America's Game - The Missing Rings - 1998 Vikings

I am glad I watched the show. Though it was hard knowing what it was all leading to, I enjoyed listening to John Randle talk his talk, Cris Carter too.. I can't say I enjoyed Dennis Green's takes. He always sounded like a bullshitter to me - and I resent that he never made any efforts to improve our defense after our 15-1 season.

The fun thing about watching highlights of the game for me was the stuff we forget. Sure we all remember "taking a knee" at half and who could forget Gary Anderson's only miss of the whole year, "wide left." But some things I forgot that I'd like to mention. Randy Moss' dropped TD in the second half.. and our defenders drop of a certain INT in the end zone on the Falcon's game tying drive.. if he would have held on to that, we win.

So it brought me back to the now, and the coaching vs who's making plays discussions and who is ultimately accountable. I think the vikings as a team collectively lost that game. Robert smith did his thing.. Cunningham. there were a couple turnovers on each side of the ball... People forget that the Falcons were 14 - 2 that year. They were a very good team but I always felt they were worse then their record and that Chanlder was over rated, Jamal Anderson even.

If only we could have had players brought in during the following years like Atlanta had, the Ray Buchanans, or Aneas Williams from the cardinals types but Denny Green didn't bring in one blue chip defender after that, nor draft one. IT isn't forgivable and it is why we squandered that offense that we had for a few great years.

We won a lot of games that year 40 to 30, 34 to 28 etc... We ended up losing to the rams twice i think in the coming years, each game in the 40's... And who could forget losing to the NY Giants 41 to 0.

Awful.

If you want to go down memory lane.. go here.

article about the game

I miss John Randle.. and Moss obviously. I am so grateful we have AP. Let's hope we can turn him into a total threat like Reggie Bush or Brian Westbrook.

I wonder if we are gonna change up our blocking schemes.. my favorite plays involve going outside left or right with a pulling guard or two...

enjoy the game tomorrow!

Let's go back in time, and let's say we fired Chilly

and lets say WE hired wisenhunt, or jim zorn or mike smith for christs sake.. all of you would have been bitching - all no names or former players or people with ZERO head coaching experience. you’d rip the franchise for not hiring someone with a REP a blue chip coach.

they’re all doing really well.

lets take some of the coaches i like a lot.. herm edwards, holmgren. 

their teams suck

lets take shanahan two years ago, im sure lots of fans wanted a "new direction"
last year denver sucked.


this year? theyre playing good football, maybe getting lucky, but his "fan approval" is high

i loved mike tomlin, wanted to hire him... im happy for his success. OF COURSE HE DID INHERIT AN AWESOME TEAM.

obviously winning means the most, it shuts up a lot of rubes, but I feel strongly that coaches get too much blame AND too much credit. (see deny green "too much credit" who’s players got to the playoffs despite him not because of him, green got out-coached in the playoffs every year. 41 - 0?)

I do not sit around and endorse Brad Childress - but i do indict all those rubes out there who sit around and blame him for the losses AND "ugly wins"

its just like politics - "you guys" will see it how you want, like a McCain supporter vs an Obama one, like people polarized over the OJ verdict, whatever the bias is, it’s really really hard to shake of.. everyone has short memories

no one cites AP’s two fumbles or ryan cooks drive stopping penalty on the 1 yard line, the blame the coach like he’s "all responsible"

and part of that is due to the stupid cheesy cliche press conferences where the culture of the coach being the one "accountable" for anything that happens to "his team" goes through but i find it all a little too bullshitty.

how come coaches can removes themselves from a players behavior off the field in one second, blame the player and have no accountability (more then maybe taking a "chance" signing a "troubled player") yet on the field, if someone fumbles or throws a pick-6, after the game you always hear the coach mumbling some bullshit, instead of just CALLING THE PLAYERS OUT.

it’s a team sure there is order and a pecking order. the coach and coordinators call the shots and ON GOOD TEAMS, the QB can do lots of audibles.. but i think the coaches should have a license to tell the truth and call people out in public.

if AP knows he almost chocked the game away, as witnessed by him praying and crossing his heart "our father" at the end of the game, if the television crew knew AP almost chocked away the game, as proven by them having a camera ISOLATED on AP to get his reaction when the FG went through, why cant all you dumb ass haters understand that too? that the oweness was on him MORE then any other player?

sure, "we win as a team, and we lose as a team" and that’s true BUT it’s just naive to hold EVERYONE accountable or JUST ONE PERSON accountable which is what happens when rubes and haters say the vikings lost and it’s all CHILLYs fault.

it’s just b.s.

either you have an IQ and you can replay the game in your head and see what turnovers and penalties and defensive breakdowns cost us the game (or referee calls=) or you can’t.

so you can waste your time hating on childress all you want, wont change anything. he has demonstrated a learning curve and is getting more and more solid and his "questionable" calls have had no impact on our wins and losses whatsoever this year so its moot.

it’s pointless to talk about playcalling mainly because we dont know who calls what and when nor do we know what the defense is calling.. it’s like trying to prove or disprove jesus, all speculation.

it’s an argument i now I CANT WIN because even though we got over 400 yards last week people still bitched and moaned about the "play calling"

anyways, lets hope the vikes can get the run going against a tough chi defense, i like our guys, we have more big play capability then they do, they’re missing booker and matt forte! =p as well as tillman and their safety. all they have is hester. i hope the bears are who i thought they are. 

A few words about the "experts"

Yesterday's VIKES game, and as another example, the INDY - RAVENS game, are perfect reasons why you as a fan, or a fantasy football player, shouldn’t look at STATS or RECORDS and try to hypothesize.

(or the REDSKINS -ST LOUIS GAME!)

I get so tired of people who said "we were gonna blow the lions out", or who said the ravens DEFENSE would shut down INDY’s passing attack because the ravens are number 1 against the pass etc. or who were dumb enough to bet the spread in the redskins game.

why we were expected to win today...

We’re at home, we have a great rushing offense, the lions have the worst defense etc.


why we might lose...

we just came off a big win and might let down.
we had a "short week" yada yada blah bore snore

it’s allll bullshit

The lions defense played stellar today, they OWNED our offensive line.


PURPLE JESUS almost choked the game away for us, he gave back a potential 14 points by fumbling twice in scoring position, no one EXPECTED that.


DETROIT blocked a field goal, no one EXPECTED that.


DETROIT sacked us 5 times in the first half, no one expected that.


THE REFS GAVE us two really bad calls, the fumble that wasn’t a fumble, and more importantly, they bailed us out at the end with a phantom pass interference call. i couldn’t believe it.
and NO ONE expected that, right??


what’s my point here? why am i ranting?

BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T HAVE THESE DUMB EXPECTATIONS BASED ON USELESS STATS THEN YOU WON’T BE SO UPSET THAT WE WON A GAME IN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE.


i have not even read the other VIKINGS strings, no reason to, I'm sure it will be a lot of negativity, and that’s fine, we played like shit. but i don't want to hear about bad play calling, i don't even want to read it, or "why didn't chilly go for two instead of one to tie it 10 to 10.." i have no clue. i don't care.


I know we had over 300 yards passing and AP had over a 100 rushing and yet only one touchdown.. why?

AP fumbled twice at the tail end of scoring drives, Ryan Cook got called for holding when TAYLOR ran us to the 1 yard line. that’s 21 points.


I think watching pre game shows is a joke, i don't even bother, they’re wrong more then half the time about everything.. absolutely everything.


I feel sorry for people who didnt start peyton manning today because he was playing the "number one defense against the pass" today

and props to you guys who started berrian

save yourselves the headache of trying to figure out who is gonna win and lose, that’s why they play the games..

I am glad we won, great win.
it’s a W

Our defense made stops in the fourth quarter, like 3 three and outs in a row i think.

MONDAY NIGHT GAME (Tony Cornholer is the worst football commentator ever!)

worse then randy green.

Honestly, could they suck the saints dicks any harder? when we were tied up in the 4th and the saints hadn’t had an OFFENSIVE drive for a long while.. they were acting like it was a foregone conclusion we were gonna lose when they went up 7 .. there was so much time left. then they missed the FG i thought hell we can do this! why not us, why not now!?

ok.. then the vikes negativitis creeped in...
now we were all thinking, shit, i hope we dont choke this away.. but after seeing the indy game i thought oh fuck it... when i saw FREROTTE whip that ball and berrian get tackled i was hyped!

I am very happy at how many shots we took downfield. 3 big plays.. the two berrian catches and the hilarious pass interference.

i’d like to point out that all of those were on third and long.

TIME TO VISIT "PREDICTABLE" PLAY CALLING.

1st and goal, 2nd and goal, runs to the right. third and goal, we get a second chance cuz of penalty, run the option , works like a charm. good call. the two useless plays set it up. GREAT CALL CHILLY

all the time people say get AP more touches, well, we got him his touches, 22 in fact...didn’t do shit.. is that bad play calling? too predictable? it happens, randy moss gets 3 catches for 8 yards. it happens.

For most of the game i was accepting the fact that maybe we had a very avg football team, even on defense, but then we showed signs of being a real team.. we made the plays that "elite" teams are supposed to make.

FREROTTE did a helluva a job sittin' in there and taking hits, while dishing out that TD especially. hell, he threw it to two receivers in one pass haha thats talent and GOOD COACHING haha if we cant get our receivers to make the one on one plays lets put two of them right next to each other..

worked on our defensive interception to end the game as well.

NOW HERE IS WHERE I REALLY HATE CORNHOLER..

the entire end of the first half they were talking shit about our clock management.. yet somehow we got to the 15 yard line for a chip shot AND had TWO shots at a TD to our receivers in ONE ON ONE coverage! you cant ask for more.

we could have had a TD on either of those passing plays if the ball was 3 feet this way or that way (and in fairness a interception too)

i won’t talk about our punt coverage. ick. but at least i over heard someone say childress was livid with our punter and told him he was supposed to kick it out of bounds but to be honest i dont give a fuck, just kick it and cover it. im not afraid of anyone, that shit happens so rarely. on the first two punts he lost yardage.


we are missing ej henderson =/

cant wait for madeu williams to play, wonder if he will do well

mckinnie sucked today

on our sweep left they had 4 guys in our backfield wtf

great win, very key.

PROPS FOR HAVING NO TURNOVERS! AND ONLY ALLOWING ONE SACK

props for holding them to 7 for 15 on 3rd down