Archive for November, 2011

Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Sidney Rice was placed on injured reserve today, in effect ending his season. He’ll end up finishing the 2011 season with 32 receptions for 484 yards and 2 touchdowns. Pedestrian like numbers. What’s funny though is 32 receptions is actually the second highest number of caught balls in Sidney’s career for a season. Vikings fans don’t remember that though. They have a Jackal & Hyde memory of Sidney. The best of Sidney was the 2009 version who was debatably the best wide receiver in all of football sprinting downfield, using superior body control and his 40” [...]

Injuries have forced the Vikings to make a bunch of roster adjustments this week. On Tuesday they put Michael Jenkins, Husain Abdullah, Tyrell Johnson and Cullen Loeffler on season-ending IR, and signed WR Stephen Burton, S Jarrad Page, S Andrew Sendejo and LS Matt Katula to replace them. But replacing a guy on the roster and replacing him in the line-up are two different things. Katula is ready to long-snap right away, and Burton might be able to contribute given that he has been on the practice squad most of the season, but the two safeties are coming right in [...]

Injuries have hit the Vikings hard in the second half of the season, and today the team was forced to make several moves as a result. No fewer than 4 players were placed on season-ending IR on Tuesday and 4 players were signed to take their places. Husain Abdullah (concussion), Michael Jenkins (knee), Cullen Loeffler (back) and Tyrell Johnson (hamstring) are the four being sent to IR. Abdullah has missed several weeks after suffering a concussion, while the other three were all injured in Sunday’s game against the Falcons, Loeffler in somewhat controversial fashion. Abdullah and Johnson are both free [...]

The NFL has suspended Ndamukong Suh for two games as punishment for his little stomping incident on Thanksgiving against the Packers. That may seem harsh – it’s not like anyone got kicked in the groin - but clearly this suspension is about more than just one incident, it’s about a whole perceived pattern of behavior with Suh who in two short seasons has developed a reputation as a dirty player. Thanks to the NFL’s possible over-reaction to Suh’s actions, the Vikings now won’t have to face the Lions’ all-world defensive tackle when the two teams square off December 11th at Ford [...]

Rewinding the clock to the 2011 NFL Draft the belief was the Vikings would target a quarterback early on who would be “the guy” for the next several years. Leslie Frazier made it no secret he was out to find the next Joe Flacco or Matt Ryan, especially considering the other talented QBs in the NFC North. So when forming their draft board in March the Vikings placed a strong emphasis on reviewing Missouri’s Blaine Gabbert. The Vikings would so enamored with Gabbert both Frazier and vice president of player personnel Rick Spielman attended his pro day and stayed with [...]

The Vikings had a chance to score a TD and get back in the game in the fourth after a long Percy Harvin kickoff return but in the end they failed to punch the ball in from 3 yards out and gave possession back to the Falcons. During that ill-fated series Bill Musgrave called a bootleg for Christian Ponder that ended up in a sack, then two runs for Percy Harvin that both apparently failed to get the ball across. I say “apparently” because after a TV replay it looked like Harvin may have broken the plane with the ball [...]

Chris Kluwe is not a happy man today. It’s not just because the Vikings lost (again), it’s because one of his best buds on the team was, in his estimation, cheap-shotted by an Atlanta Falcons special teamer. The play that has Kluwe’s underwear in a bunch happened early in the second quarter on a punt. Long-snapper Cullen Loeffler appeared to be well away from the ball carrier when Falcons WR Kerry Meier flashed into the picture and wiped him out. From the replay it doesn’t look like Loeffler saw Meier coming. Long story short, Loeffler ended up with a broken [...]

This was as close as Jared Allen got to a sack yesterday. You’re right, why even go there? I should be better than that. I apologize. I’ll try much harder the next time I’m called upon to comment on a man punching another man in his junk. I realize Jared was sort of miffed about having to long-snap after Cullen Loeffler got hurt but…really Jared. Like The Viking Age on Facebook. Follow Dan Zinski on Twitter.

I think I see a pattern emerging. Second half of the first Packer game, second half of the Raider game and second half of the Falcons game. Three times the Vikings’ opponent left the door open for them and three times the Vikings failed to charge through. Sunday in Atlanta may have been the most frustrating of all these non-materializing comebacks. The Falcons, like the Raiders, went kind of conservative offensively, giving the Vikings’ under-manned defense a chance for stops. And on top of this the Vikings got several huge breaks that they ultimately failed to cash in. One of [...]

We’ve reached the point in the season where there’s almost nothing new left to say. The Vikings are so bad this year that they’ve more or less done everything wrong possible and they’re now just repeating old mistakes. Let’s go position-by-position, just so my repeat-rant will have some structure. Defensive Line The sacks tallied by Brian Robison and Jared Allen this year gave some people (the national media sure brought it up a lot) the idea that the Vikings are good at pressuring quarterbacks. I think most fans would say that the numbers do lie in this case. For the [...]