Friday's two-minute drill

I’m a little late with today’s post, so let’s get to it.

Three reasons why the Vikings could lose this game
1. The pass defence returns to its sieve-like ways.
2. Tarvaris Jackson turns in a Dallas-type stinker performance.
3. Jon Kitna.

Three reasons why the Vikings could win this game
1. Chester Taylor and Adrian Peterson run wild.
2. It’s the Lions.
3. Jon Kitna.

Seriously though, Kitna’s a guy who has always been a riddle to me. He’s got skills and he is capable of putting up Pro Bowl caliber performances. But there has always been something about him – you don’t think winner when you think of him (playing five seasons for the Bengals didn’t help.) He’s thrown nearly as many interceptions (138) as touchdowns (143) in his 11-year career and this year he’s continued that trend. Plus, he’s taking a beating because his offensive line isn’t very good.

Because the quarterback is the most important player on a football team, the play you get from that player often determines whether a team wins or loses. With a talented group of receivers to throw to, if the Kitna The Good shows up, the Vikings could be in trouble. On the flip side, if Kitna The Bad shows up, the Vikings could be sitting at 6-6 by Monday.

Give and take
While there was lots of talk about the Lions offence as the main reason Detroit got off to a 6-2 start, it should be mentioned that its defence leads the NFL with 31 takeaways. But during the current three-game losing streak, Detroit has been just as generous as its opposition. The offence has turned the ball over 10 times during this stretch. Kitna, in particular, has struggled losing two fumbles and throwing six interceptions. That’s the kind of mistake-prone football that can kill a team.

But even during this losing streak the Lions defence has continued to force turnovers. They’re pretty good at it and the Vikings can’t forget that. The Vikings chances of winning will be greatly enhanced if Jackson can avoid the kind of game he had in week two when these teams met.

Match-up time
The Vikings defensive line has not done a great job pressuring the quarterback this season. However, it’s going up against an offensive line that might be one of the worst in the NFL at protecting its quarterback.

Things are so bad at right tackle that the Lions will have backup guard and centre Damien Woody play right tackle against the Vikings. He hasn’t played the position since high school. Woody is someone the Vikings would surely like to take advantage of. The problem is the guy Woody will be going up against is Kenechi Udeze and he is not known as a strong pass rusher. So this might be a game where it’s wise to give Brian Robison more of Udeze’s reps at left end than usual on passing downs. Robison has the speed from the outside that might cause Woody some grief. Woody isn’t the most nimble guy and will be feeling a little out of place playing in space at the right tackle spot.

The saviour returns
It’s not official but it seems pretty certain Adrian Peterson will be playing Sunday after missing two games with a right knee injury.

A healthy Peterson is an exciting guy to watch and makes the Vikings offence better and more dangerous. But are the Vikings getting a healthy Peterson? I’m still not crazy about seeing him out there. It seems much too soon. And how big of an impact is Peterson really going to make carrying the ball eight-to-10 times as the Vikings ease him back into the lineup? Vikings loyalists will say you’ve got to trust the coaching and training staff because they wouldn’t be insane enough to play the franchise if he wasn’t physically ready.

But trusting the Childress regime doesn’t come easy for me. I’m going to cringe every time Peterson gets tackled. I’m sure every other Vikings fan will as well.

Under pressure
Will Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier call for lots of blitzes and different defensive looks against Kitna and the Lions like he did against Eli Manning and the Giants?

It worked well last week. And I’m sure if you asked each of the Vikings defenders, they would prefer to keep on the attack. But it might not be the best way to go against the Lions. The Leos will run a lot of four wide receiver sets, forcing the Vikings to play more defensive backs and fewer linebackers. That will result in less of Ben Leber on the field, which hurts the Vikings blitzing ability. Leber is a pretty good blitzer. The fact Antoine Winfield probably won’t play doesn’t help matters.

I suspect Frazier might be more conservative in his schemes on Sunday to start off. But if that doesn’t work, then he will be forced to blitz more.

Reality bites
This will probably be the first game this season where I will be really nervous. My expectations were pretty low for the Vikings in ’07 and I didn’t think playoffs were in the cards – even in the weak NFC. So during most Vikings games this season I’ve been pretty calm. And I was calm because I didn’t expect them to win.

But now the Vikings are 5-6. If the Vikes beat Detroit this Sunday it’s tied with the Lions and lord knows who else (there are currently five other NFC teams with a 5-6 record) for the second wild card spot. It’s not a bad place to be when you consider where the Vikings were after the Green Bay game.

However, a dose of reality is always necessary when assessing this Vikings team. It probably needs to go 3-2 and maybe 4-1 in the final five games to have a shot at that wild card spot. To do that, surely Jackson and his receivers need to carry some of the load and bring some balance to the offence. But even though I’ve seen improvement from Jackson the last two games, it’s far-fetched to think he will turn into a guy who can go 20-30 for 250 yards and a couple of touchdown passes – the kind of production you often need from your quarterback to win in today’s NFL – at this point in the season.

As pro football players like to say these days – it is what it is. Jackson is what he is. He’s not going to beat teams with his arm, not on a consistent basis anyway. But if I’m proven wrong by Jackson, you won’t hear me complaining. The Detroit game will be his latest opportunity to do so.

On Deck: 6-6 or 5-7?

Moody Monday's non-call outs

Generally, there’s more than enough fodder for this feature even when the Vikings have won during the Brad Childress era.

But 24-plus hours after spanking the New York Giants 41-17, it’s hard to find fault with anything the Vikings did at the Meadowlands yesterday. Defensively, the Vikings stopped the run, stopped the pass and picked off four Eli Manning passes. On offence, our green quarterback was solid. Plus, the coaching staff mostly made the right calls at the right times.

Perhaps one could complain about the running game getting stuffed by the Giants. But when a good run stopping defence keeps eight and sometimes nine players in the box to stop that running game, such a result isn’t terribly surprising. Besides with the Vikings defence returning three of Manning’s picks for touchdowns it didn’t matter anyway.

So the Vikings get a free pass today. There’s no call outs necessary. As Vikings fans, let’s take a few more hours to enjoy a win as satisfying as we’ve had since the victory in Seattle last season.

A.P. alert
It’s looking more likely every day that super rookie Adrian Peterson will be playing on Sunday against the Detroit Lions. Peterson practiced on the field prior to Sunday’s game against the G-Men but was wisely held out.

Today Chilly broke away from his normal cloak and dagger routine regarding injuries to significant Vikings when he told the press that an MRI on Monday of Peterson’s injured knee showed “excellent healing.” Chilly claims that barring any setbacks in practice this week, Peterson would be back playing and splitting carries with Chester Taylor to ease his way back into the lineup.

I’m on record as believing the Vikings were better off shutting down Peterson for the rest of a lost season than playing him again and risking further injury to a knee that sustained a tear to the lateral collateral ligament against Green Bay.

Of course, things have changed a bit since then. The Vikings two wins since the Lambeau debacle has them at 5-6 and one game behind the 6-5 Lions, who hold down the last wild card playoff spot in the NFC. A win over the Lions gets the Vikings tied for that last playoff spot and having Peterson’s dynamic running talents in uniform on Sunday – in theory – would seem to be a huge plus for the purple.

However, such a move worries me. I’m sure the Vikings wouldn’t needlessly endanger the health of its meal ticket and rush Peterson back into the lineup before he is physically ready. But I also haven’t heard any talk of Peterson getting a second medical opinion on that knee just to be sure – as one reader here suggested he should a few weeks ago.

Football is a tough game and injuries happen. But this is a knee injury and this is Adrian Peterson. Coming back three weeks after a knee injury seems pretty risky to me, especially when the Vikings have been doing just fine with Taylor subbing for him.

I’d be inclined to be extra cautious with Peterson here. The Vikings can beat the Lions without Peterson’s help. They did it twice last year. And the year before that. And the year before that.

On Deck: Finding rough diamonds.

That's why they play the games

We’ll never know for sure whether it was the Vikings defenders or Eli Manning’s horrible play that was the real reason Minnesota stomped on the New York Giants 41-17 on Sunday. But maybe, just maybe, defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier has found a way to cure the team’s pass defence ills.

And that, along with a surprisingly easy road win that keeps the Vikings in the NFC wild card chase, might be the most important thing to come out of a game that was supposed to be a loss against a 7-3 opponent with Super Bowl aspirations.

We all know the Vikings picked off Manning four times (and could have had at least two more) and returned three of them for touchdowns. But it’s what Frazier and his defence did to force those interceptions from the Giants quarterback that is really noteworthy.

The Vikings defence has been torched most of season by the forward pass. It’s ranked last in the NFL in pass defence, same as in 2006. To the untrained eye that seems due to a long list of factors.

For starters, the team’s defensive line is inconsistent getting pressure on the quarterback. It’s corners give too much of a cushion to opposing receivers. It’s safeties play too deep and when the team does blitz, it’s almost always with linebackers and almost always up the middle. The Vikings also don’t disguise their blitzes very well - or even appear interested in trying.

The result is the Vikings are generally predictable in what they do on passing downs and too easy for good passing teams to scheme for. Opposing quarterbacks either have all day to throw and find big holes in zones for completions, or if pressure is applied, those quarterbacks throw quickly to receivers wide open in front of the eight-to-10 yard cushion Viking corners typically yield.

But against Manning, and without the services of his best cornerback Antoine Winfield, Frazier went against everything his defence had done the first 10 games of the season. The corners, particularly the oft-criticized Cedric Griffin, played tight at times. Frazier had veteran safeties Darren Sharper and Dwight Smith play much closer to the line of scrimmage than in previous games and blitzed Smith frequently. At other times, Sharper and Smith would creep within eight yards of the line of scrimmage only to drop back in coverage.

As for the Vikings linebackers, Frazier also was a master of disguise. The linebackers frequently showed blitz near the line of scrimmage, then backed off. At other times they did blitz. Frazier showed a flustered Manning a variety of looks.

Vikings strongside linebacker Ben Leber led the way in this area and had one of his best games as a Viking. While he had just one sack in garbage time, he was effective blitzing from the outside all game, forcing Manning to throw earlier than he wanted to on more than one occasion. And his tip of a Manning pass that was picked off by Smith and returned for a touchdown as the Giants were driving for a score in the fourth quarter iced the win for the Vikings.

In recent wins over San Diego and Oakland, Frazier had dialed up the blitz to get more pressure on their quarterbacks. But never like this. For once the Vikings defence looked like it was one step ahead of an offence the entire game. Manning looked confused and even when he had time to throw, didn’t look confident about where he was throwing it.

There can be no doubt that Manning – with older brother Peyton looking on in a private box – aided the Vikings with his brutal play. But Frazier may have hit on something in this game that has the potential to turn the Vikings defence into a better overall unit – one that is no longer suffocating against the run yet clueless against the pass. Next Sunday’s game against the freefalling Detroit Lions will be a good test to see if Frazier’s tactic has staying power.

That’s because the pass-happy Lions have the depth at wide receiver to do what the Giants could not. That is, run four or five receiver sets, spread the Vikings defence out, get Leber off the field on passing downs and turn the game into a track meet. Can Frazier get away with what he did to the Giants next Sunday? Will he try?

We won’t know until they kick off at the Metrodome on Dec. 2.

As for the Vikings offence, there was no trick play on the first drive – just another big play. Tarvaris Jackson’s Rice 60-yard touchdown strike to Sidney Rice on the second play of that drive got the Vikings offence going and had the Giants playing catch-up the rest of the game.

Although his stats were minimal and he only threw 12 passes, I was more impressed with Jackson in this game than I was last week in the win over the lowly Raiders. Playing on the road, against a defence that is very good at pressuring the quarterback and with a noisy crowd backing them up, Jackson looked mostly cool in the pocket, made good decisions and used his legs to keep plays (and drives) alive.

Although it might be forgotten because of the score, Jackson’s leadership on the Vikings first drive of the second half after the Giants had kicked a field goal to make it 24-10 came at a key time. Jackson was three-for-three in passing on the drive, had two big runs for 19 and 11 yards and managed to convert a trio of third-and-four situations - something that has not been a strong point for this offence.

Not only did the Vikings answer the Giants score with a field goal of their own, they ate up 9:24 in doing so, and headed into the fourth quarter with a 17-point lead. And with the way Manning was playing on this day, there was no chance the G-Men were coming back from that kind of deficit.

That’s not say Jackson has erased any doubts that he’s good enough to solve the Vikings three-years-and-running quarterback problem. Those doubts will only go away once Jackson has to throw 30 times in a game and wins it with his arm.

But for all of Jackson’s faults, the Vikings are 5-2 in games he has started and 0-4 in games he has not. Even more encouraging is that in his last two starts he has been a help instead of a hindrance in Vikings victories.

So, to recap, Jackson progresses, the pass defence shows some backbone and the Vikings blow out the Giants.

Oh yes, there’s also talk Adrian Peterson should be back in the lineup for next Sunday’s showdown against the slumping Lions. Suddenly, the Vikings have made this 2007 season interesting.

On Deck: Diamonds in the rough

Friday's two-minute drill

Since week three I don’t think there’s been one game where I had the Vikings favoured to win. Even against the Raiders last week I wasn’t feeling too confident.

This week is no different. The Vikings play the New York Giants, who are 7-3, at the Meadowlands. On paper, it’s not a good match up for the Vikings.

For example, Minnesota’s strength on offence is running the ball. The Giants are seventh best in the league in stopping the run. The Vikings have an inexperienced quarterback who struggles with his accuracy on throws and gets jumpy and makes poor decisions when under pressure. The Giants lead the NFL with 34 sacks.

The Vikings pass defence is weaker than weak. The Giants have three quality receiving threats – Plaxico Burress, Amani Toomer and Jeremy Shockey – that can expose a weak pass defence.

Throw in the fact the Vikings are 1-4 on the road and won’t have Adrian Peterson in the lineup for a second straight week and you’ve got a recipe for an ass kicking.

The other Manning
One of the other reasons there’s an ass kicking brewing in the Meadowlands is that Eli Manning isn’t the Eli Manning the Vikings faced and beat in 2005. He’s gotten better, something you would expect from a former first round pick now in his fourth year in the league.

Manning probably hasn’t hit the “very good” level yet. Let’s just call him good. But good is more than enough to carve up this Vikings defence. Opposing QB’s have passed for 300 yards or more in seven of the Vikings 10 games this year. With guys like Burress and Shockey to throw to, and only Ruben Droughns to hand off to, you better believe Manning is going to be throwing a lot. And now he’s capable of making a team pay when forced to throw, which was much less true back ’05.

Rush to judgement
The way it’s supposed to work in football is that if you get consistent pressure on the opposing quarterback, you will shut down that team’s passing attack. For the most part the Vikings did consistently pressure the Raiders Daunte Culpepper last week. Yet he still threw for 344 yards.

Such stats lead to suspicions that the quality of the Vikings corners and safeties might be a bigger reason for the team’s poor play defending the forward pass than the team’s sometimes MIA pass rush. If the Vikings defence was at full strength it would be worrisome enough. But Antoine Winfield looks iffy for Sunday’s game with his troublesome hamstring, so expect more pain watching the Vikings give up completion after completion with Marcus McCauley starting in his place.

And forget about defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier having his corners jam receivers at the line of scrimmage, like the Packers do. He clearly doesn’t trust his corners playing the receivers that tight. Frazier’s going to do what he usually does, let the Giants have the short stuff, hope the Giants get in third and long situations and then hope the pass rush aided by a blitzing linebacker or two gets to Manning and causes rushed throws that either fall incomplete or get intercepted.

It could work. But that’s much less likely than it was in 2005.

And if Winfield can’t go against the Giants, I’d like an explanation as to why McCauley starts for him instead of Charles Gordon. McCauley lost his job as the nickel back to Gordon three weeks ago. That says to me Frazier thinks Gordon is the better player right now. So, why not have him on the field more than McCauley? Shouldn’t your better players play more, not less?

The Jackson factor
Vikings fans seemed overjoyed that starter Tarvaris Jackson wasn’t the train wreck versus Oakland that he had been in his previous three starts. Jackson did play much better last week but he’s still a long ways away from being presented an ugly yellow sports jacket in Canton.

The truth is the Vikings didn’t ask Jackson to do very much in the Raiders game. All the throws were short and safe, just as they have been most of the time Jackson’s played.

While Jackson can make the required throws in the one-to-10 yard range, he hasn’t shown he can connect on anything beyond that. The Vikings find themselves in a lot of second and third-and-long situations. That’s where you need a quarterback who can complete 15-to-20 yard throws or longer. That’s where you need someone who isn’t limited to throwing a quick slant route on third-and-eight and then hoping the receiver breaks a tackle or two to get a first down.

Quarterbacks that can make those medium and long range throws regularly keep drives alive, which gives guys like Chester Taylor and Adrian Peterson more carries, which keeps the other team’s offence off the field. Jackson has to be that guy against the Giants. I’m just not confident he can be.

Mission Impossible?
Of course, Jackson’s potential for success will increase greatly if his tackles can keep the Giants defensive ends at bay. Simply put – Bryant McKinnie and Ryan Cook have to have great games.

The Vikings offensive line - and McKinnie and Cook in particular - have done a much better job in pass protection the past six games, so there is reason to be optimistic. But they have a tough assignment. Osi Umenyiora (nine sacks) is the kind of speed rusher a behemoth like McKinnie always struggles to contain. Cook must wipe out Michael Strahan (eight sacks) and there is also reserve defensive end Justin Tuck (6.5 sacks) to worry about.

It’s the toughest test the Vikings tackles have faced yet. If they don’t pass it with flying colours, Jackson won’t enjoy his trip to New Jersey. But then again, has anyone ever enjoyed a trip to Jersey?

On Deck: The post mortem

Oh Canada

After a mere three months of existence, about 90 per cent of the people visiting this site are – as Borat would say – from the U.S. and A.

That makes sense. This is a Minnesota Vikings blog after all and I expected it would be Americans that would be most interested in checking out a blog about an American football franchise. However, I’m Canadian and I grew up following two pro football leagues – the NFL and the Canadian Football League

And I bet as you Yanks sit down for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow and watch a little NFL, you probably don’t realize we’ve got a major football event happening in the Great White North right now. It’s Grey Cup week here in Canada – Canada’s version of the Super Bowl. And it’s a big deal.

The game is the season finale for the CFL, an outfit that’s been on it’s financial deathbed many times, seen teams fold, reform and fold again, had a disastrous experiment with U.S. expansion and until 1997 had two squads using essentially the same nickname even though (excluding the three seasons U.S. teams played in the CFL) the league only had nine teams. This Sunday the Saskatchewan Roughriders will play the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the 95th edition of the Grey Cup.

All this background about a pro football league in another country normally wouldn’t be of much interest to Vikings fans, except that Minnesota’s NFL franchise has traditionally had strong ties, which have lessened over the past two decades, with the CFL.

Which is why I’m about to run down some of the more unforgettable (and forgettable) CFL-Vikings connections over the past 40 years.

The Biggies
Any talk of links between the CFL and the Vikings starts with Bud Grant. The greatest coach in Vikings history also won four Grey Cups during a 10-year stint as coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the 1960s.

As many Minnesotans know, Winnipeg is the capital of the province of Manitoba. And there are a lot of Vikings fans in Manitoba – partly due to geography – but also partly because those fans started cheering for the Vikings when Grant left the Blue Bombers to take the Vikings job in 1967. We all know how that turned out and Grant got his coaching break thanks to the CFL. You can thank us later.

Joe Kapp is another player longtime Vikings fans remember well. Mr. "40 for 60" quarterbacked the Vikings to its first Super Bowl in 1969. But before that he played for the CFL’s Calgary Stampeders and B.C. Lions. He led the Lions to its first Grey Cup victory in 1964. He’s a member of the Canadian Football League’s Hall of Fame.

The Outsider
Warren Moon didn’t start his NFL career with the Vikings but he did enjoy two very productive seasons in Minnesota in the mid-1990s before his final Vikings season (1996) was cut short due to a broken collarbone.

Moon’s first nine NFL seasons were spent with Houston. But like Grant and Kapp, he got his start in the CFL, playing six seasons with the Edmonton Eskimos and winning five Grey Cups. Moon is arguably the greatest quarterback the CFL has ever seen and one of the greatest QB’s in NFL history.

By the way, Moon and Grant are members of both the CFL Hall of Fame and the NFL Hall of Fame.

The afterthoughts
Former Vikings wide receiver Leo Lewis III never actually played in the CFL. But his dad – Leo Lewis II – sure did, playing running back for Grant’s powerhouse teams in Winnipeg. The senior Lewis was so good he is in the CFL’s Hall of Fame along with Kapp and Grant.

Little Leo Lewis wasn’t good enough to make any Hall of Fame like his dad but he did play 11 seasons in the NFL – all but three games of it with the Vikings. He was a useful player who caught 182 passes for 2,924 yards and 16 touchdowns in his career. On the 2007 version of the Minnesota Vikings, Little Leo would probably be the number one receiver.

Sean Salisbury wasn’t a very good NFL quarterback and Vikings fans aren’t too fond of him. That may be because they remember his awful (six-for-22, 113 yards and two interceptions) 1992 playoff performance against Washington where the Vikings got pasted 24-7. However, Salisbury came to the Vikings after two mostly successful years playing in the CFL for – you guessed it – the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Salisbury even led the Blue Bombers to a Grey Cup victory in 1988. Too bad Salisbury’s success in the CFL didn’t carry over to the NFL.

The rest
In the past decade or so, the CFL hasn’t been coughing up the occasional star quite as often to the Vikings – or the NFL in general – as it did back in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

More often than not these days, players who wash out with the Vikings now cross the border and try to keep their careers alive in the CFL. That’s worked out well for some ex-Vikings but not so well for others.

Some notable and not-so-notable Vikings who tried their hand at the CFL include cornerback/safety Carl Kidd, who was with the Vikings for a couple of training camps and was possibly on the team’s practice squad (although I’m not 100 per cent sure on that.) Kidd debuted in the CFL in 2000 with the B.C. Lions and had seven productive seasons there as a linebacker, became a league all-star and won a Grey Cup in 2006. He retired from football in March.

Defensive end Michael Boireau was a surprise second round pick back in 2000. Boireau was one of many bad draft picks made by Denny Green in the last few years of his Vikings coaching stint.

Boireau had all kinds of injuries during his brief Vikings career, including a rare disorder that caused one eye to droop. He was cut in 2002 and moved on to the CFL’s Ottawa Renegades for the 2002 season where he was also often injured. In 2003 he signed with Cleveland and was cut again. And that’s the last I’ve heard of Boireau.

Vikings fans might also be interested to know the Artist Formerly Known as The S.O.D. – Onterrio Smith – recently tried to resuscitate his football career in the CFL after the NFL suspended him and he was cut by the Vikings because of the Whizzinator episode.

Smith signed with the Blue Bombers in May of 2006. But he showed up fat and out of shape. He then injured his foot, probably because he was fat and out of shape, and was cut before the season started. Smith hasn’t been heard from since.

I hope you all remember this post on Sunday when Chris Berman and the rest of the Sunday Countdown crew crack their annual jokes about the CFL and the Grey Cup. Please give the CFL some respect and maybe even raise a glass of whatever you’re having to the football league north of your border. I think it deserves that much. It’s former players and coaches have played a part in the lore and history of your favourite NFL team.

On Deck: Friday’s two-minute drill

Moody Monday call outs

The headline above should probably read “Very late moody Monday call outs” as I’m tardy with this post. Alas, such is life when you have a job and do this blogging stuff for fun.

Despite the 29-22 win over Oakland, Sunday’s game was another sloppy performance by a sloppy Vikings team. That means no fewer call outs than normal, although a couple on this list might surprise a few readers.

Marcus McCauley and the Vikings pass defence
McCauley may become a good NFL corner someday. But I’m concerned about today not someday. Now we know why he dropped to the third round in the 2007 draft. McCauley’s confidence looks shot at this point. The less he is on the field the better.

There was one particular play on Sunday (can’t remember when it happened exactly or who he was covering, although I think it was Jerry Porter) where Daunte Culpepper badly underthrew his receiver. McCauley was about two yards behind the receiver when he spotted Culpepper’s duck in the air. A play could have been easily made on Culpepper’s air ball, perhaps an interception even. Instead, McCauley kept backpedaling and allowed the Raiders receiver to catch the ball unmolested.

That completion summed up McCauley’s performance of late. He looks like he’s trying to become the next Mike Rumph. And that terrifies me because with Antoine Winfield still bothered by a hamstring injury, McCauley’s playing time isn’t likely to go down against a New York Giants team that likes to pass the ball and has the personnel to do it effectively.

Unfortunately, McCauley’s play didn’t look terribly out of place against the Raiders. The Vikings defence applied the most pressure on an opposing quarterback it has since the season opener. Culpepper – who looks like he’s running on one leg these days – still passed for 344 yards. That’s not strictly a McCauley thing and Sharper, Griffin, Smith, and (gasp) even Winfield were culpable as well. The pass defence is every bit the liability it was last year. There has been no improvement in it whatsoever and I don’t think we can expect any over the final six games.

Paul Ferraro
Now that Adrian Peterson won’t be running back kick offs anymore, the Vikings are conducting their annual search for a decent kick returner. The past two games special teams coach Paul Ferraro has given Troy Williamson a crack at it. Let’s hope for all concerned that is about to end.

Williamson can run. But a good returner has to be more than just fast, although I don’t claim to know what those other qualities might be. But whatever they are, Williamson doesn’t have them. He tends to do these little stutter steps, ala Herschel Walker circa 1990, when he gets near a potential hole and looks like he’s bracing for a hit when things got crowded. I’d do the same thing if I were returning kicks. But I’m not a professional football player. Williamson is.

Maybe Ferraro will continue to give nickel back Charles Gordon a look. He certainly didn’t embarrass himself when given the job in the second half of the Raiders game. Please Paul, no more Williamson in this role – unless you want the offence starting on its 16-yard line all the time.

Lane Kiffin and Rob Ryan
You could argue Kiffin and Ryan had as much to do with the Vikings winning this game as anybody else.

On offence, Kiffin insisted on running Justin Fargas into the middle of the Vikings defensive line time after time even though the Packers showed that if you are going to run on Minnesota, it’s best to run outside. Apparently Kiffin did not get that memo

As for Ryan, besides sporting a bad mullet that would make the WWE proud, Ryan’s gameplan against the Vikings offence was just as bad. Even without Peterson in the lineup, I can’t understand why Ryan’s defence didn’t copy the Philadelphia Eagles strategy of putting eight defenders within five yards of the line of scrimmage and daring Tarvaris Jackson to beat them with his arm.

I also have no idea how the Raiders came into the game ranked in the top five in stopping the run. Birk, Hutchinson, Kleinsasser and company mauled its defensive lineman and linebackers. Even when a Raider defender did get off a block – which wasn’t often - terrible tackling allowed Chester Taylor to gallop for big gains.

Vikings fans
I thought I’d save the worst for last.

There was just over a minute left in Sunday’s game and the Raiders were driving for a touchdown that would tie the game. At this point CBS cameras quickly scanned the stands of the Metrodome. Surprisingly, nearly half the seats were empty.

While a Raiders touchdown was a bit of long shot, it also wasn’t completely out of the question. After all, with less than two minutes left the Raiders had to pass to score and the Vikings have a really, really porous pass defence. So why were Vikings fans heading for the exits? Is the traffic so bad that they have to leave early even if it’s a close game? I’d run over my mom (okay, maybe not my mom but certainly my mother-in-law) to watch a Vikings home game at the Metrodome. And I wouldn’t be leaving early, even if the opposing team was up by 50.

Darren Sharper complained earlier this year about this, so it’s not a new development.It makes me wonder how diehard Vikings fans really are. From leaving games early, to needing local TV stations to buy 3,000-plus tickets to sell out three of the five home games this season, to Vikings fans selling so many of their tickets to Packers fans that every Green Bay/Minnesota game at the Metrodome now seems like it’s being played at a neutral site, Vikings fans aren’t striking me as very fanatical.

If you’re so worried about Zygi Wilf moving the team to Los Angeles, some of you have a strange way of showing it.

On Deck: Giant killers

Consider the source

First off, credit where credit is due. Tarvaris Jackson finally looked sharp. Chester Taylor looked even sharper. The offensive line opened up huge holes for Taylor. The dormant Vikings pass rush came alive and head coach Brad Childress had the team ready to play after last week’s debacle in Green Bay.

But let’s remember the Vikings did this to the Oakland Raiders. This is a team that came into the contest averaging 11.2 points during a five-game (now six) losing streak. It’s defence looked awful and tackled poorly, particularly at the line of scrimmage. And this game was much closer than it should have been, thanks to four first-half turnovers by the Vikings.

So even though the Vikings go to 4-6 with the 29-22 win over the Raiders, please hold off on any talk of the Vikes getting on a roll and making a run at the NFC’s final wild card spot. Let’s see if this team can hang with the New York Giants at the Meadowlands and steal a win there before wasting any time discussing such things. That’s going to be a much tougher task than beating Oakland.

Still, I don’t want to seem too Grinch-like after a mostly satisfying win. Despite the five turnovers and a defence that allowed Daunte Culpepper to throw for 344 yards, there was much to like about this Vikings performance.

Chester Taylor
I like Chester Taylor. I don’t like him as much as Adrian Peterson but as far as backup running backs go, he’s a nice guy to have. I also like how he handled the demotion. He didn’t bitch or cry and he wasn’t a distraction.

With Peterson out with the knee injury, the Vikings offence needed a big game from Taylor. He delivered with 164 yards and three touchdowns and an average of 7.4 yards per carry – a number even Peterson would envy. And for Vikings fans (including me) who were having a hard time getting pumped about watching Taylor run for three or four yard gains, CT had a surprise for us. The big play did not disappear with Peterson in street clothes - Taylor had runs of 17 yards (twice), 38 yards (for a touchdown) and 29 yards.

Tarvaris Jackson
Well, well, well. Jackson had his best game as a pro. It's about time. The game plan was pretty simple. Jackson’s drops were short, the ball was thrown quickly and almost everything was either a screen play, underneath stuff in front of the linebackers or quick outs near the sideline. Jackson’s longest completion was 16 yards. He only took two shots down the field the entire game. But it worked.

Whether it works as well against the Giants remains to be seen and I still get a queasy feeling every time Jackson drops back to pass. But today’s stat line (17-22, 171 yards and one interception) was a step forward. One other thing to keep in mind - the Vikings are 4-2 in games Jackson has started.

Troy Williamson
Williamson’s stats won’t show it but I thought he made some key plays in this game. With the Vikings up 22-19 and starting on their 26-yard line after the Culpepper fumble late in the third quarter, Williamson had a nice 26-yard run on a reverse. Then he made a tough catch on a terribly thrown pass by Sidney Rice that set up Taylor’s six-yard touchdown run.

And then there was Williamson’s smart decision to let the Sebastian Janikowski kick off bounce out of bounds late in the fourth after the Raiders made it 29-22. That decision brought the ball out to the Vikings 40-yard line. It was a critical shift in field position at that point in the game.

The Vikings still need to find someone else to return kick offs though. Williamson looked terrible doing it today and has never looked like he has the right instincts for the job.

Ryan Cook
Cook’s a guy I haven’t liked much since he took over at right tackle late last year. But he’s been far less brutal the past three games than at any other time in his short career. I thought he did a nice job in both pass protection and run blocking against Oakland. Praising Cook might seem like heresy to some Vikings fans but again, credit where credit is due. Cook is improving. That’s a good thing.

It gets tougher next week though - he’ll be facing Michael Strahan and as you might have heard, Strahan had three sacks in the Giants win over Detroit.

Brian Robison and Chad Greenway
Robison has been a non-factor the past four games but he and Ray Edwards forced the safety in the first quarter. He also sacked Culpepper and caused the fumble in the third quarter that Greenway recovered as the Raiders were driving for points with the Vikings holding a tenuous 22-19 lead. The Vikes took over at the 26-yard line and proceeded to drive down the field and score a touchdown to make the score 29-19. That was pretty much the ball game.

Greenway also bounced back from a poor performance against Green Bay - then again, what Viking didn’t play poorly against the Packers? Greenway was much stouter against the run versus Oakland, he had the fumble recovery and an interception that should have sealed the game if he hadn’t got up, tried to run it in for a touchdown and then fumbled the ball when Edwards crashed into him. Oh well, in the heat of battle players sometimes do silly things.

Finally, Chilly deserves some props.

Beating the Raiders is no great feat but the team was coming off its worse loss to its biggest rival in team history, its star running back was out and there was some speculation Childress wouldn’t have a job Monday morning if the team lost. Yeah, I think he was probably under some pressure. But the team responded.

If Childress deserves a lot of criticism when the team loses, he also deserves some kudos when the team wins. He probably saved his job Sunday. Of course, the trick now is for the Vikings to follow this up with a win on the road, against a team that’s 7-3 and who the Vikes don’t match up particularly well with.

A victory sure beats what the Vikings experienced last week at Lambeau Field. But it was a win against the Raiders. Consider the source before you start talking yourself into an upset next Sunday.

On Deck: Monday call outs.

Friday's two-minute drill

Culpepper returns
Before being traded to Miami prior to the 2006 season, Culpepper took to answering questions from reporters by e-mail. Now playing for Oakland, Culpepper won’t be able to hide from the fifth estate that way when he makes his return to Minnesota on Sunday. Culpepper is getting the start over the injured and ineffective Josh McCown. It will be interesting to see and hear what kind of reception the ex-Vikings star will get from Metrodome crowd. I suspect it will be a mixture of jeers and cheers.

Culpepper hasn’t been the absolute bust in Oakland that he was in Miami. But he hasn’t been very good, either. His overall numbers are mediocre (70-125, 817 yards, four touchdowns and four interceptions) and he can’t run nearly as well as he did before his 2005 knee injury. Fumbling also continues to be a problem – he’s put the ball on the turf seven times in just five games and lost two of them.

But Culpepper should be pretty motivated to stick it to Brad Childress and his old team. If his offensive line can keep him upright - a big if considering it has already given up 27 sacks - Culpepper could have a big day against the Vikings weak pass defence.

Who is this guy?
Justin Fargas has replaced Lamont Jordan as the Raiders starting running back. There’s a reason for that – Fargas is averaging five yards a carry. The Vikings must shake off last week’s performance against Green Bay and stop Fargas in this game. If the unit can’t, Culpepper’s job of picking apart the Vikings pass defence will be that much easier.

Pay close attention to whether rookie head coach Lane Kiffin copies what Green Bay did to the Vikings defence last week. The Packers avoided running inside – where Pat and Kevin Williams reside – and ran outside the tackles and right at the Vikings defensive ends, outside linebackers and corners for big gains.

Antoine Winfield’s return is important because he’s great in run support and makes a lot of tackles when teams do run outside on the Vikings. The Vikings missed him badly against the Packers. But ends Kenechi Udeze, Ray Edwards and whoever else they play there will have to do their part, too. Weak side linebacker Chad Greenway also must get his act together. He was pushed around by the Packers last week and was a big liability on run defence.

T-Jack’s back
9-23, 136 yards, 1 TD
6-19, 72 yards, 0 TD’s
6-12, 63 yards, 0 TD’s

Those are Tarvaris Jackson’s passing numbers his last three starts. Not very encouraging, wouldn’t you say?

Now without Adrian Peterson to hand off to, we are told by Brad Childress we’ll finally get a real evaluation of what Jackson can do. Riiiiiight.

I already know what Jackson can do at this stage of his career and it’s not much. I expect he’ll hand off a lot to Chester Taylor and Mewelde Moore and only be asked to pass when it’s absolutely necessary. I’m still waiting to see the faintest sign that Jackson can be at least a decent quarterback in this league. Decent won’t win the Vikings any Super Bowls but it would be an improvement over what we’ve been seeing.

Jackson’s best game as a pro was his first taste of significant action against the New York Jets. That was 11 months ago.

Sid the kid
It looks like Sidney Rice will be able to play Sunday after missing the Green Bay game with a hamstring injury. That could be big. The Vikings wide receivers have caught just three touchdown passes in nine games. Rice has two them.

If Childress is so committed to developing Jackson, why not show the same commitment with Rice? Based on the amount of playing time Troy Williamson got against Green Bay, it looks like the funeral fiasco has finally soured the staff on him. Robert Ferguson is a poor man’s Bobby Wade. Aundrae Allison has caught two balls this year. Rice might be a rookie but he’s also the team’s most dangerous receiver. Play him and play him a lot.

Out the door?
With Peterson out and the team coming off a pitiful performance against the Packers, Vikings fans will be watching to see how much fire the team plays with against the Raiders. If the fire isn’t there and the Vikings lose, it could be Chilly’s last game as head coach. If they play hard and win, Chilly’s job is safe – for one more week.

The result
Despite playing without it’s number one offensive weapon, the Vikings face a team in even worse shape than it is. The Raiders have lost five in a row, have averaged 11.2 points in those losses, its defence can’t stop the run and it’s 29th-ranked passing offence looks incapable of exploiting the Achilles heel of the Vikings defence.

Of course, the Vikings will probably lose this one.

Jackson will be asked to hand off to Taylor and Moore, to manage the game and not turn the ball over. Is that going to be enough to move the ball and score the points necessary to win a football game without having Peterson to turn to? I have my doubts.

This has all the makings of a 9-6 or 13-10 snoozer with the Vikes coming up on the short end. And if Culpepper can hit on a few big plays to the likes of Jerry Porter or Ronald Curry, it might not even be that close.

Decisions, decisions

Think this is going to be a post about why Vikings owner Zygi Wilf should fire head coach Brad Childress?

Wrong. It’s actually about a topic just as important – should Adrian Peterson play another game this season?

The Vikings – or at least the team’s trainer Eric Sugarman – feel he can and will.

“Absolutely. No question” was Sugarman’s response when Viking Update asked if Peterson would play again. Sugarman even left open the possibility Peterson could play against the Giants on Nov. 25. This despite medical opinions out there contending the injury takes a minimum of three weeks to heal and sometimes six weeks or more.

The Vikings have since brought out the heavy artillery to fight off any fears from its fan base that the team is trying to rush Peterson back into the lineup. The Vikings released a statement where Dr. James Andrews – knee surgeon to the stars – is quoted as agreeing with the Vikings approach to Peterson’s knee injury. That approach is to re-evaluate Peterson week-by-week and have him “progress as his symptoms allow.” Absent in that statement was whether Andrews believes “progress” includes allowing Peterson to step on the field again in full uniform and take hand offs from the Vikings QB du jour.

The timing of the statement looks suspiciously like a response to Sean Jensen’s article in the Pioneer Press yesterday where he has Florida orthopedic surgeon Dr. Johnny Benjamin on record recommending that the Vikings shut down Peterson for the rest of the season. That’s the kind of thing that makes you go hmmmm.

There are currently four big-ticket issues the Vikings organization must solve to ensure the team’s immediate and long-term future is bright. Those issues include resolving the stadium situation, finding a decent quarterback, whether to fire Childress or keep him around for another year and if Peterson should play again this season.

You can debate what priority those issues should be placed in. But for the time being, what to do about Peterson goes to the top of my list.

After all, the kid is the franchise. He’s a rare, rare talent. We also know he just sustained a tear of a ligament in his right knee. It wasn’t a complete tear. But when it comes to running backs and the health of their knees, you don’t want to mess with that sort of thing.

To suggest Peterson could be back in another week seems crazy. He’s a player who makes violent cuts on that knee at high speed all the time. Could the stress of those cuts on his torn ligament result in a complete tear? And what about the distinct possibility of an opponent ramming into that knee at top speed again? What kind of damage could that do to a knee not yet fully healed?

We would all like the Vikings to win more games this year. But to risk playing Peterson now and thus gamble that he doesn’t hurt it even worse during a season that’s lost anyway, well that’s not something I think any Vikings fan wants to see.

However, as other fans and bloggers have noted, Childress and Sugarman’s optimistic outlook on Peterson’s return may be for self-preservation purposes. Childress knows that he’s gone – and so is most of his handpicked staff – if the team goes 1-7, or 2-6 in the second half. And without Peterson that’s a distinct possibility. The temptation must be intense on Childress to play Peterson even if he’s not that close to 100 per cent in the coming weeks. No one likes to be fired

But if Childress does take that risk, considering how much a healthy Peterson means to this team now and for the next six-to-eight years, that’s enough to justify firing him without even taking into account his handling of the quarterback situation, his habit of acquiring washed-up Eagles, Funeralgate and on and on it goes.

I’d have more respect for Childress if he just said, “Screw it. I know my job is on the line. But bringing the kid back isn’t in his best interests or the team’s. Let’s shut him down and make sure he’s 100 per cent for 2008.”

Besides, the Vikings still have Chester Taylor and Mewelde Moore to fall back on. They are productive players. They won’t be as good as Peterson or as spectacular to watch. But they’ll do all right and because the Vikings opponents the next seven games are not exactly the NFL’s elite, the Vikes should be competitive in every game (except, perhaps, for next week’s trip to the Meadowlands) and have a decent chance to win them.

If Childress can accomplish that without Peterson, he might just save his job – much to the chagrin of many Vikings fans.

If he goes the other route, a pox on him and all his family.

On Deck: Friday’s two-minute drill

Ready, aim, fired?

It might be baseless rumour mongering, but what the hell, we’re bloggers – isn’t that what the general public has come to expect from us?

Anyway, a quick post just to mention – in case anyone hasn’t read it yet – that long-time blogger Vikes Geek is “reporting” that a source close to Vikings owner Zygi Wilf has revealed to Vikes Geek that Wilf is considering buying out the remainder of head coach Brad Childress’s contract, which has another three years to go on it.

Vikes Geek also writes in his post (sorry, I still haven’t been able to insert links to the story in my text even though every other blogger seems to have figured it out) that Wilf would replace Chilly with defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier. As interim head coach, Frazier would get a chance to audition for the full-time gig during the last portion of the season.

I have no idea if Vikes Geek’s “source” is legitimate. We’ll have to see. VG is promising more updates on this. No stories about this had popped up on websites like CBS Sportsline or ESPN.com when I checked minutes ago.

However, I doubt Wilf would do such a thing at this point in the season. The 34-0 loss to Green Bay was pretty bad and everybody in Vikingsland is pissed about it. But that came one week after the team had played its best game of the season in beating the San Diego Chargers. Does Wilf really can Childress after one blowout loss – even if it did come against the hated Packers? Has he lost that much confidence in the guy in the span of seven days?

There’s little doubt firing Childress would be popular among most Vikings fans. But it would also guarantee this team goes in the tank immediately. The Vikings are not going anywhere this season – so perhaps that’s no biggie. But the larger issue is what message Wilf would be sending to prospective head coaching candidates by firing Childress in midseason. Well, the message it could send is that Wilf is in over his head as an owner of an NFL franchise and one prone to making rash and not very well thought out football decisions. That isn’t the kind of situation that is likely to convince Bill Cowher to come out of retirement or entice Marty Schottenheimer to sign on as the new coach of the Vikings.

But for now, it’s just a rumour on a blog. Time will tell if more smoke appears regarding this situation. And if more smoke does appear, well, you know how that old saying goes.

Moody Monday call outs

Before I get to the Monday call outs, the word is out regarding Adrian Peterson’s knee injury and the word is not good. According to Tim Yotter at Viking Update, Peterson has sustained a grade two tear of his lateral collateral ligament.

Obviously, the words “Peterson" "knee” and “tear” were not ones Vikings fans wanted to see used in the same sentence today but that is the reality. The good news is that it isn’t a complete tear and no surgery is required.

The bad news? Peterson’s all but out for Sunday’s game against the Raiders. Yotter also writes that Peterson could miss anywhere from three to five weeks.

Without Peterson, suddenly the next seven games that seemed winnable for the Vikings look a lot different now. And with the Vikings surely out of any playoff hunt by then and with Peterson having no chance to break Eric Dickerson’s records or win the league rushing title, the critical question for the Vikings coaching staff to answer is this one – do you play him again this season?

I hate to treat Peterson like some china doll. But he is the franchise. It would kill me to see him hurt the knee again (or some other body part) in some meaningless late season Vikings loss.

Packers rout the Vikings. Peterson hurts his knee. Now a ligament tear to that knee cuts short a brilliant rookie season. It’s been a very, very dark 24 hours for Vikings fans.

Now we move on to the call outs

Brooks Bollinger
You had us fooled Brooks. Your competent play the previous two weeks in relief had Vikings fans thinking you might be the answer (short term, at least) to the team’s quarterback problems. But with the chance to claim the starting job, you fell flat on your face. You looked nervous. You played nervous. You didn’t get much help from your receiver friends, mind you. But hey, the buck always stops here – at the quarterback position.

But maybe we shouldn’t be blaming you for giving us hope. You are what you are, which is a career backup – and that’s being kind. You never claimed to be anything else. We knew that before you stunk it up against the Packers. So we should probably blame ourselves for expecting too much and blame Brad Childress for stocking the team’s quarterback position with a bunch of third-stringers and practice squad players.

Chad Greenway
Chad, many Vikings fans say your pass coverage needs work. That could very well be the case. But I’m more concerned about your ability to stop the run. I saw you on the field lots on Sunday. I didn’t see you make many tackles. I did see the Packers offensive lineman and blocking backs manhandle you on numerous running plays though. That seems to be happening a lot lately. Do you think the Packers picked up on that during film study last week? They sure seemed to run a lot to your side of the field on Sunday.

Ray Edwards, Brian Robison, Kenechi Udeze, et al.
You knew you needed to have a big game. You knew you needed to harass Brett Favre and chase him back to Mississippi. Didn’t happen. If not for that one Favre scramble where you got flagged for a late hit, Kenechi, I doubt his jersey would have had so much as a grass stain on it.

And this is becoming a bad trend. The defence has three sacks in the past three games. Favre and Donovan McNabb have picked you apart through the air and have had all the time in the world to do it. This has to stop.

Leslie Frazier
Listen, I know it’s tough. You’ve got this offence that can’t do a damn thing. All it’s mastered this season is the three-and-out. It can’t stay on the field. It can’t keep your unit off the field. You’ve been propping up this team, giving it a chance to win, just about every week and usually to no avail. It must be frustrating.

Still, your guys got beat yesterday. Your boys looked confused, listless, dare I say unprepared most of the time. And you had no answer for it. Neither did your players. I hope you find some in time for this week’s game.

The fall of Troy
Too much has probably been written already about the Troy Williamson fiasco, yet I feel I have to write a bit about it anyway.

Childress made a point of calling reporters on Saturday to tell the world the team’s management had decided – after a meeting with a veteran leadership committee – that Williamson would not be docked a week’s pay for missing the San Diego game to attend to his grandmother’s funeral after all.

Childress and the Vikings management were killed in the press last week for appearing to be an uncaring, cold and petty employer at a time when Williamson was dealing with the loss of a loved one. Apparently, Williamson didn’t inform the Vikings he wouldn’t be back for the game. That might not be the best way to handle things. But Williamson had a tough week – so he gets a pass from me on this. Call me soft hearted if you wish.

But what’s more concerning from a fan’s perspective is how this incident affects the Vikings in the offseason as they try to woo free agents to Minnesota to improve the team – particularly its offence.

While money tends to trump all other factors for professional athletes, the Vikings did themselves no favours by initially taking a hard line on Williamson. Supposing he lives to fight another season, the Vikings are already hamstrung in attracting useful free agents by the fact the team has a head coach perceived around the league as humourless, robotic, unimaginative and stubborn.

So how is Childress – or even a new coach – going to convince a free agent that the Vikings are a first-class organization and treat its players in a first-class manner after what was done to Williamson – and Marcus Robinson the season before? If I’m a free agent in 2008 looking for a big payday and a new home, you better believe I’m wondering if the Williamson incident was just the tip of the iceberg on how the Vikings treat their players. And that kind of doubt could be enough to result in, say, Arizona wide receiver Bryant Johnson, crossing Minnesota off his wish list if he hits the open market in the New Year.

On Deck: Where do the Vikings go from here?

Dazed and confused

That was ugly.

The Green Bay Packers completed its second consecutive regular season sweep of the Vikings with a 34-0 trouncing of the purple on Sunday. It was a game where the Vikings weaknesses were exposed much like they were by the New England Patriots a little over a year ago.

The game showed once again that good quarterbacks can carve up the Vikings Cover 2 defence – especially when the Vikings mount absolutely no pass rush. It also proved – if there was anymore proof necessary - that the Vikings weak quarterback and receiving corps can’t win games for the team when situation or circumstance takes Adrian Peterson out of the game.

I don’t like to give the Vikings opponents much praise in these posts. But in this case, Green Bay’s head coach Mike McCarthy came up with a game plan on offence that worked to perfection against the Vikings. The strength of the Minnesota defence is the Williams twins plugging up the middle. Beyond that, its linebackers like to crowd the line of scrimmage and then hit the open gaps in the opponent’s offensive line to take down opposing running backs for short gains, no gains and sometimes loss of yardage.

But McCarthy wasn’t having any of that. As expected, he spread out the Vikings by lining up three, four and sometimes five wide receivers regardless of down and distance. This forced the Vikes out of their base 4-3 defensive alignment, which often left the effective Ben Leber on the sidelines as defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier was forced to use his nickel and dime backs in coverage. But with Antoine Winfield out for the second straight game with a bad hamstring, the Vikings were even more ill equipped personnel-wise than usual to stop the Packers Donald Driver, Greg Jennings, James Jones and even Ruvell Martin.

Thus, bad matchups were in abundance. For example, Vikings safety Dwight Smith sometimes found himself covering the likes of Driver (not good) and rookie Marcus McCauley – who recently lost his nickel job to Charles Gordon – was forced to start in Winfield’s place (also not good.) Predictably, McCauley got beat no matter whom he was covering.

However, it wasn’t even the Packers passing game that killed the Vikings – particularly in the first half as Green Bay jumped out to a 13-0 lead and forced the Vikings offence to play catch up – something this unit isn’t built to do. It was the Packers usually limp running game that really got the team rolling. Here McCarthy had Brett Favre use all kinds of trickery and play action to keep the Vikings linebackers hesitant instead going forward to blow up running plays like they normally do.

Using numerous shovel passes, plus pump fakes that turned into hand offs, Favre had the Vikings defence dazed and confused the entire game. The Packers also did something few other teams have tried – it ran new starting running back Ryan Grant outside of the tackles. The Bears and Cowboys had some success doing this in previous games. But the Pack and Grant (25 carries, 119 yards, including one 30-yard touchdown run) took it to the next level, churning out several big runs to the outside.

Grant often found huge holes at the line of scrimmage to run through as the Packers lineman and fullbacks pushed the Vikings defensive ends, linebackers and defensive backs around. Mix all this in with the fact the Vikings defensive lineman rarely laid a finger on Favre as Frazier elected not to blitz and the Packers had little trouble marching up and down the field.

Because the defence was overmatched in this game, it was imperative that the Vikings offence be able to string a drive or two together to keep the Packers offence off the field and score some points to keep the team within striking distance. But as so often has been the case during the Brad Childress era that was too much to ask. The Vikings third starting quarterback of the season – Brooks Bollinger – looked jittery and played poorly throughout. The offence produced only three first downs in the first half and went 0-8 on third down conversions for the entire game. Bollinger didn’t complete a pass to a wide receiver until there was 2:12 left in the third quarter. Robert Ferguson was the team’s leading receiver, which tells you all you need to know about how well that unit played in this game

Of course, the game recaps are already trumpeting how the Packers “stopped” Adrian Peterson. However, that’s not accurate. It was actually the Vikings passing offence that really put the clamps on the rookie. Sure, Peterson wasn’t able to break off any 60-yard runs but his stat line (11 carries, 45 yards, 4.1 yards per carry) was fine. However, Peterson needed much more than 11 carries if the Vikings were going to win this game. But when forced into passing situations, Bollinger and his receivers couldn’t get first downs to keep drives alive, stay on the field and get Peterson the touches he needed.

It’s bad enough that the Vikings lost to the Packers for the fourth time in a row, that they got whupped 34-0 in the process, that they were shutout for the first time since 1991 and that the Packers are now 8-1 and the talk of the league again. But what must have Vikings burying their head in their hands is seeing Peterson furiously kicking the Lambeau Field turf in pain after Green Bay corner Al Harris took him down with a low hit late in the third quarter. Early indications are Peterson hurt his knee on the play.

Running backs can sprain ankles, break collarbones and even sustain a concussion or two during a career. But knee injuries are the thing they fear the most. Peterson looked okay on the sidelines as the blowout continued on without him. That’s encouraging. But who knows what the MRI will turn up tomorrow?

And if Peterson does miss a large amount of time because of a knee injury it will short circuit a rookie season for the ages. Such an injury could also have repercussions beyond Peterson's performance. It would likely send the Vikings into a disastrous tailspin and cost Childress his job. It would also eliminate the one thing that makes the team worth watching week after week.

And beyond the shutout, the Packers sweep and the Favre-mania in the media that’s about to be unleashed, that’s the most sickening outcome of this game.

Doesn’t the win over the Chargers and Peterson’s record-breaking performance seems like such a long time ago now?

On Deck: Monday call outs and a word about Willy

Friday's two minute drill

Clear as mud

Tarvaris Jackson is listed as probable on the Vikings injury report. He was limited in practice this week and Brooks Bollinger took most of the first-team reps. But according to Kevin Seifert’s Thursday Star-Tribune blog, Jackson sounded confident he would play against the Packers.

Brad Childress hadn’t committed to either guy as of Thursday, which makes it business-as-usual around Winter Park regarding the Vikings quarterbacking situation. Childress did say if Jackson were healthy, he would play. If Jackson is healthy and Chilly’s serious, you won’t be reading any “Vikings upset Packers” headlines Monday morning. Bollinger should be given a shot at starting against Green Bay.

To blitz or not to blitz

Against the Chargers, defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier blitzed Philip Rivers on virtually every passing down. The Vikings haven’t been a good blitzing team. But the strategy worked against Rivers.

Blitzing Favre probably won’t work as well as it did against Rivers. Still, the Vikings need to get pressure on Favre somehow to slow down the Packers passing attack. But maybe Frazier won’t have to blitz. Favre was only sacked once in last week’s win over Kansas City but Packers fans on Internet message boards have been moaning all week about the play of offensive guards Daryn Colledge, Tony Moll and Jason Spitz. And it may not be a case of needless hand ringing by the fans. Packers coach Mike McCarthy was also critical of the line’s play.

The Vikings pass rush has improved from 2006. It’s no New York Sack Exchange, yet with the Packers O-line in disarray, it won’t have to be. If the Vikings can get just enough pressure on Favre from the front four, keep the blitzing to a minimum and keep the secondary out of one-on-one matchups with the Packers receivers that it can’t win, it will go a long way towards a Vikings win at Lambeau.

Punt returns

Will Mewelde Moore continue to return punts against the Packers?

He should. Moore is perfectly suited for the role, which requires a player to dodge large, fast men with bad intentions and a full head of steam. Because Moore is so shifty, he is able to make the first couple of defenders miss even though punt returners often have to catch the ball standing still. And if you can wiggle by those first couple of tacklers, a big return usually follows.

Bobby Wade has looked extremely tentative and been ineffective as the Vikings punt returner so far. When he isn’t signaling for fair catches, he’s letting returnable punts hit the turf to be downed by the opposition. No one’s sure why the coaching staff prefers Wade to Moore. For a team like the Vikings, who have lost four games by a touchdown or less and have a woefully one-dimensional offence that struggles to score when Adrian Peterson isn’t ripping off 60-yard runs, keeping Moore in the role as punt returner is one of the little adjustments Brad Childress could make to help his offence out.

If Moore can break one or two long punt returns every so often, it sets the offence up with a short field and increases its chances of scoring that extra touchdown or field goal that the Vikings have needed. Moore’s fourth quarter 42-yard punt return against the Chargers was a big play – although it was lost among the Peterson fireworks. At the time the Vikings had a slim 21-17 lead. Thanks to Moore’s return, the Vikings found themselves on the Chargers 46-yard line and in great position to pad the lead, which Peterson did on the next play with his 46-yard touchdown run.

Moore is no Devin Hester. Nobody is. But he’s much better than Wade. His knack for producing big punt returns is an asset this Vikings team should be taking advantage of.

Cook vs. Kampman

Ryan Cook had a pretty nice game against the Chargers. Now he faces a player who has sodomized him in two previous meetings – Aaron Kampman. Of course, the Packers left defensive end has been pretty good against everybody this year. He’s tied for the NFL lead with nine sacks.

Kampman has created all kinds of havoc for Cook and Vikings quarterbacks the past two meetings. If Cook can hold his own against Kampman (with a little help from Jim Kleinsasser perhaps?) that will give whoever is quarterbacking the Vikings more time to scan the field if a forward pass is occasionally necessary. If food poisoning isn’t an issue again, I expect Bryant McKinnie to handle Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila this time around. Cook’s the one I’m worried about.

No passing fancy

I don’t know how many more 200-yard, three touchdown games Peterson has in him this season. So expectations should be lowered for Peterson against the Packers, especially since the Pack’s defence will surely copy the Eagles strategy and have eight or nine guys within three yards of the line of scrimmage most of the game. The Packers can do this because the Vikings passing game – particularly with Jackson behind centre – commands absolutely no respect.

Childress says the Vikings are going to run the ball no matter how many defenders the Packers put in the box. I believe him. But the Vikings still must try to make the Packers pay for stacking the line of scrimmage with so many defenders. And with the Packers linebackers - and probably a safety - crowding the line of scrimmage, this could be a game where the seldom used but highly-compensated Visanthe Shiancoe could come to the Vikings rescue. With a little play action, Shiancoe should be wide open down the middle for some easy completions. All he needs is a quarterback who can get it to him.

Sigh. Maybe next year.

And if the Packers are going to have AJ Hawk, Nick Barnett, et al. crowding the line of scrimmage to gang-tackle Peterson, it might behoove the Vikings to throw a few short passes to the rookie sensation rather than running him repeatedly into a wall of green and gold defenders. Screen passes are just like long hand offs anyway and they’ll get Peterson away from a crowded line of scrimmage and maybe matched up against a linebacker in space. I like that matchup.

Is 6-2 possible?

Last week’s win over the Chargers has some Vikings fans and bloggers talking playoffs again. That will be tough. Winning the division is out with the Packers at 7-1. The current wild card leaders are Detroit and the New York Giants – both 6-2. For the Vikes to have any chance they need to finish the season at 6-2. They also need at least two of the aforementioned teams (and maybe Washington as well) to self-destruct.

But before the Vikings can worry about the other teams, it has to take care of its own business. One of my favourite bloggers, Pacifist Viking, points out it’s quite conceivable the team could go 6-2 considering the teams it will be playing. All eight games look winnable. But are the Vikings – who haven’t won two games in a row since early last season - capable of such a prolonged stretch of competent football?

I doubt it. As most Vikings fans know, the problem with this team is it is so heavily dependent on Peterson to provide the offence, that if he has anything close to an average game, the Vikings are toast. Now if the Vikings could ever find a passing game, they would be in business. But it didn’t happen last season, it hasn’t happened yet this season and it would be unrealistic to think that it’s going to happen in the last eight games.

Assuming Peterson continues to stay healthy (maybe I shouldn’t even bring that subject up), I can see the Vikings going 4-4, possibly even 5-3, the rest of the way. But 6-2? The team just isn’t balanced enough on offence to win that consistently.

On Deck: Packers/Vikings postgame rundown

The Tombies

It’s the halfway point of the NFL season and that seems like as good a time as any to take stock of the state of the Vikings. In order to do that, the staff at Grant’s Tomb decided to give out some mid-term awards. We’re calling them the Tombies. And they will be given out every year at midseason as long as this blog is up and running.

Here are the 2007 winners (or more appropriately in some categories - the losers.) Let the tradition begin.

Offensive MVP:

Winner: Adrian Peterson
No drama needed here. The man some call Purple Jesus IS the Vikings offence. Despite all the close losses the Vikings have had, this team would be 1-7 without him and its fans would be talking about who the team should pick if it got the number one overall draft pick in 2008. Instead, some fans are actually talking playoffs. There is hope in Vikingsland and it’s all because of Peterson.

Defensive MVP

Winner: E.J. Henderson
Watch a Vikings game and Henderson is in the middle of everything the defence does. Knifing through gaps in the offensive line to make numerous tackles for losses on opposing running backs, shedding blockers and making bone jarring tackles on screens or if a back manages to break through the defensive line on a hand off. He’s also an effective blitzer when called upon. He’s even improved his pass coverage skills enough that he’s no longer a liability there. If there is a linebacker having a better year than Henderson, I’d like to know who it is.

Honourable mention: Pat Williams
One reason Henderson is able to make so many tackles on opposing running backs at or behind the line of scrimmage is because of Big Pat. At all times Williams must be accounted for by the other team’s offensive lineman. He often gets double-teamed and that frees up his teammates to make tackles. But Williams isn’t just some huge space eater – he makes plenty of plays himself. It’s not all girth and brute strength, either. Williams is amazingly quick at the line of scrimmage and you cannot run inside on this defence with Big Pat in the game (and Kevin Williams playing beside him.)

The Onterrio Smith SOD Memorial Award

Winner: Brian Robison
The rookie out of the University of Texas has been a non-factor the past three games but he’s still got 3.5 sacks and gives the team some edge speed from the defensive end position. Expect Robison to get better in the future as he gets a little stronger and learns more of the tricks of the trade at the pro level. The Vikings did very well landing this guy on the second day of last April's draft.

The Wade Wilson Pleasant Surprise Award

Winner: Kenechi Udeze
Coming off a zero sack season in 2006 despite starting all 16 games, I rolled my eyes every time a member of the Vikings coaching staff lauded Udeze for how well he defended the run last season. It all smacked of spin to me and Udeze’s brutal preseason did nothing to change my mind.

But Udeze’s play in the Vikings first eight games has been encouraging. He really is good against the run and he’s been solid rushing the passer most games to boot. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.

The Herschel Walker Unpleasant Surprise Award

Winner: Tarvaris Jackson
Did Vikings fans expect Jackson to struggle in his first year as the starting quarterback? Absolutely. But there was also the expectation that Jackson would throw in a reasonable amount of promising play to go along with those struggles. That hasn’t happened. While the Vikings are 3-2 in games he has started, Jackson has contributed virtually nothing to any of those wins. He looks completely lost and has showcased only poor poise in the pocket, a wildly inaccurate right arm and horrendous decision-making.

The worst of it is I have no confidence better days are ahead for Jackson. The poise and decision-making may improve but the accuracy probably won’t. What you see may be what you get with Jackson and what Vikings fans are seeing is a quarterback best suited for the Canadian Football League.

The Mardye McDole Worst Impersonation of a Receiver Award

Winner: Troy Williamson
There were plenty of stories this summer highlighting that Troy Williamson caught something like 13,000 balls this offseason to improve the hands that betrayed him in 2006. Well, based on Williamson’s performance in 2007, maybe wide receivers coach George Stewart should have had him running 13,000 pass routes as well.

Williamson’s hands seemed to have improved but you still have to be able to get open. And since he is a starter, nine catches in six games (an average of 1.5 per game) is not even remotely good enough - even if Jackson and Kelly Holcomb have been the ones throwing you the ball. The more time goes by, the more Williamson looks like a colossal waste of a high first round pick by the Vikings

The Mike Tice Worst Challenge of the Year Award

Winner: Take your pick.
What has Brad Childress’s worst challenge been in 2007? Let’s see. It could be when he challenged the ruling that Peterson had stepped out of bounds on the Vikings one-yard line while fielding a kick off against the Eagles. Or maybe it was when he challenged the ruling on a Marion Barber touchdown run in the Cowboys game? How about the time before that against the Packers where he threw his red hanky to challenge the spot of the ball? So many choices, so little time.

Pick a game and you can probably point to any challenge Brad Childress has made. They’ve pretty much all been bad. Even Tice didn’t whiff this badly, this consistently when the tossing the red flag during his coaching stint.

Most Insignificant Free Agent Addition

Winner: Vinny Ciurciu
Ciurciu was signed to a relatively fat contract for a player with his resume and was billed as some kind of special teams ace. So far he’s got five tackles. It’s true a high ankle sprain has slowed him and he missed two games before returning to action against the Chargers. But it’s still hard to figure why the team felt the need to sign him for three years at $1-million per year. The special teams unit has looked just as good without him as it has with him. if you're a special teams standout, that shouldn't happen, should it?

Dishonourable mention: Robert Ferguson
Remind me - why did we sign this guy?

Most significant Free Agent Addition

Winner: No one

I think Bobby Wade is okay. But when you get signed to a five-year, $15-million deal, you need to do a bit more than he’s been doing this season (24 catches, 284 yards, 0 touchdowns and only two catches for 20 yards or more.) To be fair, Wade’s production is partly a consequence of the quarterbacks that are throwing him the ball and the offensive line’s pass blocking problems. But a lot of it is on Wade, too. At this pace, his production won’t even constitute an upgrade over the departed Travis Taylor.

As for the Vikings other “big” offseason free agent signing – Visanthe Shiancoe – he hasn’t been utilized enough to be considered a significant addition to the team. That’s not entirely his fault because the Vikings don’t throw a lot to the tight ends. I think Shiancoe could be a real asset if given the opportunity. But he’s only made a noticeable impact in one of his first eight games as a Viking. The coaching staff must find a way to get Shiancoe more involved in the offence in the second half of the season.

On Deck: The Friday two-minute drill

Moody Monday call outs

Today, this blog will start another regular feature where we highlight Vikings players and coaches whose performances were less than stellar. Here is who we are calling out this week.

Kevin Williams
Maybe the Vikings All Pro defensive tackle is a better all-around player than he was earlier in his career. And maybe teams are constantly double-teaming him on passing downs. But Williams is on pace to register just four sacks this season – which would tie his career low set 2005 – and he hasn’t been menacing quarterbacks of late.

This is quite a change from his first two seasons where Williams collected 22 sacks and always seemed to be collapsing the pocket on pass rushing situations. He was perhaps the most disruptive inside pass rusher in the NFL.

This isn’t to say that Williams is playing badly this season. He’s still playing very well. But fans are always looking for more and what a boost Williams would provide the team’s pass rush if he were to re-emerge as a constant pass rushing force from the tackle position.

Erasmus James
Erasmus:

You are a former first round draft choice. You have missed 20 of the last 22 games due to injury. You have done nothing but take playing time away from more productive players in the two games you have appeared in this season. Where is the promise you showed during your 2005 rookie season? Did last year’s knee injury rob you of the speed that made the Vikings think you could help solve the team’s pass rush deficiencies from the end position? If the health of your knee is no longer an issue, it’s time to wake up, my boy.

Brad Childress
Adrian Peterson’s performance will probably keep the heat off Childress for the next six days but even in a win over the Chargers, the Vikings head coach continues to struggle with game day decisions.

Two examples stood out on Sunday. The first came on the Vikings last drive of the first half. With the score knotted at 7-7 and with 2:24 left in the half, the Vikings offence gets the ball with all their timeouts (I think) left – plus the two-minute warning stoppage. The Vikings are on the 20-yard line. But that’s still plenty of time to move the ball down the field and get in position for a field goal or better.

But Childress appeared willing to just run out the clock and go into the half tied at 7-7. The play calling reflects this, as the Vikings call three straight runs to Peterson. I don’t know of another NFL team – even the Miami Dolphins – who would not at least try to score with that amount of time and timeouts left in a half. But that’s what Chilly seemed to be doing. Very questionable coaching there.

Of course, when Peterson runs for a first down on a third and six play, Childress and offensive coordinator/yes man Darrell Bevell change their minds. But they take their time doing so. Peterson’s brought down with about 1:10 on the clock on that play. A timeout should be called immediately. Instead, Bollinger and the players look a bit confused, as if they have been told to keep the clock running but know they should be calling a timeout. Finally the Vikings call it at the 46-second mark and have wasted 24 valuable seconds in the process.

Now the Vikings are on their 31-yard and have to advance the ball another 30 yards in very little time just to get into position to kick a long field goal. The Vikings can’t quite pull it off due to time constraints, which leads to Childress sending out Ryan Longwell to try a career-long 57-yard field goal. As we all know, the kick falls a little short and the Chargers Anthony Cromartie returns it for a 109-yard touchdown – the longest play in NFL history.

Childress’s other questionable decision came after a Philip Rivers fumble early in the second half gives the Vikings the ball at the Chargers 20-yard line. The Vikings had just tied the score moments earlier on Peterson’s 64-yard TD run. Now the Chargers have gift-wrapped Minnesota the ball deep in San Diego territory. The Metrodome crowd roars and the game is swinging the Vikings way.

In three plays the Vikings are at the Chargers six-yard line. Peterson is on a roll. You can just smell a Vikings touchdown. So what does Childress do? He takes his franchise player out of the game, a player who has already scored two touchdowns, and inserts Chester Taylor – presumably to give Peterson a breather. Taylor fumbles two plays later. Minutes after this, the CBS broadcast team of Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf regale viewers with a tale of Steve Hutchinson talking about how Peterson wasn’t even breathing hard after one of his long touchdown runs against Chicago. The moral of that story: Peterson doesn’t require a breather. There’s no need to give Taylor sympathy carries here. You need a score. And Childress needs to keep Peterson in the game.

Bill Belichick
This last call out is not Vikings related at all but I had to mention that post-game handshake between Belichick and Tony Dungy.

Here you have an excellent game, hard-fought by the two best teams in the NFL and during a postgame ritual where the opposing coaches normally embrace and exchange brief pleasantries, Belichick treats Dungy – reportedly the classiest coach in the business – like he’s got the bubonic plaque. It was a brief moment but it sure looked to me like Belichick brushed away Dungy’s attempt to shake hands. What a turd.

I’ll continue to root for Randy Moss to put up huge numbers for the Patriots. But this latest incident, coupled with the videotaping scandal and running up the scores, is going to make it difficult for me to root for Ole’ 84 to get his Super Bowl ring. I just don’t want to see Belichick win another title.

On Deck: Mid season bricks and bouquets

Peterson stars, but don't forget the defence

You know, this NFL thing isn’t that hard. Just get your star rookie running back to run for 296 yards and three touchdowns, have your defence shut down the league’s reigning MVP, have your coach avoid making silly challenges and have your quarterback not overthrow wide open receivers deep and bada-bing, bada-boom, you too could beat the Whale’s Vagina Chargers 35-17.

All jokes aside though, while everyone tomorrow is going to go gaga over Adrian Peterson’s record-breaking performance – and rightfully so – the Vikings defence deserves a big assist for helping the team break a two-game losing streak and beating the Chargers 35-17 on Sunday at the Metrodome.

After all, it was the defence - playing without arguably its best defensive player Antoine Winfield - that kept this game close in the first half as the Vikings offence sputtered with Tarvaris Jackson at quarterback, as the Chargers kept Peterson in check (he had just 43 rushing yards in the first half) and as the team killed itself with penalties (11 for 81 yards during the game).

The Vikings defence did two things very well against the Chargers. First, it accomplished item number one on its to-do list by making LaDainian Tomlinson (16 carries for 40 yards) look ordinary. His longest run was 11 yards.

Just as important, with the Vikings repeatedly stuffing Tomlinson and getting the Chargers into second-and-long and third-and-long situations, defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier decided to blitz Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers liberally, usually sending two linebackers, or sometimes sending a linebacker and a safety. The tactic worked.

While Rivers was only sacked once and the Vikings got lucky on some deep throws that Rivers missed or were called back due to Chargers penalties, he often had to throw the ball before he wanted to and just as often had to throw on the move – something he doesn’t do well. The result was passes well off the mark that his receivers could rarely catch.

Two Vikings defenders really stood out in this game. The first was middle linebacker E.J Henderson. Along with his usual sure tackling and ability to get into the opponents backfield to blow up running plays, Henderson was extremely effective when sent on the blitz, getting in Rivers’s face on many occasions. Vikings fans sometimes focus on what Henderson doesn’t do so well (pass coverage). But perhaps it’s time to focus on what Henderson does and does very well – tackling and stopping the run. Henderson has become a star. Yes, I’m biased but it sure looks to me like he is playing at a Pro Bowl level. Let the announcers keep yammering on about Brian Urlacher and Ray Lewis, but I think Henderson is playing as well as any linebacker in the NFL right now.

The other Vikings defender that really got my attention was right defensive end Ray Edwards. He registered the team’s only sack and was close to getting one or two more as he put constant pressure on Rivers. The knock on Edwards when the Vikings drafted him in 2006 was he had an attitude problem and didn’t play hard all the time. But I haven’t seen any evidence this season that Edwards takes plays off. His motor seems to be on full throttle all the time. It's been fun watching him develop into a quality defensive end. The Vikings have had so few of them the past 10 years or so.

On the offensive side of the ball, this game was the latest example of why making Peterson the starting running back and giving him the lion’s share of the work at Chester Taylor's expense was the right move for the team. With Taylor you get a guy who can turn what should be a five or 10-yard run into 10 or 20-yard run. With Peterson you get a guy who can turn what should be a five or 10-yard run into a 64-yard touchdown.

The win over the Chargers also presents coach Brad Childress with a couple of important personnel decisions to ponder going into next week’s game against the Packers. One involves rookie wide receiver Sidney Rice, who caught four balls for 66 yards, including a 40-yard touchdown pass from Brooks Bollinger.

It’s pretty clear to most Vikings observers that Rice is this team’s most talented and dangerous receiver. But you get the feeling he hasn’t gained the coaching staff’s trust yet due to the fact his playing time varies wildly from game-to-game. However, if the Vikings pass offence is ever to resemble a modern-day attack this season, Rice has to be on the field – a lot. But will Childress continue to start the disappointing Troy Williamson and also give valuable snaps to the unproductive Robert Ferguson at the expense of Rice? Let’s hope not. It’s time to make Rice a starter.

Chilly’s other quandary is what to do about the quarterback position – both for the next game and the rest of the season. Once again starter Jackson was bit by the injury bug, this time with a concussion that knocked him out of the game on the final drive of the first half. Bollinger, who fared much better than the ineffective Jackson, replaced him.

I’ve been pretty harsh in my assessment of Bollinger in this blog in the past. However, in roughly three quarters of play the past two games, Bollinger (14-for-20, 189 yards, 1 TD) has been surprisingly competent. He’s much more poised in the pocket and seems to have a better grasp of the offence than Jackson, he’s far more mobile than injured backup Kelly Holcomb and he’s been more accurate than both.

Childress seems married to developing Jackson as the starter of the future for the Vikings. But what of the present? The Vikings have a good defence that keeps the team in games. In Peterson it has perhaps the best offensive player in the league right now. Competent play from the quarterback position could save the Vikings from another 6-10 or worse season. If Childress values job security, he ought to think hard about giving Bollinger the start in Green Bay even if Jackson is healthy enough to go next Sunday.

Now there’s something I never thought I would write.

On Deck: Monday call outs

Friday's two minute drill

It’s Friday, so it’s time for what I’m hoping will become (but wasn’t last week) a regular feature of this blog – the Friday two-minute drill. As with any two-minute drill, time is of the essence, so let’s get to it.

The Game

Look out! The Whale’s Vagina Chargers are hot and the Vikings – losers of five of its last six – are not. Still, if the Vikings defence keeps LaDainianTomlinson in check, this game will play out like so many of the last 16 in this wretched stretch of football have. The Vikings offence struggles to score, the Chargers Philip Rivers throws for 350-plus yards, Brad Childress throws his red hanky on at least one unwinnable and unnecessary challenge and the purple lose by 10 points or less.

But if Tomlinson has a breakout game, the Chargers win this one in a blowout, with Vikings fans leaving the Metrodome by the third quarter, resulting in a post game tirade by Darren Sharper where he compares Minnesota fans unfavourably to the Lambeau faithful.

The only way this one turns out differently for the Vikings is if a) the defence scores two touchdowns off turnovers or b) Adrian Peterson pretends he’s playing in Soldier Field.

The quarterback

It looks like Tarvaris Jackson will be able to play Sunday after all, so the Brook Bollinger era gets delayed for another week. Or maybe it doesn’t.

Here’s how I envision T-Jack’s start going against the Chargers:

The Vikings have the predictable strong opening drive with Jackson handing off to Peterson eight straight times and completing one screen pass to Chester Taylor for four yards as the Vikings reach the Chargers 28-yard line. Peterson then runs for a short three-yard gain, followed by two incomplete passes, which is followed by a Longwell field goal.

Jackson proceeds to go one-for-eight for -8 yards the rest of the half as the Vikings offence has two three-and-outs and two six-and-outs. The Metrodome fans boo the Vikings heartily at half time with the team down 13-3, calling for Childress to bring in Bollinger.

Childress comes back with Jackson to start the second half. The Vikings quickly go three-and-out as Peterson gets stuffed for no gain on the first play, a quick slant to Robert Ferguson is batted down by Quentin Jammer and on third-and-10 Jackson badly overthrows an open Troy Williamson on a deep ball. The Metrodome crowd boos some more as Bollinger warms up quickly on the sideline…

The switch

The decision to make Peterson the starting running back last week had to be done but I still feel bad for Taylor (if one should feel bad for a guy who signed a $14-million contract last year). Here’s a guy who paid his dues, served as the back up to Jamal Lewis in Baltimore for many years. He then signs with the Vikings to be the number one guy. In his first year as a starter he turns in a 1,200-yard season with Childress working him like some Chinese brick factory worker, only to lose the job to the NFL’s next great running back.

And once Peterson learns to pass block better, how many touches does Taylor figure to get then? I see an unhappy Taylor pushing for a trade in the near future, with the Vikings shipping him off to Houston or some other running back challenged team for a fourth-round pick in the offseason.

The wounded

So, Antoine Winfield is doubtful for the Chargers game with a hamstring injury? That’s not so good.

Meanwhile, the Vikings leading receiver Bobby Wade is going to try to play through a hyper extended knee injury. Vikings fans will now get to see if they can tell the difference between a healthy Bobby Wade and a Bobby Wade playing with a bum knee.

The offence

Vikings beat writer Sean Jensen had an interesting article this week that broke down the offence’s drives during Chilly’s 23-game head coaching career in Minnesota and tried to come up with reasons why the team struggles to score points.

My theory – which I started to research in September before getting sidetracked by the rest of my life – is that the Vikings poor personnel at quarterback, wide receiver and portions of its offensive line results in too many third-and-long situations each and every drive. Third-and-longs are hard for any team to convert. But they are pure poison for a Vikings offence that has poor quarterbacks who can’t make the required throws and poor receivers who can’t get open or make the catches when they do.

Vikings fans can blame Childress and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell’s play calling or offensive scheme all they want. But this offence will continue to struggle as long as it keeps getting into too many third-and-longs. And in order for that to change, the Vikings need a quarterback who can throw and receivers who can get open and catch.

Question period

And in an effort to be more interactive, Grant’s Tomb is asking its readers to ponder this question over the weekend.

Is 2007 shaping up to be the Vikings most frustrating season ever? Grant’s Tomb asks its readers to be kind enough to post their comments on what season they think has been the most frustrating in the team’s 40-plus year history. Fans certainly have many choices to pick from.

On Deck: The post-game breakdown