I Swear I Love This Team! Honest!
The Vikings scored the most boring 26 points in franchise history on Sunday. This may be the most boring football team I have ever seen, and they're 3-2. I'm not complaining, mind you--I'm a homer and I love my teams. And the boring style that seems to be Brad Childress Football (BCF) is obviously working--the Bears needed a late touchdown to eke out a win at Metrodome, but they've blown everybody else out (including the defending-NFC Champion Seattle Seahawks on Sunday or Monday Night Football, whichever one it was.) The Vikings (I refuse to call them the "Vikes") have been close and competitive in every game this year--no thanks to the offense. The defense recorded two TDs yesterday (or 26 Fantasy Points that I left on my bench, but that's another story) and has been pretty close to rock-solid all year long. Why does the offense suck like it does?
Brad Johnson.
Look--he's 38 with a noodle arm. Yeah, he's "savvy", and he "manages the game well", but all that will translate into is a 9-7 team (at best) and a waste of Troy Williamson's speed. So many deep balls underthrown, so many passes to the flats floated in to let unsuspecting TE's and backs get killed. I'll give him this--when he does finally connect and the play results in a touchdown, there is no one funnier to watch freak out in the league. I'd watch Johnson's celebration during the Redskins game over any TO or Chad Johnson dance. But the fact of the matter is that the front office and the fans and the media got too caught up in last year's win streak and everyone decided that he is the long-term solution. The problem is that the Vikings have made this mistake before: after the magically disappointing season of 1998, when Randall Cunningham won the MVP award, the Vikings immediately signed him to be the starting quarterback for at least the next season, possibly another. They let go of a young Brad Johnson who was just starting to come into his own as a quarterback and signed cannon-armed, pellet-brained Jeff George to back Cunningham up. What happened? Cunningham showed his age, played poorly, proved to everyone that he deserved Comeback Player of the Year for 1998, but that MVP was a little far-fetched, and lost his starting job against the Lions (post-Barry Sanders). Jeff George comes in, plays well, becomes the every-week starter, gets the nod for the next year, and sucks. What I'm trying to point out is that the Vikings can have good success with old quarterbacks, but the production they get out of them is limited at best. Brad Johnson already had his 5 game winning streak last year. Can we expect much more out of him this year? It pains me to say this, but this team would be playoff-bound with Chad Pennington under center.
Also, apparently no one told the media that BCF included shitloads of penalties, many of which come within the opponents' 20 yard line. That may need to be corrected.
Brad Johnson.
Look--he's 38 with a noodle arm. Yeah, he's "savvy", and he "manages the game well", but all that will translate into is a 9-7 team (at best) and a waste of Troy Williamson's speed. So many deep balls underthrown, so many passes to the flats floated in to let unsuspecting TE's and backs get killed. I'll give him this--when he does finally connect and the play results in a touchdown, there is no one funnier to watch freak out in the league. I'd watch Johnson's celebration during the Redskins game over any TO or Chad Johnson dance. But the fact of the matter is that the front office and the fans and the media got too caught up in last year's win streak and everyone decided that he is the long-term solution. The problem is that the Vikings have made this mistake before: after the magically disappointing season of 1998, when Randall Cunningham won the MVP award, the Vikings immediately signed him to be the starting quarterback for at least the next season, possibly another. They let go of a young Brad Johnson who was just starting to come into his own as a quarterback and signed cannon-armed, pellet-brained Jeff George to back Cunningham up. What happened? Cunningham showed his age, played poorly, proved to everyone that he deserved Comeback Player of the Year for 1998, but that MVP was a little far-fetched, and lost his starting job against the Lions (post-Barry Sanders). Jeff George comes in, plays well, becomes the every-week starter, gets the nod for the next year, and sucks. What I'm trying to point out is that the Vikings can have good success with old quarterbacks, but the production they get out of them is limited at best. Brad Johnson already had his 5 game winning streak last year. Can we expect much more out of him this year? It pains me to say this, but this team would be playoff-bound with Chad Pennington under center.
Also, apparently no one told the media that BCF included shitloads of penalties, many of which come within the opponents' 20 yard line. That may need to be corrected.
posted by Zach Brown at 4:33 PM
4 Comments:
-Are you willing to call them the Queens?
-Is Tarvaris Jackson the future of this franchise?
-The penalties are absolutely killing me, well, and the shitty offense.
-Thanks for not starting the Vikings Defense. I needed all the help I could get since my team completely underperformed. It didn't help that I lost Roy Williams on the first drive of Lions Injury Fest '06.
do you think this idiocy and short sightedness comes from the teams or the fans? I've already started to hear how disappointing the Twins season was! Are you kidding! This was one of the most entertaining seasons in recent memory. The fans in this town do not understand sports, and I wonder if that is because of the organizations or if that is something innately Minnesotan. If they don't get immediate results, they are no longer fans. Now i am not a huge viking fan, i love them but I am a Twins fan all the way, but i realize that you can't win the super bowl every year, or even make the playoffs. This is something I think most fans around here forget. 16 games, 16 times to gather and cheer your heart out for people you will never meet, 16 times to get wasted on a school night. Enjoy those games, talk trash all you want, but do it like you're trashing your family, with love. please share your thoughts.
-I am willing to call them the "Queens". I've always loved that nickname--used to use it for the defense, now it's more appropriate for the offense.
-Tarvaris Jackson is not the future, but he'll make a nifty backup. Brady Quinn is the future.
-Agreed.
-You're welcome. Would've been dead-even if I had my head out of my ass.
I put half of the blame on the fans, and the other half on the media. Fans in this state don't really put a lot of effort into team knowledge-they're way more resigned to just accepting what they read off the Strib and the Press, or what they see and hear from the local news or SportsCenter. So, when you go an entire baseball season just checking in on the Twins once every two-three weeks or so, then yeah, you're disappointed in the season--you didn't get the opportunity to spend almost every night/day of the summer following the team, being as down as you could be, riding the wave all the way back to the top, yelling yourself hoarse at the radio, etc. You're disappointed because you got on the bus too late, and once it was over, you expected more. Anyone who can tell me that a 95 win season was disappointing should root for the Yankees. I was thrilled, you were thrilled, anyone who reads this blog was most likely thrilled by what the Twins accomplished this season.
I take back the blame of the media and heap it solely on the fans. The only sport that will every consistently thrive in this town is NFL football. No one else stands a chance, and its too bad. But it makes sense, for the reasons you pointed out--there are (usually) only 16 days for the Vikings to play, and only 8 of which most people can go and see. It's a lot easier to plan your week around one game on Sunday than it is 3-4 games from Monday-Friday. People here like football because its on a normal, consistent schedule and they're afforded proper time to get ready, drink, eat bratwurst, etc. Plus, there's action every 10 seconds in a football game, where as a baseball game can seem like a lesson in patience to a casual fan. What angers me is when people who haven't taken the time to get emotionally involved in a team (this year's Twins, for example) immediately hop on the bandwagon when things are good, but are the first to criticize and be "disappointed" with the team now that it's over. This year's team was more exciting than the 2003 and 2004 teams combined.
Post a Comment
<< Home