Regular Season Outlook Continued

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

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.