ViKINGS - jAGUARS (WEEK 12)

vs

Big Picture

Good win, on the road, everyone contributed,(kinda) no major gaffs on defense or special teams... good stuff. I wonder how many JAGS fan are mad at Del Rio... or want Tice to take over haha. Good Riddance! Stats that stick out...

• Ryan Longwell made a 54 yarder and was 3 for 3
  
• Antoine Winfield had 372 tackles
• We were plus 4 on turnovers
• Frerotte rushed for a career high 3 yards on 5 carries! (i consider that 5 sacks btw)
• We outscored them 13 to 2 in the second half (we gave them the safety)
  

Little Picture

Here are a few positives and negatives. Then at the bottom, a philosophical question! or two!

Positives.

• Frerotte- He took his lumps, almost had a 3 knockdown TKO but when it counted, in the fourth, he did his job and got the Vikes 10 points to "finish the game" ( I say this knowing he had a bad INT and real poor decision to take that sack on the first and goal)
• Rushing Defense - Held Taylor, Gerrard AND Jones-Drew to 35 yards on 14 carries. ( I know they were pass happy but still)
• Passing Defense did well.. withstanding 45 passing plays and forcing 18 incompletions and 2 pics. Sure they got 300 yards but a lot of that was Jones-Drew's shifty ass. a lot of RAC.. "bend but don't break"
• Overall Defense forced 2 ints, 3 fumbles and had four sacks that led to viking points.
• Winfield - MVP, say no more. had 317 tackles (ok, he had 11.5) and forced that fumble
• Ryan Cook- We only heard his name called once, and that was to inform us he got replaced =p
• Reverses to berrian - good way to get him the ball since the other team isn't allowed to cover him before we snap it (since he cant get open after the snap)
• Taylor played great. He gets my game ball

NEGATIVES

• Clearly our receivers have a hard time beating man to man coverages. This is the third week in a row when they got silent, leading to many hurries, knock downs and coverage sacks. Forcing lame "dump offs" to the FB. (lame!)
• Pass Rush - though we got 4 sacks "officially" we didn't have enough pressure. It seems that are 4 down lineman are just clunky. very talented but we dont have any speed on the edges and no one that can "track down" an even remotely mobile quarter back. Just like Garcia last week, Gerrard was able to buy a LOT of time with his feet. At least we didn't have any late hits this week... if we didn't get the lead cushion we had, they would have ran more, play acted more, and made our line look even more one dimensional
• Inconsistency from Frerotte is nerve racking.. Wade had his customary drop... Sharper was quiet again.

Despite his great swim move, ALLEN couldn't catch up to the elusive tackling sled

QUESTIONS FOR VIKING FANS!
(I think #1's a no brainer)

1. On a first and goal from the 2, we ran a play action roll out - option. It was defended great, both receivers were covered and Frerotte had no running angle.. he held the ball trying to make a play and got sacked for a loss of 8. Was this a BAD PLAY CALL by Chilly or a DUMB DECISION by Frerotte??
2. What's your guess as to why AP was out the first two series?

My answer to 2 is either discipline for something yet un-benounced to us, being late to team bus, over sleeping etc or maybe because he had a bad cold.

WE GOT BEAT FAIR AND SQUARE (TAMPA BAY - WEEK 11)

VRS

Well, I 've already got the texts coming in...
"bad play calling"
"awful coaching"

I blame sharper! read why at the bottom!

But first...

No one in vikings land can accept a defeat. We got beat fair and square. Sure you can say AP got interfered with on that one throw by brooks.. but that's really all you can complain about.

Our guys did NOT step up today, no one did.

We had two "chances" to try to march down the field and go up one with a TD but we didn't. (if you can call having to get a long TD drive against a great defense a chance) The best play our sorry bunch of receivers made today was to not let them intercept passes. (nice play wade- good penalty) But Bobby Wade did a real dumbass move by not getting the first down and instead losing a couple yards to get out of bounds on one of those drives. (when we had over three minutes left) That set up the next 3 futile plays. this is where everyone is mad about the coaching... shoulda ran, shoulda passed yada yada bleh snore. never mind how good tampa bay is or that our guys can't get themselves open. it's becoming an alarming trend. so we turn the ball over on downs. thanks wade.

Our defense stepped up, they missed a FG, second chance with over a minute from our 36. Taylor fumbles. game over.

I would like to write today how AWFUL our receivers must be. Look at last week against the Packers.. they didnt do ANYTHING last week, except RICEs 2 yard cath. yippy. then look at this week. How many coverage sacks and pressures did tampa bay get? at least 4 sacks were due to receivers not getting open! Blitz, no blitz, it didn't matter. Our line played like crap.

I have already been called a homer today, for shooting down people's gay arguments that we lost cuz of the coaching. it's just a joke to me. this is not madden football. you can't EXPECT a team to march down the field against tampa bay, especially with a very avg offense consisting of an old QB with an arm that gets weaker and weaker and a bunch of useless receivers. we have one weapon right now, AP.

But he isn't superman.


OUR LONE BRIGHT SPOT TODAY... AP!

I liked that they put him in to return the kick though, nice move.

Those fumbles in the second half killed us, but i give our defense a lot of props to hold them like they did. we just didnt have it today, we ran out of luck, and tampa bay clearly deserved this win.

I hope Berrian and wade, rice, shiancoe even are in the locker room asking questions of themselves the last couple weeks. In this league, were all the rules favor the route runner there is no excuse. and we saw quite a few 2 and 3 receiver sets so im really disappointed with them..

and again, the O line was avg today.

It's real frustrating to see players not make plays.

OH, WHY I BLAME SHARPER..!

I think sharper is done. he hasn't made one play all year.. he is losing it for sure. That 3rd and 25 they converted on us?? pathetic! Their TE was the only receiver with in 25 yards of sharper so he has no excuse to come over and help out leber late. he should have picked that off or at least blasted their tight end. he arrived late. what the hell was he expecting? what was he doing? besides being useless. is he EVER gonna make a play? Who cares how many interceptions he has had in the last 10 years! can he get one this year?

You make that play an incompletion and they have a long fg attempt! And we have the lead for the rest of the game

I blame him more then anyone for this game.

Bleh. aaaarrrgh.

I hate accepting that we're just an avg football team but we are just that.

5 and 5.

Definitely not one of the elite teams.. man, imagine if WE had GARCIA. pssh. we'd be great.

He played awesome today, hats off to him! Good game plan and good win for tampa bay, they deserved it.

I think the people who bitch and moan about the "play calling" are the real homers, the ones that never seem to hold the players accountable, like if we had a different coach we'd "fer sure" be undefeated. When you ask them for specifics they rarely can make one good point, it's like trying to disprove jesus to a jesus freak. you can't argue with people speaking in hypotheticals.

So you people complain all you want and think that we should be doing better, that we deserve a better record.

We dont. We are where we should be.. it's a log jam in the nfc north. Im not complaining.. lets improve and maybe give t jack a chance.. frerotte is becoming more and more marginalized

Vikes - Packers

SAYS IT ALL!


I didn't really write a blog about that game. We all saw it.. a few great plays by our guys. AP willing us to victory after he ate humble pie bitching childress out for not going for it them fumbling when they did..

Taylors run was hot, after the catch..

And then they missed the FG. wide right.

It's not luck, it's football. We got a great, important rival win. I was too exhausted to talk about it for a few days.. I also noticed all the vikes groups were pretty quiet. I am sure they will be alive and well after the next game if we lose

Props to jared allen playing too! and the two safeties haha.. awesome

VIKES -TEXANS

Pretty straight forward game. Solid.. Not the best ending but solid.
We "made plays" when we needed to. The Texans offensive unti is no slouch.

Things I liked.

we only had 3 penalties.
we only had one turnover (an unlucky one at that)
we ran the ball well
we "took shots"
BERRIAN contributed again, Shiancoe did, and RICE got a nice TD

OH! WELCOME TO THE VIKES MR MADEU WILLIAMS!

you get my game ball. great INT and great HIT.

It's funny how there isn't much to talk about after a solid win. I think our team "finally" played up to expectations. Everyone did their jobs, the players, coordinators, the special teams.. the REFS =p

Literally.. AP did his thing, BERRIAN had two big catches, JARED ALLEN got sacks. they did on the field what they do "on paper"

Not a lot out their in chat rooms either... very little strings at all. So let's just keep it going. I think all the VIKES FANs are holding their breath.. "wait and see" what happens with GB at home.

LETS JUST WIN IT! How about some motivational pics for the rivalry?