Pacifist Viking

The clever hopes expire on a low dishonest football season

2011-01-02T18:50:00.001-06:00

For me, the 2010 football season featured less fun and joy than any season since, gosh, maybe ever. The Vikings disappointed grandly. My wife quit watching the games with me when the Vikings cut Randy Moss. My fantasy teams sucked (my Hazelweird team appears to have peaked in Week 17, just in time to avoid last place). The season featured many things against my rooting interests (the Packers are in the playoffs, the Patriots are dominant again), and even the snowy collapse of Thunderdome. The only things to consider now is where to go from here.

Joe Webb. Sure, maybe this game was a buzzkill, but we still know what we knew: Webb has a lot of work to do to be a quality starter, but the potential is there. The Vikings should not, in my opinion, draft a QB in the first round of the draft. This is partly because there are glaring needs elsewhere (the Vikes need 2-4 new starting defensive backs, depending on how things go, and also need offensive line improvement), but mostly that it would be pointless to have two young, inexperienced, talented QBs on the roster competing for the chance to start. Webb certainly deserves a spot on the roster, and far better to bring in a veteran QB for him to play behind or to compete against for the job. A veteran QB (by which I mean an experienced QB around the middle of his career, not a Childress-special end-of-career-stopgap solution, which would be somebody like Donovan McNabb or Matt Hasselbeck) available in an offseason is going to have baggage. It might be somebody in the range of Kevin Kolb-Rex Grossman-Sage Rosenfels-Kyle Orton-Carson Palmer-Matt Leinart-Jason Campbell. If you don't like those names, tell me a better realistic possibility (and some of those guys aren't even going to be available).

Leslie Frazier. I think keeping Frazier is a good thing. As I've said, when you hire a new coach, you try to project based on his resume and personality whether he will be a successful coach in your particular situation. Zygi Wilf had a chance to actually see what Frazier could do in this situation, and I think it would have been difficult for Frazier, in these circumstances, to do a better job than he has done. Now he has a tough job, I think: telling current assistant coaches--a few weeks ago his colleagues--that the team needs to go in a different direction offensively.

New offensive approach. There is a load of skill position talent on the roster, and the Vikings need to utilize it better than they have been. The Vikings have unique talents like Adrian Peterson (still a potential all-timer, whose potential has yet to be fulfilled) and Percy Harvin (a versatile player that can be moved all over the field and asked to do all sorts of things with the ball). Can they find a creative, adaptive offensive coordinator who can find ways to utilize their talents? I hope they don't keep the same offensive coaching staff and scheme.

Aging veterans. The Vikings should keep Antoine Winfield on the roster until it's clear he can't do anything anymore--he's too savvy a player not to be useful. But the Vikes might be cutting ties with some other starters.

The year long weaknesses: secondary and offensive line. Because the Vikings need to add multiple quality starters in these areas, this is no quick fix.

Who can they keep? Chad Greenway? Ray Edwards? Sidney Rice? Will they be Vikings next year? I hope so.

Goodbye, suckers.

But I won't be here to blog about it anymore. No drama: I'm just wore out from five season of writing about this team, and my time and energies are more and more devoted to other important things. I just want to follow and watch the team, not think of what to say about it (frankly, I've scrambled for time this year, and feel my writing has frequently been pretty incomplete and scattered). I leave you as I started with A.E. Housman's poem "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now." With each of my allotted years that goes by, one chance to see the Vikings win the Super Bowl passes by unfulfilled. Maybe next year. Always, eternally, forever, maybe next year.

Thanks for reading.

National Friday League, Week 17

2010-12-30T19:00:00.002-06:00

Vikings-Lions Preview

2010 Lions

2010 Vikings

Who this game matters most for:

Leslie Frazier. A win Sunday, and it would be wildly unfair if Leslie Frazier is not hired as the Viking head coach for 2011.

Joe Webb. Another strong performance, and he might convince the Vikings he's the QB they can develop, starting soon (compete for the job in training camp?). A poor performance, and he looks more like a long-term project, and the Vikings try fill the position elsewhere next year.

Jim Schwartz. I'm afraid the Lions are building something. They do have a dominant 25 year old on offense and a dominant 23 year old on defense. They've had seven losses this season by eight points or fewer. And a win Sunday would mean finishing the year with four straight wins, including two division wins.

My dream: an NFL pregame show with no former players or coaches.

Why would I prefer an NFL pregame show without former players and former coaches?

They have friends in the league. Some of these guys make efforts to defend their friends, won't criticize their friends, and quite obviously have their commentary influenced by their friendships.

They have their own legacies to protect. This comes out subtly in some of their evaluations, but it's there.

They often don't bring much insight. My guess is that most of these former players and coaches made their millions, and for them this is a comfortable job. They're not spending hours studying film, not spending hours studying stats, and not spending hours chasing down sources for meaningful inside knowledge. Quite frequently the things these guys say are no more meaningful than what any other observer of the sport could provide.

Obviously a former player or coach can be very good on TV: Ron Jaworski, Chris Collinsworth, and John Madden come to mind. But a lot of the former players and coaches are either irritating or dull.

My other dream: no more "production meetings" with broadcasters and players

I think the broadcasters, after having friendly conversations with players, are less likely to harshly criticize those players. It's not always a conscious decision: in fact I think it's usually an unconscious, human feeling not to be critically harsh--even when justified--to people they have had personal conversations with, and who have generally been nice to them. But it's there: the friendly conversation they had influences their objectivity and willingness to honestly critique. Furthermore I'm not sure how much meaningful insight they get from these meetings that they couldn't get from other sources (some, I'm sure, but I'm not sure it's enough to counterbalance the soft treatment they give the subjects).

Leslie Frazier has earned this job.

When a team is hiring a new coach, there are all sorts of things to consider in the prospect's resume and personality to evaluate whether he will be an effective coach for the team's particular situation. When a coach is given a chance to audition for the job on an interim basis, it is usually under difficult circumstances, but it is a chance to actually prove what he can do "on the field."

Since Leslie Frazier became head coach, the Vikings have won their first two road games of the season (both outdoors, one against a 10 win team). The Vikings have won three games with three different QBs (Favre against Washington, Jackson against Buffalo [Favre went out on the first series], Webb against Philadelphia). The team has endured some pretty unique circumstances, and even though the Vikes are eliminated from playoff contention, the team has still been playing extremely hard. The game plans have been good (the coaching job against the Eagles was masterly), and on multiple occasions they've made difficult adjustments to new situations (Peterson getting hurt against Washington, Favre getting hurt against Buffalo, preparing a third-string, rookie sixth round pick QB).

What else can Leslie Frazier do to prove he deserves, in fact has earned with his performance, the chance to prepare a team through an offseason and coach a team through a season? In my mind he's already proven it: a win against Detroit to finish the year 4-2--including three road victories--should absolutely convince Zygi Wilf that Leslie Frazier is the man to run this football team.

I wasn't convinced when Frazier took over on an interim basis that he should be the head coach next year. I am now. I don't know who the Vikings can find that they could know will do a better job than Frazier, and I think Frazier has proven what he can do.

The Timberwolves

Basketball is an extraordinarily fun sport to watch live, if you're watching a well played, competitive game. I went to the Wolves' game against the Hornets Monday, and it was a treat. Wesley Johnson hit six three pointers from what I'm pretty sure was the exact same spot on the court (New Orleans would have had a better defensive strategy just to make a center stand there with his arms up, no matter what else was happening), and Michael Beasley was scoring every which way he could. Really a delightful game to watch. I'm really hoping they can bring in some better talent to support Beasley and Kevin Love, who are a good core of players that could take the Wolves to the playoffs with a little better guard play (and a lot better center play).

Other Week 17 Games

Week 17 Schedule

Bears-Packers. FINISH THEM!

Colts-Titans.

Rams-Seahawks. Either another 8-8 team wins a division and goes to the playoffs (while teams with winning records in the same conference don't), and we go on with life as before, or a 7-9 team wins a division and the league either reforms or busts up the current system. Which would you prefer?

Skol!!!

2010-12-28T22:55:00.005-06:00

No matter if the Vikings aren't making it to the playoffs, it is really, really fun to watch your favorite team go on the road to play against a playoff team and beat them smoothly. That was the most fun watching the Vikings I've had all season. The Vikes showed they do have the talent, that they do have a core of players to keep together, that they have something to build on.

Great credit goes to the entire defense for this effort. Michael Vick is incredible: if I was choosing a QB for my team, I'd quibble between the Manning/Brady/Brees triumvirate, but few QBs right now are more terrifying to go against than Vick. He is a game plan destroyer with his elusiveness. But the Viking coaching staff put together an aggressive game plan: they played a team with tremendous speed and big play ability, and they didn't play afraid. They blitzed a lot. The defensive line got good penetration, and the front seven made an admirable effort chasing down and trying to contain Vick. The secondary, despite several dropped interceptions, played an outstanding game: the DBs stuck with their receivers well, they deflected passes, they tackled well.

Antoine Winfield blessed us with another Antoine Winfield special: sack, forced fumble, fumble recovery, touchdown return all on one beautiful play that turned the game right before halftime.

Joe Webb gave us something to hope for, playing a game with poise, intelligence, mobility, and accuracy. Kudos to the coaching staff for both giving him plays that allowed him to be successful, and for not sitting on their hands avoiding using him at all.

Adrian Peterson quite frequently looked like the best player on the field, and Percy Harvin played better than any other WR tonight.

Leslie Frazier made his best audition to keep the Viking head coaching job. The road win against Washington and the blowout win against the Bills was very good. But after two blowout losses, after weather forced them into a Monday Night "home" game in Detroit, then a Monday night home game at TCF Stadium, and then a Tuesday Night game at NFC powerhouse Philadelphia, after the team was down to its third QB, a rookie sixth round pick, this team could have easily given up. But the team did not: this team has played hard for Frazier, and tonight they had a great game plan that they utilized almost to perfection.

That was joyous. I can't recall ever watching the Vikings beat the Eagles (I probably have watched it, but it's been a long time, and I don't remember it). I've seen the Vikings lose to the Eagles at home, in the playoffs, and live (once all of those things at once). Today they did it. It was a well-played game, featuring great effort, great game planning, and great performances from some great players. Football is still fun.

Skol, everybody.

National Festivus League, Week 16

2010-12-23T08:00:00.001-06:00

Happy Festivus everybody.

Vikings-Eagles

2010 Vikings

2010 Eagles

This is a game I would say will be the biggest blowout the Vikings endure this season: they've got no answer for Michael Vick or DeSean Jackson, and they'll be starting their third or fourth quarterback of the season. But considering the Vikings have already lost games this year by scores like 31-3 and 40-14, really, where is the blowout range going to be worse than what we've already seen?

2001

This Viking season feels like 2001: a disappointing season with a lot of dreadful losses, an offense that suddenly goes from explosive to inept, the coach is eventually ousted in rather ugly fashion, and by the end of the year the team is on a third quarterback and it seems almost hopeless that they can even score a touchdown. I barely had the stomach to watch those games (OK, I often didn't). Watching games this season feels like a burdensome chore, like it's something I have to do when I'd rather be doing something else, and I'm just hoping the team does something in the offseason to give some hope (at quarterback, at coach, somewhere important) so that games next year can be fun to watch again. I haven't had fun watching a Viking game in a really long time.

Other Interesting Games

Week 16 Schedule

Panthers-Steelers. Can Carolina pull off a Festivus miracle?

Jets-Bears. There's not an NFC playoff team that I can't see beating the Bears, and there's not an NFC playoff team that I can't see the Bears beating. They're playing for a bloody two seed.

Colts-Raiders. Peyton Manning has a reason to play through all 16 games for the first time in a very long time.

Giants-Packers. Finish those suckers off now.

Saints-Falcons. All season long, I sort of rooted for the Falcons because they seemed like one of the better contenders to stop the Packers from getting to the Super Bowl (they're killer at home). Now that fear of the Packers in the Super Bowl is significantly weakened (but not dead), I still kinda sorta root for this Falcon team anyway.

Box

I was in a waiting room the other day, waiting, when somebody started chatting with me. This fellow asked me if I played "fantasy football."

"What's that?" I said. "Does that have something to do with those football games on TV?"

"Well, yeah, sort of."

"Hmm. I've seen those football games. What is 'fantasy' football?"

"Well, you pick your own team of players, like a quarterback, running backs, etc., and then your team does well when those players do well."

"So you make up a team?"

"I guess. You draft them."

"'Draft'? Like that thing they do in April?"

"Yeah, just with the members of your league. You draft a team from all the players in the NFL."

"Sounds interesting." I then returned to my magazine and continued waiting, going back to a life with no such thing as fantasy football. It sounds like the sort of thing that will take up way too much of your energy and time and can only leave you feeling miserable.

Airing of Grievances ("I've got a lot of problems with you people!")

If there were a Bizarro Pro Bowl, where players make it by being actively bad, Madieu Williams would be the starting safety. No other defensive back excels so highly in two key areas: being wildly out of position in pass coverage, and being wildly out of position when attempting to tackle. If an opposing wide receiver made a big play this season, look around: #20 was probably somewhere nearby. This year's airing of grievances is reserved for none other than Madieu Williams.

I would watch the Bizarro Pro Bowl, by the way.

Feel free to air your grievances.

Weekend

Have a good one, suckers.

A bitter sort of peace

2010-12-20T22:44:00.005-06:00

As much as I hate seeing Brian Urlacher celebrate anything, it is better than seeing the Packers celebrate anything.

And the Vikings are just two more embarrassing losses from beginning a rebuilding project; we can hope that means that these games will be fun to watch again in 2011.

National Friday League, Week 15

2010-12-16T17:00:00.007-06:00

Outdoor Winter Football in Minnesota

Seeing a Viking home game played in cold December, snow plowed to the sidelines, will make me nostalgic for a time I never even saw. Purple jerseys in the cold!

On not giving a shit (or, Vikings v. Bears)

2010 Vikings

2010 Bears

The 2010 Vikings are either going to finish 5-11, 6-10, 7-9, or 8-8 (assuming no ties, I guess). I can't find myself caring where they actually end up on that spectrum: it just doesn't really matter. If this were a young team, we could hope for a strong finish to build for something next year. But this is an old team that is going to have to make some big changes next year regardless of the next three weeks (the dread rebuilding, but with a solid core of elite-level players to rebuild with so it could turn quickly, with savvy and luck).

Yet on the other side, the Bears are one game in front of the Packers for the division. I have no animosity for the Bears outside of Viking-Bear matchups, and intense animosity for the Packers. And that can, ultimately, matter: seeing the Packers in the Super Bowl would crush my spirit.

Am I saying I'm rooting for the Bears to beat the Vikings? I would never say that. And I would never feel that.

Randall Cunningham and Brett Favre

Randall Cunningham and Brett Favre each quarterbacked the Vikings to a spectacular, memorable season that ended with an overtime defeat in the NFC Championship Game. Here were their comparable numbers during those seasons:

Cunningham '98

3,704 yards, 34 TDs, 10 INTs, 60.9%, 106.0 rating, 13-1 record

(playoffs: 46/75, 502 yards, 5 TDs, 1 INT)

Favre '09

4,202 yards, 33 TDs, 7 INTs, 68.4%, 107.2 rating, 12-4 record

(playoffs: 43/70, 544 yards, 5 TDs, 2 INTs)

Outside of those magical years, neither QB shined. In 2010, the Vikes started 5-7 with Favre as starter, and he threw 18 interceptions and added six fumbles. In 1999, the Vikings started 2-4 with Cunningham as starter, as his rating fell down to 79.1. Cunningham also finished the 1997 season, when he was the starter in a week 17 win to make the playoffs, as well as their first playoff win of the '90s.

Who did more for the Vikings? When I see Randall Cunningham Viking jerseys, I just feel empty. I don't know how I'll feel when I see Favre Viking jerseys in ten years. That depends, I suppose, on whether the Vikings win a Super Bowl before then...and whether the "Minnesota Vikings" exist at all.

Penelope waits

There are different ways to create stories and meaning from sports. Some may view through a Hero Myth, where the story is the heroism of the great individual player or the great team, whose on-field successes and failures are all part of the story of the hero's greatness (and tragedy). Or you can see sports as a Quest Myth, where the team or individual strives and struggles and takes forward and backward steps on the mission to achieve an idealized end, to cross into the Promised Land, to find that Holy Grail, to return home from Troy.

Readers know how I watch the Vikings. And during the latter parts of a season during which the Vikings will not make the playoffs, I feel like I'm stuck on some crazy half-god's island just waiting for a boat to come by so maybe, maybe I can get back on that journey home. At least then, no matter how far I am from Ithaca, I'd at least be on the water moving, quite possibly even in the right direction.

Other Games

Week 15 Schedule

A nice slate of games matching up teams with winning records.

Eagles-Giants. How I got my wife to give me a disgusted look Monday night: "You know how I've said if the Vikings relocate I'll become a Bears fan? Well, when Peyton Manning retires I'll need a new favorite non-Viking player. Football is way more fun for me when I have a favorite non-Viking to root for. So I was thinking, when Peyton retires, how about little brother?"

Saints-Ravens.

Jets-Steelers.

Packers-Patriots.

Jaguars-Colts. If the Jaguars win, they win the division and the Colts miss the playoffs for the first time since 2001. If the Colts win, they haven't clinched anything, but they're in very good shape to do so. The Vikings make me shake my head sadly; any football nerves I have now are reserved for Packer games and Colt games.

Remember Spurgeon Wynn?

Horrors. Just remembering.

Fantasy Box

Readers know my antipathy to head-to-head fantasy standings, and the absurd unfairness of fantasy playoffs (why not just pick a week at random and say the highest score from that week wins the championship?).

But I do now see the excitement of a playoff. When you're on the bubble just to get into the playoffs, it's exciting because you still have a shot at winning a fantasy football champion. And then if you get into the playoffs, even as the lowest seed, you need one good week against the top seed and you can still claim that champion. I get it.

Of course the week-to-week, every-game excitement of Cross Country standings overcomes the focused excitement of a playoff matchup. Still, this is fun.

The snow gushed forth from the Thunderdome sky, like the opening call for Ragnarok.

2010-12-13T21:37:00.001-06:00

And so the Vikings played a game in pretend Thunderdome. And looked as deflated as the Metrodome.

The Viking offense sure reminded me of 2007. If the opponent is stuffing Adrian Peterson, the Vikings are cooked. When the Vikings are pinned with poor field position, they're cooked. When the Vikings face 3rd and long, they're cooked. If the Vikings get down by a couple of scores, they're cooked.

Let there be no mistaking this now: Tarvaris Jackson cannot be the starting quarterback for the Vikings in 2011. They need to look for a QB answer for the medium term (a veteran that can play with Pro Bowl potential for 3-5 years: think Rich Gannon with the Raiders, Brad Johnson with the Buccaneers, Kurt Warner with the Cardinals) or the long term (the proverbial franchise quarterback). And that's not to blame Jackson for the dud of a game played by the Vikings tonight. But he does continue to show his limitations, and I don't think that next year he'll be one of the 32 best quarterbacks in the NFL (but do I even need to say that? Everybody in Minnesota knows this, right? But I hear enough national commentators talk about Jackson as a possible option next year, as somebody the Vikings need to see play to find out more about him, that it almost terrifies me into thinking he could be back).

Of course this would happen.

2010-12-12T22:37:00.003-06:00

Can anybody remember a weirder Viking season than 2010? It was already a kooky season before the Thunderdome roof fell in and snow poured onto the field, requiring the Vikings to play an impromptu Monday night home game in Detroit.

Blizzards always remind and teach an important life lesson: adapt.

National Friday League, Week 14

2010-12-09T18:00:00.003-06:00

Vikings-Giants Preview

2010 Giants

The Giants are 4th in offensive yards and 2nd in defensive yards allowed. The rank 5th in Football Outsiders' DVOA. But I have a problem: I can't keep history out of my mind. Here are the four games the Vikings have played against Eli Manning's Giants.

2005: The Vikings win a road game despite scoring three offensive points, a win that was vital to the Vikings' midseason effort to keep the season entertaining. Eli Manning throws four interceptions.

2007: The Vikings go on the road and blow out the Giants, a win that helped the Vikings' midseason effort to keep the season entertaining. Eli Manning throws four interceptions.

2008: In the last game of the season, the clinched Giants rest some major starters; the Vikings are forced to come back (with Tarvaris Jackson!) to clinch the NFC North.

2009: In the last game of the season, the Giants have nothing to play for, while the Vikes need a win and help to clinch the NFC #2 seed. They blew out the Giants.

Tooling around Minnesota, there are a few fans that watch every single Viking game, but watch no other NFL games. These fans have seen Eli Manning play precisely four times. These fans think Eli Manning sucks awful. They're seeing Eli this weekend and thinking "Oh, that loser is still the Giants' QB?"

I think the Vikings have been effective against the Giants because the Vikes stop the run and force Manning into a lot of bad throwing situations. Manning can be turnover-prone, and the Viking pass rush can get to him, I think (and getting turnovers in bunches is a way for this team to beat the Giants) I feel good about this game, but that's from feeling good about a team coming off their first road win then their largest victory of the season. Albeit against lousy teams. After all, even with a new coach, the Vikes are only two games removed from getting puked on by the Bears and Packers. Trends do come to an end (I guess: the Patriots never beat John Elway).

Other Interesting Games

Week 14 Schedule

Colts-Titans. Which team has had a worse few weeks?

Packers-Lions. Detroit: this is your destiny. Do it!

Patriots-Bears. Chicago: this is your destiny. Do it!

Bizarro MVP

In Bizarro World1, where Bizarro PV gets a vote for the Bizarro MVP, Bizarro PV casts his vote for Bizarro Tom Brady.2

1. 37.9% of my knowledge of Superman mythology comes from Jerry Seinfeld.

2. Even in Bizarro World, only QBs and RBs on playoff teams are eligible for MVP.

Fantasy Box

In the Hazelweird League, we have a "trophy" for last place: the loser of the league is forced to keep in possession a DVD featuring college highlights of the Vikings' 2005 draft picks. I'm serious. At the last draft weekend there was some discussion of opening the box up and watching it, which led to some threats to quit the league and go start a splinter league.

This awful trophy is largely symbolic: there is a real desire among, well, yes, us, at the bottom of the standings to not finish in last place. I've never finished in last place: one year I tanked it for the #1 pick and I still didn't get last place (even when I try to lose, Abe still loses better--zing!). I'm still fighting and clawing to be respectable enough not to be last.

Clouds of Heaven

2010-12-05T14:59:00.003-06:00

Vikings-Bills Box Score

Some bullet-point reactions.

When you're watching a December football game between two teams that aren't making the playoffs, you want it to be entertaining: lots of points, lots of big plays, lots of turnovers, lots of stuff happening. If you're a Viking fan, that game was entertaining.
Sidney Rice showed he's still got it: he was making spectacular downfield catches in tight coverage, and making them look nearly effortless. He reminds me of the old Randy Moss in some ways: when covered downfield, he can still make a play without it looking like an extraordinary effort. He's smooth timing and leaping for the ball. He's really a key player to keep on the team going forward: he can make a QB look good.
Tarvaris Jackson made me feel like old times. He is what he is: capable of some really exciting, spectacular plays, but also capable of frequent inaccuracy and terrible decision making. The inaccurate passes and bad decisions are, I think most of us are convinced, too frequent with Jackson for him to be a successful regular starting QB.
Adrian freaking Peterson!
Defensively, this was like old times: ferocious pass rush forcing turnovers, stifling run defense, big plays from the likes of Antoine Winfield and Jared Allen. The Bills aren't good, but it's still fun to watch a defense be disruptive at every level of the game.
Our 0-4 Super Bowl soul-cousins do have a couple of AFL championships from back in 1964 and 1965. Bills fans, you have that over us.

Skol.

(note for non-weekend readers who missed it to check out "Brett Favre as King Lear" below, if you'd be interested in that sort of thing).

Brett Favre as King Lear

2010-12-03T15:42:00.011-06:00

Numerous pundits have compared Brett Favre to Hamlet, because of Favre's indecision over retirement and Hamlet's apparent indecision over what to do about his father's murder. But I think that comparison is too easy, not quite accurate, and not terribly insightful. But a comparison to another Shakespeare hero, King Lear, actually offers some real insight, or at least a consistent, developed interpretation, of Brett Favre the man and football player.

It's not indecision: it's a full embrace of the current emotion.

In Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom argues that Lear the man "is all feeling," suggesting, I think, that whatever emotion Lear currently feels, he embraces with the totality of his person.

Might this explain Favre's frequent candor with the media, his long-time musings on possible retirements, and especially his displays of sincere, authentic tears? When Favre announced his retirement from the Packers and cried, that was real emotion: he seemed to fully feel it. But the emotion changed, and when it did, Favre fully embraced that new emotion.

And after all, King Lear begins with Lear announcing his retirement, a decision he will very quickly regret.

Love me, love me, say that you love me!

Lear is a man who, in old age, gathers all the important people of the country together, tells his daughters that he is handing them the kingdom...and then insists that they make public displays telling him how much they love him.

Does Brett Favre manipulate the media to stay in constant public attention? Maybe, maybe not. But some have suggested that when Brett Favre made his first retirement announcement, he hoped that the Green Bay Packers would express a deep desire for him to come back, and was irked at the way he perceived they pushed him out when he did want to come back (as Lear was irked when Cordelia wouldn't make a showy display like her sisters: is going to play for the Packers' rival the emotional equivalent of banishing Cordelia?). And it does seem in 2010 that he sent text messages to teammates pointing to retirement, perhaps in an effort to get them to express their love and longing for him. And he did only come back for 2010 when teammates showed up at his home to beg him to come back. He felt loved and needed, in the way Lear badly needed to feel loved and needed.

Aye, every inch a king.

Lear has a king's conviction that he can do whatever he wants, his way. That might give us some insight into Brett Favre, whether he is throwing a terrible pass into coverage and forcing an awful turnover, avoiding training camp, or calling Jenn Sterger.

Monumental Greatness, and Monumental Stupidity.

There is no question that King Lear has the capacity for greatness, that he has been a great and respected king. But as Kent warns him and as the Fool never tires of reminding him, Lear also has the capacity for utterly stupid foolishness.

With all the all-time cumulative records, with a plethora of 30+ TD pass seasons, with two and a half MVPs, there's no question Brett Favre is one of the greatest QBs that ever played. But with the all-time interception record, with a plethora of 20+ INT seasons, with a number of playoff games with multiple interceptions or game-altering end-of-the game interceptions, Favre too has the capacity for failure.

Hamlet? Nah.

In Hamlet, Hamlet is in an awful situation: his dad has died and his mother quickly marries his uncle who takes the throne, he discovers that his uncle probably murdered his father (he's not quite sure), but he doesn't know the extent of other peoples' (including his own mother's!) involvement in the crime or coverup, he has all sorts of conflicting desires, is surrounded by untrustworthy people that he has every reason to distrust, seems to be getting betrayed by everybody he knows, he's constantly being spied on, and the one thing he wanted to do (leave!) he was explicitly forbidden to do. If Hamlet is indecisive, he can hardly be blamed for that. What is the right decision? What is he supposed to do? And how is he supposed to pull it off when his enemy is the guy in charge of the whole damn country, with all sorts of power, and perhaps all sorts of allies who are aiding him? What advice would you give to Hamlet given his situation?

Hamlet's indecision is overrated, and I don't think it offers us much insight into Brett Favre. King Lear, the emotional king, longing to be loved, with his capacity for both brilliance and foolishness? There, I think, is an insightful comparison.

National Friday League, Week 13

2010-12-02T17:30:00.002-06:00

Vikings-Bills

2010 Bills

Ah, another game against our "0-4 in the Super Bowl" spirit-cousins. Hello Buffalo: I feel like I know you.

Look at the Bills' last five games and tell me whether you are confident for this game: OT loss at Ravens, OT loss at Chiefs, 3 point loss to Bears, 2 point win against Lions, 18 point win at Bengals, OT loss to Steelers. Since their bye week, the Bills have played everybody competitively. They do have a bad run defense (32nd in yardage allowed, 29th in yards per attempt allowed) and a lousy defense overall (29th in points allowed), but the Vikings are 30th in points scored.

2010 Viking Defense: Impressive or Disappointing?

This year, the Vikings rank 9th in yardage allowed and the team ranks 16th in points allowed. The points allowed make the Vikings seem pretty average, but considering the Vikes have 25 lost turnovers, the defense has been forced into some lousy positions to play out of (plus they once again have given up a fair number of non-offensive touchdowns). They've had some games when they needed to get stops late in the game for a chance to win, and they did it (Miami, at Green Bay, Arizona). They've also had games when they needed late game stops and couldn't at all (at New England), and games when the pass defense looked just...just...awful (at Chicago, Green Bay). The run defense is not what it once was, but still ranks #5 in yardage and yardage per attempt allowed. But the pass rush has often been invisible. By Football Outsiders' metric they are very average (17th).

Interesting Week 13 games

Week 13 Schedule

Jaguars-Titans: The last time the 6-5 division leading Jags played the Titans, they lost 30-3. I know this because that was early enough in the academic semester when I still watched every Monday Night game, and early enough in the season when I had fantasy hopes. Now I'm buried in research papers (I shouldn't even be writing this!) and mired in a lost fantasy season (I could list off my very concrete, easily identifiable mistakes, but why bother).

Falcons-Buccaneers. I like Matt Ryan. I like Brent Grimes (or "Grimey," as he liked to be called).

Cowboys-Colts. Indianapolis's incredibly impressive streak of seven straight 12+ win seasons will not be stretched to eight, but they are still tied for a division lead with a favorable schedule.

Chicago and whoever they play, Green Bay and whoever they play. I'm not ashamed to be at the "anybody but the Packers" stage of the season.

Steelers-Ravens, Jets-Patriots. Late in the season, it's wonderful to have extraordinary night games between division-rival Super Bowl contenders. Thanks again, DVR.

Links

Really fascinating post at pro-football-reference.com about QB "comebacks," with some special focus on John Elway, Dan Marino, and Brett Favre (Favre does not come out so well when you see what he's done with comeback opportunities).

In the no shame department, ProFootballTalk quotes an NFL statement criticizing the players' union which includes the following:

"The union’s request for state and local political leaders to intercede in the negotiations ignores and denigrates the serious and far more substantial problems that those leaders, and that state and local workers across the country face."

Ho ho ho! That's funny stuff. Either somebody writing NFL statements has a rich sense of irony, or the NFL and teams aren't bothering state and local politicians for public money for their stadiums anymore. Or something else.

Weekend

December: not quite as ass-biting cold as January and February, but almost, but it's OK because there are Christmas lights. I might take a bye from blogging for the next few weeks (combination of end-of-semester workload and football-season-gone-bad exhaustion), but maybe not.

Later suckers. Go Vikings. Go Bears.

Clouds of Heaven

2010-11-29T08:14:00.002-06:00

Sure, Washington did its part to lose this game (several dropped passes, one that was deflected and gave the Vikings easy field goal range, an unnecessary block in the back to negate a punt return), but Viking road wins (and on grass, no less!) are hard to come by, and we can appreciate them when they happen. Besides, this was the cleanest and crispest the Vikings have looked all year: no turnovers, few penalties, a team just generally playing smart, quality football.

What kind of coach would Leslie Frazier be with an offseason, a training camp, roster input? Who knows. But in one game we saw a team that was prepared to play, that avoided mistakes, that overcame injury to its best player, and that played hard. Frazier can be given credit for that. And it was good to see the authentic joy he had at the end of the game, and the joy the players seemed to have for him too.

National Thanksgiving League (on a lost season)

2010-11-22T16:10:00.002-06:00

2001

That was the last time I was this uninterested in watching the next Viking game. From 2002 on, I only missed Viking games when life (family events, work) pulled me away, even during some pretty lousy, borderline unwatchable seasons and games. I always eagerly anticipated the games, got excited, found enjoyable reasons to watch. But everything that happened in 2001 made it so I could barely stomach it by the end (Spurgeon Wynn!), and I actually found other things to do on Sundays (though I ended up watching more playoff football than I ever had before that year, once I know longer had to think about the Vikings).

Right now, I'm not remotely excited or interested in the next Viking game. I struggle to find reasons to think watching the game will be fun. There's the possibility of Adrian Peterson having an Adrian Peterson game. There's also a chance to see what kind of game coach Leslie Frazier is (it will difficult to assess what kind of coach he'd be if given the chance to coach a team through the entire offseason and season and have some contribution to the roster, but things like clock management, challenges, decisions, etc., maybe).

Les Steckel?

It is an entirely plausible, realistic scenario: the Vikings might not win another game this year. On the field, they are quite obviously playing awful, awful football. And the team is weakest in the areas where you absolutely must be competent in to compete in today's NFL (offensive line and defensive secondary). At the psychological level, players may be losing their motivation, they may be fracturing in their relations with each other, they may hold coaches in disdain, all of which could contribute to a complete flushing of the season (and teams like Buffalo and Detroit are probably better at motivating themselves late in playoffless seasons than the Vikings!). Might they match the record of that legendary of legendary seasons, the Les Steckel year? I really have trouble seeing the Vikes winning another game this year.

It has me wondering what kind of game-changing players are available in the top five of this year's draft. People: I can even see the Vikings ending up with the worst record in the league.

The Bears

There's really little to do now but root for the Bears to win the goddam division.

Brad Childress

The fans turned against Childress quite early in his tenure, and there are some things that are unfair about our appraisal of Childress's performance. Because he came in as an offensive coach and it is unclear exactly who deserves credit for personnel moves, Childress didn't ever get credit for the remarkable defensive turnaround that took place during his tenure, or for the remarkable upgrade in talent the team made all around the roster. And the early criticism of his predictable, conservative offense was unfair, I think: the poor offense was more a result of poor personnel than poor scheme (the skill positions were a pretty bare cupboard when Childress took over--it wasn't a group that you could execute much creativity or downfield passing with).

There's also a part of me that feels for Childress as a human being. As the fans are savaging him and booing him and chanting for him to be fired...well, that can't feel good, even if you are getting paid millions of dollars.

But some of Childress's problems--perplexing in-game decisions, a seeming inability to make positive halftime adjustments (or really any in-game adjustments), reputably terrible people skills, confusing and strange comments and explanations--have caught up with him. Well, that might be a reaching back for explanations after the fact: really a lousy, failing team has caught up with him, and there has to be a large extent to which, in his fifth year, that's on him. The team doesn't look well prepared, doesn't adjust well, and the coaches seem at a loss to find ways to cover for and adjust to the team's personnel weaknesses.

Often when a coach is fired, his exact opposite is hired. In many ways, Brad Childress is the exact opposite of Mike Tice. Where Tice was a player's coach, Childress is a disciplinarian. Where Tice was a motivator, Childress is a tactician. Where Tice knew his limitations and could delegate and learn, Childress seems more authoritarian and confident in his own abilities. Where Tice was talkative and even charismatic toward fans and the media, Childress seems dry and cold. My guess is that Zygi Wilf, experiencing the many problems the team had during his first year of ownership in 2005, was looking for somebody to get things orderly, and found something appealing in Childress as a contrast to Tice. For better or worse, that's who we've had for five years.

But Childress's biggest problem was probably always quarterback. In Childress's tenure, the Vikes failed to fill the quarterback position competently for three years. Because of this, Childress became dependent on an aging legend that could basically do whatever he wanted because the team made it clear how badly it needed/wanted him, and because retirement was always a serious option.

Why Tarvaris Jackson? Joe Webb!

There's nobody running the Vikings that doesn't know the kind of QB Tarvaris Jackson is. Tarvaris Jackson has had game experience and been in the league for five years; I'm not sure it helps the Vikings to give him experience. The season is lost, and if/when the Vikings and/or Favre decide that Favre won't be the starting QB anymore, playing Jackson doesn't really help anybody, does it? Of course, it's debatable whether playing Joe Webb is helpful for Joe Webb (can playing a QB before he's ready be damaging, or is the experience helpful toward getting ready?). But if the Vikings are going to use the season to look toward the future, playing Jackson doesn't really, I think, tell the Vikings much at all about the quarterback position in the future.

Week

Have a good Thanksgiving everybody.

Jumping

2010-11-21T14:11:00.000-06:00

Fire Childress now.

Turn the team over to Joe freaking Webb.

Get a G.M. who is prepared to fully rebuild the defensive secondary and the offensive line: both units badly need it.

Go Bears: may you win the division easily.

Go T-Wolves: may you get a backcourt that can support Beasley and Love.

And now, as the Vikings punt at the end of the third quarter, I take a cue from my dad: when the Vikings suck, there is always yard work. Those Christmas lights aren't going to put themselves up. And the Vikings aren't doing squat.

Later, suckers (and if the Vikings somehow come back from down 21, I'll gladly suck down every word here. Not literally, of course).

National Friday League, Week 11

2010-11-18T17:00:00.009-06:00

Viking-Packer Preview

2010 Green Bay Packers

Thunderdome! Sure the Metrodome is the biggest reason to have hope that the Vikes can beat the Packers Sunday, but there are others. Namely:

The Packers are 21st in the league with 1,028 rush yards allowed and 26th in the league with 4.5 rush yards per attempt allowed. The Vikings should be able to run the ball, and while they need to commit to it, it would be good to see them run the ball in creative spots, too (not primarily on 1st and 10 and 3rd and 1).
Aaron Rodgers wilts like a tree weighed down with slushy snow whenever he plays in the Metrodome, faces the Vikings, gets in a close game, or realizes he's a tool (OK, not a "reason" exactly, but c'mon! Aaron Rodgers is a tool!).
I just decided to start using the bullet point feature, and I probably shouldn't stop after two. So....THUNDERDOME! In 2001, the 5-11 Vikings beat the 12-4 Packers at home (badly). In 2002, the 6-10 Vikings beat the 12-4 Packers at home. The Metrodome isn't nearly to the Packers what Soldier Field is to the Vikings, I know, but it's still Thunderdome! What do games played in '01 and '02 have to do with a game played in '10 featuring new players and coaches? I don't know. What does any Viking game at Soldier Field have to do with any other Viking game at Soldier Field? Not much, maybe, but they always end up the same way.

Once again, I think we know what we'll get. Each team will have some scoring runs. The game will come down to a few fourth quarter possessions. Probably the home team will win (if, anyway, this time around the refs don't take away an actual touchdown. That would help the Vikes win too. You know, it's easier to win when the touchdowns you actually score get counted as touchdowns).

Other Intriguing Games

Week 11 Schedule

Bears-Dolphins. How I root in this game (aside from rooting for Ronnie Brown to have a million yards and a thousand touchdowns, but that's a fantasy problem) will reveal to me what I really expect from the Viking season in the depths of my heart. If I feel I'm rooting against the Bears, it means I'm clinging to some tiny hope that the Vikes can catch some breaks, improve their play, and either win the division or a Wild Card. If I find myself rooting for the Bears, it means I've given up on the Vikings and am rooting for a non-Packer team to win the division. I'm afraid I'll be rooting for Chicago.

Raiders-Steelers. I've moved right past Mad Men's '60s nostalgia and to Oakland-Pittsburgh '70s nostalgia. OK, Mad Men is about a quiet desperation that is hard to be nostalgic for (but in fedoras!), but the Raiders and Steelers really did meet in the playoffs for five straight years in the '70s (72, 73, 74, 75, 76).

Colts-Patriots. Still interesting after all these years.

Eagles-Giants.

Rebuilding

The 2007 Atlanta Falcons were as big a mess as I can imagine a football team being. Their star quarterback, whom the franchise had been built around for the '00s, was no longer with the team because of a felony. Their big name coach, hired away from college just that season, left the team suddenly and surprisingly. They ranked terribly offensively and defensively. That was a mess.

What did they do? They hired a good coach (Mike Smith). They signed a good free agent (Michael Turner). And they drafted a good quarterback (Matt Ryan, and if I were a Falcon fan I'd be thrilled to get to root for Matt Ryan's team for the next 10+ years). Since then, 11-6, 9-7, 7-2.

Rebuilding a team doesn't have to be a long project. It's important to get a good head coach and a good quarterback.

It's important to draft well so that you can quickly fill starting positions and fill out a quality roster. It takes both smarts and luck, but it can be done quickly.

What do the Vikings do next? They need to get somebody in charge to have a plan. Then they need to look at the roster to find their young core to build around (Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin...) and figure out what aging, expensive, diminishing players they should let go.

Brad Childress v. the Packers

If the Vikings lose this week, Brad Childress will be 3-7 against the Packers, including three home losses.

From '06-'10, the Vikings have been 37-30 against all the non-Packer teams, and the Packers have been 39-28 against all the non-Viking teams (including playoffs). Playing mostly the same schedule, these teams have been very comparable over the course of four and a half years against the rest of the league (a 2 game difference). Yet against each other, Mike McCarthy's team has defeated Brad Childress's team in two out of every three games.

You know who I like? Bears fans.

All of my interactions in life with Bears fans have been enjoyable. The Bears fans I've met have been good-natured, friendly, and good-humored about their team. Everything I know about Bears fans makes me like them.

Good luck, Bears fans. If the Vikings aren't taking the division this year, may you win it by six games over the Packers.

You know who else I like? Mike Mularkey

A lot of Super Bowl winning coaches had head coaching experience with a previous franchise. Some of those coaches had mixed or poor success in their first stints as head coaches. Mularkey has had success as an offensive coordinator, and has experience working with young QBs. And he's a coach that's willing to study and learn offensive ideas with which he's unfamiliar (the converse argument that for all his studying of innovative offenses, his actual offenses haven't been nearly as creative).

I'd like the Vikings to interview Mularkey for the head coaching job this offseason.

Tarvaris Jackson

What happens to Jackson this offseason will be, I think, interesting. If Brad Childress isn't the Vikings' coach (and if he is, heaven help us through the blackouts), does the new coach want to keep Jackson around, if nothing else as an experienced #2 QB (or to compete as a starter in a rebuilding year)? If Jackson leaves, how will other teams view Jackson? Is he one of the better #2 QBs, or would a lot of teams not even want him for that? Or would a team with a really shaky QB situation sign him to compete as a starter?

Hope?

If you want to talk yourself into something, look at the Vikings' remaining schedule: home, game against a team that just gave up 59, three straight at home, game against the team that just scored 59, then the Lions. A competent football team might be able to finish 6-1 with that schedule. The problem is, the Vikings haven't been a competent football team, and it takes an act of faith to believe they will improve to the level of competence. Is there a logical argument to be had that they could actually improve their on-the-field performance to do so? Have they shown anything to indicate an improvement is possible? Even if they do manage to win all their remaining home games (the Vikes are a good home team: they might), are they really capable of winning two of their remaining three road games? They haven't won a road game all year, and actually lost their last four road games in 2009. The pass rush is noticeably nonexistent on grass. I'm not sure the Vikings can win one road game (at Detroit, maybe), and I'm pretty sure they'll blow at least one home game.

The Commercial Life

Miller Lite ads have often featured gender policing; these ads promote a proper and acceptable way for a man to act, and ridicule some of the unacceptable ways for a man to act. This year's crop features a man doing something in some way different or eccentric, then getting mocked and lectured for it by an attractive female bartender. The lesson is obvious: conform to the norm and act like a "real" man, or you will be humiliated and rejected...and Miller Lite is for "real men."

NFC North Box

Both the Packers and Bears finish the year with pretty brutal schedules. For the Packers, I only see one gimme (49ers at home), and every remaining Bears game is losable. But we're also talking about the #1 and #2 scoring defenses in the whole friggin' league, so I'm not assuming they'll tumble either.

Basketball Box

Kevin Love's 31 point, 31 rebound game in a rare T-Wolves win is kind of a big deal. This Michael Beasley/Kevin Love core looks like it can be something, but the Wolves will have to actually put a quality backcourt together to get near the playoffs.

Weekend

Blessings on everybody. Even Packer fans, just not from noon to three on Sunday.

On the Ledge

2010-11-14T16:27:00.003-06:00

In this game between the Vikings and Bears at Soldier Field, what, exactly, was surprising?

That the Vikings committed a lot of turnovers?

That the Vikings allowed a lot of return yardage?

That the Vikings allowed Bear pass catchers to get wide open?

The Vikes have been a horrible road team through the Tice and Childress eras. They play notably poorly on grass. And they play particularly awful at Soldier Field.

You've seen this game before.

National Friday League, Week 10

2010-11-11T18:20:00.000-06:00

The next two weeks

The Vikings' next two games are at Chicago and home against Green Bay. If they manage to win both of those games, they'll be one game out of first place in the division, with a 3-1 division record and a win against each other NFC North team. And if the Vikings lose either of these games (especially the Packer game), they might be sunk. If they lose both of these games, they are sunk.

Tough Guy Town Week

2010 Bears

From 2001 to 2009, the Vikings won a game at Chicago just one time, and it took a transcendent performance from Adrian Peterson for that one win (and that barely eked out). Want to guess how this game goes? The Vikings move the ball but commit awful, devastating turnovers. The Bears score at least one return touchdown. The Bear QB manages to find wide open WRs most of the day. The game is inexplicably close at the end, and some sort of turnover costs the Vikings the game.

That wouldn't be an awful guess. The Vikings often play above themselves at Lambeau, but they almost always play well below themselves at Soldier Field. And now the Bears have Julius freaking' Peppers, a man who has had some memorably dominant games against the Vikings. Will Brad Childress insist on keeping one blocker on Peppers most of the game? If he hasn't learned from the past, almost certainly.

If you're trying to talk yourself into hope, here we go:

The Bears rank 27th in the NFL with 18.5 points per game.

Jay Cutler has taken more sacks for more lost yardage than any QB in the league; he has been sacked on an incredible 11.7% of his dropbacks.

The Bears are 5-3, with just one win by more than seven points (and the Vikings are 3-5 with one win by more than three points, but this is the section for hope, not despair). Four of their wins are against teams with a combined four wins (and two of the those teams also provided the Vikings two of their wins--oh wait, hope! Hope!).

Adrian Peterson is, in fact, a transcendent player, and if the Vikings manage to avoid turnovers and contain the Bears' special teams, A Peterson takeover of the game might actually not get wasted.

It's games like this that remind me I've aged as a Viking fan. I remember the day of this Monday night game: I wore a Viking shirt and confident smiled as I told people how well the Vikes would do that night. I remember the week before this (don't actually click that link) game: I believe my exact words were "I'm pretty confident I'll be watching the Vikings in the Super Bowl" (the response: "What, do you have some old tapes of Fran Tarkenton you're going to pull out?"). And I remember my feeling before this game, giggling with anticipation at the idea of the Bears giving a rookie QB his first start. So young and naive. It was somewhere around here, here, and here that I realized I should never, ever, ever expect the Vikings to win at Soldier Field. They might, of course...but don't ever expect it or count on it. After they won in 2007, before I could forget that lesson, I got it again here and here. The Vikings suck at Soldier Field. It's that easy.

The Bears

Obviously, I'm rooting for the Vikings this weekend. And obviously, I will root for the Vikings when the teams meet later this season. And obviously, I'm rooting for the Vikings to beat the Bears in the NFC North.

However, if the Bears do win this weekend, I will be rooting for them the rest of the year. I mean openly, on a game-to-game basis, watching the Bears and pulling for them to win. Just to keep the Packers from taking the division. It will get weird.

Other Intriguing Games/Fantasy Box

Week 10 Schedule

Titans-Dolphins. Chad Sexington lives!

Jets-Browns. Because the Browns are world-beaters that might do anything on any given day. Would you be surprised by any Browns outcome in any game for the rest of this season?

Bengals-Colts. Last week I started Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne, Donald Brown, and the Colt Kicker: the only way I wasn't getting big fantasy points from the Colts was if they gave rushing TDs to another player. Which they did.

Patriots-Steelers. Where's Wallace!?!?! Where's Wallace!?!?!? While Wallace has been a fantasy obsession of mine for 2010, I have no expectation of this continuing in 2011. Wallace as a very cheap fantasy pick that I was convinced would be a top WR--exciting. Wallace as a mid-range fantasy pick coming off a breakout year but reliant on big plays because he doesn't actually get many touches--not exciting.

Basketball Box

Michael Beasley comes alive with 42 points.

Weekend

Blessings to everybody. Even Bear fans. Just no football-joy from noon to three Sunday.

Clouds of Heaven: Vikings 27, Cardinals 24 (OT)

2010-11-07T15:34:00.002-06:00

Box Score (ESPN)

What fun! A wild game featuring plays that could have made for four total return touchdowns, but two of those plays (a magnificent chase-down-strip by Greg Camarillo, a dropped interception in wide open field by Chad Greenway). A game the Vikings might have won something like 19-10 if not for terrible coverage against a kick return and a fumble on a kick return (not that I discount those things: special teams is part of the game). A dramatic fourth quarter comeback. Great performances from all sorts of individual Vikings. Let's assign individual credit.

Greg Camarillo

four catches for 66 yards, seven punt returns for 86 yards, and a forced fumble that absolutely saved the Vikings seven points. Is anything more fun than seeing a player chase down a runner all the way down the field and stripping him right at the end, saving a touchdown? A special day for Camarillo.

Bernard Berrian/Percy Harvin

Both players kept regularly making chain-moving plays. Both players had the slant working. Both players ran with the ball well after the catch.

Jared Allen/Ray Edwards

The pass rush finally came on late in the game, and Allen and Edwards combined for 4.5 sacks. The Dome got loud at late, and the pass rush came on.

Brett Favre

It's not just a career high 446 passing yards. It's that the Vikings kept needing scoring drives in the fourth quarter for any chance to win, and Favre kept giving the Vikings scoring drives to give them a chance to win. The Vikes were down by 14 late in the fourth but won the game. Favre made some mistakes earlier in the game, but he was a brilliant quarterback at the end. A player like Tarvaris Jackson can't bring the Vikings back from 14 down late; I don't think Tarvaris Jackson will ever be able to do that. But sometimes to win a game, you need a QB to do that.

Adrian Peterson

144 yards from scrimmage plus two touchdowns, Peterson made the big catch-and-run on a screen leading the Vikings' game-tying drive, and in overtime he made the big run leading the Vikings' game-winning drive. I love seeing the Vikings throw to Peterson: giving the ball to your best player in space seems like an obviously good idea. Peterson is the team's MVP so far.

Defense!

With the exception of one bad touchdown drive allowed at the end of the first half, what did the defense do wrong today? Sure, account for the opponent, but that was what I want to see from the Minnesota D.

Fire Childress Now!?!

I was way calmer during a close Viking game than I should have been: I figured either the Vikings get a great comeback win, or they fire Childress, and either way, there's something to smile about.

And going into the game, I thought even if the Vikings win today, they should still fire Childress. Obviously things are crashing all around, and after today's win, let's give Frazier a chance to save it when the team can (probably) afford two more losses, rather than waiting until the next loss when they'll only be able to afford one (and even now, they might only be able to afford one).

But it's hard to fire a coach mid-season after a dramatic, emotional comeback win. It might be necessary anyway, but it's hard. Maybe, just maybe, the Vikings can use this game to turn it around.

National Friday League, Week 9

2010-11-04T21:39:00.001-05:00

Other demands on my time will prevent a good National Friday League post this week (shut up, PV: you've never written a "good" National Friday League post). Just a few quick points, then off to my business. This is essentially my bye week.

Here I am now; entertain me.

As disappointing as the Vikings have been, they have certainly given us a lot to talk about these past few months. It's one crazy story after another, but at least it is stories. At this point, I try to tone down the emotional investment, wave my hands in the air, and try to just watch the show. This show is more farce than tragedy, so at least there will be some laughs.

Vikings-Cardinals Preview

I think what you need to know about the Arizona Cardinals is the scores of their road games:

17-13, 7-41, 10-41, 10-22.

I know I'm waiting to be entertained, but the only thing that will entertain me if the Vikings lose this game is seeing Leslie Frazier coach for the rest of the year.

Hmm...why might Brad Childress not care about eating a 3rd round draft pick?

Might Childress have a feeling he might not be around to benefit from the use of that 3rd round draft pick?

Weekend

A stranger in a parking lot complimented my fedora this week. The Vikings and the Timberwolves may suck beyond repair. I may be trapped under a pile of papers and exams that need to be graded. I may have the annual autumn cold that clings for weeks. But nobody is taking that moment from me, baby!

Have a good weekend everybody. Except Cardinal and Packer fans.

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport."

2010-11-01T15:00:00.006-05:00

I can see Football-Zeus and all the rest hanging around at Football-Olympus. Football-Zeus says "So, let's brainstorm. I want to come up with historic ways to jerk Viking fans around. Anything, anything, give me your ideas. We've got plenty of time to work all the good ones in."

How else to explain this?

And when that happens, what else is there to do but laugh and watch it happen? We're being taken for a ride: best hang on, but best try enjoy it.

When you put everything into a "Now or never" year, and the answer is "never," there's really nothing else to do but break it all up and start over. Rebuilding periods are fine as long as it is building toward something. And shitty teams end up with early draft picks and the chance to draft QBs like Matt Ryan or Sam Bradford that you can build around.

There was a period when the Vikings seemed to be building: in '07 and '08, they had a defense that showed flashes of dominance and a RB that showed flashes of being the greatest ever. The problem? They didn't have a QB to build around. This led to various stop-gap measures until the team could fall into a 39/40 year old Hall of Famer for a one-year ride. But it didn't work out, and the team was left in the same lousy QB situation, so that they (and we) got convinced that bringing back that QB at 40/41 was a real chance, instead of recognizing that the franchise butchered the QB position and so devoted a potential Super Bowl contender's window to a one-year shot with an old QB, and that one-year shot failed.

Bust it up. Fire Childress now. Start hoarding draft picks. Try not to waste Adrian Peterson's entire prime. Try to build a team. I actually really, really, really enjoyed the 2007 season. I'm not enjoying this at all.

Addendum

Doesn't 2010 feel a lot like 2005? We go into the season with really high expectations, start out disastrously on and off the field, go 2-5, and everything is an abominable mess and you don't even know where to start piecing it together. I sort of see the rest of the year playing out the same way that year did: schedule eases up, team wins some games to make it interesting, ultimately comes up short of the playoffs...but this time, the current coach was hired by the current owner, and he might make it through it.

Lingering Questions

Do the people who bought #84 jerseys in the last month get their money back?

If you did a poll among Viking fans asking "Childress or Moss: which one goes?" does Moss get 3% of the vote?

These are rhetorical questions, obviously.

Update

This is not at all surprising. And I get sunk costs (I think): if you think a player is detrimental to the team and that you'd be better off without him, you need to get rid of him, regardless of any past costs you've sunk into him. However, the Vikings acquired Moss knowing he has a reputation as an erratic asshole. That they, in a fit of desperation, still acquired him, toying with the emotional memory of Viking fans, then realized a month later they made a mistake, doesn't excuse them on an "Oh well, sunk costs and all" basis. They still made a move that didn't work out, that turned out to be a waste (and perhaps worse). They still look like a team without a plan for development beyond "win now" that is failing to win now.

Another Update

You know how a politician often gets labeled a particular way, whether or not that label is accurate or fair? And then when the politician does or says something that seems to confirm that perceived label, it can be damaging? I see that happening here. There are coaches that could do what Childress has done. However, given that this action, whether or not it is accurate or fair, feeds into an already existing perception of Childress. In other words, he has confirmed the label.

Staying on the Ledge

2010-10-31T20:22:00.007-05:00

Patriots-Vikings Box Score (ESPN)

The day started out with such promise. Last year the T-Wolves won two more games than the Vikings (playoffs included); this year I think they'll win 20 more games than the Vikings, and it's up to you to decide precisely what level of awful that is.

Much of the first half was very fulfilling: the Vikings on the road, controlling the clock, moving the football, avoiding mistakes. They were playing good football. Obviously, it didn't work out; I was happy to have the distraction of trick-or-treating. Let's assign some blame.

Madieu Williams. I think it would be reasonable to claim Williams cost the Vikes 8-14 points today. New England scored their first touchdown after Williams, in perfect position, not only failed to intercept the pass (which would have given the ball back to the Vikings with an early seven point lead), but also failed to knock it down, and somehow allowed the Patriot receiver to catch the ball. Later, it was Williams who should have been in position to make a tackle on Brandon Tate's long touchdown, but instead he got nowhere close to making the tackle. Two big plays for the Patriots were caused directly by Madieu Williams' bad play.

Brad Childress. That early challenge was one of the most perplexing I've seen: a catch in the middle of the field that came nowhere near touching the ground. The decision to go for it on fourth and goal at the end of the half was questionable (I was 50-50 on the decision, and 50-50 on the call). Normally, going for it on 4th and goal from the one is a good idea: there's a high chance the offense is going to punt quickly and you'll get the ball back with good field position. But at the end of the half, that's not the case: either you get zero, three, or seven points, then it's halftime and that's that. Furthermore, the Vikings looked really good with a conservative game plan: they ran the ball a ton in the first half (and successfully), throwing effectively in spots. If your game plan is conservative, ball control, don't make mistakes, don't you want that 10-7 halftime lead? I think so.

I'm fairly well conditioned to stop swearing at the TV during football games, because my kids are usually around. Still, I struggle not to yell "Idiot!" and "Stupid!" Today Brad Childress caused my three year old to lecture me: we shouldn't say that, daddy. Sure, son. You're right: we shouldn't call things stupid, and it's mean to call people idiots.

Run defense. This goes to the whole defense: BenJarvus Green-Ellis averaged 6.6 yards per carry on his way to 112 yards and two touchdowns.

Looking forward

If Brett Favre is out, I'm not distraught about that (I'm distraught about some things, but not that). For one thing, if Favre plays all season and the Vikings don't make the playoffs, the franchise is set back. Tarvaris Jackson needs to show whether he sucks or whether he can be a quality starter (I know, I know: most of us think we know that answer, but he needs to show it finally, for Brad Childress's sake if for nobody else's). If he shows that during 2010 rather than 2011, the franchise can move further that much quicker.

But I'm also not giving up hope yet. In 2007, the Vikes started 3-6 but won five in a row to eke back into playoff contention (they blew a late home game clincher). In 2008, they started 3-4 but finished the regular season 7-2 to win the division. In 2009, they started out the season 10-1. The Brad Childress era Vikings can go on some productive binges, even with lousy QBs: I'm not putting it past the Vikings to finish 7-2 and make the playoffs (I'm also not putting it past them to end up 5-11, which is probably more likely). Tarvaris Jackson might mean a lot more running, a lot more rollouts, a lot more scrambling for first downs, a lot more conservative game-planning.

It's Arizona at home next.

Addendum

PFT notes Favre is ready to play next week: what looked like it might have been a career-ending broken jaw evidently was a cut requiring stitches. Again: I think this team is capable of finishing 7-2, considering they have five more home games and road games at Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, and Detroit. If they can win their home games, and get two road wins out of the year...probably too much to ask, I know.

National Friday League, Week Eight

2010-10-28T19:35:00.000-05:00

Viking-Patriot Preview

2010 Vikings

2010 Patriots

Here are some things that surprised me when reading up on the Patriots.

--they lead the league in scoring, with 29.5 points per game.

--they have not allowed fewer than 336 yards in any game this year, and average 379 yards allowed per game ( games of 428, 336, 374, 400, 377, 363).

--they are averaging 10.4 yards per completion, with no "wide receiver" currently on the roster averaging better than 11.5 yards per reception.

--They rank 31st in the league in first downs allowed.

I feel about this game like I felt about the Steeler game last year: the Vikings are going against a perennial contender at their place, and I don't think they can do it. The Vikes stayed with the Steelers longer than I thought they would, too, but then the Vikings were better last year. Bill Belichick and Tom Brady know what's up: I don't think this is going to go our way at all.

Other Intriguing Matchups

Week 8 Schedule

Dolphins-Bengals. Some years a particular team intrigues me for reasons I don't understand. I don't root for them or care about them, really, but I end up following them for some reason. So once again, the Dolphins.

Bills-Chiefs. Buffalo has been scoring too many points not to win a game soon. The Chiefs have the shakiest passing game of any team that is probably going to make the playoffs. This game would be fun to watch.

Packers-Jets. Losing to the Packers is like poison, and no matter how average the Packers have looked, I'm always terrified they'll win out and win the Super Bowl. Seeing them lose here would feel good.

Seahawks-Raiders. What does it mean when a bad team scores 59 points? Does it mean that team is really not bad?

Steelers-Saints. Sunday night game featuring a massive number of regular fantasy starters. Also a Sunday night game that will be frequently interrupted by trick-or-treaters. Which is fine: I like trick-or-treaters.

Texans-Colts. The Vikes are 2-4. The Timberwolves will do what they've done for years: stink. You'll have to indulge me to be really, really, really excited to watch the Colts play Monday.

Irrational Viking Fan: On Loyalty

I don't care about Brett Favre's legacy (unless his legacy is the QB that leads the Vikings to a Super Bowl championship). I don't care about Brett Favre's heroics (unless those heroics lead to Viking wins). If Favre stinks this year, I feel no desire to stick by him or defend him. Does that make me disloyal? To Favre, yes. But it's because of loyalty to the Vikings.

Last year, I expressed some confusion over Packer fan hatred of Favre. It's not that I couldn't understand the feeling of betrayal, but Favre led the Packers to a Super Bowl win. What else could those fans want? He brought you the most joyous thing you can have in sports: does it matter so little that you'd turn against the guy that brought you that?

Of course, that was the Irrational Viking Fan talking. I want so badly to see my favorite team win a championship, that I can't imagine ever turning against those that actually allow me to see it. It's why I think the first Viking coach to win a Super Bowl deserves a lifetime contract, that it should only be his choice if/when he wants to leave the team. What else matters? The most important thing to my fandom is for the Vikings to win the Super Bowl, and if they do that, those who lead them to the championship will have my lifelong devotion and love.

Packer fans can turn on Favre because their loyalty isn't to the individual, but to the team (or to the group, or organization, or even the "idea" of the Packers, the concept, principle, what have you). Both loyalty to an individual and loyalty to a team can be problematic. Either type of loyalty can lead you to give up your reason, supporting and defending that which you would not otherwise support or defend. Either type of loyalty can lead you to see other individuals primarily in terms of their usefulness: when they are no longer helpful to the individual/group that has your loyalty, they no longer matter to you. Loyalty is not, in my view, an inherently good virtue, though it can be virtuous (as Kent's loyalty to Lear is virtuous).

So thanks, Brett Favre, for a special 2009 season (even if it ended the way every other special Viking season ended). But if Favre sucks in 2010, if he's inaccurate, or sloppy, or turnover-prone, or injured, or distracted, or fighting with the coach, or finally just too old to play at a high level, or whatever, and he's not capable of leading the Vikings to wins, then I don't care about him, and I'm ready to move on.

Adrian Peterson

Adrian Peterson is currently leading the league with 114 rush yards per game. He's had 170+ yards from scrimmage in three games this season. But two of those magnificent games were in close losses, and we haven't been able to fully bask in his greatness. Even during a disappointing, loss-filled Viking season, let us remember to appreciate how brilliantly Peterson is playing. If we watch sports to find joy, there is joy in watching Adrian Peterson run the football.

The Vikings are a terrible road team

They might finish 7-1 at home and 8-8 overall this season.

NFC North Box

If the Viking season collapses entirely (and it will be a long time before I accept that it has: I like the Vikings' schedule after the Patriot game, and think they could go 8-1 or 7-2 after this week's game, if they keep their heads together), I will be openly rooting for the Bears at some point. Seeing the Packers win games is like poison.

Basketball Box

When Matt Millen shows up on the TV screen, it's obviously hard not to think that the guy that ran the Lions as badly as anybody ever ran any sports franchise is trying to give us insight on football. Tuesday night, I was watching TNT when you do I see telling me about basketball, but Kevin McHale. A Hall of Fame player who knows the game of basketball, sure. But...goodness, why do I need to listen to him? If he knows so much about evaluating talent and assessing the game...what the hell happened?

Fantasy Box

I've been waiting for a year and a half for the emergence of Donald Brown: Fantasy Superstar. I keep believing such a concept exists, and so I keep leaving Brown shelved at the bottom of my roster. And maybe, just maybe, we'll see it this season. This is my fantasy football Great Pumpkin. What's yours?

I like having my perception verified with evidence

Via PFT, the Wall Street Journal shows that the guys on the FOX pregame show really do spend a lot of time laughing (or pretending to laugh) at each other.

Weekend

Have a good Halloween weekend, everybody. On Sunday the second half of the Viking game coincides with the best time to take two toddlers trick-or-treating: but that's OK, because I know my priorities (and there's always DVR!).

Staying on the ledge

2010-10-24T22:34:00.002-05:00

That game was like a bed of nails; I've got no desire to rehash it. Terrible. Terrible.

National Friday League, Week 7

2010-10-21T19:49:00.001-05:00

Chad Henne and Mike Sims-Walker edition

Viking-Packer Preview

2010 Vikings

2010 Packers

I watched the Dolphins beat the Packers last Sunday, and I thought the Packer defense looked pretty helpless. They couldn't really rush the passer, weren't good at stopping the run, and were leaving open receivers all over the place. If Chad Henne weren't regularly throwing passes high, the Dolphins might have been torching the Packers (Brandon Marshall was still like a demigod out there). The Packers have suffered some major injuries this season, so it might just be a depleted team (that could be less depleted this week). But that defense looked imminently beatable, even though the Viking o-line has been pretty lousy.

And offensively the Packers still have two problems: they can't run the ball, and they struggle to protect the passer. Aaron Rodgers' most impressive display of skill is the mobility he is required to show in order not to get sacked 10 times a game. Of course, all he has to do is find Donald Driver or Greg Jennings matched up against Lito Sheppard on one out of three downs, and the Vikings are cooked.

None of these things matter, of course. Whether the Vikings or the Packers might actually be better than the other barely matters. These two teams will likely do what these two teams do against each other: they'll play a streaky game featuring offensive scoring streaks by each team, it will come down to one or two late possessions, and, likely, the home team will win.

But here's a new way to talk myself into optimism about the Vikings: Adrian Peterson and Randy Moss. These are two players whom we know--we know--can absolutely take over a game and dominate, giving the Vikings a chance to win in virtually any situation against any opponent. They don't do it often (few do). But just look at the game logs. Adrian Peterson has had 160+ yards rushing seven times. Randy Moss has had 36 multi-touchdown games. The Vikings now have two explosive, super-talented, dominating players that on occasion take over football games. It's going to happen again this year. Whenever there's a time that things look bleak, we should remember that: we have two players who might, at any surprising moment, take over. And I could see either guy doing that this week.

Other Intriguing Matchups

Week Seven Schedule

NFL Standings

Bengals-Falcons.

Both teams seem really average, with the potential to be a lot better. That's probably a fair description for this blog, too: really average, with the potential to be a lot better.

Steelers-Dolphins.

I said last week I'm intrigued by the Dolphins, and that's the truth (I finally traded for Ronnie Brown this week, suckers! Tony Gonzalez, straight-up, and now I'm in a situation where I'm required to start Mike Sims-Walker for one week, which is obviously awful, but when you get a chance to trade for a guy with one TD that's averaging 60 rush yards per game, you have to jump on it). But the Steelers are, in my opinion, the best team in the NFL, maybe by a long way. This will be a test to find out of the Dolphins are a contender or an interesting 7-9 team. If Chad Henne weren't Chad Henne, I'd think the Dolphins have enough offensive weapons to move the ball for a few drives against the Steeler defense, and make a tight game of this. But I have not been impressed with Henne's accuracy, which makes me wonder how many opportunity-plays the Dolphins will blow. "Opportunity-plays" is a concept I'm trying out. It's a big play that's there, that a team can get and that can change the game, but that they can also miss out on. In last week's Viking game, E. J. Henderson made two opportunity-plays, an interception a tipped ball (it was there, and a defender just needed to make the play, but it could have just as easily been dropped by somebody), and an interception on a pass that required a savvy, athletic move. In last week's Packer-Dolphin game, Brandon Marshall got very open a lot, which I'd consider an opportunity-play: the receiver is wide open, and if the line protects, the QB sees him and throws an accurate ball, and the receiver doesn't drop it, a big play is made. In that game, Miami's line protected, Marshall was wide open, and Henne usually threw high. Sometimes Marshall made the play anyway, and sometimes he couldn't. This has gotten pretty rambling, just terrible: I realize the whole point of National Friday League is to be rambling, but I teach freshman composition so I'm still embarrassed by it (and I'm not helping matters, really, by explicitly discussing it, but here I go). My point is, there will be a small number of opportunity-plays for the Miami offense, and they'll have to be precise, hitting on a high number of them. I think they'll miss on too many of them.

Jaguars-Chiefs.

The Chiefs are another team that will probably be making me say "How good are they, really?" all the way until Week 17. They should beat this Jaguar team, whose pass coverage fluctuates between ungodly awful and ungodly terrible. Plus, Mike Sims-Walker running patterns while a backup QB drops back into the pocket! This is real football, folks!

Eagles-Titans.

Interesting game, because both teams look good, but both teams might be really good.

Cardinals-Seahawks.

3-2 NFC West rivals. The Cardinals have been outscored by 50 this season.

Patriots-Chargers.

I think you should smile if you have fantasy starters going in this game.

Irrational Viking Fan

At this point, Brett Favre has done no more--and possibly less--for the Vikings historically than Randall Cunningham did (it's true: try to dispute it), except in this: he tainted a beloved icon of Packer fans, which is itself something.

NFC North Box

The Bears really might get to 10 wins this year. The Bears also could lose to absolutely any team on their schedule. Even Buffalo. I'm terrified to play them because Julius Peppers has had some monster games against the Childress-era Vikings (it seems in my hazy memory that the Vikes have been content to let a tackle block him one-on-one, which has been like being content to let a bear wander around your living room).

Every scandal is an opportunity for new expressions of meaning

I think "I just got done with practice" should be the new code for "I would like you to have sex with me." I'm told by those that matter that this is a terrible idea.

Again: in praise of DVR
When I was a teenager, I suddenly realized I watch a sickly amount of basketball when, sometime in March, I watched a trailing team foul intentionally for what felt like the thousandth time that season. And last Sunday, I realized I watch a sickly amount of football when I watched a receiver get tackled a yard short on third down, wondered how many receivers I’ve seen get tackled a yard short on third down in the past two months, and realized it was too many.

I have two small children that get a lot of my time. I also have a job that demands a lot of my time, including evenings and weekends to grade papers. How am I watching all this football?

The answer is obvious: DVR. When my kids need or want my attention, I can pause the game whenever I like. When my insane dog needs to go out, I pause. During night games, I generally record/pause the game and then go about doing necessary tasks for an hour or more--usually grading papers--and when I'm done I turn on the game, zipping through and catching up before the game ends. I've paused games to get ready for the next day, to wash dishes, to get laundry, to do any number of necessary tasks. DVR allows me to function as a dad, teacher, and housekeeper while still getting to watch football seemingly constantly.

Announcers during blowouts say the darndest things.
As Monday night's Jaguar-Titan game devolved not only into a blowout, but a boring blowout featuring backup quarterbacks, I started reading The New Yorker (because I like to try fulfill the stereotype of an urbane liberal) while the game was on in the background. I heard Ron Jaworski say this: "You get that first score, then you're in a situation where you're only a couple scores behind." Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Announcers talking quarterbacks say the darndest things.

Let me continue talking about Chad Henne way too much in this blog entry. During the Dolphin-Packer game, Dan Fouts defended Henne based on his inexperience, suggesting he hadn't had that much time and that he's learning and maturing. At one point, Henne threw a ball away. Fouts said what announcers seem to think is a wise thing to say whenever a young QB throws the ball away: that it was a smart move not to try force a pass, that earlier in his career, maybe even earlier this season, Henne might have forced it rather than throw it away. Did Fouts mean earlier this season...like Henne's previous game, when he threw three interceptions? Was it just over the bye week that Henne learned to throw it away? And is throwing the ball away one time, while being chased around by pass rushers, really something special showing the wise maturity of a QB?

Do we really have to hear announcers heap praise on a young QB for knowing not to chuck the ball into coverage? Any time a young QB throws the ball away we hear about it from the announcers like we just watched a baby learn to eat with a spoon for the first time. Throwing the ball away rather than taking a sack or throwing the ball into coverage does not, in fact, make a quarterback a genius: it's not exactly Darwin's insight here. But by all means, praise the QB that you just sat down with in a production meeting and had a friendly, personable discussion with, that you now find yourself wanting to be friendly toward: your job doesn't require objective analysis or anything. Throwing the ball into the sidelines is probably the greatest skill a young QB can have: nothing else really matters, actually. Reading defenses, throwing accurate passes to open receivers, none of that compares to being able to hit an assistant coach's clipboard as you're being chased by defensive ends.

Why did Chris Johnson get carries late?

Leading by 20 points with a few minutes left, the Titans left Chris Johnson in the game to get some late carries. I'll never really understand this: why? When the game is not in doubt and you just need to run out clock, why not use your backup running back, rather than the superstar running back on whom most of your hopes depend? Is it really worthwhile to let your star player get tackled a few extra times, when those carries are no longer necessary to win the game? My theory is that NFL coaches devote so much mental energy to preparation for a single game and have a certain degree of, not anxiety exactly, but let's say edgy intensity, that it takes quite a giant lead with quite little time left before they are actually convinced themselves that the game is in hand.

Fantasy Box

J'Rod gave me the idea to follow my fantasy players on Twitter. It's a good idea, because it is one more way to keep Mike Sims-Walker in my life.

Frank Deford might just not have much to say anymore

In 2010, Frank Deford has the very fresh take on NPR that technology and ticket prices make some fans prefer watching games on television rather than in person, and includes such insightful observations as

"But even more important, younger fans have been raised on TV and other electronic entertainment — these are people who play video games for fun by themselves and who don't communicate so much face-to-face, but text on cell phones."

He so nailed young people!

To be fair, evidently Deford was once one of the best, and trying to be creative talking/writing about sports over the course of decades is probably difficult. But even more important, older sportswriters are trained to see new technology as destructive and damaging--these are people who treat younger people with a mixture of confusion and contempt, and who don't so much write well, but write a lot.

Weekend

Enjoy your weekend, everybody. Except Packer and Bear fans.

Trailing Clouds of Heaven: Vikings 24, Cowboys 21

2010-10-17T18:26:00.006-05:00

No doubt Cowboy fans feel like Dallas should have won this game, and they blew it through their own errors.1 And you know what: they're right. Any head-to-head competition features partly, the winner taking it, and partly, the loser giving it away.2 This game featured a lot of Dallas giving the game away.3

But the Vikings also took that win. Dallas came in with a strategy to negate and neutralize the Viking pass rush: they threw a lot of quick, short passes and a lot of screens. The Vikings, for the most part, did an excellent job tackling. Dallas pass catchers were in position to make plays by running after the catch, but Viking defenders regularly brought them down before they could.

E.J. Henderson

Kudos to Henderson, whose two interceptions helped very much to lead to 10 Viking points today. The first was on a fluky tip, but Henderson was aware and agile enough to come down with the ball (it's not like we haven't seen Viking defenders miss that ball before). The second interception, the one that led to the Vikings go-ahead field goal, was a thing of beauty. Henderson went forward like he was rushing, but then dropped back into coverage. Tony Romo saw the gap behind Henderson and threw the ball to what should have been an open receiver, not expecting Henderson to be there, but Henderson had dropped quickly and made a wonderful play on the ball. This was one of Henderson's finest moments as a Viking, I think.

Percy Harvin

Start the second half out down seven. Or, get a giant kick return, and essentially start the second half of the game tied with a team and crowd energized. When Percy Harvin opened the second half with a kick return for a touchdown, he changed the game concretely and abstractly. Instead of a flat team trying to catch up, the Vikings were an electric team playing dead-even.

Skol.

This was the most satisfying Viking game in nine months. The Bears and Packers both lost three point games today. Problems? Sure. The offensive line can't do much boasting about its performance today, and the weaknesses in the secondary certainly aren't promising to get better. But I'm taking every Viking W for what it is now, a moment of unmitigated joy. I'll save tomorrow's worries for tomorrow: today, the Vikings win, and we have joyous clouds of heaven.

1. I can imagine this is how they feel, because it's how Viking fans have felt at least twice this year.

2. And partly hazard.

3. it wouldn't surprise me if Cowboy fans are also upset about the officiating, though on that point I would not agree: I saw very few unearned penalties for either team today.

National Friday League, Week 6

2010-10-14T20:00:00.000-05:00

My wife and I have been playing this game where we invent unreal choices, and see what we would choose. I call the game "The Vikings, but..."

Essentially, you ask questions like this:

"The Vikings win the Super Bowl, but Seinfeld was never a TV show. Do you take it?"

"The Vikings don't ever win the Super Bowl, but you are given X dollars: how high does X need to be before you take the money?"

It's a fun game for long car rides and waiting in line. You start to really think about your priorities, and with any luck, you start to really hate yourself.

Vikings-Cowboys Preview

2010 Vikings

2010 Cowboys

When the Vikings created bad blood with the Cowboys in last year's 34-3 playoff win, and we knew the Cowboys would be playing the Vikes in 2010 regular season, I envisioned Tarvaris Jackson as our quarterback and the pissed off Cowboys throttling the hell out of our mediocre team. I did not picture Brett Favre still here, Randy Moss added, but both teams 1-3 and fighting to save their season.

Defensively, the Vikings can beat the Cowboys the same way they did in that playoff game: the Minnesota defensive line beats the Dallas offensive line on virtually ever play, and the pass rush prevents Tony Romo from getting anything accomplished. And that will have to be: if Romo does get time, the Vikes might be cooked by the likes of Miles Austin, Roy Williams, and Jason Witten, all receivers capable of big downfield plays, especially against a secondary that to me has looked very, very vulnerable. Maybe, just maybe, it's time for Jared Allen to actually be noticed in the 2010 season.

Before Viking games, one of the important things I check is the opponent's rank against the run (by yards per attempt). This week the number bodes well: Dallas ranks 26th, allowing 4.5 yards per attempt.

I think the game favors the Vikings, but I usually do and you see what happens.

1-3 sucks, and we're in a hole, but if you're looking for some hope...

The Vikings' current NFC North record: 1-0.

The Vikings' current NFC record: 1-1.

The games that are really going to determine whether the Vikings make the playoffs haven't happened yet.

Other Intriguing Matchups
Week Six Schedule

Dolphins-Packers

The Dolphins are one of the league's secretly enjoyable teams: a couple good running backs (Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams), a couple good wide receivers (Brandon Marshall and Davone Bess), a surprisingly exciting defense, and terrible special teams. Their games become interesting to watch. I will enjoy rooting for them to beat the Packers Sunday.

Ravens-Patriots

Interesting game. I've got nothing to say.

Chiefs-Texans

Jamaal Charles is wicked good fun.

Steve Falcos-Eagles

I've decided to call Atlanta the Steve Falcos, for the sheer hell of it.

Seahawks-Bears

Alright, I'm interested in the outcome, but I don't really want to watch it.

Colts-Washington

The Colts are on TV all the bloody time, which I like.

Titans-Jaguars

Because look out for the Titans, says Chase Stuart.

"When you're a Jet you're a Jet..."

I don't understand why the New York Jets don't adopt the song from West Side Story as their theme song.

NFC North Box
I was tooling around looking for evidence that the Bears are a secretly awful team. I found that evidence at Football Outsiders, where the Bears rank #24 in DVOA. I thought I'd find something similar confirmed at Advanced NFL Stats, but didn't: they rank #8 in Brian Burke's Efficiency Rankings. Interesting. Both systems find the Bear defense to be good (#6 at Football Outsiders, #4 at Advanced NFL Stats). So I don't think the Bears are secretly awful, because a good unit on one side of the ball might just be enough to get the Bears to 9+ wins.

Ancient Records

Interesting look at why Norm Van Brocklin still holds the single-game passing yardage record at pro-football-reference.com. Interesting too that Tom Fears held the single-game reception record for over 50 years. I think those Rams knew how to throw the ball.

Fantasy Box

I get emotionally attached to players on my team, and it's sort of a problem. There are only two ways that I would trade Mike Wallace: either straight-up for Randy Moss or straight-up for Adrian Peterson. So basically, Mike Wallace isn't leaving my team. I'm too confident that when Ben Roethlisberger returns this week, Wallace is going to start making 40+ yard catches with regularity, and I want the chance to just go ape-shit every time it happens. The guy is about to go crazy on the league, so get ready for that fun.

Weekend

Have a good weekend, everybody. Except Packer, Bear, and Cowboy fans.

A brief note on this Favre messiness

2010-10-12T11:35:00.003-05:00

I don't pay much attention to the off-the-field sins of professional athletes; that's not why I follow sports. As such, I've rarely written about such matters on this blog (a major exception was the Michael Vick dog-fighting story, which I took an interest in for obvious personal reasons). If I don't write about the Favre allegations, it's not because I'm in denial or defensive mode: it's that I don't care enough to say much or come up with a very original take. I'd rather talk about the game of football. This shouldn't bother you, either: if you want to follow the story, there are plenty of places where you can, but I don't think that's why you read this blog either.

I will say this though: I don't think disparaging Jenn Sterger is either fair or helpful. Whatever acts Brett Favre committed are, after all, on him; scorn directed at Sterger over this matter is, in my view, undeserved. If you are directing angry and hateful words at Sterger, I think it reflects poorly on you, not her.

Coming off the ledge

2010-10-11T23:48:00.005-05:00

This sure looked to me like a game that was pissed away by the Viking quarterback. It's not that Favre didn't make some good plays. But aside from the obvious turnovers, there were several open receivers on plays that could have changed the game, and Favre missed them. At this point, are we still allowed to blame lack of time practicing together? Or at this point, do we simply call them inaccurate passes? Favre has been erratic at best. Receivers were often in position to make plays, but too frequently Favre failed to get them the ball where they could.

The Viking run defense was historically good from '06-'09, and that sort of run has to end sometime. I'm afraid it already has. And while the Viking defense appeared effective for much of the game at preventing touchdowns, I'm not sure how much that is on the defense. Frankly, the Jets frequently looked on the verge of breaking some long pass plays, and it wasn't quite good defensive play that was preventing it. I thought the referees really let defensive backs play physical pass coverage on both sides of the ball, and that it helped the Vikings more in this game.

The Vikings could have won this game. You might even convince me that it was the Vikings that blew the game themselves (I really didn't think it was the Jets defense looking great until the middle of the 3rd quarter, but rather the Vikings just not being able to get first downs). But right now, the Vikings are shaky and sloppy, so it's harder to make the argument they should have won this game. Actually, the argument is there. Favre should have hit a wide open Percy Harvin on a relatively short throw late in the game. But he didn't.

There's excitement, yes: they made a game of it, and Moss, Harvin, and Peterson are an incredible trio of skill position players that can make dazzling big plays. Seeing #84 run go patterns in a Viking uniform again is thrilling, no doubt. It was the Vikings' third close defeat of the season. However, the team also showed a lot of weaknesses in that game, and there's really no joy to take out of a loss like that.

Washington 16, Green Bay 13 (OT)

2010-10-10T15:38:00.001-05:00

When the Vikings win, we can simply say "Skol." I think we need a word for when the Packers lose. Your suggestions are welcome.

Weird Misogyny in Sports Commentary

2010-10-08T21:59:00.004-05:00

If you are talking about a man, and your point is that he’s irrational yet appealing, does it really provide much insight to say “he’s like an irrational yet appealing woman!”

I wouldn’t think so. Of course, some people think otherwise.

Addendum

I decided on a brief note with commentary implicit, but now I feel like expanding just a bit.

A male athlete behaves erratically. In order to provide perspective on the situation, a sportswriter appeals to a negative stereotype of women behaving erratically. What is the compulsion to do so? Why is it necessary to go to a stereotype of the "crazy hot chick" in order to explain a situation involving a crazy/erratic male athlete? For one thing, I think it provides pretty banal commentary. But it also seems to fit into a pattern of creepy sexism.

I'll add that claiming a crazy but talented man is like a crazy but hot woman illustrates a very basic insight of feminism: men are valued for their actions/abilities, women are valued for their sexual attractiveness.

National Friday League, Week 5

2010-10-07T17:00:00.003-05:00

Randy #$%&*ing Moss

Randy Moss isn't just an elite WR. He isn't just one of the greatest players of all-time. And he isn't just the player who has made so many "That's one of the greatest catches I've ever seen" plays that we started to forget that those were, indeed, some of the greatest catches we've ever seen.

Randy Moss is, for many fans (especially fans of a certain age, who sort of came of age with him), the most exciting Viking player of all-time. It's hard to even articulate what it was like seeing Moss burn CBs on go routes, to see Moss outleap everybody, to see Moss make one-handed catches, skirting the sideline catches, to make falling down with defenders right on him catches. There was ballet in what Moss could do. There was, I'll say it, art. Randy Moss played the game with a creative beauty that most Viking fans appreciated with wonderment. When he left the Vikings, it was like he wasn't the same person: he was some other guy named Randy Moss that we felt like we recognized but couldn't quite place. But now...wow. Go back and look at some old pictures. Watch some old highlights. Flip through the football cards. Those aren't just the good-old-days: that is now.

I'm going to admit something now: I've been finding myself regretting that Brett Favre came back. I have not been optimistic about the Vikings getting to the Super Bowl this year, and I've been feeling like I'd have more fun watching whatever the Vikings would be next (lots of defense and running) than I'd have being disappointed by one last "all in" Favre season. But no "all in" Favre season, probably no Randy Moss returning to wear a purple #84. No more chance to see Moss dazzling the field in that beautiful Viking jersey. Now...wow.

And when Randy Moss comes back to Thunderdome wearing the purple #84, and everybody in the stadium is watching him in warmups, it will be worth it. When he gets introduced for the first time, and the roar of the crowd is heard from your house, it will be worth it. When Moss scores his first touchdown as a Viking in over five years, and Minnesota fans lose our shit, and our collective orgasm will compete with Oprah's favorite things for idiotic displays of irrational joy, it will be worth it.

There's a giddiness in the air. This means something different than when Favre came. Not only because in a matter of, what, 20 hours, something we barely could conceive of came to completion. But because he's Randy Moss! He's our guy! He's the guy that has already scored 100 touchdowns* for the Vikings! He's the one who on three occasions walked into Lambeau Field and burned the mother-#$&*er to the ground!

What must it have been like for the French, when Napoleon returned from Elba and just marched on up to Paris? Could they believe it was happening? Did they stare at each other with wide eyes whispering "Him again?"

*90 regular season TD receptions, one regular season punt return TD, and nine playoff TD receptions.

Vikings--Jets Preview

The Jets look really good. I haven't ever felt good about a Viking road game (and if you've watched the team for the past ten years, you shouldn't either). I just don't know. Actually, I'm worried.

But the defense, which now includes Cedric Griffin and Chris Cook, can play with anybody.

And...ADRIAN PETERSON AND RANDY MOSS ARE ON THE SAME TEAM. Think about the kinds of coverage Moss draws. Think about the way Peterson has been playing. Isn't it distinctly possible that they start wiping the floor with defenses quite soon? Or am I talking myself into things (just like I've talked myself into not stressing about this killer stretch of games coming up, because the late season schedule relaxes tremendously and the Vikes could struggle in the first half of the season but still make the playoffs)?

Excited and terrified.

Other Intriguing Matchups

Week Five Schedule

Jaguars-Bills. How big was Jacksonville’s win over Indianapolis last week? Now they look good to start the year 3-2.

Broncos-Ravens. Every week, I wonder, do the Broncos suck, or are they sort of a playoff contender? Every week I find myself moderately pulling for them. I have no idea why.

Chiefs-Colts. Funny game. The Chiefs win by running the ball with Thomas Jones and Jamaal Charles, by getting big special teams plays from players like Dexter McCluster, from playing great defense, and throwing in the occasional razzle dazzle, but never relying on the passing game. The Colts are practically the opposite: trouble on defense, can barely run, never razzle dazzle, but have the best passing game in the league (in my opinion, the Colts from '03-present have the greatest passing attack of all-time). The game is on TV, so I'm happy.

Packers-Washington. Do it again, Donovan.

Rams-Lions. The Rams have a chance to go 3-2! And the Lions keep playing decent opponents to close games. It's not that I'd want to watch this game, but I can't help but be intrigued by the results.

Bears-Panthers. DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart are my starting fantasy RBs this week. I would blame bye week troubles for starting two teammates, but if it weren't for the bye I'd be starting Justin Forsett...so, I think I'll go ahead and blame myself.

Giants-Texans. The Giants are another of the early 2010 season's perplexing teams that I'm so curious about I keep watching them.

Titians-Cowboys. Still don't know if the Titians are good. Still don't know if the Cowboys are good. Know I'm going to call the Titans the Titians for the sheer hell of it.

Irrational Viking Fan

On a storybook level, last year sure seemed like it should have been the year: the former hated rival finding magic and leading the Vikes to...alas, leading the Vikes to a place we've seen them crash before.

But now? It's homecoming.

NFC North Box
The Packers are designed to blow out weak opponents. They have a really strong front seven. They have a really diverse, efficient passing attack. Against a weak opponent, that is enough to dominate. But the Packers have weaknesses that quality opponents can exploit. They struggle to run the ball and often struggle in pass protection. They’ve got all sorts of weak spots in the secondary (good quarterbacks can dice them up). They are vulnerable.

I can’t help but wonder when/if the Bears are going to go to Chester Taylor more. Matt Forte has looked like a dynamic receiving threat, but Chester Taylor has run the ball better (3.5 yards per attempt v. 2.7 yards per attempt so far this year). Forte can do things in space, but the Chicago offensive line isn’t opening up big holes, and Taylor is a tougher, grinding inside runner. He can produce more rushing yards than Forte on that team, I think.

Fantasy Box: a narcissistic tour through my dreaded byes

I'm in a crazy league with some relatives that features 2 QBs, 3 RBs, 3 WRs, and 2 TEs in the starting lineup, but also only has six bench positions. Now that bye weeks have started, every week just looks like a wreckage zone: I'm always picking up three new starters off the waiver wire.

But that's nothing compared to my next three weeks in the Hazelweird League: Week 5 features enough players out that I'm starting Mike Sims-Walker and Dwayne Bowe (tough competitors in the "fantasy guy that's kind of a name but does nothing" contest), week 6 features DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart's bye (Chester Taylor--I shit you not--might be my starter), and week 7 features Indy's bye, meaning the Peyton Manning-Reggie Wayne combo that is the core of my competent team is out. If I make it through these next three weeks of abject horror with first place even in my sightlines, I'll have to feel pretty good.

Fantasy Box isn't meant to be a totally boring sideshow: I encourage you to share your stories of the direst straits bye weeks have ever left you in. If you can top "I picked up Dwayne Bowe because otherwise I'd be starting Bernard Berrian (whom I instead cut)" then may the Spirit of Fantasy Football be with you, because the points probably won't be.

Basketball Box

Fellow Minnesota sports fans that read this blog, I'm sure a lot of you are excited about the Twins in the playoffs. I don't care about the Twins really at all, but I imagine it's a lot of fun, during a Viking season, to also have other local sports be exciting.

But wait. There's a chance--just a slight chance, mind you, but a chance--that within a few months I won't be able to stop talking about Michael Beasley.

Weekend

It's just a wait. And Monday Night: it all comes back. We dance.

Woo-hoo (there aren't enough exclamation points to illustrate how loud I screamed while listening to KFAN this morning)

2010-10-06T08:23:00.001-05:00

He's coming home.

AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

2010-10-05T19:50:00.001-05:00

Update

National Friday League, Week Four

2010-09-30T18:00:00.007-05:00

Two Updates Below

BYE WEEK! When the Vikes don't play on Sunday afternoons, you can allow yourself to be dragged away to other things. The Vikes play a lot of night games this season anyway, so it's not that weird. Still. BYE WEEK!

Intriguing Matchups
Week Four Schedule

Ravens-Steelers.

That Steeler defense is breathtaking. I know I sound like that doctor on Seinfeld that refers to both Elaine and the “some snuggly baby” as “breathtaking." Let's all work together to totally devalue the word "breathtaking." But really, the Steeler defense is awesome, and I think there are only a handful of offenses that will be capable of scoring multiple TDs on them this year.

Patriots-Dolphins.

Interesting matchup containing major fantasy starters (Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Brandon Marshall for sure, Ronnie Brown, Patriot Kicker probably, Aaron Hernandez, Patriot Kicker, Dolphin Defense maybe). Offenses that are anything but boring. Nice Monday night game.

Bears-Giants.

When the Vikes play Julius Peppers, the man terrifies me. He’s capable of total domination during a game. He deserves a lot of credit for the Bears’ win over the Packers Monday night, and he’s arguably the Bears’ best player. Well, every Bear is "arguably" the Bears' best player. You could have an argument, anyway. How about I just say Peppers is the Bears' best player.

Colts-Jaguars.

I have the feeling that this season, like last season, if Peyton Manning thought it was important to throw for 5,000 yards, he'd throw for 5,000 yards.

Seahawks-Rams.

When a division appears awful, I like to see one team at least get to nine wins to make the whole thing seem less of a joke. This year, it appears Seattle has the best shot to get to nine.

Irrational Viking Fan
If the Vikings win the Super Bowl, I think I’ll be able to let go of the sports-hate. It’s all I really want (I’d take a T-Wolves title, but that’s like saying I’d take the ability to fly). And if I get that, I truly think I could stop loathing the Green Bay Packers. I mean, I despise the Packers in a deep, entirely irrational way. I hate them like crazy. And I really believe that if the Vikings win the title, I’ll mellow out and stop. I don’t want to waste so much negative energy on sports-hate. Granted, it makes games more exciting to watch than sports indifference.

Sometimes I think about things.
Since the Minnesota Vikings last made the Super Bowl (the 1976 season), the only other NFC team not to make it to the Super Bowl was the Detroit Lions. Do you want to get sillier? Since as recently as the 1991 season, 14 out of 16 teams have won the NFC. Only the woeful Lions and our beloved Vikings haven’t. Think. On. That.

Packers-Bears Monday Thoughts
If the Vikings ever relocate, if I decide not to stop watching football, I’ll probably adopt the Bears as my team. Why not? What else do I have going on? I might as well root for the Packers’ rival. I only hate the Bears when they’re able to affect the Vikings (in games or in division races).

During the game, I kept referring to the goddam Packers. My wife says this makes me sound 10% crotchetier, that I add 30 years to my age just by saying goddam. This is your vision of the future, I say: watching the Packers play the Bears and cursing out the detestable Packers. No, she says, it’s like looking at the present.

The Packers’ propensity for penalties is not just about lack of discipline; I think it’s a result of their serious weaknesses. The offensive line struggles in pass protection—and they end up with a game featuring holding calls, false starts, etc. There are some real weak links in the secondary—and they end up with a game featuring a lot of pass interference calls. The Packers are a good team because they have a good defensive front seven and a great passing attack. But those weaknesses are on display when they play a competent opponent.

If I had to cheer for Jay Cutler on a regular basis, I’m fairly certain I would a) have a nervous breakdown and b) hate him. The Chicago offensive line is pretty terrible: Cutler rarely seems to even have a pocket, merely an area to scramble around. It’s pretty amazing seeing him have to begin scrambling about within two seconds of the snap, and he's pretty good at it. But as far as I can tell, Cutler is just as likely to throw footballs directly at opposing defenders when he has time in the pocket as he is when he’s on the run. And he’s extremely likely to throw footballs directly at opposing defenders.

In defense of Jim Mora acting like an asshole

"How should they feel" is a really stupid question.

If' somebody asked me, "How should Jim Mora feel about being asked to declare what internal emotions are right and proper for people experiencing something he didn't experience and isn't directly involved with?" I'd say "I don't know: irritated?"

(PFT, The Big Lead)

Basketball Box
I wish Larry David would buy a pro basketball team; I would just adopt that team as my favorite team. He’s exceedingly rich, right? If he buys a team, I’ll just say, “Whoop. This is now my favorite team. Everybody else can suck it: I’m rooting for Larry David’s team.” He and Jerry Seinfeld should team up and buy a team.

Fantasy Box: evolving your roster during the season
I think there is one critical question to ask concerning in-season roster moves: at what point do you consider this season’s stats as the primary criterion for evaluation, diminishing the significance of previous seasons’ performances and off-season expectations?

Even lousy players will have a few good games a year—and some lousy players will have their few good games early in the year. And sometimes good players have lousy games early in the year. You have to be able to sniff out individual situations: last season it took me one week to realize the Rams were going to stink and I didn’t want Steven Jackson (I traded him for Peyton Manning before week two). But you also need avoid overreacting to one or two bad games.

This week, I completed a massive ten player trade: essentially, I downgraded from Frank Gore to DeAngelo Williams (and Jonathan Stewart) in order to improve my #2 RB, #3 WR, and TE (all problems for me). If I evaluated the trade primarily on the performances of week one, two, and three, I just suffered a terribly downgrade. However, I know what DeAngelo Williams has done in the past, and I think his first three weeks aren’t indicative of the player he is or the year he’ll have. And I know what Gore has done in the past: he’s spectacular and will perform very well, but the terrible 49ers will struggle frequently and everything he does will feel really, really difficult. So I made the move.

After three weeks, I’m still using pre-season perspective to mitigate analysis of in-season performances. After, say, six weeks, I don’t think I would anymore. We'll see whether in this case, the "Yeah, but last year" approach is better than this "Only this year" approach after three weeks.

Weekend

Have a good weekend, everybody. Except Packer and Bear fans.

Addendum (Baseball Box)

Are the Twins under the impression that when they got public money for their open air stadium, they were also granted rights to the public open air? Do they think that anything that can be viewed by people inside their corporate-named stadium should not be tainted by outsiders? The Twins aren't entitled to everything that can be seen from their #!&%ing building. You know, you wouldn't be able to see signs on the Target Center from inside the goddam Metrodome. Give up the sense of entitlement, and concentrate on not getting your ass kicked by the Yankees again.

(MPR, MinnPost).

Addendum 2

Bill Simmons today on Michael Vick and dogfighting, with some self-awareness:

"But dogfighting isn't much more abhorrent than some of the other ways we abuse animals. Ever watch what happens when a deer gets shot by a hunter but doesn't die right away? Ever watch a group of turkeys get slaughtered for Thanksgiving? Ever watch how a mink coat gets made? Ever research what happens to greyhounds once they stop racing? Hell, I plowed through a veal chop at dinner a few weeks ago. It was delicious. Does that mean I condone the creepy veal industry? Implicitly, yeah, it kinda does. Why didn't it bother me as I was putting salt on my chop and oooohing and ahhhhing about how tender the meat was? I don't know. I wish I knew. More of us are hypocrites about this stuff than we realize."

and

"Not everyone likes dogs or sees them as companions, guardians or family members. I have friends who regard dogs warily and act rattled around them. Certain religions believe dogs are unclean. (I once lived in a West Hollywood neighborhood heavy with Hasidic and Orthodox Jews, some of whom could barely conceal their disgust with the Dooze. A few even hissed at her. This drove my wife crazy, but hey, dogs mean different things to different people.)"

Clouds of Heaven: Vikings 24, Lions 10

2010-09-26T15:12:00.004-05:00

Vikings-Lions ESPN Box Score

Today, Pacifist Viking will be a place for positivity. Sure, the Vikings' problems were evident today, threatening to bust the seams of the game. But you'll be able to read plenty of writers focusing on those problems. The Vikings haven't won a game since the middle of January, so let us revel in the joy that comes from a Minnesota W.

There were a lot of positive things today. We saw another good defensive performance, which included some dynamic play from Kevin Williams and the return of cornerbacks Cedric Griffin and Chris Cook. The Vikes had their first two interceptions of the year, both in the end zone as they held off Detroit's attempted comeback. The offense was as mistake-prone as ever, yet certainly also displayed the awesome potential, as Adrian Peterson ripped off an 80 yard run on the way to 190 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns. Percy Harvin had his best game of the season and gave at least a little spark to the Viking WRs (he certainly made a great touchdown catch when he was wide open and Favre overthrew him just a tad).

We take these home wins against the Lions for granted, since they've been coming every year since 1998. But the Lion defensive line looked tough today: I'm not sure how good the team the Vikings beat today really is, but they do look competitive. The Vikes had to earn a win today. Sometimes they seemed on the verge of a blowout--but they also got bailed out when some penalties negated turnovers (penalties that may have directly caused the turnovers, but these were good breaks nonetheless, as they were also penalties that sometimes don't get called).

The Vikes have issues--and 15 days before their next game to try to work on some of those issues. After disappointing performances in their first two games, they showed today the offensive and defensive talent that makes them a good football team. Play crisper, sharper, more focused football, and they can become a great team.

It's been a while. Skol.

National Friday League, Week Three

2010-09-23T17:00:00.000-05:00

Viking Preview
If the Vikes lose this one, Brett Favre should retire immediately.

The 2010 Vikings are more like the ’08 Vikes than the ’09 Vikes (and that’s OK, if they realize it)
The ’09 Vikings were an offensive juggernaut, scoring loads of points primarily through the passing game. If the first couple of games of ’10 are any indication, this Viking team is not like that Viking team. But this team bears remarkable similarities to the ’08 Viking team that started the season 0-2 and rallied to win the division.

The ’08 Vikings leaned heavily on Adrian Peterson (1,760 yards), and played frequently dominant defense (in nine games after the bye, they allowed opposing offenses to score 13 touchdowns, going 7-2 in the process). And if the ’10 Vikings’ first two games are indicative, this Viking team can still win games like the ’08 Vikings did. The Viking defense has done a superb job, in my opinion. They went on the road and held the Saints to 14 points. At home against the Dolphins, they allowed zero points after the first drive, and in the fourth quarter repeatedly did exactly what they needed to do to stop the Dolphins and get the ball back for the offense as quickly as possible.

The ’10 Vikes have more potential than that team, because Brett Favre has more potential for success than ’08 Gus Frerotte or ’08 Tarvaris Jackson had. But they can win games if they lean on Adrian Peterson and dominate defensively. They just have to realize that’s the sort of team they are. That means sometimes taking early field goals because you know the game will be close.* That means sometimes playing for field position because you can trust the defense to get the ball back for you quickly. It means not taking too many risks in the passing game (but picking their spots, sure).

The Vikes can rally: the defense will keep them in games, they have talented offensive players including a workhorse running back, and Brett Favre will not suck that bad in every game this year.

*I'd almost always go for it on fourth down from inside the three: if you don't get it, you're probably getting the ball back soon, and it good field position. Outside the 20, when you'd still have to gain more yards to get a TD rather than FG? With a reliable offense, yes. Without? Take the points. That's why this year the Vikings are a take the points team.

Irrational Viking Fan
Don Draper and Pete Campbell
I’ve only seen season one of Mad Men, so don’t spoil anything for me. But ever since RK madethe comparison of Aaron Rodgers to Howard from Death of a Salesman, I keep seeing Aaron Rodgers as Pete Campbell from Mad Men. And I hate Pete Campbell. When I see the look on Aaron Rodgers’ face, I associate him with all the worst qualities of Pete Campbell.

(And so I bought a fedora hat today. What, do you really think I did that in a misbegotten attempt to look like Don Draper? What do you take me for? You don't know my motivations. You can't prove anything. And anyway, isn't Draper kind of a major douche, tormented nihilistic soul or not? I suppose you think I'm silly for buying a tie for the first time in my memory, too. Well, screw you for judging me).

The Wheel of Fortune
The wheel of fortune spins: whomever it brings to the top, it will swing back down to the bottom.

From the ’04 playoffs through 2005, the Vikings won three straight games against the Packers. From ’06 through the first game of ’08, the Packers won five straight over the Vikings. And from ’08 through ’09, the Vikings defeated the Packers three straight times and claimed two division titles.

As far as the Viking-Packer rivaly goes, 2009 was Minnesota’s year. But I think I can say honestly that I did not try to rub anything in to Packer fans. I’ve been through enough Viking seasons to live in terror anytime things seem to be going well—and living in terror means little time for gloating. And I know how the wheel of fortune spins: somebody gets brought to the top, sure, but that somebody gets crashed back to the bottom again. For sure. The wheel keeps spinning.

And now, with the Vikes 0-2 and the Packers 2-0, it appears that 2010 may, broadly speaking, be the Packers’ year. Packer fans may be riding high all of 2010, and they’ll have their chance to rub it in. Maybe the wheel has spun, and it is the Packers’ turn at the top.* Maybe this is your chance to roll, Packer fans. But the wheel of fortune spins.

*Let’s stick with “maybe.” The Vikes still have a chance to salvage the season, will play the Packers strong in their head-to-head matchups, and if nothing else, Go Bears!

Season Preferences
Here are my preferences for the season, in order:

#1: The Vikings right the proverbial ship, make their way to the playoffs, and make a deep playoff run.
#2: A complete, total, disastrous collapse of the season.

#3: Stumbling toward a .500 season and missing the playoffs.

The reasons I prefer 2. to 3. are plenty. For one thing, epic failures are more entertaining to watch than muddling mediocrity (though stumbling to .500 with a shot at the playoffs makes each game more exciting and engaging. I am such a wishy washy thinker that I need to undercut my own thoughts in the parentheses). But there are other reasons. I think, eventually, Brad Childress will discover for certain that Tarvaris Jackson can’t really be a consistent starting QB—if that were to somehow happen in 2010 rather than 2011, we take a healthy step toward the future a year early. The Vikes also have some young players that have shown sparks of stardom, some who haven’t had an opportunity to do so yet, and several that the Vikings need to decide about for long-term contracts. A collapse might mean leaning more on those players. If the Vikes aren’t going to win the Super Bowl this season, then I’d rather see them move toward a future where they can win the Super Bowl—whatever that takes, even if it means a brutal nadir to get there. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," Robin goes through one miserable, confusing, awful night--but he comes out of it with a new, important insight into the world. If he never saw his tarred and feathered kinsman paraded down the streets, if he never joined into the mocking laughter, he might never have learned what he needed to learn.

But preferably, the future is now. The Vikes have a fairly high number of star veterans that might not have much left (Pat Williams, Antoine Winfield, Steve Hutchinson, Brett Favre). The Vikes also have a handful of Hall-of-Fame quality starters in their primes (Jared Allen, Kevin Williams, Adrian Peterson). This is no time to waste. It’s just if it’s going to be wasted, I’d prefer disaster to mediocrity.

Other Intriguing Matchups

Week Three Schedule

Falcons-Saints. If you watched the 49ers-Saints Monday, you saw another game where the Saints did not outplay an opponent, but benefitted from that opponent making one disastrous mistake after another. That was an incredible display by San Francisco: they moved the ball, and they successfully stopped the Saints, but they repeatedly acted as if it might be more fun to lose the game than win. Snapping the ball over the QB’s head out of the back of the end zone for a safety on the first drive? Sure. Drive down the field before halftime but fumble inside the 15. Why not? Muff a punt late in the game? Of course. Start a drive with a delay of game penalty? Why would you be ready at the start of a drive? Just incredible. Anyway, I don’t think the Saints are that good, and the Falcons might be.

49ers-Chiefs. One of these teams will reveal itself. I don’t know which one.

Cowboys-Texans. One of these teams will reveal itself. I don’t know which one.

Colts-Broncos. Indianapolis sliced up the Giants last Sunday in ways I haven’t seen anybody sliced up in a long, long time.

Packers-Bears. When I was a kid, I had this Chicago Bears hooded sweatshirt that somehow got passed down to me—I don’t know how or from where. I would wear it outside to play basketball or shovel snow. I don’t know what happened to that hoodie (though we didn’t call them hoodies in the bad old days of the mid-90s, did we?). If I still had it, I’d be donning it Monday night. Go Bears.

The Quarterback Position
Matthew Yglesias argues that the Eagles keeping two starter-quality QBs is a bad idea:

“it’s also mighty inefficient. Whether or not Kevin Kolb is a better quarterback than Vick, I think it’s pretty clear that Vick is one of the top 30 QBs in the league. That means he’s worth more to someone else as a starter than he is to Philadelphia as a backup and the Eagles should trade him. It never really makes sense for a team to be carrying two different starter-quality quarterbacks.”

But here’s the problem with that argument: what if the Eagles accepted this argument before the season started? Then when their starter, Kevin Kolb, got injured, they would have been left with a low-quality starter to replace him. Instead of Michael Vick leading them to a three-point win, it’s quite likely a poor quarterback would have led them to a loss.

Quarterback is a critically important position. It may seem inefficient to keep two good quarterbacks, but I’m not entirely sure it’s a good idea to go into a season saying “Oh well, if our starting QB gets hurt, we’re just screwed anyway.” I’m also not sure it’s a good idea to go into a season saying “Oh well, our starting QB only has two career starts, but if we learn he sucks the whole team can just go down with him.”

Now, why am I bothering with the sports argument of a political blogger here (especially as the situation has changed, and Vick will start)? Because I’ve largely stopped reading most sportswriters’ commentary. Most sportswriters’ commentary provides little insight, and I no longer have the inclination (or time) to read bad sportswriters just to criticize them on this blog. So I’ve quit reading them. There are some sportswriters who do offer quality analysis—but I can’t bring myself to read much about football following a Viking loss (I also can’t bring myself to write much after a Viking loss—sorry. If you’d like me to write a lot after a Viking loss, find a way to get me paid to do this. Actually, don’t: I don’t need the added responsibility. I’m writing this after mental exhaustion from grading papers). I do, however, still occasionally read political blogs, and occasionally come across sports arguments, and occasionally find them flawed. So here we are.

Things to look forward to now the Vikes are 0-2
This might finally be the season that Ted meets his kids’ mother.

Fantasy Box

No, I did not try hard to trade away Frank Gore last week. That would be crazy. If anybody tries to tell you I tried to do that, they are lying. Don't be a liar. Frank Gore is awesome, and I've always known it--I wouldn't trade him for anybody. And fantasy football is not about luck.

Weekend
Have a good weekend everybody. Except Lion fans. The Packers don’t play until Monday, so Packer fans, I don’t care about your weekend. Bears fans: I hope you enjoy Monday.

Coming off the ledge

2010-09-19T14:51:00.004-05:00

There was a familiar story for the Vikings in '06, '07, and '08: the Minnesota defense doing everything it takes to win a game, and getting let down by frustrating, mistake-prone, incompetent offensive performances. It happened again today. Superb, admirable, incredible defensive effort from the Vikes, giving the Vikings the ball back time and again, doing everything they could to win a game--and a total letdown at every level of the offensive game (with the exception of Adrian Peterson, who did all he could to try will the Viking offense to points).

Share your hurts, Viking fans. More in the comments.

National Friday League, week two

2010-09-16T19:39:00.002-05:00

I’m still on the Viking bandwagon. It’s just that now I’ve ambled my way to the back to sit with the older fans in the back drinking hard liquor and saying things like “Kids, I’ve seen some things. I know that hope is a mirage.” That’s how a lot of Viking fans are, I think: never able to bring themselves to actually jump off that bandwagon, but always expecting it to hit a pothole, so that all the people standing on the bandwagon get flung to the floor, and they bang into each other and there's a heap of bodies just lying on the wood as the wagon keeps on getting pulled by a horse that keeps stopping to poop or throw up. If we're going to use a cliche like bandwagon, shouldn't we flesh it out a bit?

Vikings-Dolphins Preview
There’s one big thing to like about this matchup: Chad Henne facing the Viking pass rush in Thunderdome. I think he’ll wilt. In the last two seasons, the Viking defensive line has been all over quarterbacks at home.

There’s one big thing to dislike about this matchup: Miami’s running game. The Vikings have the great run defense, sure, but they’ve frequently been vulnerable against runs off the edges. When the Dolphins get up to those misdirection shenanigoats, I worry our linebackers are going to be chasing around Dolphin running backs. When running backs get to the edges, teams can get this Viking defense.

Combine the big thing to like and the big thing to dislike, and an early lead becomes rather important. But when isn’t an early lead preferable? What, the team should try to play it close all game, or maybe try get down big in order to come back? No great insight and no great strategy there: of course the Vikings should try to score points and prevent the Dolphins from scoring points whenever possible, including the bloody first quarter. I guess I’m really just saying in this game, I don’t see the Dolphins coming back if they get down by a lot, but I could see the Dolphins picking up frustrating Wildcat first downs if they’re milking a close fourth quarter lead.

In the end, I always trust Thunderdome.

Other Intriguing Matchups
Week Two Schedule

Bills-Packers. Sure, the Bills probably suck. But they sort of have a good defense. A Buffalo win here would please me. I dislike Aaron Rodgers.

Bears-Cowboys. No freaking idea whether one of these teams can go to the playoffs or whether one of these teams really sucks.

Steelers-Titans. Last week, the Steelers scored a tight win against a quality opponent thanks to great defense; meanwhile, the Titans scored a blowout win thanks to seeing the Raiders on their schedule. These two teams can bring out the best in each other: competitive, hard-hitting, well-played football.

Giants-Colts. I don’t care about Peyton and Eli facing each other; I care about Peyton and Eli being entertaining quarterbacks who often make football games fun to watch. The game will be entertaining not because announcers keep talking about quarterbacking brothers, but because those quarterbacking brothers, and their teams, are fun to watch.

49ers-Saints. I'm still curious about both teams--I'm not sure what they showed week one.

Irrational Viking Fan
The conversations that occur at the PV household are probably a lot like you’d expect. I lament to my wife, how did the same fanbase that endured the end of ’98 have to endure the end of ’09? She says it doesn’t seem fair. And then I mumble something about ’87 and ’75.

It’s like Stephen King’s It: at consistent intervals, a horrible monster comes to terrify the town. Every 11-12 years, Viking fans can expect to get their hopes up and then have our hearts shit-stomped in a desperately confusing close playoff loss.

But with all the predictions for the Packers in the Super Bowl this year,* it is worth
repeating: if the Packers win their 13th championship before the Vikings win their first, I will have a sports nervous breakdown that makes my reaction to last year’s NFC championship game look like a hiccup. You won’t hear me talk about football again for a long, long time. I will know the universe has no balance, and that karma is a happy story for losers to tell ourselves to make us feel a little warmer at night. I won’t be able to take it, and before long I’ll change this blog to “Pacifist Timberwolf” or something. I’ve got issues.

Of course I know there is actual injustice in the world, that leads to actual suffering, and that in the lives of the cosmos and the lives of families, what I’m talking about on this blog doesn’t really matter. Which is why this has been Irrational Viking Fan.

*I get it, I do. But when virtually EVERYBODY predicts the Packers are going to the Super Bowl, it makes me ask just what they’ve done to make them the consensus preseason NFC champion? Is the whole NFC just down?

Percy Harvin
Clearly, Harvin has what it takes to be a playmaking #1 WR. He’s fast and quick. He can go deep or he can catch passes at the sticks on third down. He’s agile to get away from defenders to run after the catch, and he’s strong, difficult to bring down. He’s got great football smarts (my favorite move: when he catches the ball facing the QB, he and the defender are moving in one direction, and immediately when catching it, Harvin cuts the opposite way as quick as can be, as the defender’s momentum takes him the other direction and Harvin can get extra yards).

Last season, Harvin shined as the Vikings used him as needed. They had so many viable targets last season, that they didn’t need Harvin to be a #1 WR. Well, maybe this season they do need that. They need Harvin to be a do-it-all receiving option that they can rely on for every down. And Harvin has the talent and the toughness to do it.

Of course, he sucked against the Saints. And maybe he only works as a slot receiver.

It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world
When you think about your life and how it changes over time, you might find yourself dumbstruck by how different your life is now than what it was then. Professional sports offers a clear reflection of the transitory nature of life. Think back to 2002 or 2003. Then tell yourself that one day, Mike Shanahan would be coaching in Washington, where he’d call a play and Donovan McNabb would hand off to Clinton Portis. Then tell yourself that the Ravens and Jets would play, and Anquan Boldin is on one team and Ladanian Tomlinson is on the other. It's like doing Franchise mode on Madden, where without really noticing a few years later a bunch of superstars are on different teams and you think "This is just weird." That’s how it goes: star players switching teams is commonplace, yet when I actually think about the changes, it’s jarring. So too with the changes of life.

Unsolicited Recommendation
I really enjoyed season one of The League, FX’s comedy about a fantasy football league. I laughed out loud a lot, and I found a lot of the show to ring true. Season two is starting up; I highly recommend it.

The Kansas City Chiefs
For a few minutes, my wife and I were watching the Chiefs and all the big, exciting plays they were making. At some point I immediately fell in love with Jamaal Charles, and asserted my wild desire to make a crazy fantasy trade offer involving giving up Frank Gore to get Charles. “Don’t go pissing away your whole team on magic beans,” she advised me. She should probably always stick around me, advising me before I do stupid things.

Low scoring? I don’t care.
On KFAN Tuesday morning, I heard Mike Florio complain to Paul Allen a bit about a low scoring week one. I don’t mind low-scoring games, actually. I like watching well-played games, and I like watching competitive games. A 13-10 game is usually more enjoyable to watch than a 35-0 game, and a 13-10 game that clearly features great defense simply outplaying competent offense is enjoyable.

Incompetent offense is, yes, terrible to watch, and there was some inept quarterbacking in week one. But a well-played, competitive low-scoring game is usually fine with me. And I like that there are some great defenses out there capable of shutting teams down and competing against some of the great offenses out there.

Greg Camarillo
Throw the ball to Camarillo: he’ll catch it! Get the man on the field!

A miniature sports book review

Over the summer I read Bill Simmons' The Basketball Book, and never got around to writing about it here.

The book might be the most entertaining sports book I've read: it's funny and insightful. If you're interested in basketball history, interested in arguments about the greatest players and the greatest teams, interested in looking at sports history for what matters most, and also interested in the fan experience of sports, the book is almost perfect.

If you don't know much about NBA history, you'll learn a lot (though perhaps in a chaotic, disorganized way), and if you do know a lot about NBA history, I think you'll find the perspectives fresh and still informative. Simmons' heavy focus on his favorite team, the Boston Celtics, is even justifiable because of the Celtics' prominent place in NBA history--it doesn't feel too heavy to me.

My one critique (it is a major or minor one depending on your perspective) is the sexism/misogyny that runs through it. When I read Simmons' columns, I wince at nearly every mention of women, because what he says is usually quite ugly (as some commenters here have pointed out). If you went through The Book of Basketball and highlighted every reference Simmons makes to women, I think you'd come up with a rather ugly picture of stereotypes and objectification.

Fantasy Box
I am a homer, and lord of the idiots.
If you use Yahoo! for your fantasy football, you may have noticed that 1% of all fantasy teams were starting Greg Camarillo week one (actually you probably didn't, because why would you be looking that up?). I was one of them. It didn’t go well.

The closer and then the deeper we get into the football season, the more ridiculous my fantasy homerism becomes. In the summer I usually convince myself “No no, not this time,” and draft a team by that standard. Then I start doing things like picking up Greg Camarillo. My fellow Hazelweirders know this and try exploit it, so I get the chance to turn down trade offers like Brett Favre for Peyton Manning straight up or Sidney Rice and Percy Harvin for Reggie Wayne.

The Indianapolis Colts lose
As my friend Kiah told me Sunday, the Colts losing is probably the best thing for fantasy owners of Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne, etc. Let them lose some early season games (especially if Indy offensive players can put up big numbers in defeat), and then maybe they’ll actually be playing to win in Week 16 and Week 17. Suddenly, I smiled.

Weekend

Enjoy your weekend, everybody. Except Packer, Bear, and Dolphin fans.

Coming off the ledge: Vikings 9, Saints 14

2010-09-09T22:38:00.007-05:00

ESPN Box Score

After a vicious offseason of wondering what might have been, it was good for a real football game to start. A few plays into it, and it was just a football game, just a chance to watch the Vikings and root for them to win. It’s like it always was.

So what does this game tell us about the Vikings 2010 season? If the rest of the season is like this game, they’ll gurgle and sputter and play flat and generally underachieve to mediocrity (I can see it: there have been plenty of playoff teams that followed up the next year by losing close games early in the season and then not sucking, exactly, but just performing like an average team). Or does the fact that they went on the road with a depleted secondary and competed to within five points of the defending champion show that the Vikings are still going to be competitive and are still ready to push for a Super Bowl over the next 15 games? Well, who knows. It’s another nine days until the Vikings get the Miami Dolphins in Thunderdome (a matchup I like a lot, but we’ll wait for that). I would have read way too much into a win tonight, but I’m afraid we can’t read way too much into this loss. We saw a lot of problems, especially receivers failing to step up and the thin secondary looking vulnerable. Those problems are also fixable (I think the WRs will perform better, and certainly the eventual return of Chris Cook and Cedric Griffin will help the secondary).

This team needs to rush the passer.
There are holes in the secondary; the defensive backs occasionally did an admirable job, occasionally looked bad, and occasionally looked bad but were bailed out when Saint receivers couldn’t finish a play. Even when they do rush the passer, a smart mobile QB like Brees can make the necessary moves to throw the pass downfield. But right now, if the Vikes don't get to the QB, they don't have the DBs to cover.

Brett Favre looks off...
But let’s remember how 2009 started. The Vikings played against a terrible Cleveland Browns team, and Favre really only needed to make a couple of throws of note. Is Favre any different in early September 2010 than he was in early September 2009? I doubt it--he just had a tougher matchup and was asked to do more this year.

Greg Camarillo
Bernard Berrian…a very disappointing dud game. Percy Harvin…a very disappointing dud game. Visanthe Shiancoe made plays in the first half, and then was simply not a factor.

Greg Camarillo barely played, but I think he needs to. I think the Vikings will like what they get if he’s on the field more. The Vikings showed in their offensive formations and personnel tonight that protecting Favre was a priority—but they’re going to have to give more receivers a chance to make plays. Harvin and Berrian disappointed, but as Camarillo gets more acclimated to the team and playbook, he’s a guy that should make plays and be a reliable pass catcher on third down.

That Saint kicker
Yes, I shouted profane things at him when he missed those field goals about why he didn’t do that in January.

Defiance
A few hours before the game, I went for a walk. I started thinking about all the negative predictions for the Vikes, the positive predictions for the Packers, about that game in January, about the upcoming game. Pretty soon I was walking really, really fast, and I had a vicious scowl on my face (I'm not sure, but I think people who saw me avoided me).

And I realized that I had spent the offseason in a fetal crouch, variously wincing, pouting, and avoiding. But to borrow a phrase from Jimmy McNulty, “What the fuck did I do?” Fear and trembling is no way to go through a season.

So screw the Saints, screw the Packers, screw the league, screw the national media, screw football karma. Viking fans have been coming back from disappointment for most of 49 years. We still come back donning purple with desperate hope. There’s no reason to sulk. We’ll stand behind this team. We’ll shout. We’ll leap with joy at their wins. We'll root. It’s football season.

The last line of the last song I heard on this walk? “It’s gonna happen (HAPPEN SOME TIME)…Maybe this time I’ll wiiiiiiiinnnnnnnn!!!!!”

Well, not tonight. 0-1 isn't fun. Waiting nine days to play again won't be fun. But I'm not sulking, and you shouldn't either. Come in off the ledge, everybody--it's a new day.

Share your thoughts, suckers.

National Friday League, Week One (update below)

2010-09-06T00:00:00.049-05:00

What's that, you say? It's Monday? Well, National Friday League is meant to be discuss the NFL (and whatever else the parenthetical tangents take me to) right before the weekend (though I'll generally post it Thursday evening--busy working on Friday and all), but this week the Vikes play Thursday, so I'm popping out a massive National Friday League right away this week (includes some week one preview, some league preview stuff). If' I've got more to add throughout the week, I'll add updates.

During the actual football season, there will be two regular weekly posts at PV: National Friday League, which brings together stories from the week and preview of the weekend in a fun, wandering post, and a post commenting on the Viking game (usually posted on the same day as the game, with possible updates added later). So, enjoy?

Last year was the Favre year. I have a bad feeling this year will either be the "Last season was our year and we blew it; it's not happening" year or the "This Brett Favre thing went on just longer than it should have" year. Maybe I've become desperately pessimistic, though (about the fate of human life on this earth we're wrecking, mostly, but about football too). On that cheery parenthetical, welcome back, everybody!

Vikings-Saints
Since the NFL started giving week one Thursday Night home games to the defending champion in ‘04, the home team defending champion has yet to lose that game. That hasn’t always been a harbinger for the season (the ’06 and ’09 Steelers missed the playoffs, for example), though the loser of this game has missed the playoffs for five straight seasons. But that’s the way this game has gone for six straight years: the defending champ wins its Thursday Night home opener. Emotional momentum wins, with a defending champ home team energized by celebration and cheering? Maybe. Scheduling, as an obviously good team is sometimes matched up against an intriguing but underwhelming opponent? Absolutely. Luck, as the first game is often too early for the random things (injuries, the bounces of an odd-shaped ball, etc.) that went right the previous season to go wrong in the followup season? Maybe.

I see this as a lose-lose situation. For one thing, all of the images we see are going to be so similar to the images we saw last January (white Viking uniforms, black Saint uniforms, the Superdome as backdrop, plus the network will show a lot of actual footage from that game) that it’s going to be hard not to scratch off old scabs. But if the Vikings win, while it will feel emotionally and psychologically wonderful, and the Vikes would start 1-0, there would still be that feeling that, well, this one doesn’t really matter (remember when the Vikes opened with a win against Atlanta in ’99?). Obviously a Viking win would bring joy, but bittersweet joy at that.

And if the Vikings lose, it means seeing the Vikings lose. It also means seeing the Saints win again, it means seeing the Vikes lose an important NFC game, it means seeing the Vikes start 0-1, and it means nine days of doubt before the Vikings play again.

I don’t have much confidence, but I also see the Viking pass rush being disruptive and the possibility of Adrian Peterson going for 150.

Other Intriguing Week One Matchups
Week One Schedule

In week one, isn’t every game at least mildly intriguing? I’d prefer some games, but I’d watch any. So here are some comments on either each game, or a team in each game.

Bengals-Patriots

Randy Moss looks like he’s ready to party again, and bring Tom Brady along for the fun of it.

Colts-Texans

For any new readers (or long-time readers that have forgotten): for a Viking blogger, I talk way too much about the Indianapolis Colts. Somewhere along the line Peyton Manning became my favorite non-Viking and I watch him whenever I can, and somewhere else along the line I started drafting Colts in fantasy football as if they were the only team in the league (and yes, every Week 17, that sucks).

Broncos-Jaguars

I’ve always been pretty good at simply not paying attention to cultural things that I’m just not interested in. Maybe I’ve mellowed a lot, but I also have no interest in tearing down those things I don’t care about: if other people really enjoy something that I don’t, well, what do I care? I find Two and a Half Men wildly unfunny, but a lot of people seem to like it. I care precisely zero about soccer, but when everybody was talking about the World Cup this summer, I didn’t bother complaining or ranting about soccer sucking or anything like that. I don’t enjoy the sport, I recognize others do, so I just don’t pay attention and let others enjoy what they enjoy. I pay virtually no attention to popular music: the first and often only time I hear recent hits is on Glee. I really like the ‘80s version of The Twilight Zone: whatever, don’t bug me. Maybe I’m just comfortable being outside the mainstream on many things, but I just let the things I don’t care about go, becoming moderately aware of them when necessary.

Anyway: so this fellow named Tim Tebow used to play football at the University of Florida, and now he’s on the Denver Broncos? Or so I hear. He's left-handed, huh? So that's cool.

Raiders-Titans

I will never stop believing in Vince Young. Every season I expect Young to go romp all over everybody. It starts here.

Lions-Bears

These are human beings who play football.

Falcons-Steelers

I find the Steelers without Roethlisberger all sorts of intriguing. I just hope either Leftwich or Dixon don’t screw up the supreme joy that is Mike Wallace.

Packers-Eagles

Before the game, Michael Vick and Kevin Kolb can talk about how much pleasure they got/get from killing animals. Vick’s version of killing animals makes him a national pariah; Kolb’s version of killing animals makes him an outdoorsman. Social mores, everybody! Anyway, I hope the Eagles blitz the shit out of Rodgers.

Dolphins-Bills

I suspect Miami will not be good this year because offensively, they are relying on one RB (Ricky Williams) in his 30s with an historically anomalous career that seems difficult to count on, one RB (Ronnie Brown) that is good but has had some major injuries that may diminish his game, and a young unproven quarterback (Chad Henne) that for all we know will never be more than mediocre. That seems like a lot to worry about. Of course, that anomalous RB might produce again (he is a vegetarian, so I’ve got a soft spot and a rooting interest in him), that RB returning from injury might still have his burst and stay healthy all season, and that unproven quarterback might actually emerge (it happens). Not a team I'd rely on for 16 games, but not a team to be surprised by if they’re good, either.

Browns-Buccaneers

Expect a lot from Jake Delhomme, and he’ll probably disappoint you. Stick him on a lousy team that’s mostly counted out, and he’ll probably make them competitive. My prediction: Delhomme leads the Browns to a respectably competitive season (7-9 wins, let’s say), going into 2011 (assuming there's football in 2011) you’ll read some “Hey, how about those Browns emerging” articles, and then Delhomme will not be able to get them above that mediocrity.

Panthers-Giants

The '08 Giants had two 1,000 yard RBs; the ’09 Panthers had two 1,000 yard RBs. If any of you have ever had a video game football team with THREE 1,000 yard rushers in one season, you can actually describe it in detail in the comments section, and I will actually be legitimately interested.

49ers-Seahawks

I’m thinking career year for Frank Gore, a top-5 RB fantasy season.

Cardinals-Rams

The post-Warner Cards have so many offensive questions, yet they start the season with a game that probably won’t answer a single one of them. Of course, if they suck against the Rams, we can guess they probably suck.

Cowboys-Washington

Is it just the distortions of self-selective memory, or do we get to see NFC East teams play each other in Prime Time approximately a dozen times a season?

Ravens-Jets

I don’t think the Jets will possibly live up to the hype, but defensively, they provide a good opening test and show for the Ravens’ offense. It’s weird: I’m really high on Joe Flacco as a fantasy QB, then recall that in last year’s playoffs he did precisely nothing. Does that mean anything? Probably not.

Chargers-Chiefs

How many of you will watch this game closely because it’s week one and you love the chance to watch pro football, but when these teams play again in December, you’ll only notice for the fantasy stats?

Irrational Viking Fan
This is a new feature. While I’m obviously biased and emotional, at this blog I actually generally seek reason and evidence. Now, a weekly feature where I offer irrational feelings.

I believe the national media loves the Green Bay Packers. They love the city, the fans, the stadium, the tradition, the city ownership, the cold, even the bratwurst. This national love of the Packers has led many national media members to anoint Aaron Rodgers the new Jesus. Rodgers now gets the Favre treatment, where whatever he does broadcasters will spew words of wonderment. A decade from now, Rodgers will still be getting praised for the poise he showed taking over the team from Brett Favre. If there’s any sense, national fans will one day be as tired of the media salivation of Rodgers as they’ve become with the media salivation of Brett Favre.

This has been Irrational Viking Fan.

Adrian Peterson
In 2008, Peterson averaged 4.15 yards per attempt or better in 15 of 17 games.
In 2009, Peterson was held under 4.0 yards per attempt in 10 of 18 games.

That difference is huge. In ’08, Peterson was a consistently dominant running back, capable of carrying the Vikings (10 games with 100+ yards, three games of 160+ yards). In ’09, he was more of a conventionally good elite RB, and was frequently contained or shut down.*

Peterson needs to return to his ’07 and ’08 form, when he could bust out a dominant game at any moment, and when he could generally be relied on to be a productive offensive fource.

*Being under 4.0 yards per attempt is not always being contained. In Peterson’s game against a tough Cincinnati run defense (26-97-2, 3-40), he had 3.73 yards per attempt, but was really a force in beating the Bengals. His second Packer game (25-97-1, 1-44) was also effective, though he had 3.88 yards per attempt. Even so, I think it’s this difference between ’08 and ’09 that highlights the difference between all-timer Peterson and very-good Peterson.

Viking Defense
While I have a lot of questions about where the Viking offense is going right now, the defense seems very familiar. The strength of the team is still the defensive line, arguably the league’s best and dominant stopping the run and rushing the passer. The weakness of the team is the secondary, a unit that frequently gives up big plays and seems to lack enough playmakers (especially at safety), but also a unit that gets covered by the regular pass rush from the front.

Brett Favre and the Media
One strange column on Favre I’ve encountered recently was this one at Cold, Hard Football Facts. After a summer of regular criticism of Brett Favre on all sorts of football websites (including mainstream media sites), CHFF puts out this column complaining that the media doesn’t criticize Brett Favre enough for his problems. CHFF: if you don’t think the media criticizes Brett Favre, you’re really just not paying attention. Yes, game announcers slather him with adulation (as they do for most big-time quarterbacks--Dan Dierdorf is to Peyton Manning as John Madden was to Favre--though the effusive praise for Favre gets a bit much). And there was a time, yes, when Favre got a lot of free media passes. But things have changed. A few years ago I loved Dr. Z because he was one of the mainstream sportswriters that regularly criticized Brett Favre. Today, it is commonplace. I mean, so commonplace that as blinkered praise for Brett Favre was a cliché five years ago, blinkered criticism of Brett Favre is a cliché today. This CHFF column is really about the media situation of 2006 or earlier, not today.

My point here isn’t to defend Favre, or to claim that criticism of Favre is unjustified. In fact, if I weren’t a Viking fan, I would find the ubiquitous and overwhelming coverage of Favre in the national media annoying, too. My point is that to claim the media doesn’t criticize Favre enough is just not accurate. I’ve written this before: there was a time when Brett Favre got heaped with so much praise that even his mistakes were either blamed on teammates, or inspired even more praise (this time still exists for the game announcers, by the way). But then a backlash occurred: more writers (especially on the internet) criticized Favre, more fans found an outlet (especially on the internet) to express their opinions against Favre and the media, and more people shared their annoyance (especially on the internet) for the way the mainstream sports media covers Favre. Now, it’s commonplace. There are many, many people writing about sports who dislike Favre, root against Favre, and express negative opinions of Favre. Again, that’s fine (though a lot of the criticisms are now, in my opinion, as clichéd as a lot of the praise). But to pretend that criticism of Favre is rare is to distort or ignore reality.

And while I’m repeating myself, here’s an argument that I’ve been making since long before Brett Favre became a Viking:

Brett Favre has made more positive plays than any quarterback in NFL history (hence, the all-time TD record). Brett Favre has also made more negative plays than any quarterback in NFL history (hence, the all-time INT record). Thus, if you are in an argument about Favre and you’re in the “praise Favre” position, you can find plenty of arguments, based on statistics and observation, to make your case. And if you are in the “tear Favre down” position, you can find plenty of arguments, based on statistics and observation, to make your case.

I have been in countless arguments about Favre. I’ve now been on multiple sides of those arguments (as I loathe the Packers, I loathed Favre, and as I love the Vikings, I’ve loved Favre). I’ve observed many more arguments about Favre. In all these arguments, the pro-Favre or anti-Favre side is able to find plentiful “evidence” to support either position convincingly. It’s there: it’s there in the numbers, and it’s there in the games. You can write a masterful argument for or against Favre, supported with stats, observations, citations to specific games, whatever you want. It’s not even hard.

Now before you let any of this sink in too deeply, allow me to undermine my credibility.

When the Vikings are criticized, I feel like I’m being criticized.
It’s a problem. When people who aren’t Viking fans criticize the Vikings or players on the Vikings, I take it personally. I know, too, from talking to other Viking fans that I’m not the only one. It’s irrational and it’s nonsensical.

MVP Box

The only players eligible for the NFL MVP award are quarterbacks and running backs on playoff teams. More specifically, the MVP will be a playoff QB unless a playoff RB has a massive statistical season, and usually the MVP is on a conference #1 seed. Generally, the NFL MVP is a player that is already established as a superstar prior to the season. That's the criteria for the award (tell me I'm wrong).

This year, I'm limiting the serious candidates to the following:

Tony Romo

He'll deserve it if he leads the Cowboys to a #1 seed behind that line.

Aaron Rodgers

I'm telling you, pay attention: the national media loves Rodgers.

Drew Brees

Might win on the "this is the year after your year, and we didn't give you the award last year" principle that may have never actually been put into play for NFL MVP, but I'm inventing it now.

Adrian Peterson

I think he'd need a rushing title and a #1 seed from his team to get it.

Tom Brady

Established superstar with great WRs--he can put up wild numbers again, and he'll be in the playoffs.

Peyton Manning

I was surprised voters gave him the award last year--not because he wasn't deserving of contention (he usually is) but because he had already won three MVPs (well, two and a half), including the year before, and I thought voters were done giving him MVPs at that point. Plus, it was a legitimately competitive field in '09, including incredible seasons from Brett Favre (I thought he deserved it, but I'm biased) and Drew Brees (Chris Johnson too, if he had been a playoff RB). Now I really think voters are done giving Manning MVPs: even if he deserves it, will they give him three in a row for a total of five (well, four and a half)? I'd be surprised.

Chris Johnson

It will take a combination of three things: leading the league in yards from scrimmage, the Titans making the playoffs, and no standout statistical seasons from elite playoff QBs.

I'm leaving out some possibilities--I think the league MVP will be one of these players.

Fantasy Box: Fantasy Superstars.
No one player can be counted on to make your fantasy team a contender. But there are some players out there that can reliably lead your team to contention. You still need to catch a few breaks and manage your team well (not just good drafting and trading, but savvy free agent pickups), but right now I count on these two theories:

Peyton Manning + Elite RB = Contender
I think if you draft Peyton Manning and an elite RB, you will have to manage your team terribly to finish lower than fourth place.

Adrian Peterson = Contender
A team with Peterson can contend for a title; he's a great RB that consistently brings the points. For most of the ‘00s, Ladanian Tomlinson = Contender, and certainly last season Chris Johnson was the guy whose massive numbers made championship contenders last season, but I’ll take Peterson for the next 3-5 years.

Links

Here are the fundamental bookmarks you should have for the NFL season.

Football Outsiders

Based on detailed statistics and close observation of the games: the commentators at FO don't just say things, but look for evidence. I rely on them regularly throughout the season.

ProFootballTalk Rumor Mill

I've never cared for Mike Florio's commentary; however, the site is a time saver by bringing together NFL news onto one easy-to-read site. Good for news, links, and Sunday morning injury updates.

Pro-football-reference.com

A must: I can't write about football without constantly checking player and team stats (from a current season and seasons' past), and this site makes finding the needed stats incredibly easy. I've bookmarked the Viking page separately, since I go there so often. They have a good blog too.

NFL.com Scores

Spectacular for two reasons. First, they put up a lot of highlight videos. My favorite part of being a football fan is, you know, actually watching the games, and I want to see plays from the games I couldn't watch. It's all there. Second, I've found NFL.com to be a very smooth site to follow games that I can't watch on TV. I do find ESPN's box scores easier to read after the games are completed, however.

Why did I bother recommending a bunch of sites that you almost certainly already know about? As Doc Brown says in a wonderful deleted scene from Back to the Future, "beats the shit out of me." And there are other good football sites to read throughout the season (see the links on the side), but these are the bookmarks I absolutely have to have.

Week

Last winter I bought a shirt that said "Up 'n' Autumn," and haven't felt like I can wear it out of season. Now I'm ready to rock! September also means the beginning of vegan chili season at the PV household. I love autumn: the return of football, return of school, return of cooler weather.

Have a good weekend, suckers. Except Packer, Bear, and Saint fans. Well, have a good week and all, but not too good a time during your team's game.

***UPDATE*** (Wednesday evening)

The Viking season starts tomorrow: the whole PV family will be donning Viking clothing. Our fandom is like good musical theater: knowingly over-the-top and full of outrageous spectacle.

Here are some links of interest to add. Normally when I see links I want to post I'll save them for the next week's National Friday League, but since we started early this week, and some of these links are timely, and next week there will be a full week of post-week-one links, blah blah blah, here is bonus coverage and here is a run-on sentence, just for you.

Adrian Peterson says he's better than Chris Johnson (Star Tribune). In sports commentary, whatever happened the year before becomes gospel: Chris Johnson had a better season in 2009 than Adrian Peterson had, so he's the best running back in the NFL. And very likely if somebody other than Chris Johnson has the best RB season in 2010, next offseason that new guy will be the best running back in the NFL. I think there is a legitimate debate about who is better, but I don't think when a guy outperforms another guy in a given year, he's therefore just better. He was better that year.

Percy Harvin: ready to play (Star Tribune). In one sense, the impact of Harvin's migraine issues is overblown. When he's not suffering from migraines, Harvin should be 100%. When he doesn't have the migraine, there should be no impact on his performance, right?

Linebacker issues for the Saints (Star Tribune). Vikes have a shot if they can run successfully on the Saints.

Doug Farrar on some NFL "strategies and schemes" that seem to be going out of vogue (Yahoo!).

Mike Tanier and Doug Farrar on what you don't see from TV angles (Football Outsiders). There are many reasons I love watching games live. I've seen games at the Metrodome from a lot of different angles, very rarely from a sideline type view that would be similar to TV. Even from a good distance, there's a better sense of pass coverage, routes, movement of the front seven, blocking, etc. Attending a game at the Metrodome is, for me, almost an experience of communal ecstasy. It's also great for seeing football.

The bard of the Vikings, Jim Klobuchar (MinnPost).

Terrell Owens, who once said that if the Eagles had Brett Favre instead of Donovan McNabb they'd be undefeated, has a point about Brett Favre and skipping camp (PFT). I've made it clear above that there are plenty of voices criticizing Favre, including for some of his offseason moves of recent years. But there would be many, many more voices criticizing such moves if it were Terrell Owens pulling them.

Regression toward the mean, if you want more football details on it (Football Outsiders).

Adrian Peterson and fumbling (National Football Post).

One more day, suckers!

A good pass

2010-09-04T16:07:00.003-05:00

The Vikes evidently aren't too interested in T.J. Houshmandzadeh (PFT), and that's the right thinking, in my view. Houshmandzadeh is a possession receiver (last three seasons: 10.2, 9.8, and 11.5 yards per reception), and I'm honestly not sure he does anything that Greg Camarillo can't do. It's not that Housmandzadeh couldn't be useful, but I don't really see him filling a big need. The Vikes have people they can throw to for short passes (Camarillo, Visanthe Shiancoe, Percy Harvin, Adrian Peterson). Without Sidney Rice, Bernard Berrian and Harvin need to be effective deep threats, but the Vikes have people they can throw short passes to, and don't really need Houshmandzadeh.

I continue to think the Vikings are fine with the pass catchers they have; their potential problem areas are the secondary and the offensive line.

Mistake(s)

2010-09-03T22:22:00.003-05:00

It's bad to trade Sage Rosenfels, but expected. But why did the Vikings just trade their best punt returner? Darius Reynaud is good. Lousy move all around.

Joe Webb, at least.

Viking fans may have a different reaction

2010-09-03T16:15:00.003-05:00

Bill Simmons on Aaron Rodgers:

"On a personal note, my affection for Rodgers increased exponentially at ESPN's Sundance party during the conference championships, when Rodgers and his buddies unabashedly rooted against nemesis Favre and the Vikings down the stretch and celebrated raucously when New Orleans pulled it out. Rodgers couldn't have been more delighted; he did everything but climb on the bar and start a "F--- YOU, FAVRE!" chant. I will always root for him after that. And yes, that story is 100 percent true."

I actually don't blame Rodgers at all for that. But I don't think you'll blame me that, when I got my copy of Sports Illustrated's NFL preview issue featuring Rodgers on the cover today, I gently tore the cover off and threw it away so I could try enjoy the rest of the magazine.

Bad

2010-08-31T15:03:00.002-05:00

Chris Cook has looked really good in preseason games; now he's injured and will miss time (Kevin Seifert). The Vikes have been suffering some key injuries lately; while there's nothing remotely to feel good about here, at least this might be a short-term injury, and Cook can come back fairly early in the season.

Preseason!

2010-08-28T22:34:00.003-05:00

I saw what I needed from Greg Camarillo: he's an ideal possession receiver. He's got reliable hands and he can find open spots in the field. The Vikings now have three reliable go-to receivers for third down: Camarillo, Percy Harvin, and Visanthe Shiancoe. When they find themselves in 3rd and 8, Favre will find open receivers that can catch the ball. The Vikes will be fine offensively.

Greg Camarillo

2010-08-26T08:42:00.002-05:00

According to Football Outsiders, Greg Camarillo did not have a single drop last season on his 73 targets (50 catches). The Vikings had a new need, and they seem to have filled it with a player that can be reliable and useful.

Crap (updated)

2010-08-24T09:18:00.003-05:00

Crap. Crap.

Update

Given that the Vikings still have Bernard Berrian, Percy Harvin (I assume right now), Visanthe Shiancoe, and Adrian Peterson to throw passes to, this is not as devastating a loss as it seems. We went into 2009 unable to expect or even really count on much from Sidney Rice, yet many of us went into the season expecting huge things. Sidney Rice was a surprise emergence, but even without Rice it looked like Favre would have a good set of targets around him. I think Berrian and Harvin will just end up getting more targets. And it's possible Rice can come back at the end of the season and be productive again. I think the Viking offense, while diminished, will be fine.

Update 2

Rice says the Super Bowl is still the destination (PFT). That or a vacation to Texas. Every other time in my life anybody tried to convince me that the Vikes were going to the Super Bowl, they've been wrong and I've been disappointed. Every time. But this time !!!!! ..... ?

Either way, I will hold my head: either up, or buried in my palms.

Preseason!

2010-08-22T23:14:00.004-05:00

It was great to see E.J. Henderson not only play, but be extraordinarily active. He looks like a player that can still be a good middle linebacker. It will take longer to see if he's lost quickness or strength, but still, E.J. Henderson is a really fun player.

It looked like Asher Allen was out of position and/or taking bad angles on a few plays.

I love--love--passes to running backs. Routine, easy plays that often pick up positive yardage.

In 2008, Adrian Peterson was held under 4.44 yards per carry in just two out of 16 regular season games. That's pretty impressive. In 2009, he was held under 4.0 yards per carry in nine of 16 games. That's quite a dropoff. But when you watch Adrian Peterson run, you still see a supreme talent. If Peterson runs more like '08 than '09, we don't need Favre to match his career year again. I expect him to return to that dominating form.

NBC did a good job showing us Adrian Peterson's poor pass blocking on that one play when Favre got sacked.

Brad Childress

2010-08-22T17:50:00.000-05:00

Pat Reusse writes a good defense of Brad Childress (Star Tribune). One of the things I often come back to is the poor state of the Vikings' skill position players when Childress took over the team: just look at the names of the leading receivers in 2006. Now their skill positions are stacked (Reusse pointed out that no team has better 1-5 skill position players than the Vikes in his last column where he tried to convince me to believe--yet another sign Reusse hates Viking fans). That talent upgrade (along with the remarkable defensive turnaround) is something that Childress, as head coach, had some role in bringing about, but isn't given much credit for.

Or maybe I just like Childress because I once heard him read at a poetry reading.

On not being over it

2010-08-22T00:39:00.004-05:00

(or, how this blog turned into repetitive existential whining, where I'm inexplicably willing to admit the ways that the Vikings mean way too much to me)

I was just checking out this Judd Zulgad article at the Star Tribune when I came across a line that told me nothing that I didn't already know, yet floored me:

"If not for a few incredibly costly mistakes, including a Favre interception, the Vikings would have found themselves in the Super Bowl last February."

For some reason, I had to reread the sentence. And then I started reliving just how close the Vikings were to last season's Super Bowl. The Vikes as you know have never won the Super Bowl, and in my lifetime they've never been there. And they were that close. That was January, now it's August, and now I can't sleep because I read that sentence. "If not for a few incredibly costly mistakes." "The Vikings would have found themselves in the Super Bowl." They were so close. So freaking close. It's August, and that's still on my mind.

And now I know I'll never be over that loss. That's not entirely true: I won't be over that loss until the Vikings actually do win the Super Bowl. But that's the other thing: that loss took away my faith, and now in some deep way I believe the Vikings never will win the Super Bowl. I'm now one of the cynics. In some ways even the idea of them making the Super Bowl again just seems like fantasy: that's something from the Bud Grant past, never to be repeated. And yet occasionally I still literally dream that it's the day after the Super Bowl and I'm celebrating a Viking win.

All this is just a way to tell you why you should read this blog. I'm the mess who cares way too much about the Vikings, and we're now getting ready to enjoy another Viking season (their 50th!). I also do a fair job at talking myself into things, so I might be able to talk you into things. So skol on, brother. Skol on.

Addendum

After watching the Vikings' 2009 Year in Review video (sadly bookended by plays from the NFC Title game--really the first time I've seen any replays of the game), I was reminded what a legitimately joyous season 2009 was. 9-0 at home, a Packer sweep, a couple exciting late game wins (49ers and Ravens), a 34-3 playoff victory over the Cowboys, 470 points and exciting pass plays all over the place, 46 sacks...it was superbly fun. The end was obviously wildly disappointing, but the season was wildly entertaining, fun, and joyful. It is one worth remembering.

With that, I try to stop dwelling on 2009, and look ahead to 2010, hoping to find more joy.

Fantasy Football: Head-to-Head Competition is Moronic.

2010-08-18T16:28:00.010-05:00

This is an extended argument against head-to-head standings for fantasy football, and in favor of Cross Country standings. The concise explanation of Cross Country standings is below in bold.

In many games, head-to-head matchups are fantastic: one side competes to defeat the other, with the chance to directly confront and influence the opponent. You try to get a ball into a basket; I try to stop you. I'm trying to get a ball past a line; I have to get it past you first. You're trying to hit a ping pong ball past me, and I'm trying to hit that same ping pong ball past you.

But in some games, head-to-head matchups don't make sense, because the competitors can't directly influence each others' performance. Think about a golf tournament. Golf is best thought of as an individual sport in the purest sense: the individual competitor is competing against himself/herself to get the best score he/she possibly can. If you and I are in a golf tournament, you can have no direct impact on my score, and I can have no direct impact on your score. We can't block each other's putts: we can only each try to have the lowest score possible.

And how do golf tournaments work? Many competitors play their rounds, and at the end of the competition, the golfer with the lowest score wins the tournament, the golfer with the second-lowest score finishes second, the golfer with the third-lowest score finishes third, yada yada yada. That's the most logical and fair way to organize such a competition.

What if you structured golf tournaments differently? What if you just paired up everybody in the tournament with head-to-head matchups? In a given tournament, half the competitors would get a win, and half the competitors would get a loss (maybe there would be some ties in there). But would a bunch of single Ws and Ls really convey what happened during that golf tournament? Would we really look at that and come away with an understanding of who had the best week? And would it be fair? What happens if the second-best golfer gets paired against the best golfer? That golfer might defeat every other competitor in the tournament, but still get a loss. Think in more detail. Golfer A might shoot a -3, but be paired against a golfer shooting a -5; Golfer B might shoot a +1, but be paired against a golfer shooting a +4. At the end of the tournament, Golfer A shot a -3, Golfer B shot a +1, but Golfer A gets an L, and Golfer B gets a W.

How does that make any sense? The golfers in each matchup had no opportunity to directly influence their opponents' scores. Sure, they could have a psychological impact, and how close the matchup is might influence the golfers to play more aggressively or more safely. But that's not a direct impact. It wouldn't be fair, and in my view, it wouldn't be nearly as fun to follow.

And that's what the majority of you suckers do in your fantasy football leagues. You have no chance to impact your opponent's score, yet you get paired up in a matchup as if you can. You might score better than the majority of your league, but still get an L because of the matchup. It's moronic.

So what can be done? Total Points is probably the fairest way to determine a league champion: the goal of fantasy football is to score as many points as possible, and the total points for the season recognizes that. However, Total Points is not very fun to follow on a week-to-week basis: you don't get to follow football every week for a direct, immediate, substantial impact on your fantasy fortunes. You don't get to monitor your own team and others', fretting every extra yard, watching the fourth quarter of a Monday Night game with passion and anxiety for a late touchdown. It all adds up, but there's no immediacy and few big joyous moments. And fantasy football is supposed to be fun.

Head-to-head competition is moronic. Total points is not exciting. But there is a better way.

We call it Cross-Country Scoring.

Each week, every team competes against every other team. If there are ten teams in the league, the team with the most points that week defeated everybody else, thus going 9-0. The team with the second-most points defeated eight other teams, but lost to one team, thus going 8-1. Yada Yada Yada, the team with the least points was defeated by everybody, thus going 0-9.

Weekly Scores:
Most points: 9-0
2nd: 8-1
3rd: 7-2
4th: 6-3
5th: 5-4
6th: 4-5
7th: 3-6
8th: 2-7
9th: 1-8
10th: 0-9

These are the wins and losses for the single week. For the season standings, wins and losses from every week continue to be added up. Each week, your wins and losses for that week are added to your wins and losses for the season total. Teams scoring the same number of points in a single week have a tie, and a tie will be included in the standings for the week and the season.

The fantasy season goes all 17 weeks (no playoffs). At the end of the season, the team with the most wins is the league champion.

This is a much fairer system for standings; you get ranked where you deserve to be ranked for the week, with no matchup flukes to worry about.

It's also wildly exciting. Think about watching a Monday Night game, and how it might influence your fantasy week. If you're in head-to-head matchup, the game might be interesting to you. But if neither you nor your opponent has any players going Monday, you probably don't care. If your head-to-head matchup is a blowout that week, you probably don't care. But imagine the game differently. Imagine going into Monday night, every team in your league is competing against every other. A lot of the teams in the league will have no players going Monday, and their scores will be fixed. But a lot of teams will have players going, with opportunities to move up the weekly standings. Whether you have players going Monday Night or not, you probably have a fantasy interest in the game. You could move past somebody, or somebody could move past you. Monday Night's performances might be the difference between going 7-3 or 3-7. You could pass multiple people in the weekly standings...or multiple people could pass you in the standings. There will be several fantasy starters in the game, and what they do will matter directly to you.

Think about how wild and fun that is. And really, that isn't just happening Monday Night: you have a direct fantasy interest in virtually every NFL game you watch. And with no playoff and a league season going 17 weeks, this system keeps more league members interested in fantasy football later into the season than a head-to-head league with a playoff (where teams are eliminated from the fantasy season before the real NFL season is over).

This may sound complicated, difficult to keep track of. Admittedly, it is more complex to follow than to just look at the lineups in your head-to-head matchup (but that's exactly what makes it great). But it's not difficult to monitor. Just set your online league system to total points scoring, and then have one commissioner that tallies the scores at the end of the week to turn the scores into wins and losses, and post it on a message board, email, or blog. It usually takes me five minutes at the end of the Monday Night game (I also post the scores through Sunday night, so people know what matters Monday). That's it. If you want more details or examples about how this part works, just ask.

Look, I apologize for the abrasive attention getters. One of the great things about fantasy football is how decentralized it really is: all sorts of leagues with different traditions and different rules based on the preferences (sometimes eccentric or esoteric) of the members. I'm not interested in creating a homogenized, universal fantasy football rulebook. I'm telling you about the flaws of head-to-head and the benefits of Cross Country standings because I think you'll have more fun with Cross Country standings. Head-to-head is a major flaw at the core of most fantasy football leagues, and I think most people just haven't thought of an alternative. Well, here it is. This is your alternative.

Join the revolution. Just try it. You'll have more fun.

Questions? Objections?

Previously

Fantasy Football: if you play head to head, you are a sucker.

Fantasy Football: the flaw of head-to-head illustrated.

Fantasy Football Issues.

Fantasy: Against Head to Head.

Fantasy: The Revolution Continues.

(image by Louis-Leopold Boilly via Wikipedia).

Addendum

It's worth emphasizing that in Cross-Country standings, you still have head-to-head competitions--you just have a head-to-head competition with every other team every week. Let's say your players are done on Sunday afternoon and you have 70 points, and going into Sunday night I have 60 points but Frank Gore playing. I'm still watching that game hoping for Frank Gore to get 10+ points so I can pass you, and whether I pass you or not is still the difference between a W or an L. It's just this W might mean not 0-1 or 1-0, but 4-5 or 5-4, and that there are yet other teams that I'm hoping to get past, and other teams behind me I'm hoping don't pass me--there are more Ws and Ls in play. So the tension of watching to see if your players can score enough to put you past a particular opponent: it's still there. It's just there multiple times a week.

Projecting Brett Favre's 2010 Stats

2010-08-18T10:44:00.011-05:00

I have a crazy simple idea for projecting Brett Favre's 2010 statistics. I'm just going to take take the average of his 2008 and 2009 numbers and predict his 2010 numbers to roughly match that average. I think at his age, in this pass-friendly league, these are the numbers to expect.

Brett Favre's 2008-2009 average:

353-526.5 (67%), 3,837 yards, 27.5 TDs, 14.5 INTs

It's stupidly simple, but if you come back to read this blog post in January (and why on earth wouldn't you?), I think you'll see Brett Favre's numbers pretty close to the line above. Interestingly, this is almost identical to Favre's 2007 season (356-535, 66.5%, 4,155 yards, 28 TDs, 15 INTs).

Given the potential of the Vikings' running game, defense, and special teams, I would be ecstatic with those numbers. If Favre produces like that, the Vikings win 10+ games and compete for the Super Bowl.

Recently

Favre!

Brett Favre!

Addendum

Back at practice (Vikings.com).

At the front page of Vikings.com, you can watch a neat little highlight video of Favre from 2009 (which also serves as a reminder how good some of the Viking WRs are).

Favre!

2010-08-18T00:20:00.000-05:00

I can see why people who aren't Viking fans get tired of this. It all seems so theatrical, melodramatic, overblown. As a Viking fan, I sort of love this. It's all pretty exciting and dramatic.

I want to come back to, and highlight, some things Mark Wald wrote about Favre at Cold, Hard Football Facts:

"But none of that matters, because the guy’s a little weird. You know, can’t make up his mind, that sort of thing [...]

"The big knock on Favre these days is, of course, his waffling on retirement.

"Big deal. Hell, I’ve been trying to take Friday off from work the last six weeks. Gone so far as to schedule vacation, tell the boss, and make alternate plans. Then I end up coming in anyway because I just can’t tear myself away from the place I love it so much.

"Apparently that makes me and Favre the world’s biggest d-bags.

"And how about the fact he’s holding the poor Vikings hostage? You know, the Vikings, those trusting souls who had no clue he just might take a little while to make up his mind.

Look, if your neighbor’s wife is stepping out and he doesn’t care, then why should we? The Vikings either have the world’s biggest case of Stockholm Syndrome or they went into this with their eyes wide open. Maybe your neighbor’s wife makes one hell of a meat loaf."

I think Wald makes a good point. Maybe as a person, Favre is a bit of a flake. He's indecisive and emotional. He likes attention. He has trouble making up his mind whether, as a man old by football standards and a multimillionaire, he'd rather enjoy his life, or play a physically and mentally challenging game that he loves again. But really, who cares? Is being indecisive such a gigantic character flaw to justify the vitriol often directed at Favre? It doesn't seem like that big a deal.

But I'm glad too that now we have substance. When Favre is tooling around Mississippi and the Vikings make vague, meaningless statements, it all seems a little vaporous. His absence is so noticeable even as there is really nothing to say about it. When I see Favre on video showing up in Minnesota, talking to people with the team, it's solid. Now those personality issues, the media attention, all of that, doesn't really matter. Favre is now a football player, working with the football team. What's going to matter is on the field. He's here for the year: there's no more speculation or non-story to discuss.

Look, I don't feel that great about the Vikings' 2010 season. I really feel like 2009 was the opportunity: things came together beautifully, and the Vikes were in an NFC Championship Game that they had every chance to win, but they blew it. I don't think they'll win the Super Bowl this season. Rationally, anyway.

Emotionally, I'm ready to get back on for the ride. I'll believe anything. I'll start having dreams about the day after a Super Bowl win again. Emotionally, I'm back. Emotionally, I'll follow this team closely all season in that desperate hope that this is it, this is the year, the year it all finally happens.

Links

Getting Favre back (Tim Yotter, Mark Craig, Damon Hack, Judy Battista, Mark Kriegel, NFL.com).

One reason (Kevin Seifert).

It will be tough (Dan Wetzel).

It changes the NFC and NFC North (Dan Graziano).

Now it's about substance (Matt Bowen).

Brett Favre!

2010-08-17T16:56:00.004-05:00

He's back in town. He's back with the Vikings (Star Tribune).

Last year, the expectation was that Favre would be a caretaker, not asked to do too much as a dominant run-first offense featuring Adrian Peterson protected him from overuse. Instead, the passing game overtook the running game, the running game often struggled, and the Vikings were at their best when Favre was winging it all over the field to a vast array of talented pass catchers.

In 2010, Viking fans have to hope for something in between last year's expectation and reality. The Vikes can't rely on Favre to duplicate last year: if they can get 85-90% of that production again, they'll be fine. But if Adrian Peterson and the offensive line become as dominant as they were in 2007 and 2008, and Favre is able to provide legitimate playmaking through the pass, the Viking offense could be virtually unstoppable.

(side note: I'm starting to feel superstitious. My wife found a purple rubber Viking bracelet this weekend and asked me what to do with it; I immediately just put it on and haven't taken it off. In that time the Vikes dominated a preseason game, Percy Harvin returned to the team, and Sidney Rice started cutting. This morning I actually put on a t-shirt with Brett Favre and AP on it--sure, it was partly the memory that Favre joined the team on the Tuesday after last year's first preseason game, but still--now he's back. Of course I was superstitious last year when I wore a different Viking shirt every day for two weeks during the playoffs...but today is a day to be happy, not to be recalling old hurts. Skol!).

Addendum

1. How fun is it to watch the local news networks go around to talk to Viking rubes? I love Viking rubes.

2. Semi-serious question: right now, is Brett Favre the most beloved figure in Minnesota?

3. Make your own comment on Vikings.com's photo gallery of Favre.

On seeing where Tony Dungy is coming from

2010-08-17T02:09:00.006-05:00

Tony Dungy doesn't like Rex Ryan's swearing, and in fact wouldn't want to hire him because of it (Shutdown Corner). OK, that sounds pretty stupid. But I think I see where Dungy is coming from: it's not about curse words, but about what curse words connote.

If you've followed Dungy's career, you know that he has a very even-keep approach to coaching. He keeps calm and poised, and he wants his team to keep calm and poised. Instead of getting too up or too down about anything, Dungy keeps a professional approach, and it's that approach that I think accounts for Dungy's remarkable consistency in his coaching record. Stay calm, stay professional.

Profanity quite frequently (though not always) can be a break from that even-keel attitude. Some people and social groups swear quite casually (I've no problem with it). But think about what swear words often convey. Frustration. Anger. Perplexity. People often swear when they lose their temper, when they lose their cool, when they lose their calm poise. Furthermore, sometimes profanity isn't just an effect of losing cool, but can cause others to lose their cool. It's about atmosphere. It's about environment.

Dungy doesn't want to be around that, and if he's building an organization, he doesn't want the other members of the organization around that. He doesn't seem to say such people shouldn't coach; he's saying that if he is running an organization, he thinks that swearing creates a negative vibe. He says he wouldn't want his players around that. He's had a remarkably successful coaching career doing things his way; it's understandable that if he were running an organization, he'd want it run the way he's coached. It's not about the swearing: it's about maintaining positive, professional calm. And I think in this way I agree with Dungy: if I were in charge of running an organization, and I was hiring managers to plan strategies, work in pressure situations, and (most importantly) supervise, utilize, and motivate employees, I would find excessive profanity a turnoff.

I mean, think about this: when adults use profanity in their professional contexts, what does it usually mean? And how do other professionals respond to somebody using profanity? How do you respond to a superior swearing at you? The answers to these questions depend a great deal on your field, of course. And profanity is not inherently the problem (my friends, family, and even my students know I'm not a prude or an innocent when it comes to profanity). People can swear and still be even-keel, and people can refrain from swearing and be a complete up-and-down mess. But from a certain point of view, isn't there something a little silly about adult professionals swearing?* Is it possible it creates a certain unhinged atmosphere, where people are a little more on edge, a little more keen to give in to anger, frustration, or perplexity?

I think it is possible.

I also think critique of Dungy's stance (like Chris Chase's at Shutdown Corner) is valid. I think swearing can often be natural, can often be good-natured, and can often still come in an atmosphere and context of calm poise. I even think Rex Ryan knows what sort of environment he's trying to create with his team. But I can see where Tony Dungy is coming from.

* from another certain point of view, isn't it a bit silly to devote any angst whatsoever to adults swearing? Yes. Yes, it is.

Sidney Rice!

2010-08-16T22:46:00.000-05:00

Progress, evidently (PFT, Strib). I'm still worried.

Percy Harvin!

2010-08-16T12:26:00.003-05:00

He's back! (ESPN).

As much as fretting Favre, I've been fretting Percy Harvin and Sidney Rice being available, healthy, and prepared for the start of the season. I now fret slightly less.

Sage! and other preseason thoughts

2010-08-14T22:17:00.004-05:00

Vikings-Rams Box Score (ESPN)

My crazy optimism-fueled fantasies about Sage Rosenfels aren't going away. Sure, he was doing what he did against backups, but he was also doing what he did with backups. He's an accurate thrower: he was regularly putting the ball in a receiver's hands, and sometimes the backup he was throwing to caught it, and sometimes he didn't. He's the guy currently on the roster that I trust to stand in the pocket, throw accurate passes, and complete passes downfield. Sage, your fan club includes a) your family b) some alumni at Iowa State, c) Rick Spielman, and d) me. Here's what I think: Sage Rosenfels has the ability to be an NFL starter, so when you stick him in a preseason game surrounded by backups and going against backups, he's the guy that will stand out. OK, it wasn't perfect: some of his passes were off target, and you could see the proclivity for turnovers hanging around his game. But I think he'd get more out of the Vikings' skill position players than Tarvaris Jackson can.

Other thoughts on this game:

Sam Bradford has a good arm (and I get frightened thinking of all the young QB prospects in the NFC), but he might take 90 sacks this season playing on that team. The Rams' offense looks awful.

I like Garrett Mills.

I like Chris Cook.

The Vikings' backup offensive linemen look terrible. The starters need to be healthy for this season to be successful.

Find a way to keep Joe Webb on the roster: he's fast and while his arm looks a little wild right now, he also has some touch and could develop.

So, Viking fans: those of us who spent a Saturday night watching preseason football are in a bad way. Those of us who read blogs about the game are probably worse. And those who actually blog about it? There's no hope for those lost souls.

Blizzard: the Vikings sort of play tonight

2010-08-14T11:07:00.006-05:00

Vikings

If you compare preseason football to regular season football, it's awful, sure. But if you think of it as a glorified scrimmage...well, I'd watch a Vikings scrimmage on TV. And I'd enjoy it. Maybe for a quarter.

Percy Harvin, not around (PFT, Star Tribune).

Bob Sansevere talks to Darrell Bevell (Pioneer Press).

Kevin Seifert is watching the Viking CBs (ESPN).

You won't believe this: an article about how Tarvaris Jackson is handling the current situation around him! I wish somebody had told me five years ago how much of my attention would be devoted to this guy (Viking Update).

Mark Wald with a lot of reasonable points about Brett Favre (and reaction to him) (Cold Hard Football Facts).

League

Randy Freaking Moss.

Fantasy

Fantasy football is a strange thing, especially after drafting a team. I've added some Colts-focused sites to my regular sports reading because I have so many key Colts on my fantasy team. And I do regular news searches on shitty RBs that I'm counting on. So...Michael Bush, everybody!

I've already drafted my teams, and I continue to monitor four of these 10 things Sigmund Bloom tells me to monitor (New York Times).

Ten players Chris Harris really likes (ESPN). I worry that Donald Brown will be my new Laurence Maroney: the guy I expect to explode this year, who disappoints but does just enough that next year I'm calling him the guy I expect to explode this year, and he'll disappoint but do just enough... If I drafted an entire team of these guys, Vince Young would be the captain and Vernon Davis would...wait a minute, Vernon Davis did explode last year! So it does happen! OK, I will keep drafting Maroney, Brown, and Young whenever I can. Especially Vince Young, because it generally requires a dollar at the end of an auction. I keep thinking he'll be crazy good, one of these years. I'm a true Vince Young believer.

Other

Viking fans: we've got Al Franken!

Vegetarians: we got Lefty!

Umm...

On Overtime

2010-08-14T08:50:00.005-05:00

Life is often quite seasonal. Minnesotans (and others) who have slogged through the recent heat and humidity know that in a few months we'll be surrounded by snow and facing temperatures below zero (and that this changes everything). The shift for teachers between August and September can only be described as a change in lifestyle. So, too, is life seasonal for a football fan: if you're a die-hard, everything will be different in about a month. And there are some things we can do to prepare for it. One thing I've done is adjust my web browser: sites for football box scores, news, and stats are prominent and easy to reach, as I'll be reaching them quickly and frequently soon. Another thing I've done is clean up the DVR: football season puts quite a strain on its capacity, so I need to make as much room as possible. With that in mind, I finally got around to finishing the 1994 Vikings-Bears overtime game that has been saved in my DVR for months.

Overtime is a funny thing. To get there, one team must play another team to a dead heat, to match up so evenly that in the allotted time for a game, one team is not better than the other. An overtime game means that for sixty minutes, two teams played each other evenly. Sure, it doesn't mean just that: sometimes flukes, luck, and mistakes mean one team far outplays another and still ends up in a close game (that goes either way). But basically, accounting for all of that, the score means two teams were dead even. Yet, a winner must still be declared: no matter how even the teams are, one team gets a W and the other gets the L.

That Viking-Bear game was a little weird. Really, I would say neither team played very well. The score was as high as it was (27-27 through regulation) because of turnovers and special teams play. Neither offense really showed much: the Bears couldn't run the ball at all, the Vikes didn't score an offensive touchdown until the fourth quarter (and required fourth down to do that). But the defenses weren't exactly dominant, either: they each occasionally looked hapless giving up pass plays. It was really two mediocre teams, whose strengths (like the Bears' special teams, or the Vikings' run defense) and weaknesses (like the Bears lack of explosive offensive talent, or the Vikings' pass defense) played each other to a fair draw. But somebody had to win.

What happened in overtime? The Bears won the toss and got the ball, then marched down the field passing on the Vikings. On a key third down they got stuffed with a run up the middle (which the Vikes had been stuffing all game), and Kevin Butler, he of the single-bar helmet, misses a game-winning field goal. The Vikings get the ball back, and end up winning on a nifty little play to Cris Carter: he goes in motion, gets a linebacker covering him, goes for a quick out but turns upfield, catches the ball just past the linebacker, uses fine footwork to stay in bounds, runs downfield and avoids a chasing safety to run into the endzone. Ballgame.

How did the Vikings win this game? They played an opponent to a draw. In overtime, the defense struggled, allowing Chicago to move into field goal position. Then a conservative Chicago team ran their weakness into the Viking strength. Chicago missed a field goal. Then the Vikings created a bigger offensive play than they were able to create in 60 minutes of regulation.

They played evenly. Then, for the Vikes to win, the Chicago kicker had to miss a makeable kick. Then they had to get their one big offensive play of the game. If things go differently, maybe NFL Network is still showing the game on TV a decade and a half later, but I'm probably not watching it. Watching the game now, I could sense the euphoria of a fan seeing Butler miss that kick (though I knew he would), and seeing Cris Carter catch and run for the game-winner (though I knew he would). If that happened today, I'd have waves of euphoria carrying me for a week. Still...two teams played each other evenly.

I'm actually in favor of the NFL abolishing regular season overtime. Would we really be hurt by ties? Would we be less entertained watching coaches decide whether to play not for either overtime or a win, but a tie or a win? Would we have less to talk about? Wouldn't the fourth quarter be more intense? Wouldn't the final standings be simpler to order? Wouldn't it be more fair? Wouldn't teams play it differently, and maybe more interestingly, without it? Is it the end of the world if we as fans, watching on TV or in person, got entertained by 60 minutes of football and came away with both teams playing evenly? We'd miss on the ecstasy of victory and the agony of defeat, sure. But I think it would be better--and certainly better than the idiotic sudden death overtime where the percentages give a major advantage to a team winning a coin toss.

But there are still playoffs, and so there still must be some way to determine a winner of a playoff game when two teams score evenly through 60. You can't have ties in the playoffs. I'm glad the NFL changed the playoff OT rule away from sudden death (and think they should, and will, extend it to the regular season eventually). Playoff overtime reflects the excitement and intensity of the playoff game itself: everything that has happened that season comes down to this single game, where one team wins and moves on and the other team ends its season with a loss. It's why we love the playoffs. It's why it's fun to watch, why it matters.

But I will say, seeing the Vikings lose two NFC Championship games in overtime is a bit much. I've thought for a while that if the Packers win another Super Bowl before the Vikings win their first, I'll have a hard time following football for the offseason: it just wouldn't be fun anymore (though I'd probably come around in September). But seeing the Vikings lose an NFC Championship game in overtime for a third time in my life, I'd probably just shut football down for a while. It just wouldn't be fun anymore. I've sort of recovered from my sports nervous breakdown of January (sort of. There are some big scars lingering from that freaking game that won't really go away until the Vikings actually win the Super Bowl). Being so close to the Super Bowl, then losing in overtime again? I'd wince every time I saw the color purple.

Brad Childress

2010-08-12T09:05:00.001-05:00

Elizabeth Merrill has a long profile on Brad Childress and his background (ESPN).

Shrug and post

2010-08-10T22:56:00.006-05:00

I had this mythology of timing built up in my head. The 1976 Minnesota Vikings went 11-2-1 in the regular season, and won their NFC playoff games by 15 and 11 points. They got to the Super Bowl, where they got throttled by the 13-1 Oakland Raiders, a team in the midst of five straight AFC Championship Game appearances. The 1977 Vikings weren't as good and missed the Super Bowl, where they would have faced the Denver Broncos, a team that got shellacked by the Cowboys and really wasn't a major playoff factor in the '70s outside of that one season. If the timing had been different, if the Viking decline didn't begin in '77, if the Vikings had peaked a year later, they could have been the ones shellacking Denver, right? Denver was a fluke Super Bowl team, right? That was the year they actually could have actually won, instead of all those other years playing the likes of Pittsburgh, Miami, and Oakland (that Kansas City upset and Drew Pearson's pushoff to cost the '75 Vikings a Super Bowl notwithstanding), right?

Well, funny things happen when you look at the numbers. The '77 Broncos were 12-2, featured the league's top run defense, and had some better internal numbers than the '76 Raiders (the '76 Raiders ranked 7th in point differential with 8.1 ppg, the '77 Broncos ranked 3rd with 9.0 ppg, the Raiders had 10.0 expected wins, the Broncos 11.4). Well, mightn't the Vikings gotten pummeled by the Broncos that year, too?

Why am I bothering to write this? Because I had a nice little post planned about the luck of timing, about cosmic hazard, and did a little research for it. I might have compared the Vikings to the Seattle Supersonics of the mid-90s (good records but lost in the first playoff round during both seasons of the Jordan vacuum, then busted through to the Finals during Jordan's return and the 72 win season--bad timing for peaking). Then I did a little research and my fun little post about Chronos fell to pieces all around me when I learned the '77 Broncos were good. If I were a paid columnist on a deadline, I might either go with the idea anyway (frame it the way I want, ignoring contradictory evidence), abandon the idea and call some contacts to see if I could build a column out of an interview (hey there, Minnesota player X, what's been different during Y?), or I'd bluster about something that's easy to bluster about. But my deadlines have to do with preparing syllabi for fall (just a few short steps away from being done), and I blog for amusement (either my own or yours, as long as somebody is entertained). So when my post idea falls apart around me, I just tell you about it.

PV's Sleeper WRs, and Fake-Sleeper WRs

2010-08-10T20:51:00.006-05:00

Sleepers

My definition of a sleeper WR: a player few regard as a starter before the season (or at best, a fringe #3 starter), that will produce like a starter and be recognized as such at the end of the year. Michael Crabtree: not a sleeper. I see no ceiling on him and expect him to far exceed his draft value, but if you draft Crabtree, you're expecting starter production, and will be disappointed with less. Another thing that's not a sleeper? A flier. You can't just name a bunch of young, so-far-unproductive WRs and call them sleepers. There are dozens and dozens of WRs that haven't done anything yet but might break out. I'm listing guys I believe will break out.

Mike Wallace

I love everything about "Where's Wallace?" As a rookie he was a distant 4th in receptions on the Steelers, he's an explosive deep threat that should see more bombs coming his way with the absence of Santonio Holmes. The Steelers may throw less, but Holmes should get more targets as the #2 WR.

Kenny Britt

Shall I list the things I know about Kenny Britt?

1. He went to Rutgers.

2. He was a first round pick last season.

3. He had some nice downfield plays last season, gaining 701 yards.

4. He evidently has a lot of traffic tickets.

5. The Titans are a run-first team that hasn't had a real #1 WR since Derrick Mason left, and they've been desperately tagging somebody to take that role for years.

Yet I still like him.

Bernard Berrian

Two weeks ago Berrian wasn't on this list. But Sidney Rice hasn't practiced in camp yet, Percy Harvin has missed many practices for personal reasons and is still dealing with migraines, and suddenly Berrian looks like a legitimate option. In 2007 and 2008, healthy Berrian got mediocre to awful quarterbacking and totaled over 950 yards each season. He was dealing with injuries all of 2009. Now healthy goes into 2010 with the potential of good quarterbacking, and he's a much more likely pass target for his team than he seemed a few weeks ago. That's bad news for the Vikings, good news if you draft Berrian.

Mohamed Massaquoi

Cleveland completed 49.4% of its passes last season, and only threw for 2,255 and 11 touchdowns. Let's say Jake Delhomme, a career 59.2% passer averaging 205 yards per game, brings the Cleveland air game from more-awful-than-can-be-described to decidedly-mediocre. Let's say Delhomme completes 55-59% of his passes, and the Browns, by completing more of their pass attempts get more yards, and by completing more of their pass attempts sustain drives (thus get more attempts), get up to 3,000-3,200 yards passing. Does Massaquoi's 624 yards receiving turn into 1,000+? I think it does.

Johnny Knox

Speed. Mike Martz. Speed. Mike Martz. Speed. Mike Martz. I debate considering him a flier, but I'll take a risk and call him a sleeper. Wait a minute: what risk? I write for free on a blog, I don't gamble, I don't play fantasy football leagues for money. This is a non-risk. Well, screw it, I'll go out on a non-limb and call Johnny Knox a sleeper. Plus, he has a kick-ass football player name. I think I'll just call him Mox.

Jeremy Maclin

I debate putting Maclin in the Crabtree you-are-supposed-to-produce category, but I'm guessing a lot of people see him as a fringe #3 WR. I think he's better than that. The Eagles throw a ton, and if a) Kevin Kolb is more accurate than McNabb, and b) Andy Reid calls shorter, safer, easier routes for Kolb, Maclin could be a major target.

Fake Sleepers

Have you ever had a reason to pretend to be asleep? Me too. So are these guys: a lot of people think they're sleeping, but I think they're just pretending.

Pierre Garcon

I want to like Garcon: he's young, he's a legitimate deep threat, and he's in a pass-happy offense with the most reliable QB in the league wanting to throw deep. But I can't help but thinking that Reggie Wayne is Manning's #1 target, Dallas Clark is his #2, and after that he'll throw to whomever is on the field between Garcon, Austin Collie, Anthony Gonzalez, Joseph Addai, and Donald Brown. Garcon is enough a deep threat that he'll make big plays and have good games, but I expect he'll put up enough dud games that you'll regret starting him.

I like old Rock Boy, I really do. I just don't see him as a fantasy starter yet.

Hakeem Nicks

With 56.4 receiving yards per game as a rookie in 2009, Nicks looks like a breakout player. Until you look at Eli Manning's passing yards for his previous four seasons: 3244, 3336, 3238, and 4021. If the Giants' running game and defense improves in 2010, could Manning revert to around 3,200 yards passing again? I think so. Is a return toward the mean possible? I think so. If Manning doesn't throw for 4,000 yards again, he'd have to be targeting Nicks hard (at the expense of Steve Smith and Mario Manningham) for Nicks to get to 1,000 yards. Nicks is a nice deep threat, but I don't see the targets required to make him a fantasy starter.

Blizzard

2010-08-10T14:45:00.000-05:00

Vikings

Percy Harvin (Kevin Seifert)

Percy Harvin's migraines (Sports Illustrated). Just seeing the word "migraine" in print makes me feel bad for Harvin.

Chris Cook (Kevin Seifert, Star Tribune). Cook could be a key player for the Vikings this season: the secondary is the weakness of the defense, so if Cook can elevate their performance... well, that is good.

Albert Young (Pioneer Press).

Bernard Berrian (Pioneer Press).

Sidney Rice (Star Tribune).

The '91 Vikings (pro-football-reference.com).

Husain Abdullah (Yahoo!).

Brett Favre's impact on the Vikings (Advanced NFL Stats).

Jay Glazer with a pretty plausible explanation of last week's text-retirement story (FOX).

Fantasy Heavy

Matthew Berry on statistical facts (ESPN). Berry is probably my favorite fantasy football writer--he regularly delivers many interesting points.

Christopher Harris on some fantasy crutch arguments (we could call them fallacies) (ESPN).

Other

Michael Crabtree (Michael Silver).

In looking at Emmitt Smith, Bill Barnwell examines the difference between a star RB and every other RB carry on his team (Football Outsiders).

QBs under pressure (Football Outsiders).

Troy Polamalu (Fanhouse). Polamalu is probably my favorite non-Viking defensive player. So...there's that.

Fantasy Auction Draft Flexibility

2010-08-09T18:20:00.001-05:00

We're going fantasy football wild here at PV for a few days or weeks. Nobody asked for my advice on approaching an auction draft, but here it is.

Auction drafts are fluid: everything changes as the draft moves along. If you are used to snake drafts and are participating in your first auction, the most important advice you need is to stay flexible. You should have a plan, but you don't know what will happen, and you need to adjust as it goes along. Teams' roster needs shrink, teams' available salaries shrink, sometimes certain positions cost more than others, and as the draft progresses managers' strategies even evolve. But over the years I've seen one factor alter the draft from beginning to end more than any other.

The available talent pool shrinks

With players going off the board, the number of desirable players at each position shrinks. With a diminishing number of elite players, the elite players become more valuable. Going into the draft, you may see little value difference between RB4 and RB5. However, if RB1, 2, 3, and 4 are off the board, RB5 might become more expensive. If two or more managers feel a big dropoff between RB5 and RB6, the bidding can escalate, making RB5 much more expensive than RB3 and RB4.

This year, I only view five running backs as elite: Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Ray Rice, and Frank Gore. After Gore, I just don't like any RBs as my #1. So in the Hazelweird Auction (300 salary cap), after Peterson, Johnson, Jones-Drew, and Rice were drafted, I was committed in the bidding to getting Frank Gore. So was one other manager. Rice had gone for 80, MJD for 99, but the two of us bid Gore up to 111.

I'm not happy about it: I wish I had stayed in the bidding on Rice or MJD. But when you're drafting in an auction, you cannot say "I don't want to pay more for RB5 than RB4 went for," because you might end up with no good RBs. The context of the draft is just too different at different points of the draft. Of course, I could have altered my strategy at that point ("Screw elite RBs--there are other ways to go"), but I didn't.

There is a better argument, however. If there are five elite RBs, and you are really committed to getting one of them, try to get one of the first two or three elite RBs thrown out for bidding. You'll probably get that player relatively cheap, as other managers know there are still other elites available later. But if you wait until all other elite RBs are off the board, and there is only one left, you'll probably have to overpay for that elite RB.

I used RBs in the example here, but in fact I've seen this phenomenon occur more frequently at WR: managers pass on a lot of quality WRs, realize late in the draft there are only a handful of quality WRs left, and then pay through the nose for those guys.

Essentially, there's little reason to save your money in a fantasy auction--spending early often means spending wisely.

The fantasy rock that is Peyton Manning

2010-08-09T09:25:00.000-05:00

Peyton Manning has now played for 12 seasons. He has never missed a game with injury. In every season he has played, he has had at least 3,700 passing yards and 26 passing touchdowns. He's had 10 4,000 yard seasons and five 30+ TD seasons. He has never ranked lower than 7th in passing yards; he's been in the top-three nine times. He has never ranked lower than 5th in passing touchdowns; he's been in the top-three eight times. And he does this despite resting during Week 17 (and sometimes Week 16) so regularly that you even have to build that into your draft plans.

Peyton Manning is the most bankable superstar in fantasy football; if you draft him, he will give you good numbers. Maybe, of course, you have reasons for not using a high pick or auction dollars on a quarterback. The difference between the 1st and 10th QB is smaller than the difference between the 1st and 10th RB. It's easy to get a cheap QB to produce 85-90% of the top QB's production, while it is more difficult (and usually requires luck) to find a cheap RB to produce 85-90% of the top RB's production.

To win a fantasy football championship, you'll need to take some risks. You're going to draft some players knowing they have the potential to bust. You're going to have to take some players for whom you more hope than know you'll get production. But you should also draft players that you know are going to keep your team productive from week to week, who at the end of the season will have provided you with outstanding fantasy numbers.

There's really only one major negative to drafting Peyton Manning: those brutal times of wondering when the Colts will rest starters, and counting on your backups during Week 17 (if your league goes that long). I keep telling myself that won't go on forever, that after something like six straight years of resting starters Week 17, someday the Colts will actually have to play 16 regular season games hard. Someday, I guess.

Predicting This Year's Fantasy RB Bust

2010-08-08T22:10:00.000-05:00

In 2009, there was a fantasy consensus fantasy top-four: Adrian Peterson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Michael Turner, and Matt Forte. Peterson and Jones-Drew met expectations, Turner was effective but injuries caused him to miss five games, and Forte' was a total fantasy bust (and a different player, Chris Johnson, was the dominant fantasy RB).

This was not an atypical situation: usually a consensus of three to five RBs emerges as the elite, you-can-count-on-these-guys fantasy prospects, and almost always at least one of those guys is a total bust. Of course injuries happen: you always know injuries can derail a fantasy season, and RBs are especially prone to missing games, so elite RBs often disappoint because they miss games. But there are also busts that wildly disappoint even when they do play. Go to any year, and you'll likely find a consensus elite RB that struggled to put up meaningful fantasy points even when he played.

This year, there is probably a consensus top four, but I see another guy sneaking in there enough that I'll call it a consensus top five: Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Ray Rice, and Frank Gore. If I had to guess based on past history, two or three of these players will actually meet or exceed expectations, one or more will miss 4+ games with injuries, and one of these players will be a complete and total disappointment even when he does play.

It's impossible to predict who could miss games with injury: that can happen to anybody, even if some players have a scarier injury history in the past. But it's also tremendously difficult to predict the play-but-suck bust: if it were easy, that player wouldn't have been considered an elite prospect to begin with. Last year I would have predicted Turner the bust and Forte a reliable guy whose team context would require him to score a lot of fantasy points, but I was wrong.

Maybe the high bust rate of elite RBs is an argument against spending big money/high picks on RBs, instead choosing the more reliable QBs or WRs for your greatest resources. Or maybe we can try to guess which RB could disappoint.

Adrian Peterson (three consecutive seasons between 1,609 and 1,885 yards from scrimmage), Chris Johnson (two straight between 1,488 and 2,509), and Maurice Jones-Drew (14+ offensive TDs three of four seasons) have put up solid numbers for multiple seasons. Peterson, Johnson, and Jones-Drew are what they are at this point: unless they get injured, they will be consistent fantasy producers who also have tremendously high ceilings. That leaves two guys as possible busts: Frank Gore and Ray Rice.

Frank Gore has four consecutive seasons with 1,400+ yards from scrimmage: he's a very consistent RB. However, he only has one season with 10+ touchdowns. I fully expect 1,400+ yards from scrimmage from Gore once again (and he also has a career high of 2,180, so massive potential is there). But if things go bad for the 49ers, it's entirely possible that Gore puts up those yards with something like 4-8 TDs, which would make him a disappointing fantasy player.

Ray Rice was spectacular last season, rushing for 1,339 yards and catching 78 passes for 702 yards. I don't see a ceiling for Rice. However, he also totaled eight offensive touchdowns last season (seven rushing), even though the Ravens had a total of 22 rushing TDs last season. That's easy math: though Rice was clearly the team's best RB, they still got (or gave) 15 rushing TDs to other players. They're willing to use Rice all sorts of ways, but give goal line touches to other players. Furthermore, 78 catches and 702 receiving yards is outstanding for a RB; it's entirely possible Rice drops to a more conventional total for a good pass catching RB (say, 50 catches for 400 yards). With the addition of Anquan Boldin, some of Rice's targets might move elsewhere. And he's only had one good fantasy season, potentially putting him the the Matt Forte one-great-season-that-looks-like-the-first-in-a-run-of-productive-seasons-but-is-actually-just-one-great-season territory.

Do I think Ray Rice or Frank Gore will be a bust this season? No, I don't (in fact I just took Gore in an auction draft). But then, most fantasy prognosticators don't expect any of the elite RBs to be a bust this season, yet it's quite probable one of them will. If you're trying to guess which elite RB to avoid, I wouldn't be scared of Peterson, Johnson, or Jones-Drew at all, but I'd be a little more leery of Rice or Gore.

WTF

2010-08-04T11:24:00.003-05:00

I'm never paying attention to anything again. Never. Never again.

What now?

2010-08-03T21:06:00.002-05:00

The 2010 Vikings have two dominant strengths, two personnel areas that I think are as good as any in the league.

Defensive Line

Jared Allen, Pat Williams, Kevin Williams, and Ray Edwards make up a disruptive, devastating unit that rushes the passer and smothers the run. The pass rush has been much less effective on grass than on turf, but this is still a unit that can wreck an opposing offense and cover for deficiencies in the secondary.

Skill Positions

Is there an NFL team with skill position talent that you would prefer to the Vikings? They have an elite RB in Adrian Peterson, a good red zone TE in Visanthe Shiancoe, and a diverse group of WRs in Sidney Rice, Percy Harvin, and Bernard Berrian that provide deep threat, short threat, runs after the catch, and basically any combination of things you'd want from WRs. Certainly having an elite QB to utilize the talents of those players brings out the best in them, and the Vikes will need at least mediocre quarterbacking to get to the playoffs. But remember 2007, when the Vikings' top receiving threat was Bobby Wade? Those days are long past.

I think the Vikings might need to get creative offensively: there are some things they can do with Jackson, Peterson, and Harvin in the backfield that could really electrify the field. It's also evident that if Jackson is again the starter, the focus of the team leans more on the run, so the run blocking of the offensive line will need to be more effective, and Toby Gerhart will need to provide something on 5-10 carries a game.

What do the 2010 Vikings do without Brett Favre? My guess is they eke out 8-10 wins, lose 2-3 games that they should have won, maybe get into the playoffs, and in the playoffs probably lose, but with matchups and luck, who the hell knows. The strengths of this team are enough to make them competitive any week (as has been true for most of the Childress era, actually), but the weaknesses (serious questions about the quarterback and the secondary, for starters) probably prevent them from being an elite team again. But I'll hope, because it's better to cheer with hope.

Two nights ago I had a dream that the Vikings started out 2-0; in particular, Pat Williams was just running around crushing people. For you, dear reader, I'll put my crazy purple optimism on once again. We'll get through this season together.

Oh. My. God.

2010-08-03T11:16:00.003-05:00

I believe nothing until it's Thursday night against the Saints and Tarvaris Jackson ambles out of the huddle to the line of scrimmage. But Oh. My. God. Looks like I need to find that old Vikings blanket of mine, curl up with it, cry, and try talk myself into the Tarvaris Jackson Experience (again).

2010 Vikings v. 2009 Vikings: what breaks won't be the same?

2010-07-31T12:31:00.008-05:00

I've turned what was going to be an extended comment from below into a new post.

Here are the positives from 2009 that we cannot count on for 2010.

1. Schedule. The Vikes got to play the lousy NFC West, going 3-1. They played two AFC playoff teams, but got them both at home (winning both). On the proverbial paper, the 2010 schedule looks a lot tougher. A first round bye in the competitive NFC will be tougher to come by.

2. Holding off a good Packer team twice. The Packers were 11-5: the Vikes weren't that much better than them. In both games, the Vikes got big leads with a great passing game and dominant pass rush. In both games, the Packers came back and made a game of it when they went to all-throw mode and so the Viking pass rush couldn't succeed for three straight downs every time. The Vikings also got the Packers in the first half of the season, when they were still struggling awfully in pass protection, and Rodgers was holding the ball way too long. They and he got better in the second half. I don't expect a Packer sweep again.

3. Bears stinking. They got us at Soldier Field (as always), but stunk in the Dome game and weren't a division contender. Will Cutler suck that bad again? And nemesis Julius Peppers playing us twice? That's a nightmare. The good thing is that a better Bears team also means better competition for the Packers.

4. Favre's career year. Last year he had a career low in INTs (excluding his four attempt rookie season), career best completion percentage, and his first career 100 rating. It's possible that, playing with his experience and these teammates, that is now the player he is. But I'd expect at least modest regression, plus we'd be counting on him playing that well at 41. 41!

5. No outdoor playoff games. Will we be that lucky again? It's possible, but no guarantee. The Vikings still struggle on grass, especially defensively, where the pass rush seems significantly less dominant.

6. Postponed suspensions for Kevin Williams and Pat Williams. Actually, we can probably count on that lucky break again in 2010, but it was a lucky break in 2009 that is worth including here.

Now, here are some of the negatives from 2009 that perhaps the Vikings can improve on or avoid (here's where the pessimism comes in: above is a list of things that mostly, reasonably and analytically speaking, I would expect not to break our way again. Below is a list of things I hope for, but also can't count on).

1. Injury luck. I don't know if the Vikings had worse injury luck than is typical, or compared to other teams. But we lost Antoine Winfield for a big stretch, E.J. Henderson for the end of season and playoffs, Pat Williams for a key late-season game (a loss), Bernard Berrian had sub-par health all season, etc. But will it be better in 2010? Already Henderson and Cedric Griffin are coming back from brutal injuries, Sidney Rice has a hip issue, a lot of key players are a bit old, etc. I don't know that the injury situation will improve.

2. Run blocking. The offensive line did a much better job in pass protection last season than I imagined, but the run blocking was not nearly what it had been in 2007 and 2008. If that becomes a greater focus, then Adrian Peterson might perform more like he did in 2007 and 2008. But the personnel is the same: the improvement needs to come in execution, playcalling, focus, player improvement, etc.

3. Defensive interceptions. The Vikes have a terrific pass rush, yet the defense had very few INTs last season. I think it's something of a fluke, and the Vikings will have more picks this season.

They finally broke me.

2010-07-29T11:12:00.003-05:00

As the Vikings get ready to start training camp, I think about all the other years the Vikings got ready for training camp. After the '98 season, I began every Viking season believing sincerely that this--THIS--was the year the Vikings were finally going to win the Super Bowl. You may look back and think I was deranged going into '01, '02, '03, '06, '07, or maybe even all of them, but for each season, I had reasons to believe that this was it.

And now, as the Vikings get ready for the 2010 season, I have to be honest: I do not believe the Vikings will win the Super Bowl this year. For the first time in over a decade, I do not have that unbridled hope. Everything went right in 2009 but they blew the NFC Championship Game with turnovers and a 12 men in the huddle penalty. I just don't believe 2010 can be better. I can talk myself into it, and I'm sure there are moments where I have real hope. But mostly, I don't believe. My spirits have finally been crushed by this team.

But you know what? That's OK. All my believing never actually willed the Vikings to a Super Bowl, so it doesn't really matter, and the year I don't believe might be the year they actually do it (see how I talk myself into things?). And it's also the best thing for my sports-sanity (barely hanging onto the ledge at this point). Spending every year believing "This is the year!" also means watching every play of every game with intense, emotional, passionate desperation. Maybe that will fade a bit this year (it reached its peak during that NFC Championship game). Maybe I'll enjoy football a little more.

So how about you? Still clinging to the "This is the year!" hopes? It's not like I gave them up; it's more that they were taken away from me.

I like this guy

2010-07-25T21:11:00.001-05:00

Dez Bryant calls bullshit on stupid hazing/seniority bullshit.

My crazy Timberwolves thought

2010-07-21T22:08:00.004-05:00

I'm not going to say David Kahn is doing a good job; in fact, he's made many perplexing moves.

But I wonder if Kahn is acquiring some of the players and many draft picks that will help the T-Wolves one day be a successful, winning franchise. I doubt that's soon and I doubt Kahn will still be there when it happens. It's also a wild grab bag where Kahn is making so many crazy moves that some of them mixed in might just randomly work out (while others are just crazy). But that's the crazy T-Wolves thought I try to talk myself into.

You have a right not to read this post

2010-07-21T07:18:00.007-05:00

Let me go ahead and slap two theses up on the church door (I never claimed to be Martin Luther, and evidently I'm 93 theses short of Martin Luther).

1. When media members complain about media saturation of Favre coverage, they are contributing to and adding to media saturation of Favre coverage.

2. In the age of the internet, and of numerous television, radio, and print sources devoted to sports coverage, it is a bit silly to complain about sports media overcoverage or undercoverage of anything.*

I present these theses because Doug Farrar (who frequently tweets complaints about media saturation of Favre coverage) includes in a Yahoo! Shutdown Corner post these silly sentences:

"The Vikings have a right to know what their quarterback is going to do, whether they think so or not. And we have a right to hear and read about things that have nothing to do with Brett Favre."

The first sentence is obviously flawed: it's nice of Farrar to defend the Vikings' "rights" that they evidently don't care about, but obviously if they wanted to assert this right, they could (the fact that they don't suggests either they know Favre is coming back, or they know he's important to their plans and giving him freedom and little pressure is how to get him to come back). But it's the second sentence there that is absurdly silly (perhaps intentionally so, though the sentiment seems sincere).

Of course "we have a right to hear and read about things that have nothing to do with Brett Favre." All you have to do to assert this right is hear and read about them! Nobody has ever required me to read an article about Brett Favre. Nobody has denied me the right to read or hear about pretty much whatever sports story I want to read or hear about. The internet helps a lot: there are so many people writing about so many things that it is not terribly difficult to find some coverage of whatever it is you're interested in. This is especially the case with a popular sports league like the NFL: search for news or commentary on what you're interested in, and there's a good chance you'll find at least one article. As a fantasy football enthusiast, I've been noting how seemingly every day I come across another article focusing on Steven Jackson, to the point that every day my fantasy opinion of him changes (between July 9th and 20th, there's this, this, this, this, and this). Not only do you have a right to read NFL stories not about Favre, it's extraordinarily easy to do so.

And what if somebody doesn't want to hear about Favre? For that matter, what if I found Steven Jackson dull? Do what Lisa Simpson advises in The Simpsons Halloween episode when the advertising mascots come to life to terrorize the town: just don't look. I regularly check every one of those sites above featuring Steven Jackson articles, but if I wasn't interested in Steven Jackson (am I even interested in Steven Jackson?), all I have to do is not click on those links. If I'm watching a sports television network covering something I'm not interested in, I can switch to another sports television network that might be covering something I'm interested in, or if I insist on learning about sports during this moment I could even lower my eyes from the television to a sports magazine or a newspaper sports page. I have zero interest in learning details about rookie contract negotiations: in early and mid July it doesn't matter, and even once training camps begin the headline pretty much tells me what I want or need to know. Rather than complaining about media coverage of something I'm not interested in, I take the drastic step of not paying attention to media coverage of something I'm not interested in.

Hey, I've got a tag devoted to bad sportswriting: I'm not saying critique of sports media coverage is invalid. And there is sometimes call to complain about overcoverage or undercoverage of a particular story. But this brings us back to the first of my incredible two theses. When media members complain about Favre, complain about his indecision, complain about media overcoverage of Favre, criticize the attention given to Favre or the attention Favre evidently craves, they are talking about Favre. They are contributing to the media attention given to Favre. For the rest of us consumers of media, these complaints about the media's Favre coverage only contribute to the saturation.

So my advice to people like Farrar who are sick of Favre: just don't look. Don't worry about the Vikings' rights: they can probably assert their own. Don't worry about your right to read and hear about other NFL stories: nobody is taking that right away from you. Just don't look.

*specifying "sports media" is important: there are hard news stories for which the type or amount of coverage by mainstream media sources can have real consequences in policy, politics, public behavior, etc. But sports coverage is a bit more like entertainment coverage in its significance.

Addendum

I think I should emphasize thesis one a bit more. One reason I feel that Favre saturates the media is the backlash itself: I regularly come across media commentary criticizing Favre and/or the media's coverage of Favre (recently, here and here*). On the whole, these articles actually add to the saturation of Favre for consumers of media; in effect, media members whose complaint is too much coverage of Favre add to the saturation of Favre coverage simply by complaining at all. Some days it seems I come across more criticism/complain about media coverage of Favre than I come across Favre stories themselves.

I think there is too much media coverage of Favre, but the backlash has contributed to there being even more media coverage of Favre. As I've written before,

"several years ago, a backlash really started to develop (prominently on the internet) against the media's treatment of Favre, to the point that complaints about the media coverage of Favre have become the cliche. Furthermore, Favre's behavior in recent years has led to a lot of criticism from mainstream media sources."

That's what I'm saying: the complaining about media coverage of Favre is often the conventional, uninsightful, predictable cliche commentary itself. Many people are exhausted with the media giving too much attention to Favre; I'm actually exhausted with people complaining about the media giving too much attention to Favre!

*By the way, Adam Schein: when you take your time to make a "Go Away" video to complain about Favre, during which you say "I've been done with Favre for years," well, evidently you weren't.

At least in my sleep

2010-07-20T10:36:00.002-05:00

Once again, I dreamed the Vikings won the Super Bowl. I didn't watch the game; it was the next day and I was (literally) running around with my index fingers waving in air. A Packer fan gave me the middle finger. I was (again literally) running to stores looking for Super Bowl Champion clothes to wear.

Not quite as tormenting as the time I dreamed I traveled back in time to before the NFC Championship game, bumped into the Vikings' skill position players, warned them not to fumble, and proceeded to watch (in specific detail) the Vikings crush the Saints. But haunting and disappointing nonetheless.

Viking Secondary Problems

2010-07-17T11:32:00.002-05:00

Doug Farrar looks at Vikings' secondary problems, and offers a look at how linebacker positioning can help the coverage (Yahoo!).

How speculation becomes a report, and rumor becomes story

2010-07-14T14:44:00.012-05:00

In an NFL.com article, Michael Lombardi includes under the heading "Things I hear..." this nugget:

"The next player to complain about his contract will be Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who missed the mandatory minicamp due to a scheduling conflict."

What is Lombardi's source for this information? Did he hear this from somebody close to Adrian Peterson? An official with the Vikings? Is this gossip among NFL team executives? Is this what Lombardi's friends in the media are talking about? Do deer come into Lombardi's backyard at twilight and whisper NFL secrets to him?

Well, who the hell knows? But unless Lombardi makes a reference to somebody saying this, it is hardly a report. My guess is that this is some speculation and gossip Lombardi has been hearing, probably from a number of directions. My guess is that's why Lombardi put it under the "Things I hear..." category: it's a part of the buzz, a rumor, things NFL people talk about. And it's not exactly out-there speculation: Peterson is an elite player still getting paid under his rookie contract. I would guess that Lombardi is right: at some point Peterson is probably going to want a new, bigger contract, feeling he's outperformed his rookie contract. Speculation in that direction is fairly reasonable.

And I want to make one thing clear: there is nothing wrong with that. Lombardi is trying to write an entertaining July NFL column, and he includes some of the things he hears people talk about to amuse and inform us. That's absolutely fine, as long as we take it for what it is. Unless Lombardi refers to a specific source (even an anonymous source), this is gossip. I can't see anybody reasonably calling this a "report."

Of course things change when you get to Pro Football Talk. Under the headline "Report: Contract confrontation coming for Peterson, Vikings," Michael David Smith refers to Lombardi's mention and writes:

"Michael Lombardi of NFL.com reports that Peterson will be the next NFL player to complain about his contract."

Lombardi "reports"? Under what standard of journalism does it count as a "reporting" that a writer just writes something he hears with no suggestion whatsoever who he's heard it from? Again, nothing wrong with Lombardi's note here: it's the "Things he hears..." bit, and after all, this is one of the things I hear too (from Lombardi!). But there was nothing "reported" by Lombardi (at least not journalistically: I suppose technically Lombardi is reporting things he's heard to us). There's no "story" being reported.

By the end of Smith's post, he's taken for granted that this unsourced mention in Lombardi's "Things I hear..." portion of a column is truth:

"So it's no surprise that Peterson isn't satisfied with his contract. And it shouldn't be a surprise if he soon takes his dissatisfaction public."

Look, like I said, I think Lombardi and Smith are probably right; I agree with Smith when he says "Players who produce at that level just aren't content to play out their rookie contracts and wait to become free agents." But to call what Lombardi wrote a "report," to refer to his mention as reporting, and by the end to just accept this as a true statement, well, that's how speculation becomes a report and a rumor becomes a story.

(For a good blog post about Lombardi's mention, see Judd Zulgad in Access Vikings. Not only does Zulgad treat Lombardi's nugget for what it is, but he informatively adds detail about Peterson's contract to not only pass on--and further--speculation, but contribute something concrete and meaningful to it).

In this spirit, I am going to start my own feature here, called "Things I discern from the ether..." Feel free to take this as a report: after all, I am discerning it from the ether and reporting it to you.

Things I discern from the ether...

The Mayans stopped their calendar at 2012 because that is either when the Vikings will win the Super Bowl or when they will move out of Minnesota. The Mayans knew there is no reason to keep track of history after that point.

The Spirit Of Fantasy Football no longer resides in the Shadow Of The End Zone; it has moved into Chris Johnson's socks.

The Green Bay Packers are wieners.

Addendum

Lombardi's wording itself suggests this is not a report, but a prediction. If Lombardi had said something like "Adrian Peterson will soon be complaining about his contract," that could be taken as a report (without a source referenced, I'd still think it a prediction rather than a report, but for now, whatever). But how can Lombardi know Adrian Peterson will be "the next player to complain about his contract" unless Lombardi knows Peterson will complain about it immediately after Lombardi publishes his column? That's a prediction, not a report. What if all of a sudden Joe Flacco starts complaining about his contract today? Then Lombardi's "report" is wrong. And when Lombardi writes Peterson will be "the next player to complain," that suggests he hasn't already started to complain (privately or publicly), which further suggests there isn't a concrete story being reported here.

It's clear this is speculation and prediction; why is Michael David Smith calling this a "report"?

Addendum 2

Here's a parallel:

Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty is probably going to run for president: there are several pieces of evidence pointing in that direction, so it is not surprising that a lot of political observers talk about it. If Political Pundit X wrote in a column, "I hear Tim Pawlenty is going to run for president," nobody would reasonably claim that Political Pundit X is "reporting" that Pawlenty will run for president, right? I suppose it's possible that Political Rumormonger Y might post something like "Political Pundit X reports that Tim Pawlenty will run for president," but few reasonable thinkers would follow a link to Political Pundit X's column and think that's a concrete story being reported, right? Some might even call it irresponsible for Political Rumormonger Y to take a casual, unsourced sentence and call it a "report," right? That's why we'd know that Rumormonger Y is a rumormonger, right?

Granted, Pawlenty running for president seems a lot more obvious than Adrian Peterson complaining about his contract. But either way, a rumormonger claiming a pundit's casual unsourced claim is a reported story would definitely secure the rumormonger's reputation for (uncredible?) rumormongering.

Addendum 3

So much for reports.

Resolving the great culture war of our time

2010-07-09T20:35:00.004-05:00

Edward is extraordinarily dull; he may as well be part of the scenery for as little as he brings to the screen. Jacob has some screen presence, some charisma, some vigor, some verve. When he's in a scene, you know he's in a scene.

Still, if choosing Edward means becoming a vampire and living longer (maybe not forever, but until somebody tears you to shreds and burns the pieces), then that means getting more chances to see the Vikings just maybe win the Super Bowl. Probably, it will take becoming a vampire and living a few more centuries to see that happen.

Mad Lib

2010-06-17T23:21:00.003-05:00

noun, anybody associated with or rooting for the Minnesota Vikings: _________

First sentence of Vic Carucci's NFL.com article on the Vikings:

"_________ was lamenting about how close the Minnesota Vikings were to achieving their ultimate goal, how it should have been them and not the New Orleans Saints hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy last February."

Blizzard

2010-06-14T14:20:00.000-05:00

In some parallel universe, Sage Rosenfels throws for 24 TDs and 3,700 yards leading the Vikings to a 10-6 record. Obviously not this one (Kevin Seifert, Viking Update).

Tarvaris Jackson (Star Tribune)

Percy Harvin (Pioneer Press)

Antoine Winfield (Pioneer Press)

Sidney Rice and Percy Harvin (Star Tribune): Harvin's arms look monsterous.

Percy Harvin (Star Tribune)

Minicamp pictures (vikings.com)

Ray Edwards (Star Tribune)

Toby Gerhart (Daily Norseman). I still think it will be a combo of Gerhart and Percy Harvin that will do the things Chester Taylor used to do.

Adrian Peterson (ESPN NFC North Blog).

Nnamdi Asomugha, entertaining fellow (Sports Illustrated).

Drops (Football Outsiders).

NFL.com has a nice fantasy football preview page. A lot of interesting and useful things there.

Brad Childress and Double-Standards

2010-06-13T17:30:00.005-05:00

At Shutdown Corner, Doug Farrar questions Brad Childress's credibility: if he's going to let Brett Favre skip whatever he wants, how can he take a hard line on Adrian Peterson missing OTAs?

I only partially agree. At the professional level, I don't really have a problem when coaches have different standards for different players. It's the coach's job to make the team as good as possible, and he should be able to make judgment calls about discipline, discerning whether allowing superstars leeway is better for the team, or whether doing so causes team problems which affect performance. Where I agree is that if Childress is going to have double-standards for superstars, he should probably consider Adrian Peterson a superstar worthy of the double-standard. Of course, the Vikings have so many legitimate studs, the concern about a slippery slope may be valid.

It's a dangerous game a coach plays, balancing the egos to give the team optimum performance. If Childress took a hard line on Favre's absence, and that somehow contributed to Favre deciding not to come back in 2010, the team would not be better off. But if Childress says, "Ah, hell, I'm letting Favre do whatever he wants, so I should probably go ahead and let all the other players get away with skipping OTAs too, because I have to be consistent," then the team would not be better off either. Certainly things can go wrong when the coach makes these judgment calls, and he can be wrong. Maybe he has a feel for his team and understands how players feel and respond to Favre's absence, and maybe he doesn't.

But here's the thing about the slippery slope: it's a logical fallacy. "If I make an exception for you, I have to make an exception for everybody" is a fallacy. You certainly can make an exception for one person: that's the nature of an exception.

Childress's double-standard for Favre may become a divisive locker room issue. If it was a problem last season, however, the problem did not show up in on-the-field performance. The team was very good throughout the season (I'm assuming that all those NFC championship game turnovers and the 12 men in the huddle had nothing to do with players in the locker room resenting either Childress or Favre). We'll see if it becomes an issue in 2010, but I really doubt it.

Blizzard: I love magazines.

2010-06-11T09:08:00.000-05:00

I purchased ESPN Fantasy Football 2010 and Pro Football Weekly and Yahoo! Sports Preview 2010. Each has the statistical detail I crave in a preview magazine, and each has several great features that make it useful. I find myself wondering why I bought two $7.99 football magazines, but I am trying to be a well-informed amateur football blogger coming back from my sports nervous breakdown. And its only June, so summer is still filled a lot of activities when pulling out a magazine for a few minutes at a time is good: sitting on a lawn chair watching kids play, standing in line, going to the bathroom, waiting for parades to start, yada yada yada.

You'll notice I've been linking to a lot of articles not related to the Vikings. I'm finishing up some professional obligations, and as that's winding down, I'm actually feeling more like it's summer, and which is known in some circles as FANTASY FOOTBALL PREPARATION PERIOD, so my football reading is expanding. I link to what might be interesting, and I'll probably also be adding more websites to the links on the side. As I'm finishing up my work, I'm also going to make time to write the Official Hazelweird Fantasy Football Rulebook, since our league has operated on unwritten traditions and customs that have been voted on but never written down, which causes some problems (sometimes a league veteran will do something based on an obscure custom that hasn't been used in years, causing a newer league member to ask what the hell just happened, leading the long-time keepers of the league to explain, "It's all good: while what he did certainly appears illegal and shenanigoaty, he just exercised a rule we've always agreed on for obscure situation A, but the rule hasn't been used in years so you didn't know about it. Now go back about your business," which is usually, um, not loved).

Enjoy the weekend, suckers.

Linky

Viking minicamp questions (Viking Update).

The Kansas City Chiefs weirdly intrigue me (USA Today).

Matt Leinart weirdly intrigues me (Fox Sports Arizona).

Peter Schrager on wide receivers and the Hall of Fame (Fox Sports).

Isaac Bruce: I always liked that guy (New York Times).

Kevin Kolb (ESPN).

Fantasy Heavy

Michael Fabiano talks up Aaron Rodgers (NFL.com)

I have no intention of drafting one Michael Turner, ever. He is an interesting fantasy prospect, though (Fox Sports South).

Jamaal Charles (Sports Illustrated).

Blizzard

2010-06-09T21:00:00.000-05:00

Should Percy Harvin be considered something like the Vikings' 3rd down running back in 2010? I say yes. The versatility of sending him into the huddle, where he could run, catch from the backfield, or motion into the slot, is pretty enticing.

Linky

George Packer's post in The New Yorker about the Lakers resonates with me as a Viking fan:

"That was what West and the Lakers meant to me: the inevitability, the unfairness, the almost sweet pain of loss."

Viking cornerbacks (Star Tribune)

E.J. Henderson (Star Tribune)

Adrian Peterson (Star Tribune)

Warren Moon (vikings.com)

Target Field is vegetarian friendly (MinnPost)

Toby Gerhart (vikings.com).

Fantasy Heavy

Open for debate: #1 fantasy pick Adrian Peterson or Chris Johnson (Yahoo!)?

Another debate: Larry Fitzgerald or Sidney Rice (Yahoo!)

Matthew Berry's top 150 (ESPN)

Good Fantasy Clicks by Jay Clemons (Sports Illustrated), but I do have a few questions:

1. Is this really a "mock" draft, or are you going to go ahead and have a league with the teams you've drafted? And if you're not going to, why not?

2. When you refer to your group as "long and distinguished," are you intentionally referencing Top Gun? Because it made me want to say "So's my johnson."

Bounceback players (Rotoworld)

Precedent suggests Mike Martz means the Bears will put up big passing numbers (Rotoworld)

WR rankings (Yahoo!)

"Live" Blogging: Vikings-Bears 1994, Second Quarter

2010-06-06T14:53:00.005-05:00

See First Quarter here.

Warren Moon with a short pass on a short cross to Cris Carter (one of my favorite video game plays: reliable).

Carter gets a short pass on third down, shakes a tackler and runs up, diving for the sticks. First down, suckers.

Dave Wannstedt's mustache is something to admire. Start typing his name into Google, and "Dave Wannsteadt mustache" is pretty high up on the list of search choices, so evidently a lot of people admire it.

Qadry Ismail with a nice catch and run--the sort of play that made his potential seem so big.

Scottie Graham picking up good yardage. At what point do people choose between, say, Scott and Scottie? I can't imagine a Scott Pippen capturing my imagination.

There's Sean Salisbury on the sidelines. Was he ever not a tool?

Classic Brian Billick fun: all sorts of short underneath passes on 3rd and long.

Punting is the right move there: the Bears' offense isn't going 90 yards in Thunderdome.

Ed McDaniel storms through the line of scrimmage for a tackle for loss. No blocker at all.

3rd and 11 for the Steve Walsh Bears is like 3rd and 1,100.

Vikes get the ball at midfield, and I'm mildly excited.

And Moon just got drilled. Excitement depleting. I'm now fully prepared for a couple five yard outs then a punt.

Oof! Great pass out to Jake Reed, 23 yard gain on 3rd and 19.

Look at Scottie Graham go.

Remember football before that glowing yellow line? It was fine.

Denny Green was always a fan of the two-TE set.

Moon threw it into the chest of a Bear LB, but the ball bounces to the ground. And there's a guy behind Dave Wannstedt wearing Zubas, reminding me we're watching a game from 1994.

Fuad. If only he had still be around in '98, maybe things would have been different.

And now Walsh throws a pass to a defender's chest. Is that fun or something? I see why I might have gone outside to play basketball.

Jack Del Rio crushes the screen play, and John Randle gets called for roughing the passer. I can see why they made that call. Joe Theismann is incensed about it.

Vikes recover a fumble.

Nice catch by Cris Carter. That guy was good, wasn't he?

Lousy clock management by the Vikings. Nostalgia. Sure.

THROW IT DOWNFIELD! Just chuck it. You've got Jake Reed. All these dink and dunk plays. They're not even sending Cris Carter out on patterns.

Nice throw to Jake Reed.

Got into field goal position, but they really could have managed that clock better and tried for a TD. And they could have let Cris Carter go out on a pass pattern.

13-7 Viking lead at halftime. After a pretty putrid offensive performance most of the half, a six point lead feels pretty good. I mean, must have felt good to fans at the time. I couldn't possibly have warm feelings about a 13-7 halftime score of a game played 16 years ago. I'm not that deranged a fan. Right? Right?

Dang, 16 years ago. A whole driver ago, this game happened. I'm getting old. Last night my son was staring at the top of my head grinning for some reason. "Why are you looking at my head?" I asked him. "Daddy, you have a hole on your head. There's no hair right there." So there's that. I didn't have the heart to say "Guess what, kid: this is your DNA too. Bwha ha ha ha!"

Anyway, check back again sometime for the third quarter.

"Live" Blogging: Vikings-Bears 1994, First Quarter

2010-06-06T12:59:00.000-05:00

The Bears are 8-4, the Vikings 7-5, going for the season sweep. And, good God, that's Joe Theismann.

I really will always remember the Steve Walsh era fondly.

Fuad! Fuad!

I miss that Vikings script in the end zone.

Ed McDaniel with a tackle.

Marv Cook. Marv Cook! I thought flipping through the boxes and boxes of sports cards I've taken from my parents' storage room was allowing me to relive my childhood....but this! This!

DeWayne Washington with a pick-six. I don't know if we were calling them pick-sixes in 1994.

Great downfield blocking.

Fuad! Fuad!

Unfortunately, the nostalgia train ends at commercial breaks. How about some old commercials, NFL Network? Got any rights to those?

If I remember correctly, this was a cold Thursday night in December, and I took breaks during the game to go outside and play basketball. It's really, really weird if I'm remembering that correctly.

Thunderdome was always Thunderdome.

John Randle and Henry Thomas, a different version of Kevin Williams and Pat Williams.

I just paused the game because my dog was mulling around the door. You know what we didn't have in 1994? DVR. If 2010 PV could go back in time and tell 1994 PV, "Someday, you'll rewatch this game, and you'll be able to save it and pause it with just that little remote," what would 1994 PV say?

Jack Del Rio!

'94 Vikes were leading the league in run defense, among the greatest of all-time. But they were pretty lousy in pass defense. Nostalgia. Sure.

Vencie Glenn! Yes, I'll continue to be gleeful just hearing the names.

Nice pass breakup from Ed McDaniel.

Great penetration and tackle by John Randle.

And there's Tony Dungy in the box as defensive coordinator.

There was some lousy tackling. On 3rd and 10, Steve Walsh dumps it to Robert Green, who avoids a bunch of lousy tackle attempts and runs for a touchdown. Theismann says it was a great job by Walsh taking what the defense gave him. I suppose, at taking what the defense was giving, it was a great job.

Kevin Butler!

Warren Moon takes the snap: I always liked that guy. Throws a really pretty ball.

Qadry Ismail: not so great.

Brett Favre looks better in the Vikings' #4 jersey than does punter Mike Saxon.

1994 Steve Walsh = Kyle Orton. I'm 100% serious. No arm strength, but plays smart, avoids many errors, gets credit for "winning" a lot of games because of the defense.

Jake Reed really was a hell of a player. Really liked him. I say this as Moon overthrows him.

TV praise for John Randle/Henry Thomas. I do think Kevin Williams/Pat Williams > John Randle/Henry Thomas.

Vikings can't get a running game going.

Moon gets sacked. I constantly hate the Packers; I forget that I hate the Bears when I'm not actually watching them. Watching this now, I hate the Bears.

Think about it: nine years after this game, Jack Del Rio was an NFL head coach.

Joe Theismann has always been Joe Theismann.

Scottie Graham: Dennis Green sure brought in some interesting guys.

End of the first quarter: 7-7. Check back for Second Quarter.

Blizzard

2010-06-02T11:58:00.002-05:00

Tyrell Johnson (vikings.com)

Cedric Griffin and E.J. Henderson (Star Tribune)

Cedric Griffin (Star Tribune)

Adrian Peterson's fumbling--and a comparison to Walter Payton's fumble rate (ESPN NFC North Blog)

Four Downs on the NFC North (Football Outsiders)

Doug Farrar looks at Mike Martz and the Bears' tight ends (Yahoo!)

Vikings' ambiguity going away, and for the better (Pioneer Press)

"Is this now a Twins town?" (Star Tribune)

Michael Turner (NFL Fanhouse)

Kevin Kolb (NFL.com)

Matt Schaub (Yahoo!)

Jason Cole's team RB rankings: Vikes #1 (Yahoo!)

Randy f-in' Moss (ProFootballTalk)

Fantasy Tight Ends (Pancake Blocks)

So you're picking out a fantasy magazine

2010-05-31T10:28:00.000-05:00

We all have different wants and needs from a fantasy football magazine. Since the mags should be on the rack soon, here are some of the features I'm looking for in a fantasy football magazine.

Stats for the past three seasons

How the player performed the season before is the most important information, but it's not the only relevant information. I want to see what players have done over the previous three seasons, since the most recent season might have been fluky (either good or bad), and I want to see how the player has performed on a more long-term basis (I'm looking for consistency and reliability).

Game log stats for previous season

There's a lot you can learn from looking at stats for each individual game as opposed to total stats. You learn what players are consistent and inconsistent, what players boosted their numbers with a couple big games, what players started strong but faded, what players came on strong at the end with more playing time, what players had good streaks and bad streaks, and more.

Targets for WRs and TEs

I want to know how often a player was thrown to, not just how often he caught it.

Team Info pages

You need to know team context, and a fantasy magazine should provide pages with team info. The specific knowledge I'm looking for includes:

--Rush/Pass Ratio

--League ranking in rushing and passing

--Schedule

--Projected Strength of Schedule

--Coaching changes (specifically head coach and offensive coordinator), and analysis of the impact

--Roster changes, and analysis of the impact

Rookie Introductions

I need information on skill position rookies, their teams, their skills, and their potential playing time. I can learn about NFL players and their stats pretty easily: I do, however, need information, analysis, and commentary about potential impact rookies. The only rookie position I'm interested in drafting is RB, but I'm still interested in QBs, WRs, and TEs for how they might impact teammates.

League Schedule

Preferably, a fantasy mag will have a week by week NFL schedule on a single page.

Simple Accessibility

Preferably, I'd like to see a player's total numbers for the past three seasons and his game logs for the previous season on the same page. That, however, appears difficult to do. It's obviously an assumed expectation that the stats are arranged in neat tables. It's nice if the positional rankings are easy to locate, though I'll probably bookmark that anyway. Having the simplified rankings (cheat sheets) is nice to look at during the the draft.

I'll be making my own documents to use for prep and draft time anyway (probably), but I want a magazine that makes prep and draft time easy without such documents.

Others?

What are some key features you are looking for in a fantasy football magazine?

And perhaps just as importantly: what are some common features of fantasy magazines that really annoy you?

Fantasy: Should you load up players from one great offensive team?

2010-05-28T20:52:00.001-05:00

For years I've tried to write about fantasy football on this blog without actually revealing what I think to my fellow competitors who read this blog. I've finally found the way around this conundrum: an Argument/ Counterargument gimmick, where I write both arguments. I'll do my best with both arguments, and you probably won't know which argument I actually favor. Since I'm writing both arguments, I'll go ahead and ask the question myself.

Question: Should you try to draft a lot of players from the same elite offense, or should you diversify your roster?

Argument: Absolutely.

Let's call it a Juggernaut strategy, and it's probably only feasible in an auction draft.

Here are the top scorers in the Hazelweird scoring (50 pass yards = 1, pass TD = 3, 20 rush/receive yards = 20, rush/receive TD = 6) at QB, RB, TE, three WRs, and K. I'm going to leave out the #2 scoring RB because of the nature of the comparison: unless your juggernaut offense has a two-back system, you're probably only going to start the feature back, and you'll be able to start a different running back in your lineup.

#1 Fantasy Lineup (1,090.21)

QB: Drew Brees (1) (189.76) (2)

RB: Chris Johnson (221.45)

WR: Randy Moss (141.2)

WR: Andre Johnson (3) (132.95)

WR: Larry Fitzgerald (4) (132.6)

TE: Vernon Davis (126.25)

K: Nate Kaeding (146)

Let's just compare this #1 Fantasy Lineup to the team nearest to our hearts, the 2009 Minnesota Vikings. The Vikes were the #2 scoring team in the league in 2009. I don't think they're actually the top choice for 2010 Juggernauts (the Colts and Packers are probably better), but the title of this blog is "Pacifist Viking."

Minnesota Vikings (859.04)

QB: Brett Favre (183.04)

RB: Adrian Peterson (198.95)

WR: Sidney Rice (113.6)

WR: Percy Harvin (82.25) (5)

WR: Bernard Berrian (54.9)

TE: Visanthe Shiancoe (94.3)

K: Ryan Longwell (132)

That's over 200 points fewer than the #1 Fantasy Lineup (at seven positions). OK, 200 points is significant, but then again, you're probably not going to compete against anybody who has the the all the top scorers at all of these positions. Still, the place you'd struggle at most is at WR; even a great team's WR2 and WR3 probably aren't going to get as many consistent points as if you picked up WRs elsewhere. Certainly you could just eliminate the WR3 and still go with a Juggernaut's WR1 and WR2, but I'd actually recommend going Juggernaut with QB, RB, WR1, TE, and K, then fill out your WR2 and WR3 with other WRs. If you do that, here's how the #1 Fantasy Lineup compares to some other Juggernaut options

#1 Fantasy Lineup (QB, RB, WR, TE, K): 824.66

2009 Vikings Lineup: (Favre, Peterson, Rice, Shiancoe, Longwell): 721.89

At the top five fantasy positions, the Minnesota Vikings' Juggernaut would be around points fewer than the optimum fantasy lineup. That's aided by having Favre (very close to #1 QB) and Peterson (#2 RB), but strip away those underproducing WR2 and WR3 positions, and you've got a pretty good lineup. It's also a much easier lineup to obtain (in an auction) than the #1 Fantasy Lineup.

Hey now: a 2009 Viking Juggernaut lineup of QB, RB, WR1, TE, and K is 102.77 points short of the highest possible 2009 score at those positions. Spread that out over 16 weeks, and you're just 6.4 points short of an optimum score. 6.4 points per week is a lot--but not when you're comparing a plausible fantasy lineup to a fantasy lineup consisting of the #1 scorer at each of these positions.

The key to making this strategy is to get a good RB2, WR2, and WR3. You're not just getting the Juggernaut's points: if you're smart and lucky, you can supplement your Juggernaut with legitimate fantasy starter production at the other positions. Considering the cost of a Juggernaut lineup, I think you could still fill these positions with quality fantasy starters. If your Juggernaut is pricey, I still wouldn't worry: there are always good fantasy producers that emerge that were cheap in the auction draft (think Ray Rice), or that you can find on the waiver wire (think NYG Steve Smith).

But why would you want to go with the Juggernaut strategy? Aside from the obvious desire to draft high-scoring players, why load up on one team?

Consistency. Sometimes a team's QB throws multiple TDs and the RB gets zero; sometimes the RB scores multiple TDs and the QB gets zero. Get a good Juggernaut, and you won't have to worry about getting skunked too often.

Hoarding. If you have, say, Philip Rivers, but your opponent has Vincent Jackson, Rivers throwing a TD to Jackson actually hurts you.

Affordability. I think you could get the QB, RB, WR1, TE, and K from a Juggernaut for cheaper than you could get the #1, QB, #1 RB, #1 WR, #1 TE, and #1 K.(6) Indeed, in most auction drafts you would be unable to get the #1 player at each position.

(1)This was remarkably close: three other QBs also scored over 180: Peyton Manning (189), Brett Favre (183.04), and Matt Schaub (182.4).

(2)For the sake of fantasy football planning, I exclude a QB's rushing stats (for a couple reasons); if I did include them, Aaron Rodgers' 316 yards, 5 touchdowns rushing would propel him to #1.

(3) With two straight 1,500 yard seasons, he's rightly regarded as the top WR in yardage-heavy leagues. But take note: his next 10 TD season will be his first.

(4) Right behind these three? Miles Austin (131.9).

(5) I excluded Harvin's return TDs, only because I excluded QB rush numbers. Normally I wouldn't: the special teams threat of Percy Harvin, or DeSean Jackson, counts for me slightly more than a QB's rushing potential.

(6) Granted, in 2009 Chris Johnson would have been affordable and Vernon Davis dirt cheap.

Counterargument: Too much goes wrong

Last season in the Hazelweird League, I had Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne, Joseph Addai, Donald Brown, and Austin Collie. After week 15, I was 70-50 in the cross-country standings, one game out of first place, and I led the league in points scored. Then the Colts, having clinched the AFC's #1 seed, rested their starters. I went 6-10 in the last two weeks, and ended up in second place, eight games out of first place of the Hazelweird Trophy standings (I also missed out on scoring the most points in the league--AP recognition--by just three points).

After 2007, it might have looked wise to stock up on Patriots, who had just finished the highest scoring season ever. As you know, Tom Brady was injured in week one: the 2008 Patriots were still a good offense, but was any Patriot drafted that season worth the price paid? Brady got nothing, Wes Welker scored three touchdowns, Randy Moss followed up 1,493-23 with 1,008-11, and no RB had more than 727 yards rushing. If you spent the massive amount it would take to stock up on Patriots, you probably had a lousy fantasy season.

It doesn't even take an injury or an early-clinching-thus-rest situation to doom your fantasy team if it is reliant on one offense. Even elite offenses have a bad week, and one bad week can really ruin your season. In head-to-head standings (as stupid as head-to-head standings are), that one bad week could come in the playoffs. If you were loaded up on 2007 Patriots, you were probably dominating your league. And if you played with a playoff system, you probably didn't win your league: the Pats played week 15 in cold and windy conditions, and managed one offensive touchdown (from Laurence Maroney!).

Furthermore, we have the problem of prediction: the 2010 Vikings are not the 2009 Vikings. Sure, that's the nature of fantasy football: we're all guessing at who will be good in year n+1 based on year n numbers. But few drafters hit on every pick: you have some hits and misses. That's fine: if your hits are really good and you are smart in trades and free agency, you can cover your misses. But if you draft a Juggernaut team strategy, you've only got one chance for a hit: if your Juggernaut misses, you've got nothing to cover it. It's an all-or-nothing fantasy strategy.

And even if that Juggernaut is a hit, there's still the problem of breadth: say the QB, TE, K, and WR1 produce elite numbers. A Juggernaut offense could still have a RB that scores few TDs. So you're getting elite production from some positions, but getting duds at other positions. If you had diversified your lineup, those weak positions on your roster might not be weak positions.

You want one more big problem with a Juggernaut philosophy? Bye week. Prepare to suck. If you think you can withstand that awful bye week score, go for it.

A plausible alternative is a QB-RB Juggernaut Combo--get the QB and feature RB from the same dominant offense. If the #1 plausible combo is Drew Brees/Chris Johnson (411.21)*, how about Favre/Peterson (381.99)? There's your consistency: basically, if the #2 scoring offense scores a touchdown, you're probably getting points. If you want to add Ryan Longwell, you're getting points when the Vikings score points, and they score a lot of points. While that's nice, I still wouldn't go out of my way to secure a QB-RB Juggernaut Combo: the goal is to get the most points, and it doesn't really matter what team those players are on.

Look, it's fun to get kinky and think of clever ways to draft a unique team: during summer. When draft time comes, just draft the best players you can. Don't worry about bulking up with one Juggernaut team.

*Though I wouldn't exclude a QB's rushing numbers as the Argument did: Aaron Rodgers can probably be relied upon for a couple hundred rushing yards and a few rushing TDs: why exclude that? But in the Counterargument, I'll keep the terms of the Argument.

Blizzard: Wednesday Night

2010-05-26T22:09:00.004-05:00

Actual Dialogue

PV: I only want two things in life: for the Vikings to win the Super Bowl, and for Ted to meet their mother. Which of those things is going to happen first !?! Honest to God!

Wife of PV: I think Ted is going to meet their mother.

Some Links

Toby Gerhart (Star Tribune)

Matt Schaub (Star Tribune)

Marshawn Lynch (Yahoo!)

Bears' wide receivers (ESPN NFL North Blog)

The Titans declined in 2009 because of their pass defense (Advanced NFL Stats)

Jared Allen's mullet (Shutdown Corner). I don't care, even a little bit. Still thought it was something to link to.

Why should you care where the Super Bowl is played? (Lawyers, Guns, & Money)

Fantasy Heavy

Brandon Funston's Big Board (Yahoo!)

John Hansen looks at the top 20 fantasy rookie prospects (Yahoo!). This is exactly the sort of fantasy article I'm looking for: introduce me to the players I don't know, rather than give me opinions on the players I can already analyze myself.