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VikesCentric is written by Twin Cities football writers Bo Mitchell and Patrick Donnelly of SportsData, and Ted Carlson of TST Media. They are Twin Cities-based Vikings and NFL experts who crunch numbers, watch video and tell you what's on their minds.
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VikesCentric: Parsing the playoff picture
Posted by: Patrick Donnelly Updated: December 21, 2012 - 2:16 AM
Coming off a 3-13 season, that last thing any of us expected to be doing in Week 16 is discussing the Vikings' playoff chances, but here we are. As you all know, the Vikings are 8-6 and currently hold the sixth and final seed in the NFC Playoffs. Thus, if the season ended today, the Vikes would be in.
However, the season doesn't end today. It ends next Sunday. And strange as it might sound, the Vikings could win their final two games and still find themselves on the outside looking in.
That's right, the Vikings don't control their own destiny, for reasons that are probably far too convoluted to get into in a blog post. (It boils down to conference record – because the Vikings play an AFC team in Houston on Sunday, they have only one more chance to improve their NFC record, while most of the other teams in the 8-6 logjam play two more NFC foes.)
So who should Vikings fans root for this week? It's pretty easy to figure, actually, because most of the teams the Vikings need to lose are facing opponents who are non-factors in the NFC playoff race. The biggest question is the Niners-Seahawks game in Seattle. Vikings fans should be rooting for the 49ers to win that one, because even if the Niners lose out, their 10-5-1 record would be a half-game better than the Vikings' best possible record of 10-6. Thus, hope Seattle goes in the tank – just keep in mind that Seattle has the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Purple by virtue of its win on Nov. 4, so if Minnesota hopes to leap-frog the Seahawks, it'll need to win out and have the Seahawks lose home games to the Niners and Rams. That's about as likely to happen as the networks to eschew their standard "fish tossing" shot at the world-famous Pike Place Fish Market on any given week. Meaning, not bloody likely.
We'll sort through the various scenarios in greater detail next week. For this weekend, just pull for the Purple, and pull for the Giants to lose at Baltimore, the Cowboys to lose to the Saints, the Redskins to lose at Philadelphia, and the Bears to lose at Arizona. Then we can pull out the calculators and slide rules and figure out what needs to happen in Week 17 for the Vikings to return to the playoffs.
Patrick Donnelly is a Senior Editor at SportsData and a contributor to the 2012 Vikings Yearbook. He's covered the Vikings for FOXSportsNorth.com, Viking Update and the Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at @donnelly612.
VikesCentric: Jumping to conclusions
Posted by: Updated: September 10, 2012 - 3:30 PMIt’s just one week, but everyone still wants to jump to conclusions about, well, just about everything we saw during the Vikings’ scintillating Week 1 win over the Jaguars. Let’s run down a handful of conclusions one might reach after Sunday, and discuss whether they’re more trend or mirage.
Blair Walsh has ice water in his veins.
Or “intestinal fortitude,” as head coach Leslie Frazier told the media after the game. For a 22-year-old rookie kicking in his first career game, Walsh could not have been more clutch. He calmly knocked down the 55-yarder to force overtime like it was just another routine extra point, then booted the 38-yarder in overtime for the (eventual) win.
Verdict: Trend. Walsh destroyed all doubts about whether the Vikings “wasted” a sixth-round pick on him, and vindicated General Manager Rick Spielman, who put his faith in Walsh by cutting expensive veteran Ryan Longwell in the offseason. We knew Walsh had a big leg, but after his clutch performance on Sunday it appears he’s got the guts to go along with it.
Adrian Peterson is not human.
Without playing a single preseason snap and a mere eight months removed from a knee injury that usually takes at least a year or more to completely heal from, Peterson didn’t miss a beat. After looking a bit tentative early in the game, Peterson settled down after scoring his first touchdown before looking like vintage AP on a couple of long runs (of ten and 20 yards) in overtime.
Verdict: Trend. He’s superman. Nobody will ever underestimate him again.
The secondary still stinks.
Sophomore Blaine Gabbert completed only 51 percent of his passes as a rookie and threw for almost as many interceptions (11) as he did touchdowns (12). On Sunday, what was supposed to be an improved Vikings secondary let him complete 23-of-39 (59 percent) for 260 yards and two touchdowns.
Verdict: Trend. Here we go again. Despite the return of cornerbacks Chris Cook and Antoine Winfield and the infusion of some young talent (safety Harrison Smith and nickel corner Josh Robinson), the Vikings had few answers for what was one of the worst passing offenses in the NFL a year ago. They managed to hold highly touted rookie wideout Justin Blackmon in check, but there were frequent breakdowns that led on numerous times to wide open receivers converting big plays for the Jaguars. Winfield has lost at least a step, Cook looked rusty, and the safety tandem of Smith and Mistral Raymond was far too inconsistent. In particular, on the fateful last-minute touchdown catch by the Jaguars’ Cecil Shorts, Raymond barely moved from where he had lined up. He was inexplicably frozen right after the snap, appearing, for some reason, to be shadowing Gabbert in the pocket while one receiver ran right past him and leaving Cook on an island against Shorts. How do you not ensure that there’s adequate coverage deep on that play?
Christian Ponder has arrived.
Ponder got off to a rocky start, but he engineered five scoring drives after halftime, including the game-tying one with 20 seconds on the clock and a methodical overtime drive. Most importantly, he didn’t commit a turnover.
Verdict: Mirage. Outside of Peterson looking healthy, Ponder was easily the most promising takeaway from this game. He completed nearly 75 percent of his passes and got in a groove once he got Percy Harvin involved. Harvin and tight end Kyle Rudolph are starting to emerge as legitimate go-to guys for Ponder, and if Peterson is this effective in the running game Ponder should continue to have opportunities to grow. But let’s not confuse a home opener against a bad Jaguars defense that was missing its’ top cornerback for the Bears or Packers on the road in late November. Sunday was a positive step in nearly every way for Ponder, but there will be more bumps in the road.
The play calling remains dubious.
The Vikings gained a total of two first downs on their first four drives of the game, all of which resulted in punts. Other than a reverse to Percy Harvin on the third play of the game, Harvin was completely invisible in the offense until the fifth drive. Later, they stalled out several times inside the red zone and had to settle for field goals when a touchdown would have put the game out of reach.
Verdict: Trend. The entire offense looked out of sync early on. Perhaps it was because nobody knew what to expect while breaking Peterson in, or perhaps the team was just sluggish coming off an equally sluggish preseason. Whatever the case, there shouldn’t be any excuse for excluding Harvin from the game plan for almost an entire half. Things finally got moving on the fifth drive, when Ponder threw it to Harvin three straight times to open a drive that began with just over two minutes left in the half. That ultimately resulted in the first of Peterson’s two touchdowns, and things were generally much improved for the remainder of the game. But why did it take nearly an entire half to get the ball into Harvin’s hands? Later, a nice Ponder-to-Rudolph connection gave the Vikings a first-and-goal from the three-yard line. Instead of just jamming Peterson down the Jaguars’ throats for a third time, the Vikings got cute; first running Harvin straight up the gut out of the backfield, then throwing a pass to third-string running back Matt Asiata before a broken play resulted in an incomplete pass to little-used tight end John Carlson on third down. Matt Asiata? Really? By not punching the ball into the end zone after three straight bizarre play calls, the Vikes left the door open for the late Jaguars’ comeback. The Vikings game plan should be pretty obvious and simple: Get the ball to Peterson and Harvin. End of story. Bill Musgrave seems to be doing a decent job with Christian Ponder’s development, but there continue to be a handful of head-scratching moments in just about every game.
Jared Allen was invisible.
Other than a sack on the second Jaguars offensive play that was reversed because of a questionable offside call on Allen himself, we saw little from last year’s NFL sacks leader. He was essentially stifled by Jaguars left tackle Eugene Monroe, and the Vikings inability to generate a pass rush was part of the reason Gabbert was able to dissect the secondary.
Verdict: Mirage. It was uncharacteristic and disappointing that he didn’t show up at home in the season opener – he failed to register a sack in just three games all of last year – but Allen will get his. Call it an off day and expect to see him terrorize Colts rookie QB Andrew Luck next week. If Allen and Brian Robison can generate a better pass rush next week and beyond, it will make the inexperienced secondary look a lot better.
Winning cures all ills.
It was ugly at times and you’d expect the Vikings to win a home game against one of last year’s worst AFC teams, but a win is a win is a win.
Verdict: TBD. The Vikings will take wins any way they can. Coming off the worst season in franchise history, they’re not in a position to be worried about who they beat or how pretty or ugly it is. Take last year, for example, when they easily could have been 3-0 after the first three games but turned that into 0-3 with a series of incredible second-half collapses. If the team wins a couple of those games early last season, there’s a school of thought that says the remainder of the year could have been totally different. One thing is very clear: if they’d lost on Sunday in the waning moments on a Blaine Gabbert-to-Cecil Shorts miracle, it could have sent them spiraling the wrong way before the season was even two weeks old. The impressive comeback should do wonders for this team’s confidence, and with an early-season schedule that’s littered with winnable games (Colts, Titans, Redskins, Cardinals, Bucs all within the next seven weeks), that confidence could lead to some more W’s.
Christian Peterson is the Director of Operations at LeagueSafe.com and Managing Editor of LeagueSafe Post. He has been a contributor to Vikings.com and is a co-host of the Fantasy Football Weekly radio show on FM 100.3 KFAN on Saturday mornings during the football season. Follow him on Twitter: @CP_ChristianP
VikesCentric: If not now, when?
Posted by: Updated: October 4, 2011 - 3:53 PMI’m sure the Vikings can see what everyone else can see. They aren’t going to make the playoffs this year. There are too many holes on the roster – from defensive back to the offensive line to the obvious problem at quarterback – and at 0-4 with two 4-0 teams in the same division, the season is effectively over.
You can’t possibly expect the coach or organization to admit that, though, which is exactly what they’d be doing by inserting Christian Ponder over Donovan McNabb right now. No rational organization would send such a signal after just four games, no matter how deflating the four losses have been. The only way a team can pull that off is by admitting that they’re rebuilding right from the start. Had the Vikings opted not to acquire McNabb and instead said right from the get-go that they were going to sacrifice the season in favor of developing Ponder for the future, that’s something you can at least attempt to sell to the public.
Once the Vikes brought in McNabb and trotted him out as the starter in Week 1, they were declaring their intentions. They weren’t the Bengals or the Panthers – teams that could afford to start their own rookie quarterbacks coming off of a long history of futility (not to mention, it’s a different story if you’re Carolina and your rookie quarterback is the No. 1 overall pick in the draft). They weren’t even the Jaguars, who announced their intentions loud and clear when they canned veteran signal-caller David Garrard on the eve of the season with the obvious intention of playing rookie Blaine Gabbert sooner rather than later.
The fans in Cincy and Jacksonville are used to losing. They’re ready to be sold on the future, even if it means there’s no hope for this year. The Bengals can be excited (well, not that excited, but we’ll get to that in a bit) about watching Andy Dalton and A.J. Green with no expectations other than seeing some sign that there’s hope for the future.
But the Vikings are only one full season removed from the NFC Championship game. It’s a lot tougher to sell a rebuilding effort when you were on the cusp of the Super Bowl less than two calendar years ago. Or when you’re paying millions of dollars to a couple of high-priced defensive stars (Jared Allen and Kevin Williams) in the prime of their careers. Or when you’re trying to sign two of your young building blocks (Chad Greenway and Adrian Peterson) to mega-contracts before they walk away to less purple pastures. And if you can’t sell a rebuilding effort to your own locker room, it’s an even tougher sell to the fans. This wasn’t a rebuilding year to the tens of thousands of season ticket holders who renewed their seats after last year’s wasted season. It wasn’t a rebuilding year the day single-game tickets went on sale. It wasn’t even a rebuilding year the day they picked Ponder in the first round of the NFL Draft.
And it’s not a rebuilding year now, either. Not publicly. Just four games in, the Vikes just aren’t at a point where they can admit their mistake and look to 2012. Not yet. Not when there are tickets to sell for the next home game. Just ask Leslie Frazier. Or, ask the Bengals. Bengals fans in the immediate Cincinnati area are so excited about the “hope” being sold by Dalton and Green that they haven’t seen their squad play on TV since the middle of last year. Turns out, hope is a tough sell, as they’ve now failed to sell out their last six consecutive home games.
As of last Tuesday, the Vikings were 6,500 seats shy of a sellout for this week’s game. I get the sense the insertion of Ponder would actually be a short-term boost from a PR perspective, even if it’s a long-term hit when the team inevitably continues to lose. A cynic might say the Vikings must be close to selling out this week’s game already and that they don’t need the Ponder PR boost this week. Perhaps the team is keeping that bullet in the chamber with the expectation that they'll need it in mid-November, the next time they’ll be in danger of a home non-sellout (the only home game between Arizona and November 20 against the Raiders is the always-sold-out Packers on October 23).
And who knows, perhaps by November 20 the McNabb-led squad will have engineered an unlikely about-face with four consecutive wins over the Cardinals at home, the Bears on the road, Green Bay at home, and Carolina on the road. Actually, nevermind. But even so, November 20 is still the next-most likely date for Ponder’s unveiling. Even at 0-5, you wouldn’t throw him to the wolves at Chicago next week or at home against the Packers the week after that (remember, cynics, you don't need to sell tickets to that game). October 30 at Carolina is a possibility, but the Week 9 bye sure would be handy from a preparatory standpoint to start giving Ponder first-team reps in practice. And asking a rookie to debut on Monday night on the road against the Super Bowl champs in Week 11 is just asking for disaster.
That brings us to November 20, at home against the Raiders. Realistically, at that point the Vikings are 2-7, maybe 3-6 if they catch a few breaks, and with very little chance of selling out against an annually non-contending AFC team. And then, with hope undeniably lost for 2011, it will be time to start selling hope in the future.
VikesCentric: Fail to the Chiefs
Posted by: Updated: September 29, 2011 - 8:44 PMTake heart, Vikings fans, it could be worse. You could be a Chiefs fan.
For all their shortcomings, the Vikings are in a far better position than the Chiefs headed into a Week 4 game only blood relations and fantasy football players could love.
Think the Vikings are struggling on third down? They've converted them 36.1% of the time. The Chiefs are at 27.8%.
Think the Vikes need to score more points and allow fewer? They average 20 per game on offense and are yielding 24.7 on defense. Kansas City has scored 27 points all season long and gives up an average of nearly two touchdowns per game more than the Vikings on defense.
Think the Minnesota passing game couldn't be worse? The Chiefs' Matt Cassel hasn't thrown for more than 176 yards in a game, is averaging just 5.2 yards per attempt (for the record, Donovan McNabb isn't that much better at 5.9... but given the Vikings pitiful downfield passing game, it's saying something that Kansas City's is worse), and has been directly responsible for six turnovers.
Think the Purple should have fewer three-and-outs and hang on to the ball more? Eleven teams have worse time of possession than the VIkings (28:01 per game), including the Chiefs, who rank ahead of only the Peyton Manning-less Colts at a hair over 25:17. The good news: someone has to have the ball this Sunday.
Turnovers? How about a turnover margin of minus-6 for the Chiefs, compared to +1 for the Vikings.
All of which means next-to nothing, of course. Except maybe to the fatalistic Vikings backer who might be afraid it's all going to turn around for the Chiefs this weekend. I'm merely illustrating that the Chiefs have sunk even lower than the Vikings - especially when you consider where they came from.
Believe it or not, the Chiefs won the AFC West last season. Seriously, I looked it up. Their 10-6 record wasn't world-beating, but they were 7-1 at home and had little or no reason to believe they had a one-way ticket to the NFL's cellar in 2011.
Conversely, the Vikings came into 2011 on the heels of a 6-10 season while playing in a division that produced the reigning Super Bowl champ and both NFC title game participants a year ago.Expectations simply weren't (or shouldn't have been) that high. Frankly, had a rational Vikings fan looked at this year's schedule a couple of months ago, a trip to one of the NFL's loudest stadiums against a division-winning opponent that went 7-1 at home the year before looked like a loss, even for the thirstiest of grape Kool-aid drinkers.
Now, the Vikings, at 0-3 and with three back-breaking, snatch-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory losses, with an offense that can't convert a third down and a defense that has made an artform out of the second-half collapse, are favored to beat the 2010 AFC West champions on their turf.
Oh yes, it could be worse.
Christian Peterson is the Operations Manager at LeagueSafe.com and is a contributor to Vikings.com, the 2011 Maple Street Press Vikings Annual, and the Fantasy Football Weekly radio show on Saturday Mornings on KFAN 100.3 FM.
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