Let's make one thing clear before we start: if the Green Bay Packers win the Super Bowl, I'm going to have a complete sports nervous breakdown. If the Vikings' biggest rival wins its 13th championship before the Vikings win one, I'm just not going to be able to take it, and I'm going to go into a tailspin of sports despair that can't even be conceived of until it is experienced. I don't know what will happen, but it will be filled with dread and loathing. You may never hear from me again--I may disavow all association with sports. I may go into my basement and sit cross-legged reading Paradise Lost over and over again until September. I might not eat again for days. I might put all my football cards into a Magic Bullet. I just really don't know.
When Dr. Z does his final power rankings, he notes the record he predicted for each team in the preseason. Every writer should do that. Here is my preseason preview.
Pro-football-reference.com looks at the "It's hard to beat a team three times in one season" myth.
Cold, Hard Football Facts provides links and reviews of a lot of football analysis sites. When I get a little time to check them out, they'll probably be in the blogroll soon.
I'm going to be honest: at this point I loathe the Timberwolves. Whenever they enter my mind, an dull, empty, sick feeling enters my soul. Jordi at Epic Carnival looks closer.
A few days ago there was some discussion about exploitation of college athletes. For those interested, Allen Sack's book looks like a good examination of the issue (you also might read Sack's article at Inside Higher Ed on Notre Dame football, with an intriguing proposal for academic requirements for athletes). I, however, don't read books about sports anymore. It should be obvious to anybody that I spend too much time reading about sports on the internet already, and since there are so many classics of world literature I haven't read yet, I prefer to devote my heavy reading time to spiritually invigorating classics. I follow sports for fun--I read for the edification of my soul.
The Ragnarok has been looking at offseason possibilities for the Vikings. Wide receiver must be the top offseason priority for the Vikings; via The Ragnarok, Football's Future lists the top free agent wide receivers. My top two choices are D.J. Hackett (upside!) and Devery Henderson (a speed guy that can stretch the field and might actually catch it when he gets down there). Slim pickings, but each (or both!) would make the Vikings a much better team.
Ladies... tries to convince you to fall in love with Braylon Edwards. They note that "he pledged $1 million in scholarship money for 100 needy eighth-grade students in Cleveland." Sounds like a good guy. Plus he's a terrific football player. If the Vikings knew then what they know now, they would have traded every pick they had in 2005 for Cleveland's 3rd pick.
Stiff upper lip, sir. Never let the cheeseheads get to you, but if they do, don't let them know they get to you.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm sure you'd flourish if the Packers were to manage the miracle. I mean, consider the productive agony you'd harvest! What would Dostoevsky do if he were confronted with the worst possible agony to his soul? Why he'd flourish!
ReplyDeleteRK
Hell, if the Vikings knew then what they knew now, they would have traded every pick they had in 2005 for any middling wide receiver, to say nothing of Edwards. The more time that goes by, the more my paranoid self suspects that Red McCombs was behind all of those picks, just to spite the residents of Minnesota for not giving him a stadium.
ReplyDeleteThere were rumors back in the day that the Vikes contacted Cleveland about moving up to get Edwards.
ReplyDeleteAt the time we could offer them the #7 and #18 picks. Man if the Vikes were unwilling to part with both picks they should be kicking themselves in the junk.
Troy Williamson and Erasmus James for Braylon Edwards.
Look at the Viking drafts under the Mike Tice era and I think we can see why the Vikings are struggling. They sucked.
ReplyDeleteChildress and his crew have drafted very well and hopefully after this year we will continue to improve.
i don't think it's healthy to kick yourself about the players your team didn't move up spots to go get. packer fans are upset green bay didn't trade up for peterson. to me that's silly. i say just be glad the vikes didn't draft mike williams like everyone (myself included) thought made sense.
ReplyDeleterk
Haha, Devery Henderson, please take him. I have never ever been more glad for a player to leave the Saints. Be gone.
ReplyDeleteRK, they drafted Troy Williamson. What's the difference in productivity and disappointment between Troy Williamson and Mike Williams? Not terribly much. I suppose Williamson contributed to two victories in his three years (Washington '06 and Chicago '07), but he contributed to a lot of losses, and often the team would have been better off not having him out there to get open and drop passes.
ReplyDeleteAnon, after having Troy Williamson as our deep threat, Devery Henderdson, while certainly not that good, would be a pleasure.
I've heard various reports that Tice very much wanted to draft Shawn Merriman instead of Troy Williamson that year. Who knows if it is true?
ReplyDeleteIt can hardly be understated how much of a disaster the last half of the McCombs era was, and how large an opportunity was wasted. An owner interested in winning would have made a run at players like Dre Bly and Ogunleye, allowed Tice to have a real coaching staff budget, and by doing so, kept the team in real competition for the conference championship game every year. That probably does a lot to keep Moss' behavior more tolerable, and the Vikings almost certainly make the playoffs in '03 and '05, along with '04, and get to at least one conference championship game. Tice would still be head coach, which I know some people would view as a curse. All I know is that it would have been a helluva lot more fun to see the Vikings make the playoffs most years in this decade, as opposed to having only made it twice, if we count '00, or only once otherwise.