Archive for September, 2011

When last we saw Benny Sapp he was getting stiff-armed into oblivion by Wes Welker during Welker’s 99-yard touchdown catch-and-run on Monday night. After that debacle, it didn’t take the Dolphins long to decide Sapp’s services were no longer required. It took only five seconds more for Viking fans to call for the team to pick up Sapp who as we remember was traded to Miami last off-season in exchange for Greg Camarillo. Viking fans hold a special place for Sapp in their hearts after the way he hung in as Antoine Winfield‘s replacement when Winfield got hurt late in [...]

Trend or Mirage: Donovan McNabb’s 39-yard passing performance? Olof says: Dah. So I hear lovers of the Vikings are down on McNabb? It’s like they used to say in the Lut-ren church I went to up Nort. Why so downcast o’ my soul? McNabb did what the coaching staff asked him to do. It was clear that the Vikings wanted to run the ball against the Chargers and that’s what they did. I mean for crying out loud we only threw the ball 15 times out der in San Diego. We all know McNabb is a good, if not great, [...]

I’ve watched the tape…and I’ve still got questions: 1. How many more times does Steve Hutchinson have to be blown by or knocked on his keister before people realize he is now at best an average NFL lineman? 2. What exactly was Tyrell Johnson doing on that overthrown deep ball to Vincent Jackson? It seems he was looking in at the quarterback, but it’s possible he peeked at Antonio Gates in the flat before realizing that, oops, Jackson was behind him and had Cedric Griffin beaten by a step. 3. Will the Vikings line up Kleinsasser as a lead blocker more? He had [...]

Coach Frazier preached two things at his Monday presser: consistency and convert on third downs.   The Purple were 4 of 11 on third downs yesterday.  The third down story reflects the story of the entire game. For the most part the Vikes had manageable third downs in the first half: 3 & 6, 3 & 5. By and large our beloved Purple did not put themselves into 3rd and long in the first half. The second half was the complete opposite. They rarely were in third and manageable. We would all agree they have to convert the manageable third [...]

Guess what fans: Donovan McNabb‘s performance Sunday wasn’t quite as bad as most of you thought. By at least one measure, McNabb’s game against the Chargers was not even one of the five worst in the NFL so far in week 1. Some of you may be familiar with this new-fangled ESPN-branded stat called QBR. For those not versed in the ways of QBR, here’s the thumbnail explanation straight from ESPN itself: Total QBR is a quarterback rating that takes into account all of a quarterback’s contributions (passing, rushing, sacks, fumbles, penalties) to his team’s scoring and winning and summarizes [...]

One day after their offensive line performed atrociously in a loss to the Chargers, the Vikings have begun the process of re-working their personnel, cutting center Jon Cooper and replacing him with center Joe Berger. Berger is a six year veteran who spent a couple of years bouncing around after being drafted in the sixth round in 2005 by the Panthers, finally finding a home with the Dolphins in 2009. Miami signed Berger as a swing man but he ended up winning the center job, starting 20 games in two years. Berger was let go by the Dolphins after camp [...]

A very very very frustrating loss Sunday to the Chargers. Did I say very very very? I meant very very very very very very very… 1. The Defense Played Well Let’s get the good out of the way before we dive into all the bad. I loved the way the defense played in the first half. I loved the aggressiveness of Fred Pagac’s scheme, the multiple looks he threw at Philip Rivers, the way a lot of the guys got after it. I thought Brian Robison, E.J. Henderson, Chad Greenway, Jared Allen and especially Antoine Winfield were all brilliant in [...]

Frustrating loss today by the beloved Vikings to the San Diego Chargers. Here’s the stock report. Note we tend to keep it with 3 up and 3 down. It really should be more like 1 up and 5 down. But without further delay… UP Percy Harvin So we begin this blog post with Percy running the opening kickoff back for 103 yards. It was a fantastic play. Unfortunately it was all downhill from there. Percy had a mere 4 targets and caught 2 passes for 7 yards. Erin Henderson Erin quietly had himself a nice little game. He was all [...]

Our beloved Purple drop the season opener to the Chargers by the count of 17-24. The Vikings pulled the ole’ switch a roo.  They seemingly had the offense going in the right direction going into Week 1 but it was the defense that looked ahead of the offense.   The defense looked better than most anticipated it would. D Coordinator Pagac put a lot of pressure on his linebackers and corners today and for the most part they held up. The Vikings got good pressure on Rivers for most of the afternoon but they could never quite get to Mr. [...]

What a first half for the Vikings. Okay it wasn’t pretty on offense but it was effective – effective in that the Vikings were able to control the clock and keep the Chargers’ offense off the field. Adrian Peterson had a tough time finding running lanes most of the time, but was still able to break a 46-yarder setting up a 3-yard Donovan McNabb-to-Michael Jenkins TD pass to give the Vikes a 17-7 lead. The key defensive series came after the Vikings scored that second TD (their first came on a Percy Harvin game-opening kickoff return). The Chargers, down by [...]