No Antoine Winfield = Deep Doo Doo for Vikings

Antoine Winfield, Access Vikings reports, has been held out of practice on Wednesday, and is looking more and more questionable for Sunday against the Steelers.

Keep in mind that no official announcement has been made about Winfield’s status for Sunday’s game.  This is just an impression passed along by professional journalists and repeated by a non-professional pseudo-journalist who has been allowed to run his own blog without supervision.

I don’t need to tell Purple fans what it will mean if Antoine is unable to go against Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers.  We all saw what happened to the defense without Winfield against the Ravens.  It went from stout to laughable pretty fast.

Thing about Antoine is, losing him hurts you almost as much in the run D as the pass D.  It’s a double-whammy.

The Vikings will attempt to compensate with a combination of Karl Paymah and, most likely, rookie Asher Allen.  Did I mention that Allen has been inactive every game so far this year?  Meaning that, if he does start on Sunday, he will be making his pro debut against the NFL champs and their Hall-of-Fame quarterback.

Cedric Griffin, who used to be our second-best cornerback before Benny Sapp became good, is trying to keep a positive attitude.  “When one guy goes down, the next guy steps up,” said the saggy-panted one.  “We have talented guys here on our team. All of our games just have to elevate and just replace Antoine.”

Sounds good.  Only problem is, Antoine brings so much game, even if other guys elevate it as high as they can, it won’t be enough.

I anticipate an utter ass-kicking at the hands of the Steelers.  Sorry, but that’s reality.  We will be 6-1 after Pittsburgh is done shredding our jury-rigged secondary.