Odin's Eye

Your Super Bowl Winner Is...

2012-02-06T05:00:00.003-06:00

Congratulations to the New York Giants. Sadly, we all were put in the position where New York winning a title was the better outcome for the sports world. In my playoff predition post, I suggested that only a fool would draw connections between the 2008 Giants and this year's team. Clearly, I am the fool because this team, and their playoff run was eerily similar to that year. Yet again, they pulled out a close one in a well played football game over a Patriots team that made just a couple more mistakes than they did. Small breaks like recovering 2 of your own fumbles can end up being the difference in the game, and it was again.What a great story for them. Between the injury bug biting them early on, Eli having to deal with his status as an 'elite' quarterback being debated all year, losing to the Redskins twice and sneaking in the playoffs in week 17, this team defied the odds to become the first in NFL history with only 9 wins in the regular season to win the Super Bowl.

I was rooting for the Giants in this one myself. I expected the Giants' wideouts to dominate the outmatched New England secondary (they did) and Tom Brady to miss Rob Gronkowski just enough for it to matter in the end. It turned out that was just the case. Brady looked great for the most part, including a Super Bowl record 16 consecutive completions, and I thought the Giants were in trouble when he masterfully engineered a Super Bowl record 96 yard drive at the end of the first half that gave the Patriots the lead. When that happened, I thought it would be the turning point of the game. It completely voided all of the Giants' first half dominance. Instead, it ended up being a fight to the finish, and Brady simply didn't have enough magic in the end. His move to throw the ball away downfield on what ended up being ruled intentional grounding seemed like a savvy one, but it was a great call on the referee's part. There was clearly no one from New England headed in the direction he threw it. His lone interception was on a play (1st down if I'm not mistaken) that a healthy Gronkowski would have been much more likely to make, and that was a crucial moment in the game.

Eli Manning picked apart a New England secondary that was held together with chickenwire and dried loogies, methodically moving his offense downfield. How sick must Peyton feel? This was supposed to be the year that the Colts won it in their own house (not sure why but yes, people were saying it), instead we watch his younger brother surpass him on the Super Bowl totem pole (hey that rhymes!) while rumors swirl about him being CUT in the near future. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Tom Brady spent an hour staring at the ground or something in the locker room after the game he was so pissed. There's an article on Yahoo! about it even. The now ringier Manning was on point when it counted, just as he was all year long. I will say this though, the fact that the Patriots were playing a wide receiver as their nickel cornerback and in the Super Bowl is a true testament to what good coaching and Tom Brady as your quarterback can do for a team. Both defenses played very well, and the Pats got away with at least one pass interference call.

There were two plays that were very similar to the last Super Bowl matchup to me. In '08, Asante Samuel dropped a gift wrapped interception that directly preceded the Tyree catch play that is arguably the greatest in Super Bowl history. The drop:

In tonight's game, Tom Brady lofted a pass to a leaping Wes Welker on a second and long with 4 minutes to play that would've given the Patriots a first down in Giants territory with the Giants having only 1 timeout left. This likely could have sealed the game. Instead, two plays later, we have the Manningham catch that broke the back of the Patriots. One might even argue that Welker's drop completely demoralized the defense if you saw how the entire defensive line reacted. Here's Wes's drop, slightly higher difficulty but it hits him right in between his hands...

I couldn't believe that Ahmad Bradshaw "accidentally" fell in the end zone like that, either. Then I thought a little deeper and considered that a player on even the grandest of stages might be selfish enough to want the glory, the title of having scored the game winner in the Super Bowl. Say it ain't so, Ahmad. Is it otherwise that A.) this finely tuned, world class athlete whose entire career is reliant on his ability to control the direction of his momentum, was not able to, or B.) he was not aware of the situation in the biggest game of his life? Believe what you like, but it tastes like there's a turd in the punchbowl if you ask me. He must have had a lot of faith in his boys on defense to pull a move like that. Great game. Maybe one day the Vikings can win one of those shiny trophies.

The Heart-Wrenching Season Finale of Odin's Eye

2012-01-07T04:24:00.002-06:00

(Turns lights on, peers around, dusts things off)

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a good holiday season. It's definitely been a little while since I've hopped on here.That's what happens when someone like me finally gets a new Xbox 360 for the first time in 2 years. Dear lord how I had missed that wonderful, beautiful machine. If it had a built-in refrigerator and some sort of sexual port, I'm not sure I'd ever leave it's side. Not that I do besides to go to work, anyway. But enough about sexual ports and such. Since my last entry a lot has happened, but at the same time not much has changed. The Vikings season is now officially over and we have months to ponder what to do with our #3 pick in the 2012 NFL Draft and how to solve the laundry list of woes this team is facing. From stadium deals to franchise players, it's tough to put into words how disappointing and painful the season went. When I tried to think of a word for it, all I could really picture was this:

Here are my position grades for season's end, and since we are dealing with a bunch of dum-dum football players we will utilize the elementary school grading system:

E = Excellent
S = Satisfactory
N = Needs Improvement

Quarterback: N
The season started off the same way it ended for our offense, with an interception. In between, there was a whole bunch of what was mostly junk kept afloat by a handful of nice plays. Donovan McNabb's career as a Viking was short lived and disappointing as the passing attack was a complete non-threat with him at the helm. Once Christian Ponder stepped in, the offense started moving a bit. However, he was not only a threat to the other team but a threat to us as well, throwing many interceptions at the worst possible times. Ponder spent the last quarter of the season pretty dinged up and Joe Webb got to play in several games, leading us to victory against the Redskins and nearly doing the same against the Lions and the Bears. The quarterback position remains unstable enough for some fans and writers to start wondering if the Vikings should consider drafting Robert Griffin III with the 3rd overall pick. Personally, I don't think any of our current quarterbacks are good enough to get us to the top, but we also have bigger needs to address.

Running Backs: S+
Adrian Peterson was a stud all year until his knee was shredded in the Redskins game. Kevin Siefert has noted that over the past few years, AP has made the transition from being a back with game-breaking speed to a power runner with less huge gains. This is important because after that injury, his speed may be diminished. However, as any Vikings official or fan will tell you, Adrian Peterson is the one guy who can come back from this injury as good as he was before it. Toby Gerhart played well in his absence, but now he is faced with coming back from a torn MCL. It was not a good year for health on the Vikings roster, and very few areas of the team escaped the injury bug.

Receivers/Tight Ends: S
Percy Harvin did end up having a breakout year as I predicted with 87 catches, 967 yards and 6 touchdowns as well as over 300 rushing yards and two more touchdowns on the ground. If there were any other semblance of a threat in our receiving corps, I think he ends with closer to 100 catches and 1100-1200 yards. Several teams with smart game plans were able to key on Percy late in the year and slow him down since he was our only explosive offensive threat in games AP wasn't in. The rest of the receivers are garbage you can pick up off of anyone's practice squad at any time, other than Michael Jenkins. Shiancoe showed that he has lost a step and is not as good as he once was in the years prior to the last two, while Kyle Rudolph made a handful of highlight reel catches in limited action. I predict we will not be seeing Visanthe in a Vikings uniform next year, meaning it is time to see if Kyle Rudolph can become as good of a tight end as it seems he can be. We need to sign a blocking specialist, because Jimmy Kleinsasser played his last game in Purple this past Sunday and he was the best in the business. Kleinsasser will be missed. He was a Vikings icon in a weird way that only players like Chris Walsh and Mike Morris can understand.

Offensive Line: N
Umm... awful. Need I say more? 49 sacks given up this year. John Sullivan had a decent year and got a contract extension. Don't expect to see Hutch back in Purple or Anthony Herrera. Phil Loadholt will have his final shot next year in a contract year, and Charlie Johnson may remain, but you can be damn certain it won't be at left tackle. As fans, we should hope that somehow Matt Kalil falls to us in the draft. If he does not, the only way we're drafting OL in the first round is if a Ponderesque reach occurs or we trade down. Either way, expect to see at least 2 new starters on the line come September.

Defensive Backs: N
Why did I decide to do these two groups back to back? Evaluating the Vikings offensive line and defensive secondary is like being the judge at a beauty pageant in central Wisconsin. No matter how you look at it, it's gonna be ugly. We set the NFL record for the longest span between interceptions. TRANSLATION: There isn't a ball-hawk on our roster. There isn't a fucking chicken hawk on our roster for christ's sake. Of the week 17 starters, Mistral Raymond may be the only one back in Purple next year. We're pretty screwed in this area for next season as well, barring a high draft pick and a couple free agent pickups with breakout performances in 2012.

Apparently, this post is Looney Tunes themed.

Linebackers: S
Chad Greenway tackled people that had the ball and were near him. He did it a lot. Other than that, he didn't do anything. I don't think much of that. Any linebacker in the NFL can tackle people. Take a look at the league leaders in tackles sometime. I'm willing to bet more than half of the top five are players not on playoff teams (Just checked, 4 out of 5 are on non-playoff teams). Erin Henderson played well enough to warrant a second season as a starter, while his brother lost a step and looked bad in pass coverage with no help from the secondary. Don't expect to see the Henderson brothers repeat in our LB corps in 2012. Other than that, this position group played just well enough to not be noticed. Way to strive for the middle, guys.

Defensive Line: S+
The Dongslinger got us again this year, guys. He teased us with a near Super Bowl appearance in 2009, he broke down on us and crapped himself in 2010, and in 2011 it was his lay down in front of Michael Strahan years ago that would ultimately cost us what would have been our only positive milestone of the season, the all-time sack record. Jared Allen had a monster year and deserves the defensive player of the year. If he doesn't get it, it will be entirely the fault of the sad excuse of a defense we had around him and no fault of his own. Without him, this group gets an S- or N grade. Remi Ayodele was our most useless free agent pickup in the past off season, Brian Robison pulled his best Bobby Fischer impression and disappeared after 6 weeks, and Kevin Williams battled a slow start to prove he was still starting-caliber. I think Everson Griffen and Christian Ballard will be seeing extended playing time on this line in 2012, and also would not be surprised to see the Vikings draft a big space-eating defensive tackle in the mid rounds of this year's draft.

Kicking: S
Longwell has definitely lost a little power in his kicks, but we need to bring him back as long as he's willing to play for us. No need to have to worry about finding a decent kicker with all of our other problems.

Punting: S+
Kluwe did just fine this year. He's also one of the main reasons this blog exists, because he made up the name and inspired me to follow through on my talk of creating one. He is the Godfather.

Returners: S
Marcus Sherels had a decent year AS A PUNT RETURNER. See how I emphasized that last part? It's because he looked like an idiot bringing out kickoffs from 8 yards deep far too many times this season. That goes for you too, Lorenzo Booker. This season started out better than any season I've ever seen when Percy took a kickoff 100+ yards for a touchdown and took out the other team's kicker for the season in a single play. From that point on, the season only got worse. However, I digress. If we can't find a guy other than Percy that can be an above average kick returner, then he should be doing the job. The reason why he couldn't do it this year was because he was relied on so heavily on offense. No matter what way you slice it, this means we need more dynamic weapons on our team.

Playoff Predictions

Wildcard Round

Cincinnatti @ Houston: Cincinnatti
Did I spell the name of that crappy city correctly? Anyways, the Red Rocket Andy Dalton gets one more game to play and the AFC North represents 75% of the AFC playoff bracket after round 1 on a count of Houston having to use their 3rd string quarterback and God not actually caring about football. (More on that in a second.)

Detroit @ New Orleans: New Orleans
They already played this year and New Orleans kicked the crap out of them. At this time last year, a lot of people were picking NO to go to the Super Bowl and they promptly wet themselves against a sub-.500 Seattle team and gave up the greatest touchdown run in playoff history in the process. Oh, and the term "Beast Mode" went viral thanks to them as well. However, this is in the Superdome, so Saints roll.

Atlanta @ New York: New York
I don't have a ton of reasoning on this one, I just think Tony Gonzalez will be doomed to the shameful title of greatest player to have never won a playoff game. New York also has the homefield advantage and some momentum after picking up the NFC East in a winner-take-all matchup last week against Dallas.

Pittsburgh @ Denver: Pittsburgh
I don't like Pittsburgh much at all, so I would love to see some real Angels in the Backfield action happen in this game. However, it isn't likely since God, if he existed, does not care about football. Even the corn in his holy poo would not give a single gram of fuck about football. Think about that the next time you hear or see people connecting a lucky fumble recovery or an untimely run out of bounds to divine intervention.

Divisional Round

New York @ Green Bay: Green Bay
Green Bay is a far too consistent team going against a far too inconsistent team, plus they are at home and defending champs. Packers roll in this one, though some could make an idiotic connection between this being the second game against them after coming very close to beating them in the regular season, and their second game against a certain heavily-favored team in the Super Bowl after nearly beating them in the regular season.

New Orleans @ San Francisco: San Francisco
New Orleans' offense runs best on turf. Anywhere outside of a dome, this team's offense runs like an Audi A8 filled up with diesel. San Francisco's defense will stymie the Saints' explosive offense and move on to the NFC Championship.

Cincinnatti @ New England: New England
I want to preface this by saying New England hasn't won a playoff game since about 2007, but an inexperienced Bengals team that backed into the playoffs is the perfect way to get off of that schneid. Gronk get touchdown, Patriots move on.

Pittsburgh @ Baltimore: Baltimore
This will be a huge matchup as it always is. Baltimore has beaten the Steelers twice this season already, and if Big Ben is healthy by this game it will be a battle to the final whistle as usual. As I predicted at the beginning of the season, this is the year Baltimore comes out on top.

Conference Championships

San Francisco @ Green Bay: Green Bay
Green Bay will blow this game out. I think this is the point where Alex Smith's fantasy season finally ends and implodes upon him. I expect Clay Mathews and Charles Woodson to force turnovers and the Packers to win handily.

Baltimore @ New England: Baltimore
This is Baltimore's year! I have predicted it since the beginning of the season, and I'm sticking with them. They won't make it all the way to the championship parade, but they'll get their Super Bowl appearance.

Super Bowl

Baltimore vs. Green Bay: Green Bay
Despite there being a handful of weaknesses that Green Bay has shown this year, they are still the best overall team in the league. They showed the ability to be consistent throughout the season outside of the KC game, and they will win this again. Boyee, I hope I'm wrong, but I'm stickin' by mah story on these predictions. Lord have mercy.

Anyway, it has been a great time running this site for the first year. I should have started one the second I heard Brett Favre was joining the Vikings, but hell, now I'll say I stuck with them through thick and thin. This truly was an awful year for the team, but this place was a great medium for me to vent and just do something somewhat creative. I give myself a B- on the year as a blogger. I should be more consistent with my postings, and I plan to improve that. I also will continue to post on here, whether it be Vikings related or otherwise. I might have a thing or two to say about the Timberwolves since Ricky Rubio finally got me back on the bandwagon. Thanks for reading as always folks. For the Vikings season, it's lights off.

Every down Everson?

2011-12-22T04:26:00.003-06:00

"Where am I gonna hide the body?"

Welcome back everyone! This piece is the second in a series of moves that Odin's Eye would make if I were the Triangle of Authority. Even looking up the pictures for this post, I got excited. Dude is a physical freak. Everson Griffen stands 6'3, 280 pounds and runs a 4.66 40-yard dash. According to his NFL combine report, he is especially powerful in confined space and his agility and speed in space are better than most DEs. His agility and speed stems back to his days as a high school running back. As any NFL draft analyst worth their salt would tell you, you can't get caught up in measureables, as some fans may with a player like Joe Webb. We aren't the Raiders here, setting our depth charts by 40 times. However, I've watched the Vikings nearly every play of every game this year, and this guy is an animal. He plays mostly on special teams and rotates in on defense sparingly as a linebacker or defensive lineman. He has accumulated 21 tackles (15 solo, 3 for loss), 4 sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery in that time on defense, as well as 9 tackles and a forced fumble on special teams.

Introducing "The Spear." Popularized by Mr. Bill Goldberg.

Despite trying not to fall in love with the sheer athleticism that Griffen has displayed in his time on the field, it's hard not to. He is a gunner on special teams, and is probably one of the biggest gunners in the entire NFL. He can really move. Last week, on a screen pass to Darren Sproles, he caught up to Sproles from behind before Sproles was knocked out of bounds by Jamarca Stanford. How many 280 pound men have you seen catch a guy with Sproles' speed, from behind no less? Don't act like you're not impressed. He also scooped up a botched snap by the Saints in stride and would have scored if not for the Breesus' all out effort to stop him. If you skip to the 0:40 second point in this highlight, those plays are back-to-back. I just re-watched the play where he catches up to Sproles from behind, and I recommend you do too. He is on the opposite side of the field when Sproles catches that ball. Holy sh*t. He also blew by the Saints' left tackle on that fumble recovery.

Note: I had to watch the discount double-check commercial to get to those highlights. Man do I hate that ad and everything it represents. For those keeping score at home, that's two Saints-Vikings searches in a row that have resulted in a kick to the plums. RODGERS!?! DISCOUNT DOUBLE-TWAP!!

Not only has he wowed me with his athleticism, but unlike Joe Webb, Griffen has made the most of his opportunities. His 4 sacks this season are good for 3rd on the team behind Brian Robison (6.0) and some other guy with a mullet or something. I'm no mathemetician, but I'm willing to bet if you projected Griffen's statistics over how many snaps a starter like Robison has gotten (I tried, but could not find how many defensive snaps Griffen has been on the field for this season), they would look pretty, prettttty, pretttttty, prettttttay good.

Going forward, I expect big things from Griffen. His draft stock dropped a 2 years ago because of concerns about his work ethic, and he was seen as a high-risk, high-reward pick. As long as he keeps his name out of the police reports, I believe this man will replace Brian Robison or one of our linebackers by next year. I mean, for Pete's sake, isn't it about time the Vikings got a pick right that wasn't in the first round? Think of the damage this 280 pound beast can do to an offensive player when he can get the type of short-range momentum that comes with a 4.6 40. He has the potential to be an absolute sledgehammer on the field. His abilities as far as pass coverage and hands go, are still mostly unknown. The good news about that is if he struggles in those areas, he is originally a defensive end. Brian Robison signed a 3-year, 14.1 million dollar deal this offseason, which makes him relatively cheap and a leading candidate to be replaced after an underwhelming first season as a starter this year. Chad Greenway signed a big deal, so don't expect to see Griffen replacing him. Erin Henderson has played decently enough this season to garner a starting spot next year. My opinion about his brother E.J. has been made here before, but to refresh you all, I feel he has lost a step and is one of the players that needs to go in order to improve our NFL-record breaking (and not in a good way) defense.

I don't see the Mike position as a good fit for Griffen if he were to play in the linebacking corps, so Greenway or Erin Henderson would have to convert to the middle to make room for Griffen. Otherwise, he may end up replacing Brian Robison, who has really dropped off the radar after a solid start to the 2011 season. Wherever Griffen ends up being plugged in, it's this blogger's strong opinion that he needs to be utilized more frequently in any way possible. There's really nowhere to go but up for this defense and Everson Griffen himself. One might say the sky is the limit for him.

What's up with Webb?

2011-12-21T02:29:00.008-06:00

So tonight I was at work when I felt like I had a bit of an epiphany. I kind of hate that we have Joe Webb on our team.

Before you bash me, listen for a second. It is well documented that Webb is a phenomenal athlete. He is big, fast, and can jump high. It's all really breathtaking to witness.

HOWEVUH *Stephen A. Smith voice*, while he may be a considerably better all-around athlete than your average NFL-er, what is he really good at? He has shown almost nothing at the WR position in the two years he's been in the league. He has one catch in his career as a Viking. and this is the position we originally drafted him for. Webb hardly can get on the field even with our terrible receiving corps. My argumentative mind tells me this may be because he is also our backup QB and our coaching staff wants to keep him healthy, but if you're going to try to use a guy like we have tried to use Joe Webb, I doubt his status as backup quarterback is what's holding our coaching staff back. If he was good enough to be on the field as a receiver, he would be in my occasionally not-so-humble opinion.

Webb's running abilities have really been at their best (actually, they have only been effective) when he is in as our main QB, because the defense can't automatically assume he's going to run it like they do when he lines up in the backfield in the "Blazer" formation. When Joe has operated out of the Blazer formation he's gotten stuffed like a holiday turkey. He could be amazing if he had much for passing skills, but at this point those are questionable at best. As a quarterback, he is a 58% career passer with a 1:3 TD-INT ratio and a 5 yard/attempt average.It's a small sample size, but in my mind, his position will never be at quarterback. If you disagree, I'd love to hear why.

One aspect of his failures has been the timing of them. This aspect is not Joe Webb's fault at all. That's on the coaching staff and more specifically, Bill Musgrave. At times, Musgrave's offense looks like it could be very effective. At others, the playcalling makes you throw your hands up and wonder what the heck he was thinking. We ran two straight plays last week where Joe Webb faked handoffs to CHRISTIAN PONDER. What starting defensive player in the NFL is going to believe for a second that Christian Ponder is taking that handoff? (Vikings players not included.) Sure enough, no Saint did and he was promptly stopped after 3 yards. The next play Webb was hurried into an incompleted pass to Percy Harvin. (He also had one play earlier in the game where he was dropped for a 3 yard loss from the same formation.)

NOTE: As I was looking up the exact results for those plays, I Googled "Vikings-Saints recap". I clicked the first result, and quickly realized it was the recap for the 2009 NFC Championship. Talk about an unexpected kick to the plums. Not cool, Google.

Again, this is a great athlete, and I acknowledge that. But guess what? The NFL has seen plenty of Joe Webbs. If you're not able to apply your athleticism to a specific part of the game (receiving, passing, blocking, returning or rushing the ball), you really aren't good for much. Josh Cribbs has been successful in Cleveland, but mainly for his return prowess (Joe has shown little to nothing in this area) while Brad Smith has made a decent living doing the same for a couple AFC East teams. Both have had decent success running Wildcat formations (Webb has not), but their marks have been made in the return game and as wide receivers as well. Joe is a 6th round pick, so we don't have a ton invested into him. He certainly wouldn't be the first 6th round pick by the Vikes that hasn't succeeded, if in fact he doesn't.

So what I'm asking, is how much longer do you folks think we should try to find ways to get Webb involved when he really hasn't shown much in the opportunities he's been given? Has his lack of success been Bill Musgrave's fault? Is it a collective problem between not being able to sustain drives long enough to utilize the Blazer formation properly, an inconsistent offensive line, and coaching mistakes? I really can't be sure. I'm glad I'm only pretending to be the Viking coaching staff and not actually a part of it. They really have a mess on their hands. We're almost to the end of his second season, so attributing it to adjusting to the NFL is an argument that's running out of slack in a hurry. I personally am getting a little tired of seeing every gimmick play we try for Mr. Webb fail miserably. Maybe it's time we give up. To decide whether to give up on Webb or Musgrave is not my problem, but at least one is at fault here.

Losses For The Greater Good?

2011-12-11T17:39:00.008-06:00

Helmet? I don't need no stinkin' helmet.

The last two games for the Vikings would have been painful if we weren't completely out of the playoff hunt and if we weren't, well, the Vikings. First, let's get through my notes from the loss to the Denver Tebows that I totally called:

Finally, an exciting game played by the Vikings. Christian Ponder shows signs that he is a good quarterback and also shows signs that he may be not so great of a quarterback -turnovers at terribly inopportuned times - is this guy Romo 2.0? Very similarly to the Raider game (and the Lions game), Ponder has turned the ball over both deep in our own territory and deep in enemy territory. This is a big red flag to me as a great football mind for these reasons: turnovers deep in your own territory equal easy points for your opponents, and turnovers deep in enemy territory equal out to forfeiting the opportunity for points for your team. These are the biggest momentum killers in the game of football.

Even with all the missed tackles and blown coverages by the secondary, I wasn't getting angry like I do sometimes when the Vikings are up to their typical ridiculously idiotic things. Say it out loud: our fourth string cornerback is #1 on our depth chart. The secondary we are fielding has no business starting, and they wouldn't be without the barrage of injuries we've faced this year. The defense played wonderfully in the first half and awfully in the second, while the offense did the opposite and played pretty badly in the first half and quite well in the second, thanks to some great plays by Percy and Gerhart wearing down the Broncos defense.

However, at the end when the Broncos were in extra-point range and we had no timeouts, the decision to just let them run the clock enraged me. In a situation where it is clear the other team can run the clock down to nothing and kick a <30 yard field goal and you have a minute left, you gotta let them score. At least then we would have a fighting chance. I do not believe you can hold out and hope for a forced fumble or a blocked/missed chip shot FG in the NFL (Frazier indicated later in the presser that they were going for the block), because NFL teams will execute in that situation 99% of the time. This is not the NCAA where field goals (especially indoors) are commonly missed from short range. On ESPN's NFC North Blog, Kevin Seifert disagreed, and had this to say on the matter:

The Broncos had a 95.3 percent chance to win the game the moment they made the interception. Had the Vikings allowed an immediate touchdown, their chances of driving the field for a touchdown on their ensuing possession and ultimately winning the game in overtime was 2.5 percent. So statistically speaking, the Vikings had a better chance of stopping the Broncos' final possession, as they tried to do, than pulling off a non-traditional miracle.

I agree with the idea that directly after the interception when we had 2 timeouts that we should've tried to make the stop, and if we did not allow a first down our worst-case scenario would have been the ball back with about 25-30 seconds and no timeouts. But once Willis McGahee broke off a 15 yard run down to our 4 yard line, I doubt we were better served by letting them run the clock down for a 21-yarder, which is essentially an extra point. Think fast, how many extra points have you ever seen blocked? Okay, now how many times have you seen a team score in 50 seconds? The percentage of us winning may have only been increased slightly if we let them score, but in "the game of inches", those are inches in the right direction.

Positives from this one included: Jared having another awesome game, Percy absolutely BEASTING for possibly the best game of his career, including two 50+ yard catch and runs for touchdowns, Kyle Rudolph having another ridiculous catch and Devin Aromashodu looking halfway like a passable starting receiver (he would go on to drop a long pass late in the Lions game).

The Lions game started out worse than any game this season, and if not for a late rally engineered by Joe Webb and aided by a penalty-prone Lions squad, would have probably gone down as the ugliest, most unwatchable game of the season. Yes, I know you're thinking about the Packer MNF game, but this was 21-doughnut 9:06 into the game. In the Packer game, the score hit 24-doughnut on a Jordy Nelson touchdown catch 4:15 into the 3rd quarter. Anyhow, it ended the way we probably needed it to end, with a loss. Spoiler victories are fun to watch, and knocking the division rival Lions further away from the playoffs would have been nice.You know what is nicer than that? The #2 pick in the draft. Tell me how much you remember that great Viking victory last year over the heavily favored Eagles which cost us a few draft slots. Nobody gives a hoot about a victory when it doesn't mean anything, and that's exactly what this would have been. With ~~Ryan~~ Matt Kalil, the only top-5 OL prospect in the draft, most likely headed back to USC for his senior year (turns out this was just a rumor), we may be able to command a king's ransom to whatever team is desperate to trade up for a player like Matt Barkley or Robert Griffin III. The Browns have 2 number 1's they may be willing to give up in order to get their shot at a franchise quarterback, since Colt McCoy hasn't exactly been setting the world ablaze. Even if we kept the pick, we could end up with Mo Claiborne from LSU, who is considered by many to be every bit as good as last year's top-5 cornerback from LSU Patrick Peterson, or 2-time Biletnikoff award winner Justin Blackmon from Oklahoma State. Both of those players would fill big needs and have the potential to produce immediately. Check the links and see what you think for yourselves.

For crying out loud though, did it really have to end with a blatant facemask no-call on our quarterback? You know, the same position that Tom Brady, the guy who got a penalty called on the defense for tackling him, plays? The last thing we needed this season was another terrible insult-to-injury type loss that FaceMaskGate has now provided us with.

Christian Ponder looked awful in this game. He threw 3 interceptions, one was returned for a touchdown, and also had a fumble lost in the end zone for a Detroit touchdown. He could have easily had 5 or 6 interceptions by my count if the Lions defensive backs caught balls that hit their hands and chests. This kid is really starting to worry me. I get it, rookies make mistakes. The problem is, he isn't learning from the mistakes. He is making the same turnovers every time. The greatness of my football mind is arguable at best, and perhaps the plays need to get more creative, but it seems to me that he really gives away the hitch routes that we throw. That was the route he was intercepted on multiple times today and the nature of that route makes TAINTS (touchdowns after interceptions) a frequent result if intercepted.

With all that said, there is no quarterback controversy here. Ponder is a rookie and I will begrudgingly accept his mistakes. I am simply outlining the areas in which I think he needs to improve. As Vikings fans we all know that excitement need be tempered at all times. Christian Ponder has shown flashes of potential and nothing more. While some may point to inconsistent first year stats of Mannings and Aikmans, there are also Tim Couches and David Carrs out there whose starts were very similar to our rookie quarterback's. For now, we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He is playing behind one of the worst offensive lines in recent memory and a wide receiver corps that is pretty thin as well. Let's just say the cupboards are pretty empty for Chef Christian at this point, and over the next few years he should have some better ingredients to work with.

Doing it wrong...

Anyway, after Christian was benched for his performance/health reasons, Joe Webb brought us back with some spectacular running plays, breaking Fran Tarkenton's franchise record for rushing yards in a game by a QB with 109 and a TD, and our defense played pretty darn well all game. Our secondary was pretty bad, but pretty bad is actually pretty good at this point in time for us. If you're excited to have your 4th cornerback back in the lineup as the starter, you might be a Vikings fan. We're so beat up in the secondary we should probably contact the Make A Wish Foundation and see if any of their kids' wish is to play in the NFL, then at least we'd get some positive headlines. Go ahead Leslie, throw Little Jimmy back there at strong safety. He surely couldn't get burned any worse than Jamarca Sanford and Ced Griffin have been, even if his condition does include club feet and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Jared Allen picked up his 100th sack as a Viking and 3 sacks overall, though that may be subject to change. The three sacks brought his season total to 17.5 with 3 games remaining, meaning he will need to average 2 sacks per game for the rest of the season to break Michael Strahan's NFL single-season sack record of 22.5.

Doing it right, all the time.

It's really becoming a strong opinion of mine that the Vikings need to clean house. I don't mean cut a couple players or veterans to send a message, either. I mean it in the sense that if the Vikings were a country, we need to drop an atom bomb on them. Look at who has come to play every game this season. It is literally the same 3-4 players, every time. Percy Harvin is a swiss army knife of an offensive weapon. How awesome is it to have a guy like Percy at 5'11, 180 pounds breaking tackles, refusing to go down until 4 guys make him? Jared Allen may give us the only good memory of this year if he can have a couple nice games in the next 3 and set the sack record. If we had 11 Percy Harvins on offense and 11 Jared Allens on defense, that'd be one hard-nosed, game breakin', mullet rockin', spear huntin', quarterback strippin', touchdown scorin' Super Bowl champion of a team right there.

"Mighty Mouse ain't got nothin' on me"

There are also a handful of solid players that do not make a ton of standout plays (Greenway, Kevin Williams, Erin Henderson, John Sullivan) but are still worth keeping. Finally, there is a good-sized portion of the team that has shown they do not have the ability to make plays that need to be made. Phil Loadholt was the 2nd most penalized offensive lineman in the league last year, and is good for at least one sack allowed/false start/hold per game this year. Charlie Johnson gives away more sacks than Santa gives away Christmas presents. Jamarca Sanford has no concept of how the Cover-2 defense is supposed to operate. Cedric Griffin has been beaten like a rented mule this season. Lorenzo Booker has about half as many fumbles this season as he has touches.

You're doing it wrong.

Devin Aromashodu has just as many drops as he does great catches. Even the ultimate warrior, EJ Henderson, needs to go. I've got a lot of respect for EJ as a football player for battling back from what should have been a career-ender and starting. That said, he doesn't have the mobility needed out of an effective Cover-2 Mike linebacker anymore. We need a sideline to sideline playmaker in the middle who can cover the increasingly athletic tight ends in the league, and I don't believe EJ is the guy we need in that position if we are to return to the top of the NFC Norse division.

The way the team has battled back in games recently is a great sign that our coaching staff still has the players playing hard. Some of these players (hell, who am I kidding, plenty of these players) at this point simply are not equipped to be playing in the roles they're in. The defensive backs that are playing now are a product of injury forcing them to be in, so there's really no question that the players we have seen the last few games back there will not be starting next year. The offensive line's issues however, are a product of lack of talent.

Both of these groups need to be almost completely rehauled. This means one of two things: either the Vikings will be active in free agency this year and will add starters in the secondary, offensive line and/or receiving corps, combined with at least 1-2 added immediate starters through the draft, or we will try to build strictly through the draft and potentially have another rough season next year. If we can add two or three impactful free agents and have a decent draft, we could be looking at competing again next year. With Allen and AP approaching the back end of their primes and Percy Harvin only having a couple years left on his rookie deal, we should be looking to compete sooner than later. To do so, we're gonna have to make some big changes. Thanks for reading y'all. Have a good week and as always, SKOL.

The McRib - For a Limited Time Only

2011-12-01T13:34:00.004-06:00

Donovan punches the time clock for the last time as a Viking today.

It appears that the Donovan McNabb era has officially ended here in Minnesota. His career stats as a Viking: 94-156 for 1026 yards, 4 touchdowns passing (1 'rushing' - but let's be honest he could have crawled in on that play) and 2 interceptions.

I was very wrong about how this season would go with Don at the helm. I thought he looked good in the preseason, but after getting a bigger sample size we all saw how awful he truly was. After so many telegraphed WR screens, passes bounced yards in front of receivers feet, and a give up flop in our own endzone in Chicago, we all knew it was time for him to go and the Ponder era to begin. Since then, he's hardly been mentioned by any media outlet. My best guess (and I am not necessarily a great football mind, but run with me here) is that after Cutler broke the news that he may be done for the year and the Texans grabbed Jake Delhomme, who has no business being a starter anywhere, McRib and his agent saw their best chance to get in on a playoff team's roster and potentially start. I can only hope that a playoff team is dumb enough to think that a quarterback who was benched by a 2-9 team can help them in any way. The mere possibility of a playoff-caliber team having a front office inept enough to sign this man makes me excited. We will just have to wait and see.

According to ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter, citing league sources, Donovan's agent requested the release. Early speculation has him potentially headed to either Chicago or Houston, two very QB-needy franchises at this point. Herm Edwards believes this would be a good fit for Chicago. He clearly has not watched Donovan McNabb play a single snap this year. Hopefully the Bears feel the same way though. I would love to watch how ol' McRib performed once exposed to an environment rich in deep dish pizzas and topping-heavy hot dogs*. He'll probably convert to offensive line.

Mmm... Deep Dish

*Seriously, this guy is in no shape to be a professional athlete. My girlfriend's father was at a Vikings charity event no longer than 2 weeks ago and testified that he witnessed McNabb eating wings and nachos for a solid half hour straight. I'm pretty sure that's not part of Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers' diet. Maybe the man is in need of a career change. Watch out, Adam Richman.

EDIT: It has come across the newswires that McNabb requested his release after being dropped down to the 3rd string quarterback on the depth chart. I can only speculate on why his depth chart position mattered to him when it was clear he wouldn't see the field ever again as a Viking. Perhaps he just wanted to be able to eat nachos and chicken wings all day in peace and not have to do the pesky things that being a pro football player entails, like you know, practicing and being on the sideline during games. Either way, unless a team claims him off waivers (which is not likely) he will still be getting paid by us.

So Donovan shall be living the dream whether he gets picked up or not. Who else in the world gets to be fired from their job and still get paid by the company that canned them? I am aware of the existence of severance packages, but perhaps I'm just naive. I'm not sure which would be more awesome, to be Tom Brady and be great at my job or Donovan McNabb and be awful yet still get paid to sit home and stay away from footballs. Now the only people tasked with catching McNabb's bounce passes will be his kids in the backyard. I still am willing to bet the neighbor kid will get an interception or two on a telegraphed bubble screen. (BTW, the answer is Tom Brady. His wife is Gisele. I'm pretty sure Donovan McNabb's wife is Mrs. Butterworth or something.)

Vikings Having a Rough Year, Preparing for Possibility of Getting Teb-owned

2011-11-30T17:13:00.007-06:00

EDIT: I just want to say that although my writing about the Vikings will continue to emphasize the fact that we suck, it needs to be understood that the difference in talent level between the best team and the worst team in the NFL is almost nada. This is why teams like the Broncos and Bengals can be in the bottom 5 one year and the playoffs the next. It only takes a few bounces the other way and a handful of different calls on offense or defense to turn a 3-7 team into a 7-3 team. So whenever I refer to the Vikings 'sucking' as a collective, it's not necessarily an indictment on the players' talent or effort level as much as it's just an observation of how things have gone this year. Sometimes once you get a rock rolling downhill, it's tough to stop. That's just how the year has gone for us and doesn't mean we don't have what it takes to be a good team with a handful of minor changes. Oh, and a completely overhauled secondary and offensive line. Thanks for reading.

Hello all, nice to see your faces again! I don't want to apologize again for being AWOL from the blogosphere, but I do feel bad about it. Especially since judging by the 2-3 views I see this joint getting every few days, which indicates I have at least 2-3 loyal readers. Maybe. I appreciate y'all if you're out there.

It's nearing the end of the semester here at school, so naturally things are getting a little hectic. I guess my life right now feels a little bit like how I imagine the Vikings themselves are feeling every Sunday: a little burnt out. It's tough to write week in and week out about a team that seems to do just about the same thing every week; it just doesn't make for interesting writing. I've still been there to watch every game, but between working 30-40 hours a week on a night shift, having school during the day and recently purchasing Call of Duty: MW3, it can be hard at times to want to dedicate the little free time I have to write about (and therefore, basically relive) the games that we continue to lose by shooting ourselves in the foot with penalties, lack of adequate personnel and boneheaded plays.

If anything requires an apology, it's probably that last sentence above. What an unholy fucking lung full of words that is. But you know what? I'm not going to change it. Kind of the way the Vikings don't seem to change much of what they do week to week. I'll give a quick summary of the last couple of games, about which I have said nothing.

Packer Game: We got our asses thoroughly kicked. Reamed, even. You see my post below this one? That's really all I had to say. They shut down our run, they demolished our pitiful excuses of an offensive line/secondary, and basically killed any semblance of a will to win that the Vikings had by the time the first quarter was over. I called in sick to work just so I could see this game, so I almost feel like the Vikings owe me a refund for my lost wages while I fell asleep midway through the 4th quarter of this beatdown. It was dreadful to watch and on top of it the MNF crew was especially relentless in their constant praise for the Packers and their quarterback. DID YOU KNOW THAT AARON RODGERS LIKES TO THROW WHERE CORNERS ARENT LOOKING?! WHAT A TRICKSTER. HOW ABOUT THAT TED THOMPSON? DOES THIS GUY KNOW HOW TO BUILD A TEAM THE RIGHT WAY OR WHAT? Oh, and Kyle Rudolph had a nice catch.

Raider Game: This was a close game until a brutal sequence of events. At about the 11-minute mark in the second quarter, we were in the red zone driving for what could have become either a 10-3 or 14-3 lead when Ponder throws a terrible pick into double coverage at the 5 yard line, returned to the 47. Raiders drive a short field and score a touchdown (10-7 Raiders). Vikings get the ball back, march back into enemy territory, only to have a botched field goal attempt. Raiders score again on a short field (17-7 Raiders). On the ensuing kick return, (we're sitting at about 1:30 left in the half at this point) Lorenzo Booker loses a fumble deep in our territory, allowing the Raiders yet another short field with which to push the lead to 24-7 at halftime.

Maybe that isn't a sequence of events to some people, it's just a terrible quarter of football. Either way, it was god-awful to watch. The second half consisted of the Raiders doing their best to hand us the game, but Christian Ponder (who I like, by the way) kept pushing it back towards them. All three of his turnovers were in a red zone. Two he threw deep in Raider territory and cost us points, and the other was deep in our own territory and gave the Raiders points. All 3 interceptions displayed awful decision making. Adrian Peterson also got injured after a promising start to the game and has yet to return to the field. Overall, the entire game was basically like a dumpster fire, if the dumpster on fire was the one behind the abortion clinic that all the aborted fetuses are deposited into.

Falcons Game: This game was truly a clinic on how a good team should beat a terrible one. The Falcons dominated the time of possession battle for the first half, holding the ball for more than 20 minutes and imposing their will on a porous Viking defense. By halftime, we were down 17-0 and not much hope remained for a team missing it's leading man in AP. Percy Harvin did his best Tim Tebow impression and tried to carry the team back on his own, but we fell short. The only reason we were really in this game anyways was because of an idiotic special teams player on the Falcons missing a fire call and getting hit by a bouncing punt deep in their own territory and an unexplainable 4th and 13 touchdown pass from Ponder to Harvin where for some reason a linebacker was lined up against Percy. We also had the longest non-scoring play in NFL history. Nobody almost scores like us. I imagine on that return, Percy's life soundtrack would've gone from:

WHO GON' STOP ME HUH?

To...

OH NO, NOOO!

Anyway, that should bring us up to speed. This week we are facing the Denver Broncos. If you haven't heard, Tim Tebow is their quarterback. I like Tim Tebow. If you don't like Tim Tebow, you truly are a hater. He's a nice guy. I've never read anything bad about him, anywhere. He's one of the few players in the NFL that you know without question is giving full effort on every play and is there because he loves the game. That said, I do hate how ESPN will not shut the fuck up about him ever. I get it, his name creates buzz. But since he took the reins, their offense has only scored more than 17 points once. They are 5-1 in that span. If you had no idea who was on a team that went 5-1 over a stretch, and their offense only scored over 17 once in that span, would you credit the wins to the offense or the defense? Exactly.

Of course it isn't that simple. From the games that I have watched, the offensive line gives Tebow years of time to sit in the pocket. It takes Tim a little bit more time than your average NFL quarterback to make it through his reads and progressions, so on the few passes they do attempt, he really needs it. Tebow doesn't turn the ball over (1 time in 6 games), so now people have shifted from "he is inaccurate and doesn't hit his receivers with regularity" to "his passes are so inaccurate, not only does he not hit his receivers, but he completely misses any form of human life!" Sometimes something that is a perceived as negative can end up as a positive.

Their run game has been the fixture of the offense since Tebow has come in, which should be a good sign for the Purple. We currently rank 9th in rush yards allowed, and are still clinging to the reputation of a staunch run defense built by the Williams Wall. Sometimes I think that's more of offenses simply choosing to pass instead of run, and yards allowed is really not one of the most indicative statistics in the NFL of anything. Just ask last year's Chargers, who ended the year #1 in yards on offense AND defense, yet didn't make the playoffs. Willis McGahee has enjoyed somewhat of a career revival this year as well. He's a Miami alum, so that makes me happy. Eric Decker is Tebow's favorite receiver when they do pass, and he will have a little homecoming Sunday, as he is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and grew up in Cold Spring.

The defense is led by defensive rookie of the year race leader Von Miller, who has 10.5 sacks, Elvis Dumervil, and Champ Bailey, and have really helped keep the team in games when the offense isn't clicking. They held the Chargers to only 13 points last week, so I'm sure our offense will have its hands full this week. This should be a close game. I believe this is one the Vikings can win, despite their horrid play over the past few weeks. Tebow Magic can't last forever, can it? Who am I kidding. We will blow this one too.

Prediction: Broncos 20, Vikings 14

If AP was playing, I'd give us the nod. But we've looked like shit on a stick the past two weeks without him outside of Percy and CP7. I think Von Miller and Dumervil will take advantage of our two traffic cone tackles and be chasing Christian Ponder all over the field, and I really just think the Vikings suck this year. They kinda sucked at the beginning of the year when we were healthy. Now we are missing 3/4 of our starting secondary, one of our top receivers, and a couple offensive linemen. I love them, but they just have sucked donkey balls for about 90% of the season. So keep losing. At this point in the season, it will only make us better for next year. It hurts to watch, but I will watch nonetheless. Bring da pain.

Just how deep can shit get? Deep as the abyss.

[Insert Penn State-Related Joke Here]

2011-11-14T23:24:00.001-06:00

We weren't prepared.
My ass hurts. MY ASS!

Midseason Cleaning at Odin's Eye

2011-11-08T21:19:00.000-06:00

Good afternoon everyone!
I want to take a moment and apologize for my lack of contributions in the past week and a half or so. My life has definitely gotten busier than it was when I started this blog. When I started, I had no job, it was summer and I had no money to really do much with, so I was just hanging out a lot. Well, the money situation hasn't really changed, but I now find myself working a 2nd shift job that starts at 5 p.m. and I usually end up leaving at about 3 a.m. every night. I only get to leave at 3 because my excuse is I am a student, while the rest of the shift generally is not going to be done for another hour or two yet.

There is also more involvement in school required... as much as I hate to do that, I did just get my graduation application accepted, so I better make sure to pass these classes so I can get the hell outta here when the time comes! Needless to say, with my now 40+ hour work weeks and school to boot, things have become more complicated as sleep is also necessary during my free time. It's really uncanny how easily I fall asleep these days actually. I've never really been a nap person; I always thought that if I take one I'll just sleep all night. That isn't all completely false, because I definitely have been taking naps lately and they have definitely lasted four hours at times. This is what my weekends consist of lately. I know, I'm cool.

Let's get back where I left off: predicting a 27-24 victory over the Panthers going into the bye week, saying that if we limited Steve Smith, Ponder didn't turn it over, and we fed AP the ball we would win. Lo and behold, those three things happened and we won by a score of 24-21. Not a bad prediction, if I do say so myself. Jared Allen had another sack and a fumble recovery, and CP7 was clutch on third down. It was a competitive game, but not an overly exciting one. Coming up on this Monday (which I may call into work just to watch) we have the Packers again, who are just coming off a close victory against the Chargers in which Aaron Rodgers dropped another 4 TD, 5 incompletion, monster game.

Here the Vikings stand in the middle of their year, at 2-6. My regular season predictions have not been too accurate, as I kind of went into rube mode on them and gave an optimistic outlook. If you refer back, I had us at 4-4 at mid-season, and finishing 6-2 for a 10-6 final record. I was wrong. Very wrong. However, I will say that I also mentioned in that entry that we were far more likely to start 2-6 than 6-2, so I wasn't completely blinded by my homerism. It hasn't been pretty, losing our first 3 games by blowing increasingly larger halftime leads. Donovan McNabb was benched in the 4th quarter of a beatdown on national TV by the Bears and hasn't been seen since, and Christian Ponder has given fans hope that we may have a franchise quarterback in the making. One characteristic of Ponder that is already garnering a lot of attention is his poise under pressure and proficiency on third downs. I got to thinking for a second about that, and recalled something one Trent Dilfer of ESPN had to say about him briefly following the draft. It went something like...

"His drop, his arm speed, everything about him ... it's one tempo," Dilfer said. "He has to play at the 7-on-7 tempo. The drop has to be rhythmical. The receivers have to be open. The ball goes one speed. The pocket has to be nice. Any time he's asked to quicken that up or there's people around him, his accuracy is awful. ...

"The great quarterbacks are as accurate going to [options] two, three and four as they are when you go to one. ... Christian Ponder, as soon as you get to two or three, the ball is dirting. It's high. It's all over the place. OK?. He plays with a lot of anxiety. Do you want your quarterback in the NFL to play with a lot of anxiety?

"Christian Ponder tests off the charts. He's in shorts and a t-shirt. He goes to his pro workout, he's in shorts and a t-shirt. His big pecs are hanging out. He's got big guns. He looks great. He's a good-looking young man and he spins that ball around the football field in a perfect environment and people go 'wow he can really play'."

Yeah, about that, Mr. Dilfer... I think you may have been a bit off about his anxiety. He's been as cool as a cucumber on the other side of the pillow thus far on the most important downs, in the most important quarter.. From what the Minnesotan ladies are saying, you're spot on about him looking great. Ponder has not been afforded the luxury of anything even close to resembling nice pockets, or really very many open receivers for that matter. Despite that, he has looked pretty damn good for a rookie in his first two starts. Sure, he was picked off twice in his first, but it was against the Packers. The same Packers who just handed the Great King Laserface his first ever 3-interception game of his career this past Sunday.

"Ya better ask somebodayy how to not turn the ball ovaa!"

Okay, now that I'm done hashing that out, here are my grades for mid-season Vikings foosball.

Quarterback: I - I'm giving us an incomplete on this one. McNabb looked terrible. NO ONE DENIES THIS! But as I stated above, Christian Ponder has all given us hope. He looks unrattled by pressure, doesn't lose a lot of yardage on sacks, and hits open receivers. In the three fourth quarters that Christian Ponder has played, the Vikings are 10 of 16 (62.5%) converting on third down. In the five fourth quarters that Donovan McNabb played, the Vikings were 4 of 17 (23.5%) converting on third downs. He has thrown a couple picks, and there have been other throws he has almost had picked as well. These things happen to every quarterback. He has also been phenomenal on 3rd down conversions and nearly led a comeback against the world champs. There is hope.

Running Backs: A - Adrian Peterson has looked really good this year. He has looked different than other years for some reason, maybe it is just in my mind, but he has been an especially tough runner so far this year and leads the league in yards after contact. That is a testament both to the terrible play of our line as well as the awesomeness that is Purple Jesus. Toby Gerhart has looked good spelling him, and Booker hasn't had to do much, but has been solid in special teams.

Receivers/Tight Ends: C+ - Michael Jenkins has been a reliable possession receiver. He makes the catch when it's thrown on target to him, but he does not have a lot of ability to get separation and is best suited as probably a 3rd or 4th receiver on a very good team. I would be satisfied if we had a game-breaker at the 1WR position, Jenkins at 2WR and Percy in the slot, where he does the most damage. Speaking of Percy, he has had a good year but not the breakout year as a receiver I envisioned for him. He is a phenomenal athlete and we have found ways to get him the ball, despite him not being on the field nearly as much as our top 2 WRs. I just have this fear of his talent being wasted as being barely more than a gimmick. I do not want Reggie Bush, Jr. on our team. I think Percy has the ability to be Wes Welker or even a Steve Smith. Are my thoughts baseless and inaccurate? Perhaps more on the Smith comparison than the Welker, but I still want to see more out of him. He has been our best wideout for what it's worth, and now that Ponder has taken the reigns, perhaps he will show me a bit more of what I've been looking for. Kyle Rudolph has looked good in limited action. He has made some amazing catches for a TE, but looks a little less fleet of foot than some of the elite tight ends in the league. Then again, he probably has around the same speed as Jason Witten. I would settle for having Jason Witten. Shiancoe has looked better since Ponder started playing, and is his favorite target on 3rd downs so far. He has been very reliable in getting those conversions. Bernard Berrian was awful and probably never should have made the team, letting him stick around for 5 weeks is what drags the group down, which has achieved what should be expected of them, relative to their abilities.

Offensive Line: C- -This is most definitely one of the areas of the team that needs to be addressed in the early rounds of this year's draft. Like, the first round (unless we can get Justin Blackmon and Matt Kalil is gone). We are 9th in the league in sacks allowed, but surprisingly in the bottom third of the league in QB hits. Our line has the best pound-for-pound running back in the league running behind them, and he is near the league lead and has been leading the league in rushing despite them. We lead the league in negative rushes up the middle with 11. I think the word that could describe this unit best is inconsistent. We see a lot of negative rushes, and quite a few big gainers. Charlie Johnson gets beaten like a red-headed stepchild regularly on pass rushes, John Sullivan is not anything special, and Phil Loadholt is penalty-prone. Hutch is not going to be here forever, and who knows who is even starting at RG anymore. We have a lot of work to do in this area.

Defensive Backs: D - Our defensive backfield has been awful for years and years and years. Can anyone name a great cornerback that is not named Winfield, who has played for us over the past ten years? Jimmy Hitchcock? Orlando Thomas? Wasswa Serwanga? Whatever. This is just about this year. We've been injury prone and felony prone as well. Chris Cook, who I was especially hard on in the preseason, looked like he was really developing into a solid starter. Then, he went and choked his girlfiend. He is still on the roster, which points to the possibility that we may be keeping him around and giving him another chance. I support that. He isn't Pacman Jones choking out strippers and having his posse shoot bouncers. He was probably drunk and made a mistake. If he does it again, he should be gone, but I am in favor of giving him this chance first. Asher Allen hasn't looked as terrible as he has in the past, but overall this is as big of a mess, if not bigger than the O-Line. The fact that Tyrell Johnson is still seeing playing time is an indicator of just how terrible the situation is. He almost lost us the game last week by taking a terrible angle at the receiver on 4th down and let him get about 20 yards more than he should have. He does not belong in a starting role on this team, or probably any team for that matter. We have always had a solid rush defense, which makes people say that our statistics against the pass are inflated by the fact that people pass more because they can't run against us. This is not the case in my mind. Teams pass against us because it is a sure thing.

Linebackers: C+ - Our linebackers are decent. E.J. Henderson is the baddest MF on the planet for playing every week with a steel rod in his leg, but it doesn't help his case in pass coverage. We get hit on seam routes quite frequently and those are mostly his responsibility. His brother has been a nice surprise, and can really cover sideline to sideline. Chad Greenway got a huge contract in the offseason and has really not made any splash plays. He also gets beat in coverage quite frequently. This is not our worst unit by a stretch, but we need to be better in pass coverage. Teams have beaten us quite a bit by just throwing in the flats or hitting their tight ends in the seams.

Defensive Line: B+ - Jared Allen really brings this unit's grade up. He is on pace to break the league record for sacks in a season, has 3 forced fumbles and 3 recoveries to go with one interception. Brian Robison started the season out strong, but has leveled off in the past few weeks. Remi Ayodele has been virtually invisible. I think he has like 6 tackles this year, and I am pretty sure I'm overestimating that. Kevin Williams has been decent, but quiet. Maybe Pat Williams was more important than we thought he was, because KWill has not been playing up to his usual Pro Bowl level. I don't want to end all of these on negatives, so let me rehash that Jared Allen is the freaking man and is playing like his mullet is on fire this season. He is awesome. I was watching midseason awards on NFL Live last week for the simple fact that I thought Jared was a shoe-in for DPOY. Turns out, ESPN's fans are a bunch of bubble boys who know absolutely nothing about football, because they voted Ndamukong Suh the midseason DPOY. Suh has 3 sacks this season. I really have nothing but words that make me look like a politically incorrect jerk for the people who voted for that.

Special Teams: B+ -Chris "The Godfather" Kluwe has been very good, as usual this season. Ryan Longwell has missed a couple kicks (13-16), but also nailed a 50+ yarder last week that was integral in getting a win. The biggest surprise has been Marcus Sherels giving us a legitimate threat in the punt return game. What a pleasant surprise he has been. His only kick return of the season went for 78 yards last weekend, and he is averaging 10 yards per punt return. Percy brought the first kick of the regular season all the way back, and other than that we have been pretty average on kick returns. We also gave up a touchdown to Devin Hester on a kickoff, but other than that have been very good in coverage. Everson Griffen is relentless on kick coverage, and is a huge guy. Ipso facto, he is a beast.

Alrighty, so overall, we kinda suck this year. It's been a rough year. The one thing that is keeping the attention of anyone other than hardcore fans is Christian Ponder, and he has done a good job of it so far. With a team that is basically out of the competitive picture this year, we just have to look for positives we can build on as a team. It's encouraging that our two best players, Jared and AP, have absolutely continued to show up this season and play their best football. That shows me they are two Vikings all-timers, so hats off to those two and any of the other players that continue to work their tails off despite the fact that our season is already basically over. I think the second half will be prettier than the first, and that's really all we can hope for as fans! I'll leave with the midpoint interlude of Tha Carter II, which is the best album Lil' Wayne has put out to date. See ya next week guys. SKOL!

Vikings Come Up Short Against Pack, Killa Cam Awaits in Week 8

2011-10-25T15:46:00.001-05:00

The best QB in the NFL. *Wipes Eye*

Welcome back to Odin's Eye ladies and gentlemen! Week 7 marked the beginning of the Christian Ponder era, and boy did it start with a bang. Michael Jenkins came inches away from being the guy with 50+ yard touchdowns on two different players' first ever NFL pass, taking a nice double-move route 72 yards. Two plays later, CP7 had his first career touchdown pass and the state of Minnesota let out a collective sigh of relief. We may have a franchise quarterback.

Speaking of franchise quarterbacks, Aaron Rodgers was surgical against us as I predicted. This man is the best quarterback in the league and has been. Some folks have been keeping the Bradys and Mannings of the world above him, but you simply cannot deny it any longer. Manning and Brady have been doing it for longer and that may be why some people give them the nod over Rodgers, but let's get real. How often do you see either of those guys roll out at full speed and with a flick of the wrist, drop a ball 35 yards upfield right into their receivers' chest? The man is a beast. Rodgers finished with 335 yards, 3 touchdowns, and only 6 incompletions (Oh, and one discount double-check). He sits atop the league with a robust 125.7 passer rating. In case you are wondering, the record for passer rating in a season is 121.1, set by Peyton Manning in 2004, so he's not just playing well, he's playing record-breakingly well.

What I did not predict however, was Christian Ponder pumping some life into what was an absolutely stagnant offense only a week ago. Sure, he went 13-32 and threw two pretty bad picks to Charles Woodson, who was quoted as saying he thought he should have had four (He did have 4 decent opportunities, but the 2 he converted were especially easy). These are areas he will need to improve on, as one was just a forced throw on an out to Shiancoe and the other he simply needed to get more loft on and the route was undercut by Woodson. HOWEVAH, he did something that Donovan McNabb had failed to do for six games and that was consistently convert third downs (9-16) and hit receivers between the numbers while doing it. Ponder showed some great improvisational skills and was at his best on rollouts, and I was very impressed with his ability to bounce back after completing ZERO passes in the 3rd quarter and throwing 2 interceptions within a three-throw span. He led us on a great drive to bring the score within 6, but fell just short on the next after being faced with a 98-yard field. The defense couldn't stop James Starks after we punted with little over 2 minutes left and 3 timeouts, and that was that. Eye-Catchers and Stink Eyes as well as a Week 8 preview, after the jump.

Week 7 Eye-Catchers

Jared Allen. - This section is starting to look more and more like a carbon copy of the previous week. You gotta admire a guy who comes to work every week and does exactly what is expected of him, even on a 1-win team. I don't see Dwight Freeney or Cameron Wake putting up record-pace numbers on their terrible teams. Congratulations to Jared, who had another 2 sacks on Sunday, setting the Vikings record for most consecutive games with a sack (9). He upped his season total to 11.5, leading the league and still on track to break Michael Strahan's single-season record of 22.5.

Adrian Peterson.- Again, I'm feeling a little repetitive, but Purple Jesus continues to prove that he is the best RB in the league. Anyone who thought it was Chris Johnson may have seen his season single-game high of 53 yards and then promptly shut their mouth. 175 yards, a touchdown, and even gained praise from the Packers. B.J. Raji was quoted as saying he is a definite Hall-of-Famer. Thanks for the analysis, captain obvious. Not a whole lot more to say here, besides that considering the fact that our O-Line is arguably the weakest part of our team, does anyone else ever wonder what AP would be doing behind one with multiple Pro Bowlers? Ponder that the next time you say we need to go WR in the first round this year.

Christian Ponder.- One game down, and hopefully a long career as a Viking ahead. Yes, there were a good handful of plays which he could use improvement on, but he looked promising. He hit receivers in stride, he is mobile, and he looks like a guy who is willing to take shots and throw down for his team. He took a couple big ones while running for his life and still completed passes. I was very pleased with about 75% of what I saw from him.

Stink Eyes:

Brian Robison. - Robison has been held without a sack for 2 straight weeks now after having a solid start to his 2011 campaign. He also kicked a guy in his junk. The latter will always get you automatic Stink Eye status here at OE.

Everyone on the defense not named Jared Allen. - Aaron Rodgers' passer rating for this game was 146.5 and he only had 6 incompletions all game. I can't even get too mad about that, since he has done pretty much the same thing against every other opponent he has faced this year. What I am disappointed in is that for at least the 2nd time this year, we had a chance to get the ball back and have an opportunity for a win and got the clock run out on us. All I'm saying is, this is not something that would have happened in any game from 2006-2009. Having the ability to consistently make that stop can be the difference between a team that is 1-6 and a team that is 4-3 or 5-2.

Bernard Berrian.- He was inactive for the 2nd time in three weeks, and as of today was waived by the team. All I can say about that is it's about time. Bernard Berrian is the poorest excuse for a number one receiver/deep threat in the NFL, and that's my word. He hasn't been good since 2008, but Berrian will always be remembered for his 99-yard touchdown against the Bears that season in primetime.

Up Next: Carolina Panthers (2-5)

Rookie of the Year frontrunner and all-around Swag Monster, Cam Newton

The Vikings are headed to Carolina next week to face last year's worst team in the league, into which Cam Newton has breathed new life and at least turned into a competitive team every week. I am excited to see him play as a pro for the first time other than looking at highlights. The duo of Newton and Steve Smith has been giving defenses fits all year, and the past two weeks their running game has improved as well. The Panthers are giving up over 130 yards per game on the ground, so look for another big game by Adrian Peterson this week.

It will be a tough game as no Vikings road game is ever easy, but I do believe it is a game we should win. Do I know a ton about the Panthers? No, I do not. I know that their best defensive player (and Miami alum) Jon Beason is out for the season, they have 2 pretty good running backs, and Smith and Newton have been tearing it up. The Vikings have a more talented team than the Panthers, but if we allow Cam to get out of the pocket and improvise, we will be in trouble. Steve Smith makes some of his biggest catches on broken plays by getting behind the defense, and we already saw that happen last week with Greeeeeeg Jennnnninnngs getting so open he was able to walk the last 20 yards of an 80-yard TD catch.

So, let's review: to win this game, the Vikings must keep Steve Smith in front of them, keep Cam Newton in the pocket, and let AP do his thing with Christian Ponder making accurate throws and hopefully not turning the ball over. If we do those things, it should add up to a Vikings victory. I believe it shall. Just let AP "run it". As always, thank you for reading! I have a test I should be studying for. See you folks later. SKOL!

Prediction: Vikings 27, Panthers 24.

Bears Maul Vikings 39-10, Looking Ahead to Vikes-Packers

2011-10-23T02:46:00.000-05:00

Hello again, all. I apologize for the super late post this week, I have been a bit busy. I had an exam on Thursday and started a new job later the same day, which I worked until 3AM Friday morning. My beautiful saint of a mother also had a surprise 60th birthday party thrown for her earlier tonight, so I was doing some things for that as well. It went swimmingly, if you're wondering.

So remember last week, when I predicted a Vikings win if our pass rush was good, we stopped Devin Hester and Matt Forte? Well, none of those things happened and we consequently got straight D-Bo'd by the Bears.

It hurt to watch. I knew after the bomb to Hester followed by a second dropped 3rd down conversion that the game was going to get ugly. Then McNabb just took a dive in the end zone, and oh the pain I do not want to relive, you Chunky soup guzzling skidmark of a quarterback. The only silver lining was a strip-sack-recovery by Jared Allen (who is still on pace to break the single-season sack record) and Donovan McNabb finally getting benched for Christian Ponder, who will start ~~tomorrow~~ today against the Packers.

Ponder went 9-17 for 99 yards in his debut last week, while running for his life nearly every single play as the Bears suddenly got blitz-happy at the end of an already decided game. The man is quite mobile, which he will need to be as the Vikings will be without 2 of their starters tomorrow on an already putrid offensive line. He made his way through his progressions in a way that McNabb had not through 5.5 games. Sure, he will experience "growing pains" (which is just a stupid name for interceptions thrown by a rookie) against a team as good as the Packers, but I see it as better to throw this man into the fray and see what he can do than baby him. Some pundits talk about it being risky to start a rookie quarterback against such a tough squad, but that is a bunch of mularkey. We need to find out what we have as soon as possible, and if he can make plays against the world champs, we will know he can do it any other time.

I am especially afraid this game could also get ugly. Sadly, before the season started I actually predicted the Packers to repeat as champs. Blasphemy, I know, but they are the lone unbeaten team left in the league and are leading the NFL in scoring at 32 points a contest. Aaron Rodgers is surgically good and it's been obvious since the first game he ever played against us. The Pack went 6-10 that season, but those contests were close and I can still remember him making throws on the run that made me (rightfully) nervous for our future against him. My worry in this game is that our pass rush will again be stymied, either by Rodgers' ridiculously quick release or the Packers using the same techniques the Bears did last week and keeping 6-7 blockers in for pass protection. Our defensive backs got exposed last week and just to add insult to injury, Chris Cook got arrested last night and is being held without bail on felony domestic battery/strangulation charges. Odds are this guy is probably not going to be a Viking in 2012 if not sooner than that. What a shame, he was just looking comfortable on the field and I thought we had a solid future starter in him. Who knows what will become of him now. Just a waste of talent. The Vikings now have the most player arrests of any NFL team since 2000. So much for Minnesota nice.

(Chris Cook's favorite Chappelle Show skit)

The odds of the Vikings winning this game are only slightly better than Keith Nichol's odds of catching that Hail Mary tonight against Wisconsin. With a banged up offensive line, one of the biggest priorities needs to be keeping Christian Ponder healthy. He is the future of this franchise and the Packers are going to be coming hard early and often to try to disrupt his rhythm. Green and Yellow has a backup starting at LT, which is encouraging because JA continues to be a beast this season and has always taken advantage of overmatched players. If he can continually disrupt Aaron Rodgers, there is some hope. The Pack defense has not been nearly as good as they were last year, and if Ponder can move the offense it may be able to set up Adrian Peterson for a big day.

It would be the ultimate rube move to call this game a "trap game" for the Packers, as this is not college football and I do not believe the Packers are looking past a big rival in the Vikings. In fact, I believe the Packers are going to go all out in this game and really try to embarass us. You might recall that last year we fired a certain coach after getting blown out by the Packers at home. If things are not going our way, I am looking for Leslie Frazier and his staff to do a good job of keeping this game close and not let us embarass ourselves at home against our most hated rival. If things are going our way, the Packers will probably be playing very badly. Sorry for the negativity, but last week was a big reality check and I am not here to sell hope. The two weakest parts of our team got substantially weaker over this week, and that is weak. Aaron Rodgers should shred our defense with relative ease and our offense probably will not be able to keep up the pace. Clay Mathews probably will play catch-up on sacks since his numbers are low so far this season, I am expecting him to pick up at least 2. This sucks to have to write 10x more than it does to read, but I shall perservere. I'll be back on Monday or Tuesday to try and sift through the negatives and find some things we can build on. I'll leave you fools with a song that always puts me in a better mood. Thanks for reading.

Prediction: Packers 35, Vikings 13.

To The Beginning of an Era.

2011-10-18T15:52:00.001-05:00


CP7 will get his first career start this Sunday.

As for Donovan McNabb..

Preview: Vikings - Bears

2011-10-15T10:58:00.001-05:00

Good Morning!

It's a beautiful fall day today, and I am just hanging out at work because nobody golfs in mid-October. I wanted to write up a preview section for this game as I am working tomorrow 1- close and may not see the game in it's entirety, though I will still be doing a follow-up on it. We have a big game tomorrow, at least as big as one can get when your division is occupied by the only two undefeated teams left in the NFL and you aren't one of them. The last time we saw these Bears, they were using the ol' Dongslinger Brett Favre's head as a basketball on that cushy TCF Bank Stadium turf, as I believe @ChrisWarcraft described it. Devin Hester also ran back a punt right past said punter, and the game was pretty much a complete bust other than being the first outdoor Vikings home game in the past 20 years.

This week, I believe there are some reasons for optimism:

The Bears have allowed the third-most sacks in the league (18).
Minnesota is tied for second in the league with 16 sacks, and all but one have come from the defensive line.
The Bears are surrendering an NFL-worst 5.7 yards per carry.*
Donovan McNabb is from the Chicago area, and is 5-1 all time against the Bears.*
Offenses are basically even, with the Bears favoring the pass and the Vikings favoring the rush more, the Vikings giving up only 75 yards a game on the ground while the Bears are giving up 135 per game.
A fourth straight victory over Minnesota would give Chicago its longest streak since a series-best six-game run Dec. 11, 1983-Oct. 5, 1986*
The Bears have benched RT Frank Omiyale for the game after he got manhandled by Cliff Avril on MNF and the line committed 9 false start penalties. They are also benching both safeties for a 2nd year player and a rookie.
Julius Peppers did not practice Friday and is listed as doubtful on the injury report. Considering he has destroyed the Vikings our past two matchups, this is great news.

Though all of the above reasons make me believe it is likely we will see a win for the Purple on Sunday Night, there are a few counterweights:

Jay Cutler, who has thrown for 13 TDs in his five games against the Vikings. Kevin Kolb could have easily had 3 TD's on us last week, one got called back after a penalty, and he sailed a line drive over a wide open Jeff King in the end zone as well. Cutler will not make those same mistakes.
*Donovan McNabb. The veteran quarterback's completion percentage (56.8) and yards per attempt (6.43) both rank 27th in the league.
*The Bears have held AP under 100 yards in their past 2 meetings.
*The Bears have beaten us in 3 straight meetings.
Antoine Winfield will be out for the game and E.J. Henderson will only see limited action.
Devin Hester always seems to have at least one big return on us. Our special teams coverage units have been outstanding thus far, but if Hester touches the ball there is always a decent chance he houses it. Since I am a huge Miami Hurricane fan, it sucks that Hester is playing for my most hated rival team. I cannot help but cheer for him though, because he is absolutely one of the most, if not the most explosive and electric player in the league. (Maybe 2nd most, behind Purple Jesus)

Prediction: Vikings 28, Bears 24.

Every time we play the Bears it is a tough contest that seems to come down to one of the last possessions, save last year's 40-14 shellacking at Soldier Field. Chicago looks a little out of sorts after Jay Cutler spent 4 quarters running for his life on MNF, and they are coming off of a short week. It will take a big game from our ends, who so far this season have been up to the task, as well as our running game. If we can limit Devin Hester in the return game, slow down Matt Forte (namely on screens, our rush D is solid), and sustain drives with some decent passing gains to keep 8 men out of the box, this should be a victory.Last week's game gives me hope that AP may go extra-beast mode and drop one of his patented 200 yard games this week on his Wheelz of Steel. Let's hope so, since he also is on my fantasy squad. Here's a little Outkast for you on my way out. Enjoy the game, and SKOL!

Bird Season: Vikes crush Cards, get 1st 'W' of the Year

2011-10-10T17:31:00.000-05:00

I was jarred from my slumber Sunday afternoon like a bear out of hibernation. My girlfriend's phone went off, as ESPN notifies her phone every time the Vikings score. The night before had been SCSU's unofficial Homecoming, since my school is currently more broke than even I am and cannot afford an official one, and I had taken part in the celebration. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and flipped on the television with urgency to find my beloved Vikings. Right as I found the game, Brian Robison was in the midst of executing a pure speed rush around Jeremy Bridges, hitting Kevin Kolb's arm in motion and causing an errant throw into the arms of Asher Allen. Was I still dreaming?

Yesterday's game was (mostly) the stuff of dreams. After three nightmare games where the Vikings had a win firmly in their grasp until the final seconds, only to have it pried from their fingers, and a terrible showing overall in Kansas City, most everything came together and it added up to a big first win for the Purple. I will say that I still think Donovan McNabb is just awful, but he doesn't turn the ball over. He is a modern-day Trent Dilfer, for all intents and purposes. In all seriousness, Trent Dilfer may be better than what we have starting at QB right now, but I digress. Adrian Peterson ran pissed off. It was awesome to see. I didn't get to see the first touchdown run, but that was his tamest of runs anyway. At the end of the second TD run, Patrick Peterson, the highly-touted rookie corner, stood between "The Cashier" and the end zone. AD seemed to accelerate another 10 MPH, gave him a shoulder that said, "stay the hell out of my way, rookie" and zipped past for the score. Apparently P-Twice didn't get that memo, however, because on the very next Viking possession he found himself in a very familiar spot...


You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.. - AP

It's a tough way to get broken into the league, Patrick, but the five yards that Adrian Peterson drove you back into the end zone for his third touchdown were character-building yards. Someday, you'll be able to tell your grandkids about the time the most freakishly athletic and talented running back to ever play the game put you on your back. On another note, Chris Cook is looking more and more like a starting defensive back. Brian Robison is making anyone who thought we should have handed Ray Edwards a big contract look silly, and on the other side of the line, Jared Allen is playing at a Defensive Player of the Year level, regardless of our awful record.
The final 3 quarters of this game were about as interesting as watching the Metrodome turf grow. After a team record-setting 28 point first, they simply chewed clock to ensure a victory. No huge collapses, no stupid penalties, and no painfully close losses here. The offense did a great job getting touchdowns and not field goals, but this was a game won by our defense. They caused two turnovers out Arizona's first three offensive possessions. Stat of the day: the Vikings' average starting field position on their first three touchdown drives was the Arizona 22.

Eye Catchers and Stink Eyes, after the jump.

Eye Catchers:

First off, yes I have changed this section's name again. "Things that caught my eye" was nice, but still a bit clunky. Here at Odin's Eye, it's all about sleekness and continual improvement. Hopefully, Eye Catchers is the answer. Okay, now back to your regularly-scheduled programming:

Jared Allen.- This guy, this MAN, is playing as though his head were doused in gasoline and lit every play, and the only source of water lies in the middle of the opposing QB's back. He now has the league lead in sacks, and in a year where everyone is passing for huge numbers and sports outlets are projecting them out to 6,700,000 yards at the end of the year, our boy Jared is on pace to set the all-time single season sack record if I'm not mistaken. 2 sacks and a fumble recovery will always get you into the Eye Catchers section, as long as I'm in charge.

Adrian Peterson.- Another MAN. Adrian was angry yesterday, as many outlets have been noting. They are correct, and though he did run directly over Patrick Peterson on his third TD run, it was the finish of the second one that you can truly see how pissed off All Day was on the field. He puts up 122 yards and it looks very pedestrian. That is how you know you have a great running back. The thing about AP is that he leaves yards on the table in order to try to punch every single rush in. Just judging by my own personal eye test, there are plenty of runs during any given game in which Adrian could easily get 6 yards, but tries to bounce a run outside or something and gets stopped for 2 instead. Yes, at times this can be damaging to drives and offensive continuity. But can you really blame the guy? He has the ability to cash one in on any given run, and I'm not about to sit and complain about the extra 30 yards he could have if he just "took what the defense gave him". Adrian Peterson is a man, made of brawn and steel that built the Eiffel Tower. He can do whatever he wants.

Brian Robison.- Robison has stepped up and done his best Jared Allen impression on the left side of the line, and is sitting at 9th in the league with 4.5 sacks. The more he plays like this, the more we as Vikings fans can thank him for saving us millions of dollars on not re-signing Ray Edwards, who has about 8 tackles on the season for the Falcons. He is especially a master of the strip-sack, which is an excellent move to have as it can lead to easy turnovers. Robison only has 1 forced fumble officially credited to him, but he directly caused Kevin Kolb's first interception yesterday by hitting his arm mid-throw and did the same thing in week 1 against the Chargers.

Jamarca Sanford.- Oohwee! How long has it been since you've seen a Vikings defensive back actually catch balls that were thrown right to him? It certainly hasn't happened in the Tyrell Johnson era, and this game by Sanford does that much more to ensure that era is behind us. 2 INT's and he almost had a third. Let's hope this play continues, because the safety position has been a very shaky position for as long as I can remember.

Devin Aromashodu.- After 4 weeks of being tortured by watching Bernard Berrian 'try', we finally saw him hit the pine as an inactive and was replaced with Aromashodu. Devin promptly caught as many balls in this game as B-Twice had all season, and hopefully officially helped push him that much closer to the waiver wire. Donovan McNabb should thank him too, for catching that awful wounded duck of a pass and running it another 40 yards downfield to account for nearly half of McNabb's total passing yards in one play.

Stink Eyes:

Donovan McNabb.- This one was just a little too obvious. I'm not saying we need to get Ponder in quite yet (I totally said hand it off to Ponder last week, but after a big win, the old optimist J.P. starts talking in my ear..), but I'm not completely sure he would do any worse. I mean, he threw several balls upwards of 5 yards short of open receivers. I predicted a Percy Harvin breakout year, and it is not really coming to fruition thus far. I blame a good portion of that on #5. He missed a wide-open Percy on a third and long that would've been a sure touchdown in favor of throwing a 2-yard flat to Michael Jenkins, who was immediately crushed by a defender. He also had a wide-open Percy on a well set up screen play, only to chuck it into the ground 6 yards in front of his feet. He completed 2 out of his first 10 passes, and his longest pass was an absolute dead duck to a wide open Aromashodu on a 60-yard catch and run. He doesn't turn the ball over, and that is the one positive aspect of his game at this point in the season.

Kevin Kolb.- The only quarterback right now that might be worse than McNabb is this guy. Thank the lord and baby Jesus that we weren't the ones stupid enough to trade a high pick, not to mention a top defensive back for him. Maybe he will be a good quarterback someday, but yesterday he looked like Rex Grossman circa 2006.

There aren't many stink eyes to be had when your team wins by 24 points, and that's how I like it. We have a big primetime game next Sunday night against Da Bears, my most hated team. The Packers are 5-0 and are pretty much doing exactly what I thought they would do this year, because they are healthy and Aaron Rodgers is not getting worse. He is unreal. The Lions and Bears play tonight in what is the first Monday Night Football game in Detroit since Barry Sanders (note the sarcasm), and I'm not sure if I want to root against the Bears because I hate them and they're stupid, or the Lions because if they win, they will be 5-0. Either way, I think the Lions will take that game, giving us a chance to make up some ground in the race for 3rd in the NFC North next week. Let's sit back now and enjoy the big victory, because I'm not quite sure how many times we will be able to do it this year.

Thank You, Kevin Seifert

2011-10-04T02:08:00.000-05:00

In the previous post, there are a few points where I explain how I can't explain what is quite wrong with this year's team. They seem like they should perform better than their record indicates. Kevin Seifert is the NFC North writer for ESPN's NFL Nation Blog, and really hit the nail on the head about this year's team, IMO.

I’ve seen some bad Vikings teams over the years. Their teams in 2001, 2002 and 2006 were especially inept. The 2011 team doesn’t feel like an undermanned or incompetent team. And yet they’re one of four teams in Vikings history to start 0-4. If they don’t beat the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, the Vikings will be 0-5 for the first time since 1962.

So obviously, 0-5 is an unfamiliar territory for this team. It's comforting knowing the odds are against us dropping another one next Sunday, but at the same time, the odds have been against the Vikings dropping their first three games in the manner that they did.

Requiem for a Team: Ladies and Gentlemen, Your 2011 Minnesota Vikings

2011-10-02T16:55:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to find the right analogy for a person choosing to blog about a sports team, then watching that team go winless in the first quarter of their season. It's like signing up for a History of Rock course and the professor using Simple Plan and Nickelback as their main topics for the first month. Having been a Vikings fan as long as I have, I should have known this came with the territory. Hell, it was even predicted by me in my regular season projections that this team could very well start 0-5 with a couple bad bounces. Something about this particular season seems to really stink though. I can't put my finger in on it. At least after the Vikings fell 22-17 at the hands of the Chiefs this week, I can write a new entry since we didn't have a humongous second-half lead to give up in order to achieve this loss. This was a mostly boring game, indicative of two terrible teams, featuring more field goals than touchdowns. The season began with optimism, and even after the first 3 games there was clearly a team that looked like it had something. At 0-4, it doesn't matter. Check your statistics if you think otherwise. 0-4 teams don't make the playoffs in the National Football League. Donovan McNabb, you can hand over that football (or can you?!) to Christian Ponder, grab some pine, a clipboard, and collect the rest of your year's salary before getting the hell out of town. You suck. Phil Loadholt and Charlie Johnson may as well be tackling dummies, because they have no clue what to do when the call isn't a run. Bill Musgrave, this year might be your lone year of coordinating anyone's offense. This team has me downright pissed off. It should not be a surprise to anyone, yet it surprises me every week how the Vikings find innovative ways to piss games down their own legs. Many stink eyes to come, after the jump.

Things That Caught My Eye:

Percy on the Reverse.- We seriously ran this same reverse play to Percy 4 times, and it gained 67 yards. There are many plays that should be immediately thrown out of Bill Musgrave's playbook, this is not one of them. I am convinced that if AD were to ever be hurt, this is the guy we should have lined up as our HB. Man, Percy Harvin, you are good. Keep being good, and please don't get sick of swimming in the sea of mediocrity that is the Minnesota Vikings. I hope you play here forever, sir.

TE Play.- Vikings fans heard a lot this offseason about how Musgrave was going to utilize our wealth of talent at tight end, and we finally saw a little action to back that up today. Kyle Rudolph and Shiancoe were our leading receivers and came through in big plays. Rudolph got a big play up the sideline, and although he lost yards on a third and short, made a sick one-handed grab on an off-target pass by McNabb. Shank converted at least three 3rd downs.

Michael Jenkins. - This guy has been one of our most consistent pass catchers all year. He only got one catch for a touchdown today, but I want him to be a part of our offense in years to come. Jenkins is as sure-handed a wideout as there is, now if we can just find a true #1 receiver our pass-catching corps will be a force to be reckoned with.

Jared Allen.- 2 sacks recorded in this game and 5 in the last two, this man is officially a beast. Anyone who thought he was washed up after a lackluster 2010 campaign is eating their words. This is one of the few players who has come to play every down for all 4 games for the Vikings, and thank the lord for that. As great as AD is, sometimes I feel like Jared may be the face of this franchise.

Stink Eye:

Donovan McNabb.- This experiment is officially over. Sure, he didn't play terribly, but the NFL isn't about having quarterbacks who "don't lose the game" anymore. The days of Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson winning titles are over. All the experts said all Donovan had to do was "hand the ball off to AP", but he has actually even managed to mess up handoffs at least 3 separate times this season. Combine that with averaging less than 7 yards per attempt, and the result is unacceptable. McNabb rarely has put the ball on the money with his receivers, and seems to do so less and less when the game is on the line. Four straight incompletions to finish the game.It stings to say, but it is now time to start Ponder. We need to find out if he is an NFL starter or if we end up in the unlikely scenario of having a shot at Andrew Luck, that we should take him and give Ponder the Jimmy Clausen treatment.

Bill Musgrave.- Not really sure where to start on Mr. Musgrave. Yet again, he has decided that throwing the ball or doing something OTHER than giving the ball to AD on third and 1 is a good idea. Word to the wise, Billy, if you give that ball to AD and he doesn't get it, no one questions your playcalling. Since you decided to get cute and it didn't work, people will. Figure it out. Also, Tamba Hali is the one player on the Kansas City defense that made the Pro Bowl last year, and their only pass-rushing threat. WHY THE HELL ARE YOU BLOCKING HIM ONE-ON-ONE WITH A TIGHT END?! This may have been my biggest problem with the game today. Hali finished with 2 sacks and 5 quarterback hurries, several of which occurred on crucial plays in the fourth quarter. Jared Allen managed 2 sacks today, but he was double-teamed every play. Hali got to go up against Jim Kleinsasser one on one. How does that work? Someone explain to me, in the comments or somewhere, why you single block the other team's only pass rush threat while double teaming their below-average DT's. I just don't get it. Also, quit taking out Percy Harvin on third down in favor of Bernard Berrian. That guy has like 2 catches all year and clearly sucks taint.

The Entire Secondary. - When your two leading tacklers are defensive backs, you know the game probably didn't go the way you had planned. Cedric Griffin got manhandled by Dwayne Bowe on a crucial play both Griffin and Jamarca Sanford forgot how to tackle that ended up being the game-winning TD. This team was missing two of it's top three leading receivers from last year, yet still managed to gouge us for 26-yard pass plays on 1st and 25s. KEARY COLBERT was starting at wideout for this team. I didn't even know that guy had a job. Last I heard of Keary Colbert, he was playing for the Panthers about 5 years ago.

Gus Johnson.- Gus Johnson has the most exciting voice in sports. There is no doubt about that. But when you are watching a game that features twice as many field goals as touchdowns, why don't you just pump the brakes a little there, eh Gustav? When your team is losing, it is especially enraging to listen to this guy because he makes your team's suckitude seem that much more sucky.

All in all, today sucked. I notice I have used that word a lot in today's entry, but 'suck' is just about the only word I can think of anymore to describe these Vikings. I will always be a fan, but for the rest of this season I will probably be rooting for us to suck so we can get a little Luck next year. The Suck for Luck campaign begins next Sunday folks, see ya there.

If Football Games Lasted 30 Minutes, We'd be 3-0: Lions 26, Vikings 23 (OT)

2011-09-27T16:37:00.000-05:00

So here's my Tuesday post following yet another 2nd half collapse, which if you are a Vikings fan, you have already read and heard about every aspect of the Vikings 2nd half suckitude by now. In the spirit of that, I am not going to be writing about the game at all. I may post a bit of a diagnosis later on this week about what I think is wrong with this team, but there is really nothing to sum up that I didn't already say in my week 1 and 2 summaries. You are going to hear the same things over and over ad nauseum until next week: McNabb is not accurate enough, we need to give the ball to AD more in the 2nd half, the defense is good but cannot sustain being on the field for 20+ minutes in the second half, and we need to quit committing stupid/untimely penalties (I'm looking at you, Kenny Onatulu).

After Sunday's result, things are not looking good for this year's team. I thought last year was the ultimate sh*tstorm, but now I wonder what the rest of this season has in store for our squad. My optimism and high hopes going into the season are all but gone, and we now must watch the next 13 games as cynical assholes, because everything we've seen and heard from these Vikings sounds like complete sh*t.

/head asplode.

2011-09-25T15:33:00.000-05:00

If Football Games Lasted 30 Minutes, We'd be 2-0: Bucs 24, Vikings 20

2011-09-20T22:31:00.003-05:00


Benn Scorin'

On their home opener, in front of a raucous sellout crowd, the Vikings jumped all over the Buccaneers with an efficient passing attack, explosive runs by Adrian Peterson AND Toby "Phenom" Gerhart, and solid defense. Sound familiar? They went into halftime with yours truly feeling excited to see them continue to play superior football and write about it afterward. Two weeks into the regular season, I'm already feeling a little repetitive. During the first half, I'm all like ZOMG THE VIKEZ R AWSOM!!1! But then the second half starts and the Vikings are all, FFFFFUUUUUUUU.

The Bucs came out and stopped us on our first drive of the second half (thanks in large part to a very questionable holding penalty on what would have been a converted 3rd down) then promptly marched 44 yards in two plays for a touchdown. After the ensuing recovered surprise onside kick, there was a feeling of an impending collapse in my gut. In true Minnesota Viking fashion, we allowed Tampa Bay to drop 24 points on us (including 14 in the final seven minutes) and pry the victory from their brittle, fatigued little Viking fingers. Pundits and talking heads from the the axis of evil and other news sources may say that we have been "out-adjusted" during halftime the past two games. I call bullcrap. How much can a coach do in 15 minutes to render an entire offense stagnant and a defense largely ineffective? This is a matter of sound decision making on the part of the players in clutch situations, a lack of playmakers on both sides of the ball, and endurance. I'll elaborate further after the jump.

Alright, now that we're down here, this is where I would usually start my "Things I liked/Things I didn't like" bit. I'll get to that in a minute, sort of. Feel free to let me know how you feel about this in the comments, but I have decided to change the name of the section to be a bit more theme-oriented. The sections will now be titled "Things That Caught My Eye/ Stink Eye". I felt the need for making a small paragraph dedicated to this explanation because the term "stink eye" may not be universally understood in the same way I might understand it. My mom always uses the word stink eye to refer to how you look at someone when you don't like them, so there's your explanation if ya didn't know. OK, now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Things That Caught My Eye:

The Run Game.* - This part can go for the offensive line and Phenom as well, asterisk included. The offense asserted itself against a young Bucs defense with plenty of holes to exploit. AD had 2 touchdowns on the ground and could have had 200 yards were it not for a few shoestring tackles. Toby busted a pitch play around the corner for a 31-yard gain and also had a 42-yard catch and run on a screen play that was very well blocked.

Jared Allen.* - Jared had a disappointing 2010 campaign and appears to be hell bent on redeeming himself as one of the great pass-rushers of his generation. By all accounts he was abusing Buccaneers LT Donald Penn all game, to the tune of 1 sack and 3 QB knockdowns. He did, however, play an integral part in a certain roughing the passer penalty that immediately preceded the Arrelious Benn touchdown catch pictured at the top of this entry.

Donovan McNabb.* - Showing a strong improvement from last game, he spent the first half dissecting the Bucs defense behind an outstanding rushing attack with effective use of bootlegs and play action. Donny left some to be desired though, as he is yet to throw his 1st touchdown pass as a Viking and made less than accurate throws at crucial points. Specifically chucking the ball at Shank's feet causing us to settle for a field goal and that deep fade to Aromashadu on 3rd down, like WTF?! The pass was not near a completion, but moreover, why are you throwing a fade to your 3rd or 4th string wideout on a 3rd and 6 in the fourth quarter? Gotta make better decisions like that if you expect to win close games.

*Only applicable to the 1st half. In the second half of this game, we absolutely crapped our pants. That's all I have to say about that.

Stink Eye:

Special Teams.- Our inaugural Stink Eye goes to our entire special teams corps. In my humble opinion, they lost us this game. It started with allowing the surprise onside kick, then Chris Kluwe's punting was below average in the second half when we needed it most and allowed the Bucs a short field to operate on. The last two kickoff returns of the game were god-awful. The first involved Lorenzo Booker taking the kickoff from 7 yards deep in the end zone and getting taken down at the 10 yard line. Memo to Mr. Booker: You are not Percy Harvin. When we are up by a touchdown with six minutes left, we do not need your backup kick returner a** to try to make a play when all we need to do is control the ball to win. The 10 yards he lost us on the return had he taken a knee not only further demoralized our squad, it allowed the Bucs that much better field position for their eventual game-winning drive. After said game-winning drive, Percy Harvin went on to muff the kickoff and pin us deep to start the second consecutive drive, effectively dashing any logical hope for a comeback. People often want to discount special teams, but these are one play sequences that can make or break games if they aren't played soundly. The Vikings did not do so on Sunday and they paid the price.

Tyrell Johnson. - Despite all of the team's efforts to lose this game, Tyrell Johnson still had a chance to make everything right. With the Bucs marching down the field for the eventual game-winner, Josh Freeman threw an ill-advised pass down the middle and right through Tyrell's hands. This is the second week in a row this bust has dropped a potential game clinching interception. These are not even plays which he has been forced to go up in traffic, dive or even jump to make the catch. It's like Troy Williamson was reincarnated and put back on our defense. (By the way, when searching for the video for that link, "troy williamson drops" came up ahead of "troy williamson highlights". Nice legacy, buddy.) Oh, and to make matters worse for Tyrell, he picked up a DWI last night. At least he knows how to catch a buzz.

Everyone in the 2nd Half.- Everyone sucked in the 2nd half. I can't even believe I spent so much time writing a new entry about the exact thing that happened last week. Either we really are somehow getting outcoached in the second half of games or we have a serious stamina issue. One way or the other, it needs to get figured out or this guy is going to run out of energy writing about a terrible team.

Next week, we have the Lions at home. They are currently on an 11-game losing streak at the Metrodome, but are favorites in this week's game. Let me repeat that. On an 11-GAME LOSING STREAK. If the Vikings can't right the ship in what is already being billed as a "must-win game" by some of the players, we might be looking at a very long season. All we need to do is learn how to close as a team and control the ball in the second half of games and we look like we can be a winning team. I'm not predicting anything for next week's game, I just hope it doesn't go the same way as the first two games. I'll leave with some music, no specific theme to this week's selection.

Reality hits you hard bro.

2011-09-19T02:01:00.000-05:00

Game 1 Recap: Chargers-Vikings

2011-09-13T16:49:00.006-05:00

So the regular season has begun. By now, you probably have all heard about two or three things related to the game: A.)Percy Harvin gave the Vikings possibly their best start to a season in franchise history with a 103-yard opening kickoff return for a touchdown ( during which he also knocked one of the top kickers in the game out for the season--next time you'll know your role Nate Kaeding), B.) Donovan McNabb and our passing game compiled a whopping 39 yards, and C.) the game ended after 3 encroachment penalties, including ones on back-to-back snaps. I first cannot describe the great mood I was in on Sunday. I rarely take the initiative to start boozin' when I am alone, but the return of NFL football en masse was enough to get me pounding down some brewskies in excitement. By the end of a great first half by the Vikes, my mood definitely hit it's peak for the day. Up 17-7, we looked in good position to walk out of week 1 undefeated. Yes, the Chargers shot themselves in the foot with unnecessary penalties occasionally and missed a sure touchdown pass as King Laserface Phillip Rivers floated one just out of the reach of one Vincent Jackson, but the boys were playing good defense, tackling well and getting some strong pressure at times on the QB. The second half was absolutely mind-numbing. I really can't even tell you what I was watching. Swing pass, swing pass, 10-yard in to Gates. Repeat as necessary. The offense showed me nothing. I'm not even positive they ever came on the field, to be honest. I am happy to announce that I recently ordered a Joe Montana Chiefs '94 throwback jersey, however. It's gonna be dope. Anyway, more after the jump. (My first jump!!!)

Things I Liked:

The 1st Half. - It started out great. Unreal even, I might say. Percy took that ball to the house and it was just the greatest way I've ever gotten to start out a Vikings season. Then, we stopped the Chargers and forced a 3-and-out. Donovan McNabb's interception was a great play by Shaun Phillips, but it must have been telegraphed or something because they were all over that play. Adrian busted a huge run and showed why he is worth $40 million in guaranteed money. Jared Allen got a half sack, defended one pass and intercepted another (yeah, I know he did that in the second half, but whatever sue me) as well as Antoine Winfield picking Rivers off at the end of the half. Basically, our stars came out to play. Unless you count Donovan as one of our stars.

Special Teams. - As mentioned earlier, Percy housed the first kickoff and took out Nate Kaeding in the process. Noice. Chris Warcraft had a couple nice punts as well, and we made the kicks we took. Also, they didn't get much of anything on any of their returns.Everson Griffin may be one of our new coverage teams studs. I'd love to see an athletic 270-pound dude gunning downfield with nothing but complete and utter destruction of the return man on his mind for the whole season. Overall, good day for the special teams unit.

Things I Didn't Like:

The 2nd Half. - Pretty self-explanatory if you watched the game, any highlights of the game, or even read a single sentence about the game. We did absolutely nothing on offense in the second half. Where were our receivers? If the Chargers were so good at stopping AP every time on the ground in this half, were they at the same time also blanketing our receivers? Because the only open person I saw all day was Michael Jenkins in the 1st half (nice 1st career TD as a Viking, BTW). I predicted Percy Harvin would be a beast this season. Going strictly off of memory, I don't think he had a single catch in the second half. 2 catches for 7 yards is NOT beast mode, Percy. This guy has the potential to be Wes Welker with better speed and running abilities. Figure out a way to get him open. Our O-line played great in the first half for the most part, but in the second half it collapsed. Sure, D-Mac didn't have a lot of time back there, but that doesn't excuse his performance. It was so terrible I can't even pinpoint why. During the telecast, the announcers never really referred to any great pass coverage that was being played, so I can only wonder why it was that we seriously couldn't even complete a pass. Bill Musgrave, Leslie Frazier, SOMEBODY, please figure out how to get more than 39 yards through the air next week or not only will it be the end of the Donovan McNabb era soon, it will be the end of yours as well. Our defense played valiantly, but when you put them out there for nearly 2/3 of the game against one of the best, if not the best quarterback in the league (also the leader of last year's #1 offense), what do you expect? 24 points probably should have been 34,37 or 41 in my calculations between the missed Jackson TD pass, the 4th-and-20 that could've been 3 had Norval known more about his own punter, and the forced INT at the end of the 1st half. I give credit to the defense, but understand the result should have probably been uglier than it was.

Not Having #93. - K-Will, please come back soon. After the final drive on which three, count 'em, three encroachment penalties occurred, I was ready to run to San Diego and choke out Letroy Guion with his own used game sock. Our run defense was alright, but that's because teams choose to pass against us instead, because it has been so much more effective. We missed Kevin Williams on that last drive especially, when everyone in the building knew the run was coming. We also missed him for the rest of the game, where we got no pressure on Philip Rivers up the middle without blitzing. Having good rushing ends is great and all, but without a stout pass rusher in the middle, that QB can simply step up in the pocket and let those ends rush right past him. With Big #93 coming up the gut, that option ain't always available. You can also bet that he would've never committed such egregious penalties in crunch time the way Guion and Fred Evans did, either. By the way, is Letroy still on our team? Benny Sapp got cut for giving up one pass. If this were the Dolphins, and thank God we aren't, he would've probably gotten axed in the middle of that drive. Thanks for nothing.

Honestly, this game was not fun to watch. I am looking forward to our next game, the home opener against Tampa Bay! Keep in mind, this team that we almost just beat is a lot of pundits' favorite to go to the Super Bowl, and had the #1 offense and defense last season. So don't go burying the Vikings this quickly just because of a god-awful half. The Bucs lost to the Lions last week at home, with the Lions actually making quite a few mistakes from what I've read. This is a game that the Vikings should win if they expect to be in the playoffs. 0-2 is a hole that we do not want to see the bottom of, and the home opener needs to be a victory if we are going to get off to the start we want. I think the Vikings get a little redemption and pull it out to the tune of 27-17. Til then, have a good one people. Before I go, I'll leave you with a little 2Pac on the anniversary of his death. Very few hip-hop artists have had as big of an influence on pop culture as this man. You gotta keep ya heads up, Vikings fans... and keep thinkin' 'bout better dayz.

Serenity Now.

2011-09-11T23:41:00.003-05:00

After such a head-scratching, frustrating start to the season, I'm gonna take a day or so to decompress and think about what to say. Read some analysis before giving my own. I was in such a good mood at halftime, and then it felt like a cat pissed down my throat for the final 30 minutes of the game. Woo-sah... Woo-sah... In other news, Cam Newton might be the greatest NFL player of all time.. Ravens stomped the Steelers, loved to see that. Romo choked in a way that only Tony Romo knows how, Tarvaris Jackson had four times as many passing yards as our new starter, and we are starting out at the bottom of the NFC North as the only team to be 0-1. Not cool. See you guys soon. Laugh at this in the meantime.

Vikings 28, Texans 0 : Preseason Finale and Regular Season Thoughts

2011-09-02T18:22:00.007-05:00

Welcome back everyone. Today is a big day for every NFL team around the league and a hard day for many players. 27 players that have been working their tails off for the past 6 weeks are going to be either sent down to a practice squad or become a free agent and need to start brushing up on their insurance sales skills.We also found out today that Kevin Williams will be suspended for the first 2 games of the season, finally putting to rest the ridiculous StarCaps case that has drawn out for the past 3 years. One final piece of news: Odin's Eye recently hit 1,000 views! To hit such a nice benchmark after only a month of existence is giving me some pretty good vibes. Thanks for reading everybody, I'll try my best to keep this stuff interesting. With all that said, let's get to last night's game, then I'll give some predictions the upcoming season in the NFC North Division.

Things I Liked:

Leaving defenders in his wake.

CP7. Christian Ponder looked like a decent quarterback last night. He still looked like a rookie to me, though. He had several late reads and another handful of missed targets. Ponder still isn't making NFL starter throws, but his athleticism and improvisation ability is impressive. 8 runs for 61 yards for a quarterback isn't something most of us have been used to seeing the past oh, 6 years or so, and he also eluded some pretty fierce pass rushes in order to do so (but save us the spikes in blood pressure and learn how to slide please, Christian). It was a little disheartening to see that Jake Locker went 15/17 with a touchdown on the ground and through the air for Tennessee, he looks like the real deal, but Ponder looks like he has the makings of a good QB as well. Just not yet.

Awasom, just Awasom.

Adrian Awasom. THIS GUY *Jon Gruden voice* needs to make the team if for no other reason than for his last name. He picked up 2 sacks, on one of which he stripped Texans rookie quarterback T.J. Yates. Awasom also caused a couple other rushed throws and that could be just enough to put him on the roster. However, if the front office chooses Stylez G. White over him, I suppose I won't be completely heartbroken.

'King of the night?

Caleb King. The Vikings just picked Caleb King up as an undrafted free agent after the Supplemental Draft, and he put the ball in the end zone twice. Just as I said above, that could be enough to at least put this rookie on our practice squad. We are pretty set as it is with our three RB's that didn't touch the field last night, but he looks good enough to give a slot on the practice squad.

The Godfather.

Chris Kluwe. He dropped two punts within the Texans' 10 yard line in the 1st quarter and he made up the name for the blog. Those two things combined get him a mention in this week's edition. If you have Twitter, follow him. (@ChrisWarcraft) He probably could get a mention every week under 'things I liked' just for how funny he is on there.

Things I Didn't Like:

Nothing! When you win 28-0 and no one is hurt, there can't be much to complain about. The defense and offense both had lapses and the Texans committed some drive-crippling penalties, but that's why they are playing in the 4th game of the preseason in the first place. Most of the guys that played extended time last night ideally won't be on the field much during the regular season. No one was hurt badly this entire preseason, the Vikings are headed into the opener pretty much completely healthy, and I'm excited to finally see some real f*cking football.

My Predictions for the NFC North:

Green Bay Packers. - They bring back almost every starter from their Super Bowl winning team of last year, they're healthy, and Aaron Rodgers is still getting better. It is going to be very tough to beat this Packers team as long as they stay healthy. I expect them to win the division and compete for home-field advantage in the playoffs. Damn, that last sentence really stings, eh?

Final Record: 13-3

Chicago Bears. -Coming off of 6 straight Pro Bowls, Lance Briggs is now requesting a trade as of today and creating a lovely distraction for my most hated team. Roy Williams was supposed to come in and give them a legitimate receiver. Turns out he likes to drop just as many balls and suck just as badly as he did in Dallas. Vernon Gholston was supposed to have a career rebirth here as a down lineman after 3 years in NY as an outside linebacker, he's already been cut. Their offensive line is just as bad as it was last year and I do not expect them to catch the breaks they did this time around. Their defense is still the same one it has been forever, but one year older. It will always be tough to beat the Bears for our Vikings, but overall I expect them to sink back into mediocrity.

Final Record: 7-9

Detroit Lions. - I'll say it straight up, Matthew Stafford looks like a f'ing stud horse this preseason. By all accounts, he is making some pretty sick throws so far and if he stays healthy, this could be a playoff contender. These are the Lions though, and until I see Matt Stafford make it through more than a quarter of a regular season of football, I can't just hand them a nice prediction. Their defensive backfield is still awful and again, these are the Lions. Detroit is just a black hole for any positive possibility.

Final Record: 8-8

Minnesota Vikings. - Call me a homer, but I have high hopes for this year's team. Donny Mac looks comfortable as our quarterback, moreso than he ever did in Washington. People so soon forget how great of a player he was before last season. Adrian Peterson is not declining. He will still be the best runner in the league. Last year, sh*t went all haywire for the entire team and it seemed like everything that could possibly go wrong, did. Sure, that seems to happen to the Vikings a lot, but in my time as a fan we have always bounced back quickly. I think Percy Harvin will establish himself as an elite weapon in the league this year, Bill Musgrave will get a lot more out of the entire offense in general than Bevell or the KAO ever did, and maybe the defense will even make some plays. This year ain't our year, but it won't be anywhere near as ugly as it was last year. We will compete for the playoffs and maybe even pull out a playoff win before getting bounced by a more elite team like the Falcons, Packers or Eagles. It bears repeating though that this season will be without a doubt, more fun to watch than last season. I guarantee that.

Final Record: 10-6

NFC Championship: Packers 34, Eagles 20

AFC Championship: Ravens 27, Jets 17

Super Bowl: Packers 24, Ravens 20. I'm sorry to say that as I look at this Packers team and think about how they tore through the playoffs while still missing some important players, I can't help but feel like as long as they are healthy they will be the best team in the league. Jermichael Finley is a beast of a TE and if he stays on the field he will make the Pro Bowl, mark my words. Aaron Rodgers is still going to get better, which is scary. He is amazing at eluding pass rushers in the pocket, throwing on the run and hitting his receivers where only they can make a play on the ball. Damn him for being a Packer.The Falcons and Eagles also have a good chance of making a run in the playoffs. The Falcons' offense and the Eagles' secondary both have scary potential.The Ravens have been close to getting over the hump (a.k.a. the Steelers) for the past two years, and I believe this year might finally be their year. They added a great deep threat in Lee Evans that might still have something in him as well as Andre Gurode for their OL. They were only a play or two away from bouncing the Steelers last year in the playoffs, and I'm sayin' this year is the year Joe Flacco finally outduels Big Ben. The Pats have a good chance as always, given they don't blow their third straight home playoff game. The Steelers and Jets will also be in the mix, but I'm predicting how the season is going to end a week before the regular season opener. Take it for what it is. In the NFL, anything can happen. That's why we all love it. I know I'll probably be wrong, but if I'm right, I get to brag about it forever like some kind of football prophet. It's worth the gamble.

Now, it's Friday night and my only day off until Tuesday. Here's a little Ludacris for ya. Have a good Friday night... it's a celebration, bitches.

Sorry 4 The Wait: Preseason Game 3

2011-08-30T14:08:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone! Man, feels like ages since I've written anything. For that, I apologize to my two followers. You've surely been agonizing over my absence. I didn't get to write Saturday before last about our second preseason game, mainly because it was freshman move-in day at my college, so naturally I was out at the bars by 10 A.M. where it was certain that no freshmen would be. I also finally got a new job out at a golf course and worked Saturday, Sunday and Monday so I've been slacking a bit on my blogging responsibilities. Again, sincerest of apologies. HOWEVAH, I only had to work 'til 6 on Saturday so I totally got to see the whole game. I must say, I am more than slightly pleased by the progress the team has been making. Let's break it down a bit further....

Things I Liked:

Quarterback Play. - Saturday's game was the closest we are going to get a regular season game. Joe Webb, while still struggling as a pocket passer, managed a 23 yard pass and a 44 yarder on the same drive (with help of a phenomenal catch by Manny Arceneux). He then capped off the drive with a 10 yard scramble. He also hit a big 36 yard scramble which looked a lot like a counter play if it were run out of the Wildcat formation. This man is dangerous as a runner and we need to find a place for him in our offense. CP7 didn't get many reps, but he got the ball with 62 seconds left in the game and no timeouts on the 19 yard line and got us about 60 yards down the field before time ran out on us. Gives me some optimism, though I still want to see more out of him in throws from the pocket. On our second pass play of the game, Donovan McNabb ~~almost underthrew~~ bombed a perfect pass to Bernard Berrian over the safety's outstretched arms to for a 49 yard TD. I thought the interception he threw was poor judgement, and he also underthrew what looked like another potential Berrian touchdown. Overall, he finished 12/18 for 164 yards, 1TD and 1 INT. I think McNabb is really going to surprise a lot of people this season. He looks comfortable in our offense and is really getting all of our receivers involved, especially...

Bernard Berrian. - This part-time magician took a break from his 2-year long disappearing act to do a little route-running and ball-catching on Saturday, and I was glad to see him back. He still has the speed to get behind the defense as he showed on the 49-yard TD he caught on our first drive, and also had the corner beat on another long pass that was underthrown by Donny Mac. Our receiver play may have been helped by the fact that our starters were going up against the Cowboys' #3 and #4 CB's, but it's clear that Donovan McNabb has been trying to get BB back into the flow of our offense. He still is our best vertical threat in my opinion, as Percy is best in the slot. He could be the best slot receiver in the NFL very, very soon I think. No one has his speed and open field running ability. Speaking of running ability...

Adrian Peterson. - Yep, he's still the best RB in the game. We haven't gotten to see much of Purple Jesus so far this preseason, so 14 carries for 81 yards was a welcome sight for most Vikings fans. I'm not sure if any of us were worried about him losing a step, but just in case anyone was ... I think that debate is put to rest. What a beast. 'Nuff said. He did get a little help from ...

The O-Line. - These guys were opening up some big holes for AD to run through on Saturday, and that was real fun to watch. I was enjoying our 3 TE sets as well. That will be a nightmare for defenses to go up against. If anyone remembers the Packers back when Ahman Green was tearing up the turf, you might remember their formation with 2 TE and an extra OT that was a pitch play every time. And every time it gained like 10 yards. Well, with K-Sauce being basically a glorified OT with ball skills, I think we can have similar success. Herrera was back in the lineup and mugging people all over ( I LOVED seeing him pancake a guy about 2 seconds past the whistle), and Hutch had one beautiful pull to the outside that almost sprung AD if it weren't for an ankle tackle. Overall, great improvement since game 1.

Marcus Sherels. - What a story this guy is. He might be the biggest standout of the preseason for the Vikings, and if Asher Allen ends up on the streets he will have this man to thank for it. He had a great breakup on a slant in the second quarter, which isn't a sight most Vikings fans are used to. He is quick, aggressive, and clearly a hard worker. Very happy to see the former Gopher getting extended playing time.

Things I Didn't Like:

Special Teams. - Right as our first FG attempt was happening, I was just saying to the person next to me how well our kicking game had been doing so far. Then Gerald Sensabaugh leapfrogged our line, helped block the kick, and some 50+ yards later Alan Ball was jogging into the end zone. We also missed a 52-yarder. Hopefully these were both aberrations and not something we see normally. The Sensabaugh play I will chalk up to perfect timing, so sucks for him that he made that play during the preseason, because it was nice. Cord Parks' return towards the end of the 1st half was a great one, good to see some young unknowns making noise when they get the opportunity.

Pass Coverage. - Tony Romo completed 75% of his passes in this game. That percentage is too high for a team that expects to win the game, unless we plan on the other 25% to be interceptions. Ced Griffin was getting abused by Dez Bryant for the majority of the post-interception drive, but his tackling was sure. Which is a silver lining, I guess. Keep in mind that Miles Austin didn't play in this game. Asher Allen didn't play, and that man is going to need to make an impression in game 4 if he plans on making this team. Chris Cook had a hamstring and 'Toine had that stinger that scared the bajeezus out of most of us, but he seemed to be alright. Our second team DB's weren't doing much either.

Dez Bryant. - I just don't like him in this game because this man is a BEAST! I'll be the first to say that Dez is probably a certifiable tard, but man he looked dominant out there. I do not look forward to playing the Cowboys as long as Dez Bryant is on the field. He looks like a young T.O. out there. Put Miles Austin across from him with Jason Witten working the intermediate routes and the middle, that's a solid receiving core.

All in all, I was happy to drink the Vikings' Kool-Aid on Saturday. The team looks like it is coming together, especially on offense. Hopefully we can see our offensive line playing the way it did consistently. If we eliminate mistakes like getting field goals blocked, dropping passes on critical downs (Sorry, Percy) and giving up long third downs, we will be a team to worry about this season.
Glad to be back, thanks for reading! Sorry 4 The Wait!!

College Football Scandals

2011-08-16T16:51:00.000-05:00

NCAA Football recruiting violations have dominated the headlines of college football this off season. The most recent involves my favorite team, the Miami Hurricanes, so I figure it's time I weigh in on this. First, we had almost a season-long controversy over Cam Newton and pay-to-play allegations that his father had requested from multiple institutions. To his credit, he managed to shut out all the outside noise, win the Heisman Trophy and the National Championship. Since the season has ended, we have seen Ohio State dismiss Terrelle Pryor and their coach Jim Tressell resign over players selling their own jerseys and rings they had won for Big 10 titles for cash or free tattoos. Alabama, the 2010 BCS Champion, has had players signing memorabilia for a man who supposedly isn't selling it, but simply displaying it, allegedly.
The Oregon Ducks, 2011 BCS Runners-up, have their own scouting scandal that they are dealing with. Many teams are now concerned over the fact that the Texas Longhorns have their own television station which they plan on broadcasting high school games on, which is viewed as a potential unfair recruiting advantage. North Carolina recently had the most players of any institution selected in the NFL Draft this past year, but several didn't play a snap this season over benefits given that broke NCAA rules. Since this summer began we have seen more violations surface, their coach, Butch Davis fired and their AD resign. Now my beloved Miami Hurricanes are embroiled in their own potential scandal, which more than likely will result in discipline to some major degree if proven.
My question is this: when will the NCAA stop making these kids out to be criminals while they make billions off of them?
I find the NCAA to be a bunch of hypocrites. They ask these players, especially in division one major football conferences, to dedicate their lives to improving at and playing football. When they aren't traveling with their teams to other states to play games (which garner their universities hundreds of thousands, if not millions in revenue) they are practicing almost everyday and supposed to keep up with some level of academics in the meantime. I CAN HARDLY HOLD A 3.0 WHILE WORKING 20 HOURS A WEEK AND SITTING ON MY ASS! But it is not about the academic side of things that is controversial, obviously. Maintaining a 2.0 GPA or whatever mediocre, if any, standards should not be difficult while taking psychology courses and getting tutored 10 hours a week. If these athletes are supposed to dedicate their lives to their sport to be successful (which they do if they want to start on top-tier teams), how are they supposed to live? From where does the income stem? It's a joke. 1% of these kids will make it to the pro's and be successful, yet they are allotted no time to make their own incomes during school. They aren't allowed to sell their own things because the NCAA gave it to them. The NCAA is the ultimate pimp. It wants to make all the money possible off of these "STOODENT ATH-O-LEETS" without supporting them with any of the gains they see from what THEY do on the field. These kids are coming from modest beginnings most often, and a lot of the best athletes are coming from some of the poorest backgrounds. They deserve something from this, and it isn't to be vilified for trying to find a way to make money off of what they are good at. In the rest of the world, that's called having a job or being an entrepreneur. In the NCAA, it's called breaking the rules. Just my humble opinion. Thanks for reading. Oh, and in case you don't click all of my 100 hyperlinks in this article, I'm posting this again.

Preseason Game 1: Afterthoughts

2011-08-13T23:21:00.001-05:00

Alright alright, so how about those Vikings? (Looks at box score, sees 248 total yards)
Alright, so maybe not. Let's be happy that we are 1/4 of the way finished with the preseason and that much closer to real football that matters. I understand the value of the preseason, and especially with a lockout-shortened offseason it is definitely needed, but man is it boring. The Vikings came up short in this matchup with the Titans by a final of 14-3, for those of you who haven't seen that anywhere else yet. These games really are not about who wins, obviously, but getting the team in rhythm and figuring out the depth chart. I saw some things that were impressive tonight and also some areas which are definitely in need of improvement, as well as some players that stood out for both good and reasons. If you want to see a summary, go here. I just want to talk about some of the positives and negatives of the performance.

Things I liked:

Erin Henderson. This guy seemed to be all over the field tonight. He ended up with 10 tackles, 7 solo and 2 for loss. The next most tackles tonight was 3. I don't think he played that much more than any of the other defensive players on first string, so 10 tackles in the box score is pretty beastly. He got in the backfield a couple times and made stops out on the perimeter as well. I look forward to seeing more of what he can do as one of our starting linebackers. Also, I think it is pretty awesome that we have brothers starting at linebacker for us.

Lorenzo Booker. Booker saw extended playing time tonight. He was out there for a good 2-3 quarters of action as our halfback, and I came away impressed. He lost a fumble on what was a very nice strip-recovery by Jurrell Casey, and if ball security continues to be an issue he probably will not be on this list many more times. For now, I'll chalk that mistake up to it being the first preseason game (which 3 other fumbles occured in) and a nice play being made on defense. Outside of that, he was making the first tackler miss frequently, broke some good runs and overall looked very capable for a 3rd string back.

Donovan McNabb. He ended up 6-11 for 40 yards, but he started out 4 for 5 and had several good passes dropped afterward. It made me excited to see more from him. He looked in rhythm and accurate, and the fact that he can actually MOVE outside of the pocket is a welcome change from the past few years of old Vikings quarterbacks. Our offensive line was not looking so great in this first game and I think that if it continues to be a weakness, his mobility will be a huge asset. Christian Ponder also looked alright as well. I'd like to see him play behind a line that actually protects him, but he made some nice throws on the move and good mobility as well. He also made a couple throws that were not between the numbers, but didn't look like he shouldn't be on the field or anything.

Brandon Burton. The rookie cornerback out of Utah showed some promise in this first game. He broke up a couple passes, made one nice tackle at the line of scrimmage and was solid in coverage in his first NFL action. With the secondary being potentially the weakest part of this team, it's good to see a corner show some skills.

TE Depth. Looks like the Vikings have somewhat of an embarrassment of riches at the tight end position after this first game. Visanthe Shiancoe was scratched with a hamstring, but rookie Kyle Rudolph made a catch and had a good run afterward, Kleinsasser was himself, and though he dropped a big 4th down throw, Allen Reisner looked like a capable receiver as well.

Things I didn't like:

The offensive line play. The offensive line play in this game was for the most part, well, offensive. Christian Ponder was sacked 3 times in about a quarter and a half of play. There were 4 sacks total and 5 tackles for loss for the Titans and there were many other times that our quarterbacks were forced to scramble or throw while being hit. As I mentioned before, the mobility of our quarterbacks might be a very important asset to have if these problems persist. I also worry about the run game as Toby Gerhart doesn't seem to be able to gain yards unless a hole is opened for him. He doesn't seem very adept at making cuts.

Chris Cook. He got beat for a 45 yard touchdown pass pretty badly, and I saw him miss multiple tackles. For a guy whose strength was supposed to be his tackling, he was not showing much in this first game. He needs to step it up if the Vikings plan to keep him as the nickel corner.

Joe Webb. Yes, he did have a few good scrambles this evening, but as a passer he looked pretty bad. He completed 4 of 8 passes for 45 yards and an interception, and most of his yards were gained after the catch. The announcers got on him for running instead of throwing to a wide open Kyle Rudolph on a naked boot, which I agree he should've thrown. But overall, he just looked like a really athletic guy who is better off running than throwing. He had Devin Aromashodu (sic) open for a touchdown and threw a terrible ball also. I am hoping for Christian Ponder to supplant him as the 2nd stringer sooner than later after tonight. However, I wouldn't mind seeing him get used in some way. Webb is a freak athlete and we should find some way to utilize that.

Overall, tonight's game was just a tease. It left me wanting to see more. I liked the plays the offense was running and I think that our passing game will be better than most people are projecting it to be. I am worried about our offensive line though and hope they start to get it together because I think that games are won in the trenches. I am worried about our defense both against the run and the pass, but then again we didn't have our Jared Allen, Antoine Winfield or Kevin Williams playing tonight, which would probably have helped. I also thought Jake Locker looked quite good but struggled with his accuracy at times as well. Next game I will be looking forward to seeing more of Donovan McNabb running our offense, hoping to see Christian Ponder not running for his life half of the time and also for players like Chris Cook and the the guys on the O-Line to step their games up. So that's that. Enjoy.

THEY'RE BAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

2011-08-13T15:52:00.000-05:00

NFL Power Rankings: Preseason

2011-08-09T14:42:00.001-05:00

ESPN Preseason Power Rankings

Ladies and Gentlemen, the great spirit in the sky that is ESPN has spoken. The first power rankings of the year have been released. I'm not sure how much stock any of you may take in what ESPN has to say, but if your answer is "a lot", you are probably pretty sad or pissed off at this first poll. The NFL writers have our Vikings sitting at 25th in the league, just above the likes of the 49ers and Broncos and just below the likes of the Dolphins, Lions, Titans, Cardinals and Seahawks. I did not put the latter in any particular order.
With the way last season unraveled for our squad, I can understand a lower-third ranking for these Vikings. They are bringing in yet another journeyman QB (albeit only one season removed from leading a team to the playoffs), lost Sidney Rice (who, if you aren't from around here, you might think he actually PLAYED games and wasn't constantly injured, outside of the magic 2009 season) and did not greatly improve our two biggest areas of need: the O-Line and the secondary.
Howevah, I cannot help but feel slightly incensed by seeing teams like the Seahawks above us. Sure, they added Rice and Zach Miller. But they also plan on either starting Charlie Whitehurst or, if Darrell Bevell has anything to say about it, TARVARIS JACKSON. With a team that is one year and only a handful of players removed from an NFC Championship that should have been, how did we end up below a team (6 spots below, I might add) that was not even .500 in the worst division in football (we're actually below 3 teams with this distinction)? And this team is now planning on starting T-Jack. Did these writers suddenly forget watching this man 'play'? Was the film burned as an atrocity to football fans everywhere? Outside of that one mystery of a game he played vs. the Cardinals, where the Cards secondary decided to take the day off or just challenge T-Jack to actually hit a wide-open-by-15-yards target, this man hasn't had a decent game in his life. I'm disturbed. I need not go on anymore of a tangent because any Vikings fan should find this laughable. The Dolphins are also ranked above us. Yes, the same team which let it's top two running backs go and then traded for Reggie Bush to be their top back. Also, the same team whose fans are chanting for any QB other than the one they have and whose ownership has clearly shown they do not want Chad Henne as their starter nor Tony Sparano as their HC. The Rams also come in at number 15 in these rankings. Don't get me wrong, Sam Bradford looks like a stud. But they also failed to hit a .500 record in the aforementioned worst division in football.

Don't take these rankings to heart, my friends. Revel in how much fun it should be when the whole league is super surprised at the fact that Donovan McNabb can actually lead a team to victories that doesn't feature Ryan Torain as their best RB and Daniel Snyder as the owner. Also, how surprised ESPN NFL writers will be when the NFC West still turns out to be the NFC West.

Finishing Strong: Predictions for the Final Five Games

2011-08-08T23:07:00.005-05:00

Alright Kids, so with 11 games down and predicted, these Vikings are sitting at an imaginary 5-6 record. Things are not looking great, but with a big game or two against some of our tougher opponents by someone like Donovan McNabb, Purple Jesus, Percy, the defense or any combination of the 4, we could be sitting at 7-4 or better. With an underwhelming performance or two (which we might be more accustomed to), we might be sitting at 3-8 or worse and in competition for the Andrew Luck sweepstakes (woo-hoo! right after the year we FINALLY drafted a 1st round QB!).
The final five games of the season give us a great chance to finish strong. We have 3 opponents that finished with worse or equal records to us and two other games against teams that were only wild-cards, both of which are at home.
In our 12th game of the season we have the Denver Broncos. Outside of grabbing Von Miller in the draft at number 2 this past year, they will return Elvis Dumervil who was a sack machine in 2009 before missing the entire 2010 season due to injury as well as Jamal Williams who, though injury prone, is considered one of the better nose tackles in the league when healthy. Their secondary is aging, to put it nicely. As great as Champ Bailey and Brian Dawkins have been in their careers, they've got to start dropping off someday, and last season I believe was the beginning for them both. Their receivers aren't really much to sneeze at and their best running back (Knowshon Moreno) is hardly ever healthy. This should be a W for us.
Next up, we have Detroit which has already been hit with quite a few injuries in the preseason. We will be visiting the Kitties in this game, and the Vikings have taken 15 of their past 17 in Detroit. These Lions have been a darling of the media in the off season, further strengthening their already formidable defensive line with a player in Nick Fairley who was at one point expected to go in the top 3 picks of the draft. They added a power back in Leshoure, but he is already lost for the season. Stafford has played about 1/3 of the games he's had a chance to, and Megatron has not always been a model of perfect health, either. Their secondary is also especially weak. I expect a close game and an improved Lions squad, but history should ultimately repeat itself as it tends to do. Put another W on the board.
The following week the Saints roll into town with these imaginary Vikings on a two game winning streak. Last year, we came awfully close to beating this team in the Superdome and in my opinion should have won. I think that the addition of Mark Ingram should prove to be a good one for the Saints, but I also believe that this team is aging in a lot of areas. I'm very happy to not see Reggie Bush on the roster for this game as he has always given the Vikings fits when we are matched up against him. Percy Harvin has come into this year 15 pounds lighter and claims to be quite a bit faster (How?! Don't ask me). I look forward to seeing him burn the aging Darren Sharper ( DA haaaahdest hittin' safety in da leeeague). Breesus may pick us apart, but if our secondary is still healthy with Ced Griffin and Winfield (maybe even a half-decent performance from former early round picks Asher Allen or Chris Cook?), I think we can weather the storm enough to take this one down as well. Now we're rollin' with a three game winning streak.
In the second to last game of the season, we have our new QB coming back to his stomping ground of last year at the Washington Redskins. Unless you believe what Peter King is writing about John Beck, the 30 year old fifth-year pro from BYU (don't), we might be matching up at this point in the year with one of the worst, if not the worst team in the league. I believe this to be more than likely true, as their starting running back will either be Tim Hightower or Ryan Torain and best wideout will STILL be Santana Moss. You probably can't name another receiver on this team, and neither can I. Their offensive line will be below average, their defensive line is average at best, and outside of London Fletcher and Brian Orakpo, they don't have much more than a few overrated players on defense. If this is the case, they will more than likely have completely given up at this point in the season and we should take this game. McNabb (assuming he hasn't tanked and given the reins over to CP7) will also be coming back to the town where he got benched for Rex Grossman. That must still burn, given that Rex Grossman is basically an abortion in a jersey. This should add some extra motivation for Mr. Chunky Soup himself. Barring a miracle, the Vikes definitely take this game convincingly.
Our final game of the season comes against the Chicago Bears and in this imaginary world I have constructed (Inception'd!) we could very well be fighting for a wild-card spot at this point. We might even be fighting for it with these very Bears. What better way to end the regular season than sending these flunkies home crying (or if you're Jay Cutler, staring indifferently) and marching into the postseason on a five game winning streak? Answer: there isn't one, unless we could somehow simultaneously knock the Packers out of contention. A lot will be at stake, which is perfect against someone as averse to being clutch as Cutlerception himself. The Thunderdome will be blaring so loudly we might register on the Richter scale, and I see the Vikes coming through in the clutch this time and sending Cutler, Hester, and Chester Taylor and his 2.9 YPC average home for the winter. If 10-6 is enough to make the playoffs, which generally speaking it is, you're looking at a wild-card berth for the 2011 Vikings IMHO.

OK, holy shit have I done a lot of writing in the past 18 hours about these Vikings, but after getting that whole regular season outlook accomplished I feel good. All my potential readers have plenty to read here, so unless some big Vikings news goes down in the next few days, I think I've earned a little break.SKOL.

Regular Season Outlook Continued

2011-08-08T22:23:00.001-05:00

Guess who's back... back again...

Alright folks I'm here to finish my regular season outlook for the Vikings and, with a little research, hopefully find some optimism in a year where a lot of talking heads and fans conditioned by our oft-underachieving squad are struggling to find any.
Last night I left off after our home match up against the Cardinals, which the Vikings have won the past 6 games at home against. Even the biggest pessimists should have us taking that game against an Arizona team with very few weapons outside of Larry Fitzgerald and a mostly unproven Kevin Kolb.
Our next game will be against the Bears, to whom we lost both games last year. I hate the Bears with a passion, even more so than the Packers. This may be a cardinal sin to some of you out there, but my reasoning is that the Bears never seem to be as good as they play against us or their record ends up being. They're just overachieving assholes. Last year, they won all 6 games that were decided by 5 points or less (albeit two of wins vs. the Lions were disputable to say the least and one should have DEFINITELY been a loss, but I digress...). As a big fan of the Miami Hurricanes, I can't hate on Devin Hester too much because he is a beast. He always seems to make huge plays in critical times against us. But Cutlerfucker has completed far too many passes off of his back foot falling onto his own ass for me to feel like they aren't lucky. They have added some decent but potentially over the hill talent in the off-season, have an aging but still elite defense as long as they are healthy. With the game at Soldier Field where we have struggled historically (other than the day AP decided to run for two bills and three touchdowns), I gotta hand this one to the Bears.
Next up are the defending champion Green Bay Packers and the most anticipated home game on our schedule. The Pack didn't lose much in the off-season outside of starting guard Darren Colledge, and unless there are some injuries, they should be very strong. Jermichael Finley, by all accounts, looked like a beast last year before getting knocked out for the season and he adds just another target for MVP candidate Aaron Rodgers. We usually play them pretty tough, but our secondary may be the weakest point of our team. That is not a good thing against a team that goes 4-wide more than Brad Childress liked to throw 1 yard passes to Nafahu Tahi. Advantage: Packers.
Carolina and number one pick Cam Newton will be rolling into town next to put us at the halfway point in the season, and barring a beast mode performance by Cam himself, I don't see us losing to what was the worst team in the league last year at home. We're also going into a bye week after this game and since the Denny Green era the Vikes have been very good on both ends of a bye week. With a realistic outlook, this probably puts us at 4-4 at midway through the year. It's also more likely we are sitting at 2-6 than we are 6-2, sadly.
After our bye week, we get our only Monday Night Football appearance of the season at the Packers. It's pretty tough to bet against the Super Bowl Champs still, and unless Ndamukong Suh decides to use Rodgers' head as a basketball again this year, it's not looking too promising.
Oakland at home should bring us a win as west-coast teams have struggled historically going on the road into other time zones and their main strength is their running game. They have a strong run defense with a few big men up front in Tommy Kelly and Richard Seymour, but their secondary was significantly downgraded with the loss of Nnamdi Asomugha. I think our run D can contain Run-DMC, and I also believe the currently underrated Donovan McNabb should have a good day against this below average pass D. Vikings win this one.
I'm predicting a loss at Atlanta with new OC and former Falcons QB coach Bill Musgrave's first game against his old team. With the addition of Julio Jones which the likes of Roddy White and Tony Gonzalez have been raving about, their 5th ranked scoring offense in 2010 should only prove to be that much tougher. Our linebackers can stay with Tony, but I think we have trouble with their power run game and two big, fast wideouts on the outside.

This here's the point where I think I'll break this post off and start a new one in the interest of readability. See ya again soon.

Offseason thoughts/ Regular season outlook

2011-08-08T04:06:00.000-05:00

So as you may know, the team has undergone a few significant changes over the offseason. Most fans that I'm aware of were happy with some, not so happy with others. The consensus of the Leslie Frazier hiring is that it was the right move to make. He's familiar with our team, players like him and he led us to have some of our best defensive years in recent memory. Bill Musgrave is another addition that I believe we should be happy with. He came into a completely broken situation in Atlanta and (with the help of some good personnel) turned them into one of the best offenses in the league, particularly in the rushing category. This should bode well with us having a pretty decent running back in that Peterson guy. Letting Sidney Rice go is a matter of contention, but with only one healthy season in 4 years, I'm just not convinced he was worth the money that the Seahawks were willing to throw at him. Combine that with the fact that he had some well-documented clashes with upper management and it was understood that we probably weren't the front runners for him anyway.
The McNabb pickup looks better and better for us as camp goes on, having traded only two 6th round picks for him and now paying him a modest five million for a year of his services. I am of the belief that anyone who goes to the Redskins and plays for Dan Snyder automatically declines in performance no matter how good they are, and if you look at some of the high-profile acquisitions the 'Skins have made in the past, oh I don't know, five years I think that belief is backed up quite strongly. He should serve as a great bridge to the Christian Ponder era and could potentially bring us into the playoffs. Perhaps I am an optimist, but I believe that with all the B.S. that was going on in the Vikings camp last year, it hampered a lot of our players' performances. With a few resurgent performances from players like Jared Allen, Phil Loadholt, Hutch, K-Will and Shiancoe along with our secondary simply choosing to show up every Sunday, I think we can challenge for a wild-card spot this year.
Looking at our schedule, we start out with the underachieving Chargers. Phil Rivers has the potential to pick us apart with our weak secondary, no doubt about it. But... if I remember correctly, the last time we played the Bolts a couple records were broken, most notably the single game rushing record. And no, it wasn't Darren Sproles breaking it. Next up are the Bucs, a near playoff team last year that made some very solid looking additions through the draft. But the NFC South is known for teams doing great one year and then pissing themselves the next, so I think starting out 2-0 is about equally likely as is starting out 0-2. Detroit at home might be tough if you listen to the talking heads everywhere, but we simply don't lose to the kitties at home. Then comes a KC team that by all accounts overachieved last year and played potentially in the 2nd worst division in the league, followed by the Cards at home. Again, the NFL is a fickle mistress and these teams in the first 5 games, while on paper appear better than the Vikings, (other than the Cards) have not been nearly consistent enough to merit handing them victories. A 3-2 start is more likely than anything else, but 5-0 and 1-4 wouldn't surprise anyone either. Well, who am I kidding. 5-0 would surprise EVERYONE.
SO that's all I have for now as this post is getting pretty lengthy.But I think this is the start of a beautiful thing. More to come someday soon. SKOL!
-J.P.

The Maiden Voyage

2011-08-08T03:40:00.000-05:00

Alright, so this is my first ever blog post! I'm quite sure for some time I will be talking mainly into nothingness, but everyone has to start somewhere. Welcome to Odin's Eye, what I hope will become a prominent source of Vikings news for Vikes fans everywhere. A little about myself: right around the time I got old enough to really process what was going on in sports I became a Vikings fan. I was in 4th grade, and it was Randy Moss' rookie year. Watching "The Freak" explode onto the scene and the Vikes break all sorts of offensive records that season is what truly got me hooked on the 'Queens, and I've been a fan ever since. After two of my favorite and most comprehensive Vikings blogs have slowed considerably (Grant's Tomb and Pacifist Viking), I figured I read and talk about this team enough that I might as well put it on wax, so to speak. An interesting part of my blog, I think, is that the name is actually the idea of a current Vikings player. Chris "Warcraft" Kluwe himself gave me the idea for it over Twitter and I couldn't turn down the prestige that it gives the blog. That, and I am simply not all that clever with titles. Anyway, I plan on throwing some real Vikings-related material on here soon. 'Til then, Skol!