Bleacher Report - Articles by Marino Eccher

Vikings-Ravens: Pass the Defense, Please; and Other Observations

Marino Eccher — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:47:20 -0400

An embarrassing final period. An epic near-collapse. A defensive meltdown worse than any other in the Brad Childress era.

With wins like this, who needs a loss?

Minnesota should take many emotions away from Sunday’s escape from disaster—shock, confusion, chagrin—but relief isn’t one of them.

To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with a close victory over a quality opponent like Baltimore. There’s nothing wrong with another stellar day from Brett Favre (21-of-29, 278 yards, three touchdowns). There’s nothing wrong with 143 yards on 22 carries from Adrian Peterson.

But there’s something very wrong with a defense that has allowed 400 yards or more in three consecutive games—after letting opponents reach that mark just three times in defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier’s first 35 games at the helm.

The 1,272 yards Minnesota has given up over the past three weeks are the most surrendered in any three-game stretch of Frazier’s tenure. The 448 yards gained by the Ravens were the most by any Vikings opponent since 2005.

Wins in all three of those games have kept most critics quiet, but in the long run, that kind of generosity is unsustainable.

So what’s the problem? Opponents are starting to figure out that the Vikings are stout on the ground, but prone to lapses in defending the pass.

This is not a new phenomenon. Last season, Minnesota’s pass defense was the definition of average. The Vikes ranked 16th in the league in both completion percentage allowed (61.1 percent) and opponent passer rating (81.5), and 18th in passing yards allowed.

A strong pass rush covers up plenty of shortcomings, and Minnesota’s front four do plenty of covering: The team finished fourth in the NFL in sacks last year, and currently leads the league with 16.

But when Jared Allen & Co. aren’t getting to the quarterback, the secondary is far from airtight. In fact, this year, it’s gone from middling to frightening. Consider that the Vikings have allowed:

The ninth-best opposing passer rating (91.0) in the league.
The seventh-highest completion percentage (64.9 percent).
The seventh-most yards passing (1,490).
The second-most pass plays of 20 yards or longer (24).

Timely turnovers have limited the damage, and it’s fair to point Minnesota’s defensive numbers are skewed by late slippage in games that were well in hand. But as the Ravens came oh-so-close to proving yesterday, one of those slips is going to knock this team on it’s butt before all is said and done.

I can hear the objections already: Why should we care about any of this if they’re 6-0? Two reasons:

The Vikings are dangerously close to reverting to the Denny Green-era habit of trading points like penny stocks (and we all know how that worked out).
If you want to beat New York, New Orleans, Atlanta, or just about anybody else in the NFC playoff chase, you need to stop the pass.

Any extended absence by Pro Bowl corner Antoine Winfield, who left in the first half with a sprained foot, won’t help matters. If the Vikings don’t have the personnel to stick with receivers in coverage, they might want to consider dialing up a few more blitzes that bring the linebackers—who have just 2.5 sacks on the year—into the backfield. If they’re relying on one strength to disrupt the pass, they might as well play it up.

Whatever needs to happen, it needs to happen soon: The Vikes are in Pittsburgh on Sunday, and Ben Roethlisberger currently ranks first in yards passing, second in completion percentage and fourth in passer rating.

If the secondary still has holes at that point, he’s going to find them.

In other news…

Never Tell Me the Odds

Brett Favre thought Ravens kicker Steven Hauschka was going to make his 44-yard game-winning attempt as time expired. Brad Childress told Adrian Peterson Hauschka was going to miss it.

Childress was right, but he’d be well advised not to bet the mortgage on that call going forward.

NFL kickers have attempted 96 field goals between 40 and 50 yards this season. They’ve connected on 67 of those, a 69 percent rate of success. I can’t say how being in a dome full of screaming Vikings fans impacts those odds, but it’s safe to say the Men of Chilly got lucky.

The miss was reminiscent over Minnesota’s 28-27 win over Green Bay at the Dome last December, in which Packers kicker Mason Crosby couldn’t connect on a 52-yarder with 26 seconds to go. Much like Hauschka’s kick, that attempt wasn’t wide by much.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a little “you can’t kick here in the clutch” mystique, so if the Vikes are building credibility in that department, more power to them.

Are We a Powerhouse Yet?

Before the season started, more than a few pundits predicted the rise of the NFC North as the conference’s new elite division.

Six weeks in, the jury’s still out.

On one hand, the Vikings are certainly carving out a place as one of the NFC’s legitimate contenders. The Bears are playing everybody tough, and the Packers are coming off a 26-0 blowout.

On the other, Green Bay’s win came at the expense of another North team—the Lions, who look as bad as ever in the wake of injuries to Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson. If those two aren’t back soon, Detroit could flirt with 2008-level misery.

Three of the North’s four teams have winning records, but in the top-heavy NFC, 10 teams can say that much. All of those clubs probably have the talent to contend for a playoff spot (and if the Panthers beat Atlanta next week to climb back to .500, they’ll be in the mix as well, believe it or not).

In a field packed so tightly, those head-to-head matchups will loom large in the final standings—and go a long way toward determining which division reigns supreme.

Is Chilly Going to Grow That Chia Pet on His Face Until They Lose?

If so, I’m tempted to root for the Steelers this week, just so we can move on.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign , a part of MTR Media. For more on the NFL, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher .

Vikings-Rams: When "Balls Out" Is a Bad Strategy, and Other Observations

Marino Eccher — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:02:34 -0400

Minnesota gave the Rams plenty of chances to make this a game.

The Vikings gave up 400 yards of offense in St. Louis on Sunday. They gave up 27 first downs. They gave up four trips to the red zone.

But as the defense giveth, Jared Allen and the Williams Wall taketh away.

When the Rams drove to the Vikings’ 35 in the first quarter, Allen snatched up a Kevin Williams-induced fumble and hustled 52 yards for a 14-0 lead.

When the Rams forged their way to the Vikings’ one-yard line in the second quarter, Allen dove on a ball jarred loose by Pat Williams to stop the drive in its tracks.

Allen, the NFC’s leader in sacks after last week’s romp against the Packers, didn’t get to Kyle Boller or Marc Bulger. In fact, Minnesota recorded just one sack on the afternoon—and only managed that many because Boller’s fumble came behind the line of scrimmage.

From the get-go, St. Louis figured out the formula that eluded Green Bay: If you can keep your quarterback upright against the Vikings (admittedly easier said than done), you can gain ground through the air against the Minnesota secondary.

Against this defense, however, moving the ball and keeping the ball are two different things.

Boller engineered two first-and-goal situations that were snuffed out by fumbles. He put together a 15-play drive that ended with a pick in the end zone on 4th-and-6 from the Minnesota nine.

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s three trips inside the opponent’s 10, with zero points to show for it.

By the time Bulger stepped in to go 7-of-7 for 88 yards and a touchdown, the Rams were simply saving face.

It’s difficult to say how Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier will feel about his unit’s showing in this one. On one hand, he can’t be thrilled about letting one of the two or three worst offenses in the league march up and down the field all day.

The Vikings allowed 400 yards for just the fifth time in Frazier’s 37-game stint as coordinator. They gave up 424 to the Packers the week before. That’s a bad trend.

On the other, Frazier has to admire his team’s relentless nose for the football. One turnover might be a lucky break for a defense; four are a product of coaching and determination. If the Vikings combine their ball-hawking ways with the stingy habits that held their first three opponents to an average of 259 yards, they’ll measure up as one of the elite defenses in the NFC.

Until then, Frazier should be grateful to have the kind of playmakers who can rip a big drive right out of an opponent’s hands.

In other news…

A Whole Flock of Ugly Ducklings

If misery loves company, the Rams must have made all kinds of friends on an afternoon that featured the widest selection of crap-tastic football in recent memory.

Six of Sunday’s 12 games were bona fide blowouts. The Jags managed just 10 first downs in a 41-doughnut massacre in Seattle. The Raiders collected just nine in a 44-7 beat-down in Jersey in which the Giants pulled Eli Manning before the end of the first half. The Niners took a 35-10 deficit into intermission against the Falcons at home.

The Browns were held to nine first downs, 193 yards of offense, and two complete passes in 17 attempts—and won.

Even photo finishes in Kansas City, Denver, and Arizona couldn’t salvage the day. If the league had a quality control department, Roger Goodell would be busting some heads tomorrow morning.

As it is, all he can do is call a few of the offending clubs and kindly ask them not to stink so darn much.

Yo, Adrian

After two frustrating weeks in a row, Adrian Peterson got the chance to remind us why Brett Favre called him the best running back he’s ever played with.

The monster yardage still wasn’t there—and it won’t be until Peterson, who has broken just one run of longer than 15 yards in the past three weeks, starts hitting home runs again.

But AP found the end zone twice to tie for the NFL lead with seven scores on the year. In other words, Peterson has scored more touchdowns on the season than the Panthers, Browns, Raiders, or Rams. He’s scored as many or more points on the year as the last two teams on that list.

Peterson also sat out a couple of late-game series once the win was well in hand. That probably cost him a third TD on the day.

The 2,000-yard campaign AP covets may not be in the cards, but a scoring title is a possibility, and a second straight rushing crown isn’t far-fetched, either.

But Where Will We Get Our Super Bowl XLIII 1/2?

Everybody geared up for next week’s clash of the 5-0 Giants and 4-0 Saints in New Orleans?

Good, because we won’t get another showdown of that caliber for a while this season—if we get another one at all.

If the Saints come out on top, they won’t face another unbeaten opponent all year (although they may face a pair of winless ones when they travel to St. Louis in Week 10 and Tampa Bay in Week 11).

If the Giants win, they won’t have the chance to take down another perfect team until they come to Minnesota in Week 17. And I have a funny feeling neither the G-Men nor the Vikes will be sitting on 15-0 at that point in the year.

On the other side of the bracket, the Colts and Broncos, both 5-0 after today, will get a crack at each other in Week 14.

If that game turns out to be a battle of the 12-0 juggernauts, mine won’t be the only eyebrow raised.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign, a part of MTR Media. For more on the NFL, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

Vikings-Rams: After Two Heart-Pounding Weeks, Minnesota Is Due for a Break

Marino Eccher — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:27:42 -0400

Whenever the Bears come to Minnesota to play the Vikings, my priest likes to tell a story about Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

After the events of the fairy tale, the Three Bears ran into some marital troubles (evidently, Papa Bear doesn’t cope well when you mess with his porridge).

Things went from bad to worse, Mama and Papa decided it was time for a divorce (a terrible shame, as my priest would say, but in a post-Vatican II world, what can you do?)

As usual, the real victim here was the kid, and before long, Baby Bear was in front of a judge, who wanted to know which parent he’d like to move in with.

“Don’t send me to my Papa,” pleaded Baby. “He beats me.”

All right, said the judge, Mama it is.

“Don’t send me to my Mama,” Baby said. “She beats me.”

Well then, asked the judge, where could Baby go?

“Send me to the Chicago Bears. They don’t beat anybody.”

What does any of this have to do with the Vikings this week?

Well, the Rams are on the agenda for Sunday. And right now, the Rams don’t beat anybody.

After two high-powered hype-fests in a row—a mini-showdown with 2-0 San Francisco and a mega-showdown with The Opponent Formerly Known as Brett Favre’s Team—the Vikes could use a break.

They could use a layup.

Chances are they’re going to get one.

It’s a bad sign for any team when “0-4” is the most optimistic description available, but that’s the position St. Louis finds itself in right now. Go beyond the record, and the numbers are downright depressing.

The Rams have put up 24 points on the year. The next-lowest scoring team in the league, Carolina, has put up 37—and the Panthers have played one fewer game. St. Louis is on pace to shatter the record for fewest points scored in a 16-game season—currently 143 by the 1991 Colts—by nearly seven touchdowns.

The Rams are sitting on a minus-84 point differential. They're a serious threat to post a worse differential than the minus-249 debacle in Detroit last year. The next-worst mark this year belongs to the Browns, at minus-69. And if you’ve watched the Browns, they aren’t setting the bar all that high.

It’s enough to make you think NFL quarterback guru Rush Limbaugh, the man trying to buy this mess, is a few tacos short of a combination platter. And who would ever think that about Rush?

It's enough to make you wonder if last year's Lions were really that bad. Simply put, St. Louis has the makings of an historically terrible team.

The Rams were down 23-7 to the Packers after 28 minutes. They were down 35-0 to the Niners after 46 minutes.

With that in mind, the Vikings had better hope the transitive property holds some weight here. They need this game as a cushion to soften the blows lurking just around the bend.

Baltimore comes to town in Week Six, and the Vikes make the hike to Pittsburgh in Week Seven. After that, it's on to Lambeau to face a team out for revenge and a crowd out for blood.

I'm not saying Minnesota is due for a loss somewhere in that stretch. I'm just saying I wouldn't get too attached to that "0" in the loss column just yet.

If I believed in trap games in the NFL, I'd say the Rams matchup was about as classic an example as they come. As it is, I'm not particularly concerned that the Vikings won't show up at the Edward Jones Dome ready to play. But with a couple of bruisers on the horizon, it's imperative for Minnesota walk out of this one with five wins in hand.

So while half the product on the field may be putrid, Vikings fans, enjoy this one. Enjoy the sight of an unshackled Adrian Peterson. Enjoy Bernard Berrian's newfound fantasy value. Enjoy Tarvaris Jackson's upcoming appearance as a human victory cigar.

We might not get another romp like this for some time. At least not until the Bears come to town, that is. And we all know how that one goes.

Vikings-Packers: A Homer and a Hater Debate Minnesota's Win

Marino Eccher — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:02:36 -0400

Four hours after watching the Vikings put away the Packers in the latest, greatest edition of the Aaron Rodgers whack-a-thon (nee: The Brett Favre Bowl), I still have no idea what I just saw.

I don’t know if I saw a juggernaut in action, or a team that can’t close to save its soul.

I don’t know if I saw three quarters of heart-stopping football, or one quarter of mind-numbing timidity.

And I don’t know if I’ll wake up tomorrow feeling like a Vikings homer or a Vikings hater.

So to sort things out, we’re going to hear a bit from both.

We teed up a handful of salient topics from the aftermath of Monday night’s game. My inner homer and inner hater lined up to take their best swings—the former waxing poetic about all that went right in Minnesota’s win, and the latter bemoaning all that went wrong.

Here’s what they had to say about:

Adrian Peterson

The Homer Says: Complain all you like about AP’s modest stat line—55 yards rushing on 25 carries—but Peterson did three things very, very right in this game:

1) He willed the Vikings down the field on their first possession. Peterson was responsible for seven of the 12 plays that made up Minnesota’s mammoth opening drive. He bullied his way to two first downs along the way, including a 4th-and-1 pickup, and set the stage for the game’s first score by hauling the rock to the Green Bay one-yard line.

2) He put the ball in the end zone. If you think that’s easy, just ask the Packers, whose inability to punch it in from a yard out in the fourth quarter wound up being mighty costly.

3) He got the Packers to commit about 14 guys to stopping the run. They stopped it all right, but effectively abandoned the pass rush in the process. Peterson may not have put up the kind of eye-popping numbers we’re used to seeing, but his loss was Brett Favre’s gain.

Peterson won’t get credit for what the offense did to the Packers, but his presence on the field was no small part of the end result.

The Hater Says: Somebody get the Bears on the phone—we need to find out how they managed to swap our Adrian Peterson for their own.

How else do you explain “All Day’s” all-night no-show?

The numbers were bad, especially when you figure that for a 6’1” back, 2.2 yards per carry is about as much as you’d gain if you simply ran up to the line of scrimmage, held the ball out, and fell forward.

The context was worse: In the previous two weeks, the Packers gave up 141 yards rushing to Cedric Benson, and 117 to Steven Jackson, even though Jackson was the only Ram who remotely resembled a playmaker.

This wasn’t exactly the Steel Curtain here. But Peterson got stuffed four times for negative yardage. He was stopped for no gain another four times.

And about that fumble…

As ESPN commentator Ron Jaworski asked, how does a man with such monstrously strong hands lose so many balls?

You’re better than that, AP, and you know it.

The Minnesota Defense

The Homer Says: Before the game, when Mike Tirico said the Vikings sport “the best defensive line in the NFL,” I thought he was going a little overboard.

Afterwards, I wondered why he didn’t use a few more superlatives.

Jared Allen spent most of the game doing things to Aaron Rodgers that are illegal in most states. The mulleted maniac racked up 4.5 of the team’s eight (eight!) sacks, delivered five quarterback hits, registered four tackles for loss, and nailed Rodgers in the end zone for a safety that stretched Minnesota’s lead to 30-14.

A little further back, Antoine Winfield led the Vikings with 10 tackles, including a vicious hit on Ryan Grant at the goal line to set up Allen’s safety. Winfield also snuck around Greg Jennings to pick off Rodgers and kill what would have been a go-ahead drive for the Packers in the second quarter.

And how about that goal-line stand to kill an eight-and-a-half-minute, 14-play Green Bay drive at the one?

Rodgers took the Pack 81 yards to set up 1st-and-goal from the Minnesota five-yard line. Spectacular stops from E.J. Henderson, Chad Greenway, and Ben Leber on the next three downs forced the Packers to throw on 4th-and-1, and a lucky drop by Donald Lee ended the threat.

If the Packers had any aspirations of matching Favre blow-for-blow, the Vikings snuffed them out right then and there.

The Hater Says: How do you terrorize a quarterback to a degree he’s never seen in his career, down multiple punts inside the five-yard line, force a safety, kill two scoring drives with turnovers, and still let the other guys put 23 points on the board?

By giving up a whole bunch of big plays in between.

The Vikings allowed Rodgers to complete six passes of 20 yards or more, including touchdown throws of 33 and 62 yards. In fact, when they weren’t busy giving the Packers QB turf burns, they were relatively powerless to stop him from picking their secondary apart to the tune of 384 yards passing in a 26-of-37 performance.

Tight end Jermichael Finley came into the game with 11 career receptions for 136 yards. He caught six passes for 128 yards on the night. Donald Driver chipped in four catches for 55 yards and way too many first downs. Jordy “Doofy White Guy” Nelson caught three balls for 47 yards and a score.

Even with Greg Jennings limited to 31 yards on three catches, the Green Bay passing attack was in business.

Ryan Grant led a running game that banged out a surprisingly potent 82 yards on 17 attempts, for 4.8 yards per carry. If the Packers hadn’t been playing from behind for most of the night, he might have posed a legitimate problem.

At the end of the night, the Vikings let the Packers collect 19 first downs, including seven third-down conversions in 13 tries. If Green Bay hadn’t blown a chance at points on the goal line, Rodgers’ fervent drive in the game’s final two minutes might have cost Minnesota dearly.

Brett Favre and the Passing Game

The Homer Says: This was one of those nights when you’d love to spend a little quality time with one of those Packer fans who insists on calling his fallen idol “Brent.”

Through three quarters, Favre was 20-of-24 with three touchdowns. If the Vikings hadn’t put the passing game on ice in the final period, he almost certainly would have topped 300 yards passing for the second straight week, and would have been a decent bet to pick up another score or two.

As it was, he had to settle for 271 yards, a 135.3 passer rating, and the satisfaction of being the best quarterback on the field.

Bernard Berrian looked like a legitimate weapon for the first time all season, catching six balls for 75 yards and a touchdown. When Sidney Rice wasn’t busy plucking on-side kicks out of the air, he managed to haul in five passes for 70 yards and find the end zone himself. Visanthe Shiancoe delivered in the red zone.

The best part of the passing attack? The Packers didn’t lay a finger on Favre all night. At one point in the third quarter, Green Bay brought just three rushers, giving Favre seven eternal seconds to sit back in the pocket as the defenders bounced haplessly off the O-Line. He hit tight end Jeff Dugan for a cool 25-yard pickup on the play.

Favre insists tonight wasn’t about sticking it to the Pack. But if it was, well, consider it stuck.

The Vikings beat a division rival in their first real showdown of the year. They looked fantastic at times in doing so. They’re 4-0. You can’t ask for much more than that.

The Hater Says: Favre was indeed unstoppable for much of the game—until the Minnesota coaching staff decided to stop him.

He was throwing to whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted—until Brad Childress decided to stop throwing.

Bold move there, Chilly.

Listen, we get that you had a 16-point lead and wanted to run down the clock. We get that you didn’t want to put Favre in a position to commit a game-changing turnover.

We get that part of being an NFL head coach these days means checking your cojones at the door, and that in choosing to kneecap your heretofore-dazzling offense in the fourth quarter, you were just living up to that expectation.

But how many zero-yard runs was it going to take before you figured out you weren’t fooling anybody out there? How many times did you plan to run a minute and a half off the clock via three-and-out in the closing stanza, anyway?

For that matter, how many times did you see the Packers stop Favre and the passing offense in the first three quarters? I’ll field that one for you: Once. They stopped him once. Your other five possessions during that stretch ended in one bizarre turnover and four touchdowns.

This bears repeating: Your quarterback was 20-of-freaking-24. He had more time to throw than Usain Bolt needs to run the 100-meter-dash. He was shredding the Green Bay secondary like an Enron intern on a Friday.

So why take your foot off the gas? Why leave points on the field and let the Packers make a few desperate plays to claw their way back into the game? Why not go for the kill?

They used to say the only person who could stop Michael Jordan in college was Dean Smith. On Monday night, the only person who could stop Brett Favre was Brad Childress.

And people wonder why I don’t trust this team.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign, a part of MTR Media. For more on the NFL, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

The Greatest Minnesota Vikings-Green Bay Packers Games of the Past Decade

Marino Eccher — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 22:26:35 -0400

If you’re an ESPN executive, the most exciting sentence in the English language right now probably goes a little something like this:

Brett Favre takes on the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football.

Combine a bitter rivalry with a hugely polarizing star, stick it in the most popular timeslot of the most popular sport in America, and what do you get?

One seriously popular product, that’s what. Dolphins-Colts drew nearly 15 million viewers a few weeks ago on Monday night. It's hard to imagine Vikings-Packers won't blow that number out of the water. Whatever the final score, the "Worldwide Leader" is poised to put up some seriously crooked numbers.

The craziest part? Monday night's game isn't even the most exciting showdown between the two teams this season. That won't come until Nov. 1, when Favre takes the stage in front of 72,000 of his scorned admirers at Lambeau Field. As Samuel L. Jackson might tell us, "Hold on to your butts."

On the eve of the opening act of one of most riveting regular-season dramas we can remember, we're compelled to look back at a handful of the classic Minnesota-Green Bay clashes that have paved the way.

Here, we highlight four such games. Our guess is that before the season is over, we'll have a strong candidate to round out the top five.

Oct. 5, 1998, Lambeau Field: Vikings 37, Packers 24

Between Sept. 3, 1995 and Oct. 5, 1998, the Packers played 25 regular-season games at Lambeau.

They won all of them.

That's a three-year stretch of dominance that rivals the length of the average NFL career. In other words, a whole generation of players came and went without seeing the Packers lose at home.

Then Randy Moss made his way into the league, and everything changed.

Moss made an impact from Week One of his rookie campaign, but this game served as his coming-out party: Five catches, 190 yards, two touchdowns, and one shattered winning streak.

Randall Cunningham threw for 442 yards and four scores on the day. Favre tossed three picks before getting the hook in favor of Doug Pederson, and a young Ryan Longwell kicked a field goal and three PATs in a losing effort.

Some Packer fans will tell you this game was the beginning of the end of the Holmgren era. For Vikings fans getting caught up in the magical 1998 season, it was the beginning of something special.

Nov. 6, 2000, Lambeau Field: Packers 26, Vikings 20 (OT)

If you read the box score, it looked simple: Antonio Freeman caught a 43-yard pass from Brett Favre to win the game.

If you remember the play that went down as "The Improbable Bobble," it was anything but.

On a messy night in Green Bay, Daunte Culpepper and the Vikings spent four quarters matching the Pack blow-for-blow. Both offenses were pass-happy, and neither moved the ball well in the rain.

The Vikings nearly won the game in regulation, but as Gary Anderson lined up for a 33-yard field goal with seven seconds to play, Mitch Berger muffed the snap, then chucked up an ill-advised pass attempt that was picked off to send the game into overtime.

On 3rd-and-4 during Green Bay's first possession of OT, Minnesota pressured Favre into a long lob to Antonio Freeman. Vikings corner Chris Dishman broke it up.

Or so he thought.

Dishman whacked the ball out of the air and off of his body. Freeman, face-down on the ground, somehow came up with the ricochet on the fly.

Dishman didn't notice that Freeman wasn't down, and Freeman waltzed Scot-free into the endzone for the win.

As Favre tells it, he mobbed Freeman during the ensuing celebration before asking in a whisper, "Did you catch it?"

Freeman's reply: "Hell yeah, I got it."

Jan. 9, 2005, Lambeau Field: Vikings 31, Packers 14

In many respects, Minnesota's 2004 season was an affair to forget.

The Vikings started 5-1 and finished 8-8. Mike Tice was nailed for running a Super Bowl ticket scalping operation a few months after the season ended. Randy Moss ruffled plenty of feathers when he headed to the locker room with a few seconds left on the clock at the end of a Week 17 loss in Washington.

But this particular night in Green Bay was one to remember.

The first and only playoff meeting between the Vikings and Packers was a tale of two quarterbacks. Culpepper racked up 284 yards passing and two touchdowns; Favre threw for 216 yards, a touchdown, and four interceptions.

Moss, allegedly nursing a hamstring injury, caught four balls for 70 yards and two scores. He punctuated his second trip to the end zone by giving Packer fans—notorious for mooning the visiting team's bus as it approaches and leaves the stadium—a little taste of their own medicine.

If you ask me, the league's $10,000 fine for the stunt was a small price to pay for making the ever-obnoxious Joe Buck freak out on the air about an act he deemed "disgusting." Evidently, Buck was unaware that Moss had in fact kept his pants on.

The Vikings went on to get pasted by the Eagles the following week, but if there was ever a win to validate a long, ugly season, this was it.

Nov. 9, 2008, the Metrodome: Minnesota Vikings 28, Green Bay Packers 27

When Lovie Smith took over as the Bears head coach, his first stated goal was clear: Beat the Packers.

When Brad Childress took the Vikings job, he never went public with a similar intention. Considering Minnesota kicked off his tenure with an 0-5 skid against Green Bay, that's probably a good thing.

Heading into this game, Childress had plenty to worry about besides that streak. The Vikings were 4-4 and a tied for third place. In their last divisional game, they'd turned the ball over five times and given up 48 points in a loss to the Bears. The high-profile acquisitions they'd made in the offseason (Jared Allen, Bernard Berrian) hadn't vaulted them into contention.

In other words, they needed a win here.

To get one, Childress put the ball in the hands of Adrian Peterson.

As Sam Adams would say, always a good decision.

Peterson ripped off 192 yards rushing on 30 carries, including a 29-yard rumble for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to stop a 17-0 Green Bay run. The PAT gave the Vikings a one-point lead with a little more than two minutes to play.

Aaron Rodgers brought the Pack to the outskirts of field goal range, but Mason Crosby pushed the go-ahead kick a few feet wide of the upright from 52 yards out, giving Childress his first win over his biggest rival.

Vikings fans can only hope that it won't be his last.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign, a part of MTR Media. For more on the NFL, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

Win and Pray: The Minnesota Twins and the Metrodome Make One Last Stand

Marino Eccher — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:44:05 -0400

In April 1982, the Minnesota Twins took the field at the Hubert H. Metrodome for the first time.

Their odds of a pennant were slim: The team had finished in last place in 1981, and was destined for a repeat performance.

This weekend, the Twins take the field at the Metrodome for the last time.

Their odds of a pennant are slim: They’re stuck two games back with three to play. They need a sweep and a few big favors.

The Twins can do two things right now: Win and pray.

But in its final days as a baseball stadium, the Metrodome can do a little bit more:

It can send off the home team in raucous fashion, and give the visitors a miserable three days in the process.

The Dome has never been a friendly venue for visitors. The turf is quirky. The roof is the same color as the ball. The ball doesn’t carry, and the wall is more of a tarp.

Oh, and it's really, really loud.

It's loud enough that players can't hear one another on the field. It's loud enough that Kirby Puckett described his ears ringing for days after big games.

During the 1987 World Series, the decibel level peaked at 125. In '91, it hit 117. That's loud enough to cause pain. It's the equivalent of revving a chain saw three feet away from your face.

Hey, there's a reason opponents can't stand the place. There's a reason the Twins scratched out 85 wins and a playoff berth in '87 even though they went 29-52 on the road, or why they won 90-plus games four times this decade without topping 43 wins on the road.

When the Royals come to town this weekend, the Dome will greet them with more than 140,000 fans. For Sunday's season finale, the curtain that covers parts of the upper-deck will be lifted, paving the way for some 55,000-plus fans to pack the house.

That's a lot of voices to cram into the Midwest's biggest echo chamber. And if Minnesotans rise to the occasion, Kansas City will hear every last one of them, loud and clear.

When umpires call strikes and balls, they'll need to use sign language.

When Trey Hillman makes a call to his bullpen, he'll need to use smoke signals.

And when presumptive Cy Young winner Zack Greinke toes the mound, he'll channel his inner John-Rhys Davies and ask, "Why does the floor move?"

I can't tell you what the Dome will sound like when Joe Mauer bats. Odds are good that fans in attendance won't be able to tell you, either—at least not until the ringing subsides long enough for them to ask.

Fans will get loud for the National Anthem. They'll get loud for the starting lineups. They'll get loud for the hot dog vendors.

They'll get loud for the scoreboard, too—provided the White Sox give them a reason to cheer.

Maybe the roof will be good for a lost pop-up. Maybe the noise will be good for a booted grounder. Maybe the baggie will be good for a Carlos Gomez web gem.

None of it might matter, of course. If Detroit takes care of business, Minnesota is done, and that's all she wrote.

All the Twins can do about it is win and pray.

All the Dome can do is make sure God can hear them.

Catch Him If You Can: Brett Favre and His Receivers Still Have Issues

Marino Eccher — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:10:13 -0400

If you’re a defensive coordinator taking on the Vikings these days, your game plan isn’t complicated:

Take away Adrian Peterson, and make Brett Favre throw big to beat you.

It didn’t work for Cleveland or Detroit. Peterson rushed for 272 yards through Minnesota’s first two games, at a clip of 6.8 yards per carry. Favre was content to dink and dunk his way around the field to the tune of 133 yards per game.

It almost worked for San Francisco. The 49ers held Peterson to 85 yards on 19 carries in Week Three, forcing to Favre shoulder a heavier burden in Week Three than he had in the previous two weeks combined.

His pass attempts leapt from 48 to 95. His yardage spiked from 265 to 606. Frankly, he did more work than the Vikings would prefer him to do.

In the end, Minnesota got the job done, but the win was neither pretty nor probable. Sunday’s win was a thrill, but if Greg Lewis’ foot had come down a few centimeters further back, Favre would have completed fewer than 50 percent of his throws on the day, and we’d be discussing his performance in a far more critical light this week.

The Niners won’t be the last team to put Favre on the spot this season, and if the Vikings don’t smooth over a few wrinkles in the passing game, it’s going to cost them one of these days.

The biggest problem? Favre and his wide receivers still aren’t quite on the same page.

They’ve made strides since training camp, to be sure. Given that Favre is still a bit of a Johnny-come-lately in Minnesota, maybe they’re as far along as we can expect.

But through three weeks, the team’s No. 1 pass-catcher is still a backup running back. Chester Taylor leads all Vikings in both receptions (15) and targets (18). He caught seven balls against the Niners; nobody else on the team caught more than four.

We’re not knocking Taylor’s production, but we’re also hard-pressed to envision an endless stream of checkdown throws as the lynchpin of Brad Childress’ “kick-ass offense.”

Four-yard lobs behind the line of scrimmage are great for Favre’s QB rating, but they’re not going to keep defenses honest about loading up on Peterson. If the Vikings want to win a couple games through the air, they need to their receivers.

They certainly tried against San Francisco: Favre directed a total of 25 throws to Bernard Berrian, Percy Harvin, and Sidney Rice. But those three came down with just 12 catches.

Berrian looked lost at times. He misfired badly on a few routes, dropped at least one first-down catch, and lost a handle on another that bounced into Shawntae Spencer’s arms for an interception.

Harvin let a few third-down passes slip away himself. And between the end of the first half and the final drive of the game, Rice didn’t catch a pass.

Meanwhile, Visanthe Shiancoe, who was supposed to benefit big-time from Favre’s fondness of the tight end, remains missing in action. Shiancoe caught two of the five balls thrown his way on Sunday, raising his reception total on the season to six.

After watching the receiving corps carve up the Browns and Lions with ease, perhaps we’ve set the bar too high. But coming through against a shaky opponent when the running game in working is one thing. Coming through against a contender when the running game stalls is something else altogether.

Truth be told, we’re more likely to see the former than the latter this week. After bottling up Matt Forte in Week One, Green Bay has coughed up 141 yards rushing to Cedric Benson and 127 to Steven Jackson. If Minnesota has to rely on the passing game to move the ball Monday night, I’ll be surprised.

But sooner or later, somebody—Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Chicago, New York—is going to make the Vikings throw to win. If Favre and his receivers want to hold up their end of the bargain, they’ve got some work to do.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign, a part of MTR Media. For more on the NFL, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

Brett Favre's $12 Million Buys a Storybook Ending and Nightmares for NFC North

Marino Eccher — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:17:23 -0400

Eighty-nine seconds to play, eighty yards to go, no timeouts, and down by four.

Does Sage Rosenfels get the job done in that situation? I don’t know.

Does Tarvaris Jackson dance away from the pass rush and throw a perfect strike to Greg Lewis in the back of the end zone? I have my doubts.

But Brett Favre sure does.

If you were wondering why the Vikings are paying Favre $12 million to hand off to Adrian Peterson, you got your answer Sunday.

The 49ers had Peterson under control, limiting Minnesota to a whopping two first downs on the ground. They had Favre on the run, sacking him twice for a loss of 18 yards and knocking him down on a number of other occasions (including the moment after he delivered his final pass).

San Francisco had already slammed the door on one comeback drive minutes earlier, capitalizing on an illegal forward pass penalty to force a turnover on downs at midfield.

The Niners just needed a first down to put the game on ice. But they didn’t get one. Instead, they put Favre in position to hold on and engineer a miracle comeback: Throw it, move the chains, spike it, rinse and repeat.

Favre got off seven plays and two spikes in the game’s final 1:09. He completed six passes to five different receivers, and eluded a spirited pass rush twice.

The Associated Press write-up will tell you that, “Until the end, Favre was being outplayed by Shaun Hill.”

Don’t believe everything you read.

Favre kept the Vikings in this game from wire to wire. He threw for 14 of the team’s 19 first downs. His third-quarter interception—the first he’s thrown all year—ricocheted out of Bernard Berrian’s hands.

And while the climactic throw to Lewis will go in the books as a 32-yard pass, Favre launched that bad boy from the 38-yard line to a target waiting 10 yards deep in the end zone.

A 48-yard frozen rope to win the game with two seconds left on the clock—how many quarterbacks can make that play happen?

I don’t know. But I know Brett Favre can.

In other news…

Who do we have to stop to catch a break in this town, anyway?

Lost in the hysteria surrounding Minnesota’s breathtaking comeback- is the curious question of how the Vikings found themselves down in the first place- after a defensive performance that should have stopped the Niners cold.

The Vikes held San Francisco to 246 yards of total offense. They forced nine punts. They didn’t allow the Niners to convert a single third down in 11 tries.

So where the heck did those 24 points come from?

A blocked field goal that Nate Clements ran back for a touchdown was one of the culprits. Penalties were another: San Francisco’s two TD drives involved a grand total of four first downs gained via actual plays.

San Francisco also took advantage of strong field position more than once, driving for a touchdown from its own 43 and a field goal from its own 39.

We’ve been beating this drum for a while for the Vikings, but we’ll say it again: It’s tough to keep points off the board when the other team only needs to go 30 yards to get in range for a kick.

A perfect day to be a Midwesterner

All four members of the NFC North got to hoist the “W” flag yesterday. How long has it been since we saw that happen? Four years.

On Nov. 13, 2005, the Vikings edged the Giants, the Packers beat Michael Vick and the Falcons, the Bears beat the Niners, and the Lions topped the Cardinals. Until yesterday, the quartet hadn’t posted an undefeated week since then.

We don’t want to point fingers for the drought, but a certain franchise—we’ll call it “Detroit”—didn’t exactly help matters by winning a total of 15 games in those four seasons.

Still, the Lions held up their end of the bargain for the first time in 20 games, and the rest of the North followed suit in impressive fashion.

Maybe that whole “powerhouse” label has some legs after all.

Lovie Smith, Jedi Master?

Speaking of good fortune for the NFC North, it seems the Bears have mastered a new defensive wrinkle: The art of getting your opponent to miss field goals.

Two weeks ago, Chicago took advantage of two Jeff Reed misfires to steal a win from the Steelers. Yesterday, the Bears got two more clunkers off the foot of Olindo Mare—who started the game 2-of-2—en route to a 25-19 win in Seattle.

Maybe Lovie Smith has a Voodoo doll hidden behind that clipboard. Maybe he’s using the force to nudge the ball off course. Maybe Chicago’s special-teams unit has come up with some truly distracting one-liners regarding opposing kickers’ sister's.

Or maybe it’s just better to be lucky than good.

Whatever the case, I don’t think the Bears are complaining.

Am I thrilled to see Percy Harvin take a kickoff return to the house…

....or annoyed that my fantasy league’s scoring system didn’t give him (by which I mean me) any points for his trouble?

Life’s full of little trade-offs.

NFC Closing Fast in Race for Quarterback Supremacy

Marino Eccher — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:07:57 -0400

Not so long ago, the gulf in quality between AFC and NFC quarterbacks was about as wide as Peyton Manning's forehead.

In the past decade, we've seen Super Bowls that pitted Manning against Rex Grossman, Rich Gannon against Brad Johnson, and John Elway against Chris Chandler. We've seen two AFC passers set the single-season touchdown record.

As recently as 2007, four of the top five passer ratings in the league belonged to AFC teams. Even last year, two NFC teams—Minnesota and Carolina—won their respective divisions with quarterbacks who are either out of football (Gus Frerotte) or circling the drain (Jake Delhomme).

But as is typical in the NFL, the times, they are a-changin'.

We saw hints of an NFC comeback last season. Kurt Warner partied like it was 1999. Drew Brees made a run at Dan Marino's passing yardage record, and became the first NFC quarterback to lead the league in touchdown throws since 2003.

Early in 2009, the senior circuit has built on that progress to mount an earnest challenge in the inter-conference arms race.

Brees has come close to hanging half a C-Note on consecutive opponents, including an allegedly elite Philadelphia defense. Matt Ryan looks like he's making a Carson Palmer-esque leap in his sophomore campaign. Eli Manning (finally) looks like a franchise quarterback.

Just how good were NFC quarterbacks last weekend? Brett Favre's 23-of-27 performance wasn't even the conference's most accurate showing. That distinction went to Warner, whose 24-of-26 outing in Carolina set an NFL record for completion percentage in a game with 20 or more attempts.

And the NFC's hot streak has come without much help from a handful of the conference's most accomplished passers. Matt Hasselbeck and Donovan McNabb are banged up. Tony Romo and Aaron Rodgers are struggling.

If some or all of those QBs right the ship, we could be looking at a crop of top-flight NFC quarterbacks that runs nine or 10 deep.

Moreover, the conference boasts just a few legitimate clunkers from top to bottom. Delhomme, Matthew Stafford, and Marc Bulger are most likely candidates to stink up the joint from wire to wire. And remember that once upon a time, Delhomme and Bulger were Pro Bowl quarterbacks. Their ineptitude is not a foregone conclusion.

Swapping out Jay Cutler for Kyle Orton has helped the NFC gain some footing in the quarterback department. So has the return of a thus far-effective Brett Favre.

The AFC isn't bankrupt of talent at the position, of course. Peyton Manning continues to shine. Mark Sanchez is the new Joe Flacco—and Flacco is the new Drew Bledsoe, in a good way.

Ben Roethlisberger is still an elite passer (albeit one trapped behind a nightmare of an O-Line). Sooner or later, Tom Brady will be, too. Philip Rivers is still the best quarterback taken in the 2004 Draft.

But in the middle and lower tiers of the conference, the situation devolves rapidly.

Kerry Collins and Orton are serviceable. David Garrard, Brady Quinn, and Matt Cassel are shaky. We can't print the adjective that best describes JaMarcus Russell, but as Sean Connery might tell Alex Trebek, it begins with a bloody "S".

I'm not saying those guys won't produce a few pleasant surprises. I'm just saying I wouldn't want to handcuff my playoff hopes to most of them.

We'll have a number of opportunities throughout the year to watch top passers from each conference go head-to-head. Ryan and Brady square off this weekend. So do Peyton Manning and Warner.

In Week Four, we'll see Sanchez test his mettle against Brees. And we've got a season's worth of NFC North/AFC North clashes waiting in the wings.

We won't be able to pass definitive judgment on the outcome of the big-picture quarterback derby for a few months. In the meantime, it's nice to have two conferences in the race again.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign, a part of MTR Media. For more on the NFL, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

Something About These Vikings Still Makes Us a Little Nervous

Marino Eccher — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:43:27 -0400

If the Vikings were any other Super Bowl contender, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

We wouldn't be getting antsy about taking the Lions seriously. We wouldn't flirt with the idea of putting our money on Detroit plus 10.5. And we certainly wouldn't be wondering why Peter King picked Minnesota to lose.

With any other contender, we'd be counting up Adrian Peterson's touchdowns in advance. We'd be debating whether Brett Favre qualifies as an elite fantasy option this week. We'd be game-planning for San Francisco.

But we're not. We're working up a "wait-and-see" attitude that speaks volumes about how far these Vikings have to go to win our trust.

You'd think a 17-3 mark against the Lions over the past decade would earn Minnesota a little slack here. And you'd think a 45-27 beatdown in New Orleans last week would keep Detroit's stock down heading into tomorrow's game.

Look past the Vikings' daunting head-to-head edge, however, and you'll see a long list of close calls. Over the past 10 years, 11 of Minnesota's wins in the series have been single-possession affairs.

Factor in Detroit's three wins, and the final margin 14 of the past 20 Vikings-Lions games has been seven points or less.

Last season, the Vikings outscored Detroit by a total of six points in two wins, and trailed entering the fourth quarter in both games. Against a Lions team that lost 13 games by at least a touchdown in 2008, that practically constitutes defeat.

History aside, the consternation over a potential upset tomorrow sheds light on a lack of faith in Minnesota's ability to dictate the course of the game against an inferior opponent.

We're not sure if we trust the passing offense to shred Detroit's dismal secondary. We're not sure if we trust the defense to bottle up Calvin Johnson and Kevin Smith.

And we're not sure if we trust Brad Childress to go for the kill early rather than letting the Lions linger into the second half, as the Browns did last week.

Indeed, at the heart of the lingering unease that surrounds Sunday's game is the sense (fair or otherwise) that Childress' Vikings squads have a knack for underachieving.

Fans wanted the playoffs in 2007; they got 8-8. They wanted a Super Bowl berth last year and got a first-round loss at home.

In some circles, Childress is seen as a coach who can't seem to maximize the sum of his team's talented parts.

If the Vikings want to make the leap from good to great, they need to put those doubts to rest. They need to stamp out any trace of hope Detroit might have.

At halftime, we shouldn't be asking if the Vikings are going to pull this one out. We should be asking when they're going to call off the dogs.

For the record, I don't expect an upset, or even a squeaker. If the Vikes can drop 34 points on a middle-of-the-pack Browns defense, I don't see why they can't hang at least that many on Detroit.

I don't think Matthew Stafford will stay upright against Minnesota's front four. Frankly, I don't see how the Lions will stay within single digits.

If we were talking about any other contender, these things would go without saying.

But we're talking about the Vikings. And even against the Lions, this is one bunch of Super Bowl hopefuls with plenty left to prove.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign, a part of MTR Media. For more on the NFL, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

Don't Let the NFL Raise Your Kids, Folks

Marino Eccher — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:06:52 -0400

Booze, babes, Viagra, and football.

If you ask me, that sounds like a heck of a party.

But if you ask one media watchdog group, the combination is making NFL telecasts unfit for family consumption.

Concerned parents want to keep sexed-up advertisements for beer away from their kids. Concerned congressmen want to relegate promotions for little blue "life enhancement" pills to nighttime programming.

Concerned league officials want to—well, they probably want to keep selling ads to the highest bidder, salacious or otherwise. But one imagines they'll at least pretend to listen.

I can sympathize a bit with Mom and Pop here. If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't want to tear myself away from The Drive to give little Jimmy The Talk. And I certainly wouldn't want my sons and daughters growing up with the impression that it's cool to drink anything that tastes like Bud Light Lime.

But if you're looking to the NFL as a source of good old-fashioned family values, you're probably looking in the wrong place.

Sure, plopping down in front of the plasma with the kids on Sunday afternoon can be a great way to teach a few life lessons. You can point out Drew Brees and talk about overcoming adversity and labels. You can give a nod to Tony Dungy and talk about living a life of service.

But if your children are keen on following professional football, they're going to learn more than that.

They're going to learn why Michael Vick was taking a break from football. They’re going to see Albert Haynesworth’s foot getting cozy with Andre Gurode’s face. They’re going to wonder why Mark Chmura was so fond of hot-tub parties.

Whether those kids read ESPN.com, watch SportsCenter, or talk about football with their friends at school, they're going to hear about substance abuse. And domestic violence. And sex scandals.

The league is just like any other collection of people: There are really good guys, and there are really, really bad ones. If your kids are into football, they're going to learn about both.

You can explain that advertisers are willing to say and show absurd things to sell a product, that commercials depict a fantasy world. But you're also going to have to explain the absurd (and sometimes terrible) things NFL players do in the real world.

You're going to have to explain how Travis Henry actually fathered 11 children. You're going to have to explain how Pacman Jones actually incited a strip-club shooting. You're going to have to explain how Donte Stallworth actually killed a man.

In a few years, you might have to explain how football is on hold for a while because a collection of the world's richest men can't agree on how to get richer.

It's enough to make an awkward question or two about erectile dysfunction seem like a breeze.

This doesn't mean you should block the NFL Network and bar your children from fan-dom until they turn 18. Growing up with a team to cheer for is one of the joys of the American experience, and I'm not suggesting you pull the plug on it.

If your kids can grasp the concept of a fair catch, they can grasp the idea that some products aren't appropriate for them. With a bit of guidance, they can handle the fact that some people do bad things.

If you can convince them they shouldn't follow in the footsteps of Jared Allen and sack their buddies on the playground, you can convince them that they shouldn't follow in the footsteps on the game's less savory stars—and if you want them to have a positive experience following football, you're going to need to do just that.

You might still squirm a bit when that Viagra commercial rolls around. Just remember: If you're hoping the NFL will send a wholesome message to your kids, that commercial is the least of your concerns.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign, a part of MTR Media. For more on the NFL, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

Brett Favre and Percy Harvin: The Start of a Beautiful Friendship

Marino Eccher — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:36:02 -0400

If the Fox Sports broadcast team made one thing clear on Sunday, it was this: Brett Favre and Percy Harvin really dig each other.

Harvin admires how much Favre has to teach him. Favre admires how quickly Harvin learns. Favre loves throwing passes to Harvin. Harvin loves catching passes from Favre.

Harvin likes Favre's beard. Favre likes Harvin's tattoos. They're thinking of getting an apartment together. Harvin is thinking of taking Favre's daughter to dinner and a movie.

Or something like that.

If you get past the buddy-cop overtones of the rookie's bond with the greybeard, though, you can't help but notice that Farve-to-Harvin is shaping up to be Minnesota’s Next Big Thing.

Favre still hasn’t spent a full month in purple, and his ultra-conservative approach in the season opener—14-of-21 for 110 yards, one touchdown, and no picks—signaled that the Vikings aren’t ready to take off the training wheels yet.

He completed more passes to running backs (five to Chester Taylor, one to Adrian Peterson) than he did to wide receivers (three to Harvin, two to Sidney Rice). Most of his throws amounted to extended hand-offs.

But when the Vikings got the chance to blow the game open following Cedric Griffin's interception midway through the third quarter, Harvin became Favre’s weapon of choice.

After a Shaun Rogers sack pushed the Vikings back to 2nd-and-18 deep in their own territory and threatened to put the kibosh on the drive, Favre found Harvin in stride for 21 yards and the first down. Seven plays later, Favre connected with Harvin on back-to-back tries in the red zone—first to turn a 2nd-and-12 into a manageable 3rd-and-3, then to knife into the end zone for a 23-13 lead.

Favre punctuated the score, Harvin’s first as a pro, with a running tackle that made the quarterback’s preseason crackback block look downright tame.

Harvin had better get used to it: With Bernard Berrian still finding his way after a hamstring injury that cost him the preseason, and Bobby Wade out of the picture after leading the team in receptions last season, the first-year receiver will have plenty of opportunities for an encore.

Minnesota’s passing attack still has a long way to go in its quest for respectability. The Vikings aren’t going to rush for 225 yards a week, and in the long run, four first downs in the air won’t get the job done.

But the budding buddy-cop story about the old fogey from Mississippi and the young hotshot out of Florida might have a very happy ending.

In other news…

Fool Me Twice? Not This Time

After a direct snap to Josh Cribbs netted the Browns a first down on the very first series of the season, it’s easy to understand why Eric Mangini would be high on the concept.

But Cleveland’s use of the formation on consecutive snaps at the Minnesota goal line in the second quarter was a clinic in how to botch the Wildcat.

On 2nd-and-3 from three yards out, Cribbs took the snap and ran for two. When he lined up to take the snap again on 3rd-and-1, he might as well have been wearing a sign that said, “I’m the guy to tackle.”

And tackle him the Vikings did. Ray Edwards blew up the play in the backfield for a loss of two, and the Browns had to settle for a field goal.

The Wildcat works when the defense doesn’t know what’s coming. Take away the element of surprise, and it’s just a good way to subject your receivers to big hits.

You’re Gonna Want To Lock That Down

The first time the Vikings punted the ball away to Cribbs on Sunday, their special teams coverage looked stellar. Linebacker Heath Farwell teamed up with cornerback Karl Paymah to drop Cribbs after a three-yard return.

The second time they punted? Cribbs ripped off a 67-yard runback for a touchdown.

It was enough to invoke bad memories of the havoc Reggie Bush wreaked on Minnesota’s punt coverage last October, when the Vikings coughed up two of their league-worst four return touchdowns allowed.

Farwell, the team’s special teams MVP from 2007 who missed all of last year with a knee injury, was supposed to help stop the bleeding. So was Paymah, who led the Broncos is special teams tackles last season before coming to Minnesota as a free agent.

Cribbs, of course, is a proven threat in the return game. The fifth-year receiver has recorded seven career scores on kick and punt returns, including three in 2008. And the Vikings nailed him for a three-yard loss the next time he fielded a punt.

But giving away points on special teams is the kind of a problem that prevents a good scoring defense from being a great one.

If You Drafted Adrian Peterson…

...then you’re probably having a good Monday.

Don't Start Believin': Debunking Five NFL Myths for 2009

Marino Eccher — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:45:57 -0400

If Malibu Stacy is right when she tells us, "Thinking too much gives you wrinkles," NFL pundits should be one baby-faced bunch.

The sheer volume of chatter surrounding the league has rendered the expenditure of brainpower while offering up football analysis strictly optional. You don't need to dig deep to pick up a working knowledge of the league. The odds are excellent that if you want an opinion on a given topic, someone's already come up with one for you.

The upside of this endless universe of gridiron commentary is it's extremely easy to learn a lot without burning through too many neurons. The downside is an echo chamber in which half-baked ideas are introduced and amplified until they become downright deafening.

We're going to make an effort to stop a view of those runaway platitudes in their tracks. Below, we have five bits of myth, opinion, and innuendo pertaining to the 2009 season bandied around this offseason like God wrote 'em on a tablet and handed 'em to Moses.

Some crop up from year to year, while others are mere flavors of the month. All of them sound pretty good when you first hear them.

When you get below the surface, however, all of them make you sound about as bright as Malibu Stacy.

Myth: The NFC South Champion Is Cursed

In case you haven’t already heard from every last pundit picking the Saints this year, the NFC South has never crowned a repeat champion or sent a team to the playoffs in consecutive seasons.

Count SI.com’s Don Banks and ESPN.com’s Gene Wojciechowski among the notables quoting this tidbit of pseudo-wisdom in their predictions for the division. And it's true: The 10 playoff teams in the history of the South have gone oh-fer the following season.

But if you're making the case against Atlanta and Carolina, this "trend" is one flimsy piece of evidence. The South has been around for seven seasons, meaning there have been a grand total of six opportunities for a repeat champ.

Discounting last year's winner based on that sample size is like saying a quarterback who misfires on six passes in a row will never record a completion again.

The Chicago Cubs have a streak to worry about. So do Englishmen at Wimbledon. NFC South hopefuls are dealing with nothing of the sort.

There are legitimate reasons to pick New Orleans this year, but history isn't one of them.

Myth: The NFC North Is the League's New Powerhouse

Before an angry mob of red-blooded Midwesterners marches up Interstate 94 with pitchforks in hand, let me be clear: I like the North this year. I expect strong seasons from two of the top three teams in the division (Vikings, Packers, Bears) and wouldn't be surprised to see all three compete for playoff berths.

With that said, let's pump the brakes a bit on the hype machine.

SI's Peter King picked the Bears to reach the Super Bowl and labeled the North the league's "new power division." ESPN's Kevin Seifert (admittedly a bit of a homer) tabbed both NFC wild card teams to emerge from the division. The Packers have become a top-10 mainstay of power rankings far and wide.

Those are some bold predictions for a division that has managed one playoff victory in the past two seasons. Let's not forget, if the Lions had managed to win even one or two divisional games last year (they came close against the Vikings and Bears), there's an excellent chance the North would have crowned a 9-7 champion.

Such is the fine line between debating whether the division is football's best or whether it is among the worst. Throw in a schedule that includes showdowns with Pittsburgh and Baltimore, and the road to supremacy doesn't look so smooth.

Every pundit who waxes poetic about the North begins thusly: "We shouldn't put too much stock in how teams look during the preseason, but..."

Don't get suckered in by the "but." Every contender in this division has serious issues. The Bears need to reverse a major decline on defense. The Packers need to install a new scheme. The Vikings need to install a new quarterback.

Before we get too excited, let's see how they perform in games that count.

Myth: We Can Pencil in the Eagles among the Elite

Want to witness the quirks of public perception in action? Look no further than the tale of the two birds who battled it out in last season's NFC title game.

Last year's Cardinals went 9-7 and made the Super Bowl. Last year's Eagles went 9-6-1 and just missed out.

Arizona's offseason was relatively quiet, while Philadelphia's was punctuated by big gains (Jason Peters, Michael Vick) and big losses (Brian Dawkins, the late Jim Johnson).

So what exactly makes the Eagles a trendy pick to win the conference, while the Cardinals are a trendy pick to lose their own division? Five ESPN writers said the Iggles will make the trip to Miami; eight said the Cards will miss the playoffs.

The hate for 'Zona stems from the idea that Super Bowl losers are bound to suffer (we'll cover that myth a little later). The love for Philly stems from an astonishingly short memory.

Halfway through last season, in the aftermath of the 13-13 debacle in Cincinnati, this Eagles team was dead and buried. Andy Reid was hanging on by a thread. Donovan McNabb was on the bench.

Even in Week 17, Philly's playoff scenario was desperately grim. The Eagles needed to beat the Cowboys and Oakland needed to beat Tampa Bay, and Chicago or Minnesota had to lose.

Credit the Eagles for taking advantage of their breaks and putting together a nice run, but be careful not to lionize a team that escaped a very average season by the slimmest of margins and enters this year with some very substantial losses to overcome.

Myth: The Broncos Are in for a Brutal Year

It's not hard to understand why Denver's stock has plunged in the offseason. A Super Bowl-winning head coach and a rising star at quarterback are out; a 33-year-old wunderkind and a four-year-old rising star at wideout are in.

But the smoke coming out of the Mile High City has been far worse than the fire.

Once you get past the talent drop-off from Jay Cutler to Kyle Orton (which is considerable), the Broncos have improved in multiple areas of need. Brian Dawkins, Alphonso Smith, and a healthy Champ Bailey will help a defense that coughed up the third-most points in the league last year. Knowshon Moreno will help an offense that couldn't find a feature back.

Suddenly, there's light at the end of Brandon Marshall's tunnel—and at this point, finding a happy ending to that debacle would provide an emotional lift akin to winning the lottery.

Josh McDaniels could be a stud or a dud, but he only has to be average to match Mike Shanahan's .500 record over the past three seasons. Shanahan didn't have any answers when the team fell apart late last year, so in terms of recent history, the bar isn't all that high.

The Broncos still need a pass rush—then again, they needed one last year too, and still almost made the playoffs. They still need to see if Orton (or Chris Simms) can be an effective short-term solution at quarterback.

But there's more talent in Denver than people think. There should be more hope, too.

Myth: The Super Bowl Loser Is Doomed

If the Panthers and Falcons are getting a raw deal thanks to the NFC South repeat nonsense, the Cardinals are taking an outright beating at the notion teams who lose the Super Bowl are bound to fall apart the following season.

As I mentioned before, half of a 16-member panel of ESPN writers picked the Redbirds to stay home for the postseason. People who cover the NFL for a living are lining up to elevate the Seahawks (based on the conviction that last year's injury-fest was the exception, not the rule) and Niners (based on Mike Singletary's ability to drop his pants) ahead of the defending NFC champs.

Why? The hangover. The curse. The morning-after syndrome. Listen to some people, and you'd think teams that lose the title game are obligated by rule to sit the next season out in shame. Even I mentioned the phenomenon in my NFC preview, out of sheer laziness (though I didn't pick against Arizona).

In reality, we're dealing with another case of mistaking recent history for all of history.

Over the past 10 years, Super Bowl losers have certainly struggled. Just two of them made the playoffs the following year (the 2006 Seahawks and the 2000 Titans).

In the decade before that? Seven out of 10 Super Bowl losers made it back to the postseason. That's nine out of 20 teams, dating back to 1989. You might as well flip a coin.

Want to make sweeping predictions about this year's Cardinals based on a historical stat? Look at how 9-7 teams that make the Super Bowl fare the following season.

I'm talking about your 1979 L.A. Rams, of course, who went 11-5 in 1980 to make the playoffs.

If that doesn't scream "lock" for the Cardinals, I don't know what does.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign, a part of MTR Media. For more on the NFL, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

"O" or "No" Part Two: A Half-Glassed NFC Preview

Marino Eccher — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:09:50 -0400

On Monday, we pounded 16 shots of Kool-Aid and knocked out an AFC preview that outlined best- and worst-case scenarios for each club, along with our best guess at each division's order of finish.

Today, we're tackling the old guard. Once again, we'll give each team two outlooks: one informed by the big "O" (optimism, of course) and one informed by a skeptical dose of "no way."

NFC East

1. New York

The "O": The league's best O-line/D-line tandem storms its way to the conference title that seemed like a gimme for most of last year.

The "No": The least productive receiving corps of any contender (this year's top four wideouts caught a total of five touchdowns last season) keep the G-Men stuck in one-trick pony status.

2. Philadelphia

The "O": Donovan McNabb and company pick up where they left off last January and party like it's 2004.

The "No": Even if Michael Vick toes the line and does everything the Iggles ask of him—and at this point, there's no reason to think he won't—this town might not be big enough for two star quarterbacks.

3. Dallas

The "O": Addition by subtraction, right? With no T.O., the 'Boys are one, big, happy, winning family.

The "No": Anybody else feel like this window closed last December?

4. Washington

The "O": Last year's defense was No. 4 in yards and No. 6 in points...and just wait 'til they get their Haynes on you.

The "No": One head coach, one quarterback, zero job security—doesn't quite sound like a winning formula.

NFC North

1. Minnesota

The "O": Brett Favre, meet Bernard Berrian.

The "No": Brett Favre, meet Nick Collins.

2. Green Bay

The "O": 3-4 magician Dom Capers makes last year's defensive woes disappear.

The "No": Scrawny-to-brawny wonder Clay Matthews gets overzealous, putting on another 81 pounds over the next six years.

3. Chicago

The "O": Jay Cutler fires a rocket downfield...

The "No": ...and breaks Devin Hester's fingers.

4. Detroit

The "O": Short of burning down Ford Field, there ain't much left over from last year's mess.

The "No": At some point, the excitement over winning four games is going to become outright depressing.

NFC South

1. Atlanta

The "O": There are maybe 10 stud quarterbacks in the NFL, and the Falcons have one of them.

The "No": Last year, this defense finished No. 11 in points allowed and No. 24 in yardage. Something's gotta give.

2. New Orleans

The "O": Injuries to Marques Colston (six starts in '08), Reggie Bush (nine starts), and Jeremy Shockey (11 starts) didn't slow down an offense that scored 465 points.

The "No": If Dom Capers is a wizard in Green Bay, new DC Gregg Williams need to be a miracle worker in the Big Easy.

3. Carolina

The "O": After carrying the rock a relatively moderate 273 times last year, DeAngelo Williams has room to pick up the slack for the injured Jonathan Stewart.

The "No": John Fox's Panthers have won 11 or more games three times, including last year. They've yet to follow up one of those efforts with a winning season.

4. Tampa Bay

The "O": Dating back to 1997, the Bucs have failed to post a top-10 finish in both scoring defense and yards allowed just once—and it didn't happen last year.

The "No": No Monte Kiffin, no Jeff Jagodzinski, no Derrick Brooks...it's getting awfully lonely down there for Raheem Morris.

NFC West

1. Arizona

The "O": Ken Whisenhunt remembers that his team went 9-7 and was labeled the worst squad ever to make the playoffs. That's a good thing.

The "No": The hangover is real, and, just like a grizzled Zach Galifianakis, it can be ugly.

2. Seattle

The "O": They can't be as injured as last year. They just can't.

The "No": This team is one 33-year-old with an iffy back away from a whole lot of Seneca Wallace.

3. San Francisco

The "O": Mediocre teams with talent at skill positions tend to be breakout candidates...why not the Niners?

The "No": Missing on a first-round receiver is never a good omen, and (through no fault of the team's) Michael Crabtree is shaping up to be a heck of miss.

4. St. Louis

The "O": Donnie Avery's miracle foot might make this offense watchable.

The "No": After five years, five different head coaches, and an average of 5.4 wins, this is more of an intervention than a rebuilding project.

Big "O" or Big "No": A Half-Glassed AFC Preview

Marino Eccher — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:01:25 -0400

It’s early September in the world of football, and that means you’re going to hear plenty of the “O” word.

No, not “Ochocinco"—get your mind out of the gutter.

Optimism.

The Vikings are feeling it.The Lions, Bengals, and Bears are, too. If Bill Belichick had a soul, it would be brimming with unbridled hope for the brave new season to come.

And really, why not? No professional sport offers a better chance at upward mobility. Rosters are torn down and rebuilt on an annual basis. Playoff teams come and go via revolving door. Champions come out of nowhere (your '99 Rams) and fade fast (your '02 Bucs).

The downside of taking a sunny outlook into the year, of course, is that there aren't enough happy endings to go around. While 32 teams get to dream big every year, 31 of them are in for a rude awakening. Twenty won't make it past the first weekend in January.

So where does your club fit in? If we knew, we'd be riding our own optimism all the way to the sports book at the Wynn.

But we're more than happy to make it all up. And in the spirit of the season, we'll prognosticate two sides to every club's story—one informed by a healthy dose of "O," and one that ends in resounding "no."

Today, we'll predict the divisional finishes in the AFC. On Wednesday, we'll predict the NFC, and roll out our playoff picks in time for Thursday night's opener.

AFC East

1. New England

The "O": Brady-to-Moss is back, nobody notices that Seymour guy is missing, and Belichick remains stoic in the face of victory.

The "No": Brady is back on a stretcher, nobody fills in for that Seymour guy, and Belichick remains stoic in the face of defeat.

2. New York

The "O": Mark Sanchez plays like Joe Namath, and Rex Ryan coaches like John Harbaugh.

The "No": Mark Sanchez drinks like Joe Namath, and Rex Ryan coaches like Buddy Ryan.

3. Miami

The "O": Jason Taylor waltzes back into form, as Ronnie Brown and rookie Pat White run wild.

The "No": Taylor shuffles his way toward retirement, the 'Cat loses its claws, and last year's turnaround team turns around yet again.

4. Buffalo

The "O": T.O. butters Trent Edwards' popcorn in a honeymoon year, and the act isn't half as dirty as it sounds.

The "No": The "Pop Warner" offense that fired offensive coordinator Turk Schonert claims Dick Jauron wants to install gets Pop Warner-caliber results.

AFC North

1. Pittsburgh

The "O": Mike Tomlin does it again, and the sense of accomplishment the typical 37-year-old man feels after mowing the lawn loses a little bit of its luster.

The "No": The AFC title game is in Foxboro.

2. Baltimore

The "O": Joe Flacco keeps playing catch with Mark Clayton, opposing quarterbacks keep playing catch with Ed Reed, and the Ravens manage to catch the Steelers.

The "No": Turns out Rex Ryan—not Ray Lewis—was the straw that stirred the drink.

3. Cincinnati

The "O": The dawn of the Rey Maualuga era.

The "No": The dawn of the Andre Smth era.

4. Cleveland

The "O": Eric Mangini reveals his starting quarterback: A clone grown from a lock of Tom Brady's chest hair.

The "No": 2009's answer to the Super Bowl Shuffle? "I'm Mangini in a bottle, baby."

AFC South

1. Indianapolis

The "O": Jim Caldwell hits the ground running, and Peyton Manning is back in the Super Bowl.

The "No": Bob Sanders hit the ground wincing, and Manning is back in Super Bowl commercials.

2. Houston

The "O": Matt Schaub's arm leads a top-five offense.

The "No": Rex Grossman's arm leads this team God knows where.

3. Tennessee

The "O": Kyle Vanden Bosch sacks his way to a fat new contract.

The "No": It's discovered that LenDale White was a way better goal-line back while drunk.

4. Jacksonville

The "O": Maurice Jones-Drew makes fantasy owners across America very, very happy.

The "No": The Jags go 6-10...and 0-10 against the blackout spread.

AFC West

1. San Diego

The "O": LT's groin, Antonio Gates' toe, and Shawne Merriman's testimony all hold up just fine.

The "No": Norv Turner continues his run in San Diego as a Super Bowl favorite by failing to appear in the Super Bowl.

2. Kansas City

The "O": Somebody in this scrap heap has to come in second.

The "No": Bernard Pollard, cut this weekend, lands with the Raiders in time for a Week Two showdown at Arrowhead, and trips over a blocking Larry Johnson on a blitz. "This is my nightmare!," a distraught Scott Pioli cries.

3. Denver

The "O": In an intervention, Elvis (Dumervil) convinces Brandon Marshall not to leave the building.

The "No": The Seattle Seahawks turn Alphonso Smith into the No. 5 pick in the 2010 Draft.

4. Oakland

The "O": JaMarcus Russell makes the smooth transition to mediocrity.

The "No": Tom Cable makes the smooth transition to unemployment.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign, a part of MTR Media. For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

Vikings-Texans: Five Things We Learned

Marino Eccher — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:20:11 -0400

A preseason football game can be tedious. Instant replay during a preseason football game is downright mind-numbing.

Watching an official climb under the hood to agonize over a call that doesn’t matter in a game that doesn’t count is one of the least enlightening experiences the gridiron has to offer.

Nobody ever claimed that watching three hours of football makes you smarter, but after Brad Childress stopped play twice in Houston on Monday night via red flag, I’m convinced that sitting through a five-minute replay boondoggle during an exhibition game can in fact make you a little bit dumber.

Monumentally pointless challenges aside, however, the Vikings’ third preseason tilt (presumably the one that comes closest to the genuine article) did offer a few bits of wisdom. Here’s what we learned from Minnesota’s not-for-real win:

1. When the Vikings Control the Ground, It’s a Beautiful Thing To Watch

On Minnesota’s first offensive play of the game, Adrian Peterson broke a 75-yard run for a touchdown.

On the team’s first defensive snap, Antoine Winfield blew up Houston’s Steve Slaton at the line of scrimmage, jarring the ball loose in what looked an awful lot like a fumble.

That’s what I call an opening statement.

It’s a pipe dream to imagine the Vikings starting all of their games in a similar fashion, and depending on "home run" plays to score is a risky way to run an offense.

But if you’re an opponent, it has to be demoralizing to watch Peterson disappear in a cloud of dust on one side of the ball, then watch your own back disappear under a mound of purple jerseys on the other.

If you’re a Vikings fan, meanwhile, watching Minnesota seize control of the running game right out of the gate had to be encouraging.

2. Percy Harvin Is a Work in Progress

Eleven minutes into the first quarter, the mythical, magical “Wildcat” formation made an appearance. Percy Harvin lined up under center, took the snap, stepped back...and handed off to Peterson for a five-yard gain.

Breathtaking stuff, to be sure. Almost as captivating as watching Harvin rush for two yards out of the ‘Cat in the third quarter, while Brett Favre lined up at wideout and threw a nasty (and illegal) crackback block at Eugene Wilson’s knees, setting Minnesota back 15 big ones.

Not sure the Vikes are going to keep too many defensive coordinators up at night with that one.

Gadget plays notwithstanding, Harvin looked like a promising playmaker who needs to polish the finer points of his game.

On a 3rd-and-6 play late in the first quarter, Harvin ran a quick curl that took him just past the first-down marker, but stepped into the catch to come up short after the tackle. The Vikings had to punt.

On 2nd-and-goal in the second quarter, he slowed down a step too early on a deep throw from Favre, letting six points fall just outside of his fingertips in the corner on the end zone. The team settled for a field goal.

Harvin’s performance on the night—three catches for 31 yards, two carries for six yards—was fine enough. But he was two plays and a few inches away from a much bigger impact. If he can master the little things, he has the chance to impact this offense in a big way.

3. Brett Favre Isn’t an Impact Player Yet

After 12 days in Minnesota, we probably shouldn’t expect him to be. And with downfield threat Bernard Berrian still sidelined with a hamstring injury, Favre still isn’t playing with a full deck.

But until we see Favre make strong, decisive throws more than once or twice a game, it’s going to be hard to get too excited about what he does for the Vikings offense.

His showing on Monday—13-of-18, 142 yards, one touchdown, no picks—was built largely on checkdowns and lobs to running backs. The ultra-safe stuff makes for a clean stat line, but won’t exactly turn Minnesota’s passing attack into a chain-moving machine.

Favre did offer a few glimpses of what he can really do. With five minutes left in the first, he stepped back and rifled a throw to Visanthe Shiancoe for 11 yards up the middle.

On 3rd-and-7 in the second, he hit Sidney Rice for the first down on a quick slant—and might have fallen into a rhythm of quick throws at that point, had Percy Harvin and Brian McKinnie not wiped out back-to-back completions to Chester Taylor with successive penalties.

Favre doesn’t need to go deep to be successful. But he does need to deliver the ball quickly and with authority. Until we see that on a regular basis, it’s hard to gauge how big of a difference he’ll make.

4. Jaymar Johnson is a Breath of Fresh Air on Punt Returns

Last week, the Vikings cut Glenn Holt, signed as kick-return specialist, in the same offseason they signed him.

On Monday, Jaymar Johnson showed us why.

The second-year man out of Jackson State ran back three punts for a total of 38 yards in Houston, displaying a nifty series of moves to elude pursuit, and generally giving the impression that he was a big play waiting to happen.

Johnson may not catch many passes this year, but if he can keep up the gaudy run-back numbers, he’ll be a valuable asset for a team that averaged 8.0 yards per punt return (No. 24 in the league) last season.

Harvin (two kick returns, 52 yards) didn’t look bad himself, either.

5. If You’re a Fantasy Wonk, Chester Taylor Has More Value than You Think

Taylor is already getting a bit of love as a change-of-pace/goal-line back. He’s owned in 78 percent of CBS leagues, and tends to come off the board sometime in the late rounds of fantasy drafts.

But if throwing to the running back is anywhere near as big a part of Minnesota’s game plan as it was on Monday, Taylor might turn into something of a secret weapon. He caught three balls for 41 yards against Houston, including a touchdown, and clearly has an edge over Adrian Peterson as a passing threat.

It’s hard to get too high on Taylor when he’s on the wrong end of a timeshare with a workhorse like Peterson. But if you’re looking for a pass-catching back, Monday’s game suggested that he might be worth a closer look.

No Gambling on the NFL? That's One Wild Fantasy

Marino Eccher — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:21:12 -0400

The NFL doesn’t want you to gamble. Really.

It doesn’t want you to gamble so much that it bars gambling-related ads during broadcasts of games and reserves the right to ban players and owners who so much as associate with dice-tossing scoundrels.

It doesn't want you to gamble so much that it sued the state of Delaware twice—first in 1977, then again this year—to kill proposed sports betting laws.

It doesn't want you to gamble so much that it has a link to gambling news and tips on the front page of its Web site, right next to the league stats and standings.

Just like Captain Renault, I'm shocked—shocked!

Sure, the folks over at NFL.com don't come out and advertise as much. They don't label the page in question "gambling resources."

Instead, they label it "fantasy football."

If you listen to the league, fantasy football is "a great way to follow NFL action while also competing with your family, friends, co-workers or even strangers for bragging rights."

A friendly competition with Mom, Pop, and your buddies, all for fun? It's just like Scrabble!

Before I go on, let me be clear: I'm all for fantasy football. I'm in four different leagues this season. I love ranking players. I love drafts. I love cursing when things go wrong. Fantasy is right in my wheelhouse.

Do I play for fun? Absolutely. But sometimes that fun comes in the form of a check at the end of the season.

Whether Roger Goodell says so or not, fantasy football is a great way to follow NFL action while angling for some cold, hard cash. If you pay a league fee and gun for the prize money, you're gambling.

Think of it as a complex proposition bet that unfolds over the course of the season. When you draft, you're betting that your team will put up more points than the other guys. If you're right, you win. The execution is heck of a lot more complicated than laying $50 on the Jets minus three, but the big idea is the same.

Like I said, I'm all for it. Frankly, without a few greenbacks to grease the wheels, deliberating between Hakeem Nicks and Tashard Choice in Round 13 isn't all that interesting. A modest fantasy wager gives a few thrills to otherwise unremarkable players and games.

From the NFL's perspective, though, picketing against legalized sports betting with one hand while drumming up support for fantasy football with the other sends a strange message.

Maybe the league believes factors that make traditional gambling so toxic—namely, ties to crime and the risk of fixed outcomes—don't apply to fantasy football. Maybe the NFL can't picture a crooked official throwing a few flags to influence Peyton Manning's passing totals or a crooked player nailing a star in the knees to sideline him for the year.

But while it may not be as easy to tilt a fantasy league as it is to doctor a point spread, it's hardly out of the question. Corruption follows money—and there's plenty of money in fantasy football.

We're not talking about a hobby where some friends throw in $10 here and there. We're talking about a thriving gambling industry. Tens of millions of people play. Conservative estimates put the amount of fantasy football prize money at stake at about $500 million per season.

There are insurance policies to recoup league fees in case your fantasy studs get hurt. There are million-dollar leagues. And unlike point shaving, shady figures don't need to alter the outcome of a game to change a fantasy result—they just need to alter an individual performance.

I'm not suggesting that we pull the plug on fantasy football as part of a gambling crackdown. The NFL couldn't stamp out sports betting if it tried, and there are plenty of reasons to believe that keeping gambling illegal and unregulated does more harm than good.

The best the league can do is keep its eyes open and take care of its officials and players, so that no one in a position to influence a game for nefarious purposes is desperate enough to do so.

You can't fault the NFL for trying to keep gambling off the field. But a crusade against sports betting alongside a marketing machine for fantasy football? That's a sign of a league in need of a reality check.

This article is also featured on Purple Reign, a part of MTR Media. For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

Fitting Brett Favre Into the Vikings Offense: Leave Your Guns at Home

Marino Eccher — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 19:53:00 -0400

Picture this one, Vikings fans: Bernard Berrian streaks down the sideline, the Metrodome crowd roars, and Brett Favre cocks his arm back, looking for a home run.

Thrilling? Hell yes.

Advisable? Heck no.

At first blush, Favre seems like the perfect candidate to give Minnesota’s passing game, ranked No. 25 last season, some big-play pizazz. He brings a cannon arm to an offense that features Berrian, whom ESPN’s Christoper Harris calls “a bomb waiting to go off,” and Percy Harvin, who is no stranger to the long ball himself.

Favre likes to throw long; they like to go long. Even in practice, he sends ‘em hard and he sends ‘em deep (that’s what she—er, Visanthe Shiancoe, said.)

The Vikings don’t need the Mighty Mississippian out there launching missiles, though. They need him wielding a scalpel.

The obvious reason is that Minnesota doesn’t need the turnovers that Favre’s aerial ambitions generate. There’s merit to that idea—but not as much as you think.

Nearly half of Favre’s league-leading 22 interceptions last year came on throws of 20 yards or longer. He attempted 57 passes in that range, and tossed up 10 picks to show for it.

That’s one turnover for every five-and-a-half deep attempts. Bad odds? Sure, but no worse than Gus Frerotte, who posted a nearly identical interception rate on long throws in his 11 starts, or Sage Rosenfels, who gave the ball away on one in six tries of 20 yards or more.

In other words, Favre throwing deep is a risk, but isn't really a downgrade.

(Tarvaris Jackson fans, now’s your chance to complain about leaving him out of the mix. Just remember what happens when you ask him to carry the load.)

The real reason Favre is best served sticking to the short stuff has as much to do with accentuating his positives as it does with eliminating his negatives. Simply put, he’s deadly from close range.

Even in a down year, Favre completed nearly 76 percent of his passes within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage last year. Those sound like “gimmes,” but they also make up around the vast majority of a quarterback’s throws—typically, around 70 percent.
Frerotte and Jackson connected on just 67 percent of short throws last year. If Favre had the same number of attempts they did, he would have completed about 27 more passes on short attempts alone.

Under the same conditions, he would have completed 15 more throws than Rosenfels, who made good on about 71 percent of his passes of 10 yards or shorter.

But Favre isn’t merely an upgrade over Minnesota’s lackluster collection of passers. When it comes to picking defenses apart underneath, he’s an artiste of the highest order. There isn’t a starting quarterback in the league—not Philip Rivers, not Peyton Manning, not even the oh-so-meticulous Chad Pennington—who was more efficient in short-yardage passing last season.

Any strong-armed quarterback can launch a rocket toward the end zone and hope for the best—heck, T-Jack could play that role just fine. It takes talent to play a dink-and-dunk game that controls the ball and moves the chains. Favre still has plenty to offer in that department.

So if Favre the gunslinger lands a few deep shots against the Chiefs tonight, cheer all you like—it’s a rush, after all, and a nifty highlight.

But save some applause for Favre the surgeon, too. When he starts slicing away, he’s got the tools to bleed the other guys dry.

For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

Say What You Want, But the Vikings Are Just More Fun with Favre

Marino Eccher — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:29:00 -0400

Vikings fans are cheering. Packers faithful are jeering. Pundits are bouncing between, "Say it ain't so," and, "I told you so."

And Sage Rosenfels probably feels a lot like Ben Stiller in There's Something About Mary, standing in front of Cameron Diaz and wondering, "What the hell is Brett Favre doing here?"

There's a red No. 4 on the practice field at Winter Park today, and it's not John David Booty.

Surprised? Don't be. The only real shocker here is that Favre pulled such a clumsy "no means yes" routine to avoid training camp, when it would have been just as easy to dodge the Mankato State dormitories by postponing his decision until the team was back in the Twin Cities.

Beyond the time lost in camp, however, signing Favre makes as much sense today as it did three weeks ago. Brad Childress hit the nail on the head: "The same variables that made this a unique and positive situation previously, still exist."

In other words, Favre was the Vikings' best option at quarterback on July 28, and he still is. He was better than Rosenfels and Tarvaris Jackson then, and he's better now, too.

You can rip Favre for giving the team the run-around. You can rip Childress for going from "there's not a chance" to picking up Favre at the airport, leaving the quarterbacks with whom he vowed he was "going forward" in the dust.

But it's hard to rip the decision from a football perspective. As we examined last week, strong quarterback play is a key indicator of a Super Bowl contender.

There aren't 32 quality quarterbacks in the league right now. There may not be 16. If Favre is effective, he's one of them. If he isn't, Rosenfels will still be there, and the team will be no worse off than it is right now.

Some media outlets are just happy they got it right. The headline at FOXsports.com, where Jay Glazer predicted a Favre comeback yesterday: "Told ya so."

Some are convinced the team got it all wrong. SI.com's Peter King called the Vikings Favre's "enablers", and said both the player and the club are "making a mistake."

If they are, it may be the most profitable misstep in franchise history.

The front page of the Vikings' official Web site has been replaced by a banner bearing Favre's face that reads "Are you ready 4 some football?"—complete with links to purchase Favre jerseys and season tickets, of course.

The team's Ticketmaster site reportedly crashed under the sudden influx of traffic this morning.

The Metrodome's cheapest nosebleed seats for the Packers-Vikings game on Oct. 5 (face value: $30) are going for $200 each on Stubhub.com.

For the rematch at Lambeau on Nov. 1, the cheapest tickets will set you back $349 (or a cool $1,750 for six). Now that's a stimulus package.

Oh, and those Minneapolis stadium talks that have been frustrating the team for more than a year just might get a shot in the arm.

Think fans are getting jazzed up about the situation? Go check out the commentators Star Tribune's story, telling us that we'll see "Favre hoisting the Lombardi trophy (to the envy of all cheeseheads) in five months."

Then pop on over to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and listen to the faithful explain, "If you found out your wife was cheating on you, your kid was doing drugs, or your best friend was only using you for your money, you'd be feeling the same thing...that many people feel about Favre going to the Vikings."

Twin Cities sports radio host Dan Barreiro even tracked down Packers fanatic Carl Gerbschmidt, who may or may not exist. Gerbschmidt reported that he was drowning his sorrows at a bar in Chippewa Falls, Wisc., after setting the Favre-owned truck he won at an auction on fire.

This ought to be fun.

Everyone in Minnesota who took their shots at Favre for his love of attention might want to take a minute to bask in the glow of the cameras currently pointed at our state.

Doesn't that feel good? You start to understand why he enjoys the sensation. And nothing could have delivered that kind of spotlight like Favre.

So what the hell is Brett Favre doing here, anyway?

Is he trying to win another Super Bowl for his daughter, as he said in tonight's press conference? Is he trying to go out on his own terms? Is he just trying to play some football and put $12 million in the bank?

We don't know yet. But it's going to be a hell of a ride.

For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

Love Doesn't Come Cheap: Vikings Fans Face Pricey Battle to Keep Team in Minny

Marino Eccher — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:11:44 -0400

When the Vikings made the trek to Indianapolis on Friday, team executives noticed how nicely the one-year-old Lucas Oil Stadium suited the Colts.

They made sure the Minnesota public noticed too.

"This would be great in Minneapolis," said Lester Bagley, the team's vice president of public affairs and stadium development. "The frustrating thing is that the person that's working the hardest to get a deal done and keep the Vikings in Minnesota is [owner] Zygi Wilf.”

Translation: We'd love to build one of these ourselves, and it would be a shame if we had to do it somewhere else.

After a 48-year romance with the good people of Minnesota, those Vikings still know how to push our buttons.

They know we’re just a teensy bit insecure about a slicker, sexier city making a play for our purple pride. They know we’re still wary of losing a hometown team after Bud Selig tried to contract the Twins in 2002. And they know we love the Vikings enough to put up a fight for them when push comes to shove.

In this case, however, love isn’t a battlefield. It’s a stadium, and it costs $950 million.

That’s a lot of love.

For Vikings ownership, commitment issues are nothing new. Red McCombs toyed with the idea of moving the team to Los Angeles for profit. He kicked around the notion of moving it to San Antonio, his hometown, for fun.

When Wilf bought the team in 2005, he promised that his involvement with the Twin Cities was more than just a fling. Heck, when he vowed, “We will be in the Minneapolis area forever,” he practically dropped to one knee.

At this point, though, his words sound an awful lot like sweet nothings. Bagley said in February that if a stadium deal isn't done when other cities come calling, "it's not going to be a favorable outcome for the Twin Cities in terms of the long-term future for the club."

Why can’t the Vikings quit playing games (with our hearts)? Because they’re set to quit playing games in the Metrodome after the 2011 season. Once that lease expires, they're back on the singles market, looking for a shoulder to cry on and a place to crash.

The latest homewrecking suitor to throw himself at the team is California real estate developer Ed Roski, a billionaire who helped finance L.A.'s Staples Center.

Roski's come-hither trump card? A proposal for a privately financed $800-million stadium in Industry, Calif., 15 miles east of Los Angeles.

He's got a list of small-market teams with whom he's flirting. The Vikings are on it.

So far, the team has given him the cold shoulder. Apparently, he hasn't called lately (just what kind of a gentleman does that make him, anyway?).

But Bagley's comments on the stadium situation remind us that Roski and other out-of-town admirers certainly aren't out of the picture, either. There are still plenty of Casanovas out there with eyes for our beloved Vikes—and if we can’t tie the knot, somebody else will.

We’re fiercely loyal and faithful to a fault, but those qualities won’t be enough to keep the team by our sides. NFL owners aren’t romantics. They’re gold diggers. Wilf is in this business for the money, and it’s going to take money to get the Vikings to embrace the state the way the state embraces the Vikings.

Given the shortage of private investors lining up to invest a billion dollars into a downtown Minneapolis facility, most of the cash is going to have to come from public sources—around $700 million, by current estimates.

For a state facing a $4.6 billion budget deficit in the next fiscal year, that’s an awfully pricey wedding.

Should we pony up? You’ve got me on that one. Like most citizens, I hate the idea of using public money to make a rich man richer. Like most fans, I hate the idea of losing the team.

But that’s the dilemma Minnesota will face over the next two years. It’s the question all small-market fanbases face: How much love can we afford?

The answer could leave plenty of people with broken hearts.

For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

How Close to a Title Are the Vikings? Not as Close as You Think

Marino Eccher — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:54:00 -0400

Whatever the Minnesota Vikings are putting in the Kool-Aid this offseason, it sure goes down smooth.

The team’s presumptive blueprint for success this year—run the ball, stuff the run, rush the passer, and turn Percy Harvin loose on the league—is an easy-to-swallow cocktail of conventional football wisdom.

Listen to the pundits talk about “a team that appears to be a competent quarterback away from winning the Super Bowl,” and the buzz sounds even better. It’s enough to make you stop asking how the Vikes are going to make the Super Bowl, and start wondering what the heck is going to stop them.

We’ve got Adrian Peterson! We’ve got Jared Allen! We’ve got the Williams Wall! How could this go wrong?

Well, we’ve got a few ideas. A quick look at the factors behind a typical championship contender reveals a few glaring holes in Minnesota’s title hype.

To be sure, the Vikings boast trophy-caliber elements in a few phases of the game. In the 39 years since the AFL-NFL merger, the average title game participant has finished around No. 9 in rushing and a little better than No. 8 against the run.

Minnesota clocked in at No. 5 and No. 1 in those categories last year. That’s good news.

But the average Super Bowl team also finishes right around No. 7 in passer rating. In fact, 80 percent of Super Bowl contenders finish in the top 10 in passer rating, while just 65 percent finish in the top 10 in rushing. Despite conventional wisdom, passing the ball efficiently is more important than racking up yards on the ground.

The Vikings finished No. 18 in passer rating in 2008—worse than all but seven of the 78 participants in Super Bowl history. That’s bad news.

Along the same lines, disrupting an opponent’s passing rhythm is almost as important as shutting down the running game: Super Bowl teams average league ranks of 7.78 in run defense and 7.93 in opposing passer rating.

Despite a top-five pass rush, last year’s Vikes finished No. 16 in defensive passer rating. That’s more bad news: Of the 39 teams who’ve won the Super Bowl, just four have allowed their opponents to pass the ball with comparable efficiency.

And for a team that hangs its hat on a stout defense, Minnesota falls short in the most important measure of a Super Bowl contender: The ability to keep points off the board.

The average Super Bowl team finishes between No. 6 and No. 7 in scoring defense. The average champion finishes a bit better than No. 5. Eighty-two percent of teams that are good enough to make the title game finish in the top 10.

Last year’s Vikings finished No. 13. Respectable? Certainly. Title-worthy? Not really.

Falling short of Super Bowl averages in a single category, or even a few categories, doesn’t knock a team out of contention. Plenty of teams compensate for shortcomings in one area by excelling in another (recall that the 2000 Ravens won it all with Trent Dilfer under center).

The Vikings’ real problem is that there is little precedent for success among teams that are terrific at stopping the run, but less successful in keeping opponents out of the end zone. Almost every Super Bowl contender built around a dominating ground game has also featured an elite scoring defense.

Just three teams have reached the title game that finished in the top five in rushing defense, but outside the top 10 in scoring “D”: The ’86 Broncos, the ’83 Redskins, and the ’92 Bills.

All of those teams finished No. 6 or better in scoring. All of them sent a quarterback to the Pro Bowl. All of them lost the Super Bowl, by an average margin of 27.6 points.

This year’s Vikings are only in a position to do one of those things.

So the next time somebody tells you the Vikings are a quarterback away from the Super Bowl, ask ‘em which quarterback (Brady? Montana? Tarkenton?) they have in mind.

Next time you hear about Minnesota’s championship-caliber defense, remind them that most opponents don’t run the ball on every down.

And the next time the Vikings offer you a glass of Kool-Aid, well, drink up and hope for the best—frankly, the season is more fun that way.

But don’t be surprised to find a few key ingredients missing.

For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher

Adrian Peterson's Phantom Poundage and the Art of Saying Nothing

Marino Eccher — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:17:20 -0400

Way back in April, when NFL Draft coverage was in full swing and the Minnesota Vikings had precious few headlines to offer, Adrian Peterson gave us something to talk about.

The league's leading rusher announced that he was looking to gain as many as 12 pounds in the offseason, pushing his playing weight to 230 "just to see how it feels."

It was the easiest media mini-frenzy he's ever incited.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune listened to him, tracking down a wary reaction from Brad Childress for good measure: "230 is awful big." So did USA Today. The Washington Post gave the comment a blurb.

Sports Illustrated ran with it, hunting down reactions from prominent NFL running backs about what the extra bulk could do to Peterson (lost speed, knee injuries) if he followed through and packed on the pounds.

And then he didn't.

When Peterson reported for training camp last week, he tipped the scales at 220, three pounds heavier than his playing weight last season. All the fuss was dedicated to extra junk that never made its way to AP's trunk.

Peterson said he learned his lesson: "Never talk about my weight, because it'll be something you hear about the whole summer," he told reporters at camp last Friday.

If he meant that, he missed the point. The real lesson here is that with a few choice words, a media-savvy star can reel in a boatload of offseason attention without lifting a finger.

The remark that started the whole ordeal—"God willing, I will get to 225, 230"—was a throwaway line. It was nonsense. It was fantasy. It was a daydream (Gosh, I wonder what it'd be like out there if I was a real big guy...) that Peterson happened to voice aloud.

He wasn't going to get to 230. That's bulldozer territory—Shaun Alexander, Fred Taylor, Deuce McAllister. If Peterson had rolled into Mankato looking like any of those guys, Childress would have had a heart attack.

He wasn't going to get to 225. Look at the man. Where are those extra pounds gonna go? Unless he borrows a page from the Pat Williams book of nutrition, he's carrying about as much punishment as his frame will allow.

None of that mattered. In the absence of actual Vikings storylines over the summer, weighing the pros and cons of a beefier Adrian Peterson was terrific fodder for football pundits.

His "goal" of playing at 230 was enough of a stretch to be easy to criticize, but not quite outlandish enough to dismiss as absurd. It was simple enough to market for public consumption, and specific enough to throw a smidgen of analysis into the equation.

Feasible or otherwise, real or not, it's a softball of a topic that provides an easy fix for all those maniacs determined to keep football in the spotlight year-round.

Adrian, you don't need to learn to avoid dispensing these kinds of innocuous verbal gems. You need to learn to keep them coming.

Tell us you hope to catch 50 passes next year. Tell us you're aiming for 3,000 all-purpose yards. Tell us you want you throw five or six touchdowns out of the Wildcat. Tell us you're going to grow an 18-inch 'fro, "just to see how it feels."

Are any of those things going to happen? Nope. But if you don't think about them too hard, they sound like things that could happen. They sound just legitimate enough to write about—and make no mistake, we'll write about them.

You don't have to mean any of it. You just need to say it. Just put it out there and let a few media types run with it.

Will these kind of proclamations be the kind of thing "you hear about the whole summer?" You bet they will. And that's a good thing.

We get a few story ideas to tide us over until August. You get column inches dedicated to you and to the Vikings during a stretch on the calendar when football has no business being in the news.

There may be other ways to get that kind of attention—get a DUI, shoot yourself in the leg—but in terms of return on your investment, it doesn't get much cheaper than a passing statement about a made-up aspiration.

If you need to see how it's done, look no further than Shaquille O'Neal, the master of non-information himself.

Last September, Shaq-fu told us he was going to retire in exactly 735 days (never mind that that number would put the end of his career right at the start of the 2010 season). He told us Amar'e Stoudemire's new nickname was "Sun Tzu," and even let an Arizona Republic beat writer pick the moniker (never mind that nobody in their right mind has called Stoudemire that since).

He's not talking to make a point. He's not talking to make a difference. He's just talking to talk.

It's a gift, really. So keep talking, Adrian Peterson. We promise we'll listen.

Even if it turns out you're not really saying anything.

For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

The Minnesota Vikings Shouldn't Burn the Brett Favre Bridge Yet

Marino Eccher — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:23:00 -0400

Driving, e-mails to your boss, and quarterback decisions: It's best to steer clear of all three when angry.

Right now, the Minnesota Vikings have plenty of reasons to be angry.

They've been jilted at the altar by The Indecider himself. They've got too little quarterback talent on the depth chart and too many purple No. 4 jerseys on backorder. They just spent an entire summer making locker room-wrecking overtures, only to become the crash test dummies for the newest phrase in Brett Favre's vocabulary: "No more."

And the fans? If you stick your head out the window in Minneapolis, that sound you'll hear reverberating through the streets is the cacaphony of slammed doors that the Vikings faithful had propped wide open in welcome.

In a few fleeting ticks of the clock, the local barometer on Favre has swung from blissful to bitter.

Star Tribune blogger Seth Stohs declared, "The second that training camp starts on Friday should be the exact moment that Vikings leadership should delete Favre's number from their phones."

Columnist Jim Souhan opined, "Favre should be ashamed of himself for toying with an entire organization."

And while Favre hinted at the possibility that he'll consider a midseason return ("If someone calls Nov. 1, who knows?"), Brad Childress proclaimed, "There's not a chance from my standpoint. I'm going forward with the guys that we have."

Pump the brakes for a minute, Chilly.

You're still steamed about the Favre situation, no doubt. After waiting on him all summer, you want to sound firm and decisive to remind everyone who's in control. And you need to throw a some support behind the guys whose jobs have been hanging in limbo for months.

But before you say anything you can't take back about what will and won't happen, step back and take stock of the situation.

You're about to hold a quarterback competition between a journeyman backup and a project who has bounced between the starting role and the bench three times in the past two seasons.

You've got a stacked defense and a talented offense with a great big doughnut hole under center.

You didn't get any closer to a solution this week. "The guys you have" didn't get any better.

The difference between the 10-6 squad that got bounced from the opening round of the playoffs at home in January and the one taking the field in training camp this week is Sage Rosenfels, a handful of rookies, and a new special teams coordinator.

So like I said, let's not rule anything out just yet.

Believe me, I'm as irked about Favre as the next red-blooded Minnesotan. I saw him as a clear upgrade at the position. I thought he gave the Vikings the best chance to win.

When his arm isn't falling off, he's still a better passer than Jackson or Rosenfels.

When he's healthy and under control—as he was for the first two-thirds of last season—he's still a quality quarterback in a league in which quality quarterbacks are awfully hard to find.

Here's the thing: If that's true today, it'll probably be true on Nov. 1, too.

Of course, if the Vikes storm out of the gate 6-1, with T-Jack or Rosenfels looking sharp all the way, this will be a moot point. Nothing would put Favre in the past faster than a fast start.

But what if Minnesota stumbles early? What if they get hammered at home by Green Bay in Week Four? What if the quarterback situation starts messy and gets messier?

What if they're 4-3 as October winds down? What if they're 3-4?

At that point, it might be handy to have Favre waiting in the wings.

There are issues of pride, loyalty, and control at play here. There are hurt feelings and bruised egos. None of those things are especially helpful in making sound football decisions.

Brett Favre was a sound football decision on Tuesday. Unless Jackson and Rosenfels make leaps and bounds, he'll be a sound football decision in two or three months.

If the Vikings need him at that point, Brad Childress needs to pick up the phone.

Unless he deleted the number, that is.

Follow Vikings posts and updates on Twitter: MarinoEccher.

CBS Releases NFL Correspondent List

Marino Eccher — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:09:15 -0400

Want to congratulate the Bleacher Creature who scored a correspondent job with your favorite team?

Want to know if the guy who edged you out is any good?

Now you can.

The list hit the Web in a CBS press release yesterday.

I don't have 32 bits of insight to offer up, so I'll leave the play-by-play and breakdown on each individual team to those in the know within those respective communities.

If you're curious about which teams wound up with a B/R selection and which ones landed an outside hire, it's easy enough to plug the names from the press release into the B/R search box and see what turns up.

The results ranged from B/R young guns, to longtime veterans who took the time to write the contest articles anyway (good for you, by the way), to correspondents who don't have a B/R profile at all.

For those who didn't make it, the list gives some measure of transparency.

For those who did? It's training camp time—show us what you've got.

Dear Tarvaris Jackson: Time to Prove Us Wrong

Marino Eccher — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:26:00 -0400

Dear Tarvaris Jackson:

It's been a rough year for you, big guy.

In January, you went 15-for-35 for 164 yards and a pick in a playoff loss at home.

In February, the Vikings imported a 31-year-old career backup to compete with you.

And from early May through yesterday afternoon, the team did its best to acquire a 39-year-old passer with a bum throwing arm to replace you outright.

Brad Childress said missing out on Brett Favre "doesn’t change anything about how I feel about our football team." Given that his recent pursuits don't suggest he feels all that hot about his chances with you under center, I'm not sure that's a good thing for you.

Local sports radio producer Darren "Doogie" Wolfson ranked yesterday's news as the third-biggest letdown in Minnesota sports history.

In other words, heading into this season with either you or Sage Rosenfels under center is third-worst thing ever to befall Twin Cities sports fans, right behind the '98 NFC Title Game and "41-doughnut."

Stop me any time here.

So your coach isn't crazy about you. Your fans aren't crazy about you. And if you put stock in reports that Adrian Peterson, Jared Allen, and Steve Hutchinson all lobbied Favre to join up even after he told the team he wasn't coming back, your teammates aren't all that crazy about you, either.

What are you going to do about it?

The way I see it, you've got two choices: Sulk and shrink from the occasion, or whip yourself into shape as the quarterback nobody seems to think you can be.

It sounds like a no-brainer. Nobody wants to throw in the towel. Nobody wants to show the doubters they were right.

But if option No. 2 were easy, we wouldn't have a list of quarterback washouts waiting on the tips of our tongues. Tim Couch, Joey Harrington, Cade McNown, Quincy Carter: It's not hard to find guys who started early, bounced in an out of the lineup, and never found their footing again.

For a man on the brink of joining the ranks of those who couldn't cut the mustard—and make no mistake, you're on the brink—there are a few obstacles to overcome that must be nothing short of maddening.

By all accounts, you're already working plenty hard. Some of your teammates even said you were having such a good offseason that all the Favre talk was nonsense. Now, you have to figure out how to work harder.

We have to imagine you already wanted the starting job. Now, you have to figure out how to want it more than the other guy.

Think Alice in Wonderland here: You're already going full speed to hang on to what you've got; if you want to get better, you need to go twice as fast.

Then there's the matter of repairing whatever damage your confidence has sustained. It's hard enough to believe in yourself after winning, losing, and regaining the No. 1 role in each of the last two seasons—now, you have to lead an offense in which a handful of the key cogs tried to lure someone else under center.

It's safe to say that none of those cautionary tales mentioned above intended to be busts. At one point or another, all of them undoubtedly tried to turn things around.

None of them did. That's another hurdle: The knowledge that some people work their butts off and fail anyway.

Starting to see where these situations take a turn for the worse? Feel like sulking yet?

The good news is that if you're still game for the self-improvement route, you've got a whole stack of motivational kindling piled high and ready to burn.

Every time the Favre debacle creeps into your mind, do an extra set in the weight room. Every time some idiot columnist picks Rosenfels to edge you out, put in an extra hour in the film room.

Memorize the playbook until you forget it. Focus on five or six throws and repeat them until your brain stops interfering with your arm. Print out a list of things that went wrong this offseason, tape it to the treadmill, and see if you get an extra mile or two out of it. Make the team drag you off the practice field kicking and screaming.

We're skeptics, not haters. We don't want you to fail. We just want somebody to lead this team to the promised land.

So far, all we've seen is a pet project that never quite panned out.

Prove us wrong.

Follow Vikings posts and updates on Twitter: MarinoEccher.

Antoine Winfield's New Contract and the NFL's Unique Standard of Loyalty

Marino Eccher — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:09:56 -0400

In one sense, the NFL's non-guaranteed contract structure makes for the harshest send-offs in any professional sport.

A basketball, baseball, or hockey star may be locked in for tens of millions over multiple years, even as he begins to fade.

In most cases, players who fit that description and still have two working legs are guaranteed a roster spot as well, if only because their clubs are hesitant to pay them not to play.

In those sports, loyalty means giving a player a long-term deal that will almost certainly pay him more than he's worth late in his career. It's unlikely that Kevin Garnett will be a $21 million talent at age 36, for instance, or that Alex Rodriguez will be worth $27 million at 41.

But for NBA and MLB clubs, overpaying for those twilight seasons is standard operating procedure.

Football players enjoy no such long goodbyes: When an aging gridiron warrior's salary outstrips his value, he's simply cut loose.

It happens to record-setting quarterbacks (Daunte Culpepper), MVP rushers (Shaun Alexander), and defensive studs (Derrick Brooks). One season, you're lining up under center in Honolulu; the next, you're lining up to collect unemployment benefits.

As far as personnel decisions go, "loyalty" is practically a four-letter word. Like I said, harsh.

From another perspective, however, the NFL's economic model lets teams take care of their own in a unique fashion: Write 'em a big check up front.

It's a lousy system for compensating high draft picks, who collect eight-figure bonuses before taking a snap. But it's a great way to reward veterans who can still play at a high level without putting the franchise on the hook for a burdensome contract down the road.

Case in point: the extension the Minnesota Vikings hammered out last week with cornerback Antoine Winfield.

A 2004 free agent signee from Buffalo, Winfield holds a special place in the hearts and minds of Vikings fans as one of a handful of acquisitions that helped Minnesota end a long spell as a defensive whipping boy.

Last year, he became the first Vikings cornerback to make the Pro Bowl in 16 years, with two picks, two sacks, four forced fumbles, and a fumble return for a touchdown.

He's tough. He's popular. He's gotten better every season since coming to Minnesota.

He's also 32 and heading into a contract year. In cornerback years, that's the beginning of the end. Deion Sanders retired (for the first time) at 33. Rod Woodson transitioned to safety at 34. Among active players, Champ Bailey qualifies as an elder statesman at the position—and he's 31.

In another sport, Winfield's situation would put the front office in the "lose him now or regret paying him later" bind described above.

In football, no such dilemma exists. The Vikings can reward Winfield for his services with a cool $16 million in guaranteed cash without hitching the team's wagon to his long-term health.

Who knows if Winfield will still be productive at 36, in the final year of his five-year, $36 million extension—and moreover, who cares? Minnesota's financial obligations to him go no further than the deal's bonus money.

The size of the bonus itself has not been reported, but the more of the $16 million that goes to Winfield up front (roster bonuses, first-year-salary, and other fine points of the deal), the less the Vikings will owe if and when they're no longer interested in his services.

If he's still humming a few seasons down the road, that's fantastic. If not, the team can shift him to nickel back after 2011 at a reduced price (an innovative feature of his extension) or part ways with him outright.

Winfield won't be thrilled if he gets cut, of course. Nobody likes to be out of a job (or at that point, what could be a career).

But thanks to his new deal, he won't be broke either.

For the NFL club, that's about as loyal as it gets.

The New York Yankees Are Back, and It's Good for Baseball

Marino Eccher — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:43:20 -0400

Effin' Yankees.

Eight wins in a row, heading into today's game. Back on top of the AL East. Old-timers hitting like it's 1998. Shopping-spree free agents blazing a trail toward the pennant they were bought to win.

It's maddening. It's infuriating. It's bad for Boston, where Bucky Dent's middle name is alive and well. It's bad for the rest of the American League.

It's good for baseball.

Before I go on, I'll come clean: I own a Yankees cap.

It's one of two things I have in common with LeBron James, right alongside my ability to get dunked on by Jordan Crawford.

I got it when I was a kid. My two legitimate rooting interests—the Cubs and the Twins—were effectively unwatchable through the mid-to-late 90s, so I cut my teeth on a club that could deliver the goods.

I liked the classy, confident core—Paul O'Neill, Bernie Williams, and Tino Martinez. I liked Orlando Hernandez and the story of his defection.

I also liked a line-up that could knock the cover off the ball in Nintendo 64's pitching-challenged baseball romp, Mike Piazza's Strike Zone. The Bombers fit the bill.

In any case, I was more of an admirer than a fan. When Martinez drilled a grand slam in Game One of the '98 series, I was jazzed up. When Rivera blew Game Seven in 2001, I was more bemused than let down.

By that point, I was old enough to recognize that if you didn't live in Gotham, cheering for the Yankees was like cheering for the meteor in Armageddon. I wised up to Steinbrenner, the Evil Empire, and the buy-a-ring mentality reared its head after the dynasty years.

The Yankees' hex over the AL East (and over the Twins—a dynamic that survives today) got old. I pulled for Florida in 2003, and for Boston in 2004.

The $200 million investments that netted divisional series exits in return were easy to mock. The collection of mercenaries, malcontents, and has-beens Brian Cashman assembled—Sheffield, Giambi, Kevin Brown, A-Rod—was easy to hate.

It was healthy, really. The Yankees came to town, and you jeered. Rodriguez launched a bomb, and you jeered. Rogers Clemens announced his return from the press box, and you jeered. Your hometown heroes rose up against the Dollar-Sign Frankensteins, and it felt fantastic.

That's the way it should be. Like all forms of entertainment, sport thrives on villains. Cheering for the little guy as he takes on the corporate establishment is one of the fundamental thrills of fan-dom.

In terms of high drama, it doesn't get much better than a 23-year-old kid in a Marlins jersey marching into The House That Ruth Built, taking the mound, and sticking it to The Man.

But in order for the story to be any good, The Man needs to be worth sticking.

As New York's dominance gave way to stagnation, and then to outright decline last season, it became disheartening to watch one of the cornerstone franchises in American sports devolve into a bad joke.

Watching Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, and the remnants of those title teams playing out their days for a runner-up—a wild-card team one year, out of the playoffs the next—was a sad sight. Watching Phil Hughes, Robinson Cano, and the rest of the "wave of the future" flail helplessly was downright pathetic.

The Yankees weren't a team to loathe anymore. They were a team to pity. They looked like any other one-time contender: Aging, slipping, flawed. They'd gone from Darth Vader to Darth Fader.

That's bad for baseball.

Now?

Jeter, Posada, and Johnny Damon found the fountain of youth. Cano found his swagger. Hughes found the strike zone.

Mark Teixiera owns an OPS of .975 since May 1. A-Rod is making the case that he's off the juice by going deep once every 12 at-bats. CC Sabathia is making a push to lead the majors in innings pitched for the third straight season. New York is 21-5 since June 24.

The Red Sox are floundering. The Rays are an afterthought. The Blue Jays are done. The Yankees can't lose.

They're smug. They're despicable. They're eminently hate-able.

They're New York Effin' Yankees again.

Welcome back.

Clearing Out the Vikings' Impending Quarterback Logjam

Marino Eccher — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:37:18 -0400

With a glut of out-of-work veterans flooding the job market, it's tough for the unproven young guns out there to impress employers.

Just ask Tarvaris Jackson.

Six months ago, T-Jack was starting under center for the Vikings in a home playoff game.

Today, he's sitting around wondering when his graybeard replacement will roll into town.

If there's someone in Minnesota who isn't going ga-ga over Brett Favre this summer, odds are it's Jackson.

Rumor has it that Jackson will ask for a trade when the Favre signing becomes official. At this point, we don't know if that's true—and certainly don't know if it's prudent, given that Jackson still enjoys a "pet project" status in Minnesota under Brad Childress that wouldn't travel with him if he sought greener pastures.

But we do know that by July 30, when Favre tells the world he's suiting up in purple (or July 31, when he decides for real, or Aug. 1, when he really decides for real, or Aug. 2, when he really for sure decides for real), the Vikings will be carrying an overload of passers in Jackson, Favre, and Sage Rosenfels (we'll get to John David Booty later).

The latter two expected a shot at a starting job that assuredly will belong to the former come training camp. Unless the Vikes are keen on stockpiling bruised egos under center, something's gotta give.

What exactly is that someting going to be? Here's a look at a few scenarios that could shape the Vikings' quarterback depth chart this season.

Jackson Gets Moved If...

...the Vikings have already decided they prefer Rosenfels and want to get some value out of a deal.

From my vantage point, Jackson's experience in Minnesota's offense and support from the coaching staff gave him the edge over Rosenfels before Favre came into the picture, so I'm not sold on the idea that the team is eager to ship Jackson out.

But some forces in the football universe—including fantasy wonks, who, in their drive to seek out the best information on a team's projected starters as early as possible, are not unlike gamblers—gave the nod to Rosenfels.

After all, the Vikes didn't bring Sage into the mix because they thought he was cute. Jackson's lackluster playoff outing inspired enough doubts that the team grabbed a second quarterback to compete for the job, and spent the offseason chasing a third one.

If either Jackson or Rosenfels has the inside track on what should now be the No. 2 job behind Favre, the front office has been quiet about it. But if the team has had Rosenfels penciled in ahead of Jackson all along, they might see if Jackson—who is still just 26 and boasts plenty of physical tools—can fetch a mid-round pick or a role player in return.

If he's moved in time, Jackson likely could compete for a No. 1 or No. 2 position on a club with needs at quarterback.

Of course, any such move would leave Minnesota without a long-term plan at the position, but at this point, it's not clear that Jackson still fits that description.

Rosenfels Gets Moved If...

...the team doesn't think it can get him the preseason action he needs to back up Favre effectively.

Before the Favre courtship began, there were plenty of training camp snaps available to get Rosenfels acclimated in the offense and to hold a quarterback derby with Jackson if necessary.

But Favre will have plenty of work to do in camp himself. As often as we've heard him say he knows the offense he'll be stepping into, Childress' West Coast variant is two generations removed from the system Mike Holmgren ran in Green Bay.

Favre also needs to develop timing with a first-team offense that includes two new linemen (John Sullivan and Phil Loadholt) and a rookie receiver in Percy Harvin.

Rosenfels and Jackson need that work, too, and with Favre around, both of them aren't going to get it. If Favre gets hurt or runs out of gas midseason, the Vikings need a backup who is ready to step in and contribute right away. That might be enough to tip the scales in Jackson's favor.

The trouble with shipping out Rosenfels before he gets a close-up is that a Favre injury would put the team right back where it started: Relying on Jackson to come through.

The team also is unlikely to get equal value on the fourth-round pick it paid to get Rosenfels, so this move would be of the cut-your-losses variety.

Both Stay Put If...

...Favre drags his feet getting to camp, or needs more time to recover from surgery.

This scenario would say as much about the team's assessment of Favre's health as it would about Jackson and Rosenfels. If the Vikings are confident that they'll get 16-plus games from Favre, they should feel fine about moving one of the other two and taking their chances.

But the longer it takes Favre to get rolling in Mankato—or the longer it takes for his surgically repaired bicep to return to full strength—the better the odds that Minnesota will give both Jackson and Rosenfels a long look during camp, in case one of them ends up under center midway through the season.

If Favre limits his action during the first few weeks of camp while his arm rounds back into shape, the team could find the time it needs to hold an earnest Jackson-Rosenfels showdown (and to get Rosenfels up to speed in the offense, as mentioned earlier).

The real value in carrying both Jackson and Rosenfels into the season, however, is that the team would have the chance to see both in action against real opponents before choosing one or the other. Keeping both quarterbacks would let the Vikings put those all four of those otherwise tedious preseason outings to good use.

Together, Jackson and Rosenfels will make around $2 million this season, so keeping both isn't cost-prohibitive.

After Favre crashed and burned two-thirds of the way through last season, one has to imagine that the Vikes have a keen interest in slotting a quality backup behind him on the depth chart. This scenario would allow them to take their time in doing so.

The casualty here would be 2008 fifth-round pick John David Booty, the former USC passer (and current owner of Favre's No. 4) who has yet to see the field for the Vikings.

Booty, the presumed third-stringer if Jackson or Rosenfels departed, would be cut or stashed on the practice squad (and free to depart as a free agent) if the team kept both.

Will the "Williams Wall" Case Sack the NFL's Entire Labor Agreement?

Marino Eccher — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:10:12 -0400

A few months ago, the biggest question surrounding the pending suspension of the "Williams Wall" was the blow it could deal to the Vikings' pass rush.

At this point, however, it's time to wonder whether a court victory by Minnesota's two star defensive tackles—whose suspensions were blocked again by a judge today—will land a knockout punch on the league's collective bargaining agreement.

When Pat and Kevin Williams (no relation) first drew four-game bans for testing positive for a banned diuretic last October, along with a handful of other players, the notion of toppling the NFL's doping policy via lawsuit seemed absurd.

After all, the rules were crystal clear: Put a banned substance in your body, and you sit, no matter how it got there or whether it was on the label. The Players' Association signed off on the policy as part of the collective bargaining agreement.

And really, that's just about the only way a drug-testing program can work. You need to leave complaints about tainted supplements, rogue physicians, and other "accidental" ingestion at the door. If you test clean, you're clean; if not, you're suspended.

As Bill Parcells might have put it, "You are what your urine says you are."

The league's drug policy may have plenty of other problems—HGH, designer steroids, suspensions for marijuana use—but until the Williams' case, ambiguity on the consequences of a positive test wasn't one of them.

In this case, the question that most impacts the NFL's doping rules is whether players can challenge the policy based on state labor laws.

Via federal appeal, the league hopes to establish that players cannot contest the drug tests. Winning that battle would be a big step in quashing further challenges to the policy.

But what happens if the NFL loses?

If some or all of the CBA's provisions become open to challenge in state court, the league's labor agreement effectively goes down in flames.

Even a relatively minor victory for the Williamses on the state level—a ruling that the league was out of line in stepping up testing after the first positive, for instance, or that the league is limited in its ability to discipline employees for using a legal product at a non-work location on their own time, would send CBA spiraling into chaos.

Drug testing could become a case-by-case quagmire. The Williamses have already staved off their suspensions for five games and counting—why wouldn't other players who felt slighted by suspensions employ a similar tactic to keep playing (and getting paid) as long as possible?

What about the code of conduct and the discipline Roger Goodell administers for incidents that take place off the field, outside of business hours? Is that up for debate, as well?

What about the financial side of the equation—roster cuts, the franchise tag, and the cap? If the CBA isn't ironclad at the state level, there are very messy questions to answer about how the league's labor agreement jibes with workers' rights under state laws, both in Minnesota and elsewhere.

In other words, the Williams' case could be the loose thread that unravels the NFL's entire labor relations structure.

Want to chew on a real doomsday scenario? Think about the ramifications across all pro sports if a precedent in which state court decisions can pick apart league labor agreements is established.

Ultimately, it shouldn't come down to that. The cut-and-dried nature of the league's drug policy should give the NFL the edge in the long run here, regardless of the circumstances surrounding who knew what about the contents of the diuretic in question.

Then again, most of us expected this case to be resolved much faster than it has been. The courts presiding over it clearly see some grey area in the NFL's substance rules, and at this stage, the outcome is no sure thing.

Vikings fans hate the idea of losing the Williamses for a quarter of the season. But if the two do manage to dodge their suspensions, no one with an interest in the NFL should relish the wider implications for the game.

The Top 10 Hottest Yankees-Red Sox Better Than Brett Favre: In Search of the Perfect B/R Article

Marino Eccher — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:12:43 -0400

Attention. Reads. Comments. Praise. If you’re a writer, you want them, you need them, oh baby, oh baby. The question is, how to get them? You can roll up your sleeves, dive into your research, and try to grind you way to the top. You can stay true to yourself and write from the heart. You can slave away at the keyboard all day, give it your all, and hope for the best. But where’s the fun in that? When it comes to churning out the front-page masterpieces that get the hits streaming and the ladies screaming (or the fellas, whatever the case may be), you don’t need to bust your back on a labor of love. You don’t need to strain your brain coming up with the latest, greatest idea for a work of sports journalism. You just need to follow a tried-and-true formula. Here, we break down the road to glory into five easy steps, guaranteed to make your very next B/R submission roar like Bobby Cox after a close call at the plate. Your leads will snap, your discussion threads will crackle, and your bulletin board will pop under the weight of the praise being heaped your way. Don’t believe us? Take a look, and learn the secrets behind belting your very own B/R grand slam.

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