Five Reasons the Vikings Will Win the NFC North

You hear it all the time now.

The Chicago Bears are going to win the NFC North this season.

Of course they are going to win the division. Their quarterback situation is settled. Look at the New Orleans Saints. They had the best quarterback situation in the NFC South and won their division...wait...

Great quarterbacks don't always win games.

The Minnesota Vikings will win the NFC North again this season. They are going to improve on last year and be one of the dominant teams in the NFL. My reasons:

1.) Jay Cutler will have no one to throw to in Chicago. Cutler is a very good quarterback, no doubt. But look at who he had to throw to in Denver. Brandon Marshall, Eddie Royal, Tony Scheffler. How is life going to be with Marty Booker and Devin Hester?

Great wide receivers can make average quarterbacks look good. When you have so many guys to throw to, defenses will usually keep their linebackers and secondary in coverage rather than blitz to pressure. Cutler will not have that going for him in Chicago.

2.) Sage Rosenfels. In Houston, Rosenfels always tried too hard to prove that he could be the starting guy. This lead to disasters like the game against the Colts last season. If he knows that he is the head guy, he can be good.

Remember, this guy had a 66 percent completion percentage in an offense that had to pass a lot to stay in games. With Minnesota relying on the running game more than most teams, his turnovers will go down and his completion percentage will perhaps go up as well.

3.) Percy Harvin. Minnesota's offense just got a lot more exciting with this dangerous playmaker. With AD already in the backfield, end-arounds will occur more and Peterson will average over five yards-a-carry since teams have to watch Harvin also.

This also opens up the deep ball for Bernard Berrian since Harvin is more of an intermediate route guy. Minnesota loves to run the bootleg, which is usually intended for Visanthe Shiancoe. It is usually successful, but we normally run it inside the redzone. With Harvin, we could run the play more between the 20s and hit him over the middle for big gains.

4.) Adrian Peterson. This goes sort of hand-in-hand with Percy Harvin. Because one is so dangerous, the other one will be that much more dangerous due to the fact that teams will key on one or the other. I would put Peterson above Harvin on this list, but since we didn't have Harvin last year, I think he could surprise teams like Peterson in 2007.

5.) Minnesota's defense. The Vikings' defense is perfect for the NFC North. It shuts down the running game and forces teams to pass. Forcing Jay Cutler to pass is good, because Cutler throws many interceptions. Forcing Matthew Stafford (or Daunte Culpepper) to pass leads to more interceptions.

We lost no one big in the secondary (Darren Sharper had a major decline last season). Our pass rush should be just as good or better than last season, especially if we can score more points, forcing teams to air it out more.

Minnesota has improved every year with Brad Childress. This year's draft class helped the Vikes out even more. While a lot of people don't like Childress, I think that we are headed in the right direction.

It's like what Andy Reid said: "Sometimes you need to take a step back to move forward a mile."