And by "team," I don't mean the players, whom we still think (perhaps erroneously) are good and be dismissive about the coaching or play-calling. The Vikings are 5-5. They are average. The entire team, players, coaching, ownership, everything figures into that 5-5 record. Maybe the team really is just a couple of pseudo-quick fixes (head coach and quarterback) from being dominant, but those changes aren't coming this season. Like it or not, Brad Childress is a part of this team and will be at least until the end of the season, a season that started out looking so promising but now is on track for, at best, an 8-8 or 9-7 finish.

And even that might not be so easy. What looked like a creampuff late schedule at the start of the year now looks like a nightmare. Sure, we still get Detroit (though after that lackluster 12-10 win at home and the fact that Daunte Culpepper looks halfway competent and will sure as heck be motivated to beat his former team, who knows?), and Chicago looked bad yesterday, but they're still not a pushover. Then we have Jacksonville on the road, who, at 4-6, have still outscored their opponents, Atlanta (6-4), Arizona (7-3), and the Giants (9-1) to close out the season. Two wins out of six in that group is a distinct possibility. Three would be decent. Four (which would result in a 9-7 record and possibly win the division) looks nearly impossible.

This isn't a team that's going nowhere. It's a team that's going somewhere, but it just doesn't know where. It has just enough talent to tantalize you but then lays a big enough egg (again, second half against Tampa Bay) to break your heart. You know they can play better, but it's like they're saying, "No thanks, we'd rather be mediocre."

And right now, that's what they are. The Vikings are 5-5, and they'll probably be lucky to get to 8-8. Which still might win the division, save Brad Childress's job, and allow us to get stomped out of the first round of the playoffs, maybe against Tampa Bay again. They should just take the whole game off this time, and save us the trouble of caring.

Edit: Oh yeah, forgot about Pat Williams' and Kevin Williams' looming suspensions. Eight wins might be optimistic.