This Weekend

It is Vikings' fans last chance to avoid the worst Super Bowl matchup I can think of. Even in years that the Purple choked away a Super Bowl berth, there usually wasn't a reason to hate the AFC Champion. This year, well, if things go wrong on Sunday, all of us will have no choice but to root for a meteor, brushfire, or some other horrific event to prevent either the Packers or Patriots from winning it all.

Honestly, I don't care how obnoxious Eli Manning looks. I'm willing to to ignore the lingering bitterness I still harbor from 2001. If it means the Giants take out Brett Farve and the Packers, well, then I have no choice. I mean, really, do people like this really deserve to cheer for a team that wins it all (and you know they'll only get worse if the Packers ruin the Patriots perfect season)? Is there anything worse than hearing announcers talk about Farve? Isn't it for the best if no one has to go through two weeks of that? Please?

And the Patriots. If you aren't sick of them and their fans, read this. And then, I suggest you go offer to add to the bounty. And aren't the Boston area fans gotten enough out of former Minnesota players? Do they really need a Super Bowl after a perfect season? (Though, I will admit that I'm still a big Randy Moss fan, as you'll see when I start begging the Vikings to sign him.) Wouldn't it be better if our spiritual brethren in San Diego got their second shot at winning it all?

I know how unlikely a Giants-Chargers Super Bowl is. I know that there's no reason to expect either of the Patriots or Packers to get upset on Sunday. But it'd sure be nice to have someone to cheer for, rather than having to cheer for a disaster to strike Glendale.

Friday Roundup

Thursday's Game
Last night's game between the Redskins and Bears could not have gone any better for the Purple. Chicago's loss dropped them to 5-8 and 2-7 in the conference, all but officially eliminating them from the playoff chase. The Redskins improved to 6-7 and 4-5 in the NFC, but the Vikings will have the opportunity to beat them at the Metrodome, which will be an easier task now that their starting quarterback, Jason Campbell, is likely done for the year with a dislocated knee cap. That means they'll be forced to rely on Todd Collins, who, prior to last night, hadn't seen the field since 2004, or Mark Brunell, who makes Brad Johnson look like a spry, young gunslinger.

Rex Grossman was also hurt, but Chicago has not yet released the severity of his leg injury. To be honest, I'm not sure whether Grossman missing next Sunday's game would help or hurt the Vikings.

The Revolution--Better Than the Big Names
Don't look now, but the Tarvaris Revolution has a better quarterback rating (and DPAR and DVOA) than Vince Young, Alex Smith, Kellen Clemens, Rex Grossman and David Carr. Both Young and Clemens were picked ahead of Tarvaris in the 2006 draft, Grossman lead Chicago to the Super Bowl last year and Smith and Carr were both taken first overall. And I know I wasn't the only one who argued that the Vikings should have acquired Carr to be their starter this year. Shows how much I know.

The Pace the Purple Jesus Needs
In order to break Eric Dickerson's rookie record of 1,808 rushing yards, the Purple Jesus would need to average 153 rushing yards over the last four games of the season. It's a daunting task, but it's in now way outside the realm of possibility, especially considering the Vikings are facing the teams who are ranked 27th (49ers-124 YPG) , 26th (Bears-123.2 YPG), 8th (Redskins-94.8 YPG) and 31st (Broncos-149.1 YPG) in rushing yards per game

Sunday's Pick
Sunday's game against the 49ers is, quite simply, a game the Vikings should win. There are no excuses at all. This isn't a trap game, since the Vikings shouldn't be looking past a team that embarrassed them last year, a loss that probably kept them out of the playoffs. The 49ers are an awful team, on offense and on defense. They're quarterbacked by Trent Dilfer. Their only real threat is running back Frank Gore, and he's only broken 100 yards rushing in a game once, and he needed overtime to do so. Seriously folks--the next time I worry about this team's ability to shut down the run when facing a mediocre to bad quarterback will be the first. The Vikings are the superior team in all aspects of the game and one that's riding a tidal wave of momentum. That's why I'm picking the Vikings in a blowout, 30-10.

Two Disturbing Articles and Who to Back

The Star Tribune ran two articles this morning, both of which left me disturbed, perturbed and generally feeling negative. The first, "Allison shows a big break can be just around the corner", is a nice feature on the Vikings' fifth round pick and newly named Special Teams Player of the Week. It's your normal, run of the mill feature on a player that just had a break out game, until, that is, Coach Childress gets quoted.

"Childress made no promises that Allison will be in uniform this Sunday in San Francisco, although it seems likely. "We just play the guys that you think are going to give you the best chance, and when you get that chance like he did [Sunday], you run with it and he did," said Childress, who also mentioned Allison has the "aptitude" to return punts."

I'm probably reading too much into this, but honestly, why wouldn't Childress make Allison the primary kick returner now? He's a threat to score on every kick, has a massive 37.1 yard average on returns and has returned three kicks for more than 60 yards, a franchise record AND just set the franchise record for longest kick return for a touchdown. Why even screw around with Troy Williamson at this point? I mean, it's not like Williamson and his 13 catches for 201 yards are really that much better than Allison's 4 catches for 76 yards.

I know Childress is probably just playing his normal games with the press, but let's be honest--it would be an awful decision if Allison isn't returning kicks on Sunday.

The second disturbing article, "Wilf: Stadium needs resolution 'in near future'"discusses the state government's decision not to attempt to address the Vikings' stadium issue this session. Whether or not you think the Vikings should get a taxpayer funded stadium, the longer the issue remains unresolved, the greater the chance the Vikings decide to pack up and move. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but the Viking's lease at the Metrodome is up in 2011, which means that the Vikings can play wherever they want in 2012. Gooood times. Good times.

Enough about a possible depressing future. Let's look at what could be a very positive future. There are six games this week (aside from the Purple's) that can impact the Vikings' playoff hopes. I posted a comprehensive table on Monday with all the information you might need for tiebreakers, so let's delve into the important games themselves.

1. Arizona (6-6) at Seattle (8-4)
   
2. Carolina (5-7) at Jacksonville (8-4)
   
3. New Orleans (5-7) at Atlanta (3-9)
   
4. Dallas (11-1) at Detroit (6-6)
   

In these first four games, it's pretty obvious which team Vikings' fans should be pulling for (they're bolded if you need some help). All four games could be crucial to the Vikings' hopes, as this is the hardest game left on the Cardinals schedule, both New Orleans and Carolina would finish with a better Conference Record than the Vikings should they end up tied and Detroit is almost guaranteed to finish with a better division record than the Purple, as the only game they have left will be against a Green Bay team that will be resting it's starters in Week 17.

1. Chicago (5-7) at Washington (5-7)
2. New York Giants (8-4) at Philadelphia (5-7)

These final two games are quite a bit trickier than the first four. The first game pits two teams the Vikings still have on their schedule, both of which they will most likely have to beat in order to make the playoffs (thus likely ending da Bears and Redskins playoff hopes). If the Vikings do end up dropping one of those games, well, then hopefully that was the one that lost this game, since that would have likely knocked them out of the hunt with an eighth loss. The second game is also tricky, as the Vikings are two games back of the Giants, and a loss, combined with a Vikings win, would put the first Wild Card spot back into play. However, a win by the Eagles would keep them within reach of the Purple, a scary thought, as the Eagles have the tiebreaker, and the sooner teams like the Eagles, Saints and Panthers go away, the better the Vikings' chances of getting into the playoffs. To be honest, it doesn't matter who you pull for in these games, as the outcomes are guaranteed to both help and hurt the Purple.

A Quarterly Look at the Schedule

At the beginning of the year, I evaluated the Vikings' schedule, dividing it into four categories and coming up with a goal for each category that was both attainable and would give the Vikings the 9-7 record the Purple need to assure themselves a playoff spot. The Vikings are a quarter of the way through their schedule, and it's become apparent that I need to reevaluate, both because the Vikings have already failed to reach one of their goals (both the Chiefs game and the game at Detroit were part of the "Should Win" group, which had a goal of 3-1) and because Dallas was in the "Must Win" category and was projected to win a little more than 6 games. Considering they're 5-0, it's obvious that the difficulty of that game needs to be reevaluated.

Football Outsiders continues to project each team's mean wins after each week, using the new data from that week's games to create a more accurate projection. They come up with mean wins by calculating the average number of wins for each team over 50,000 simulations of the season. This time, however, I'm splitting the season into three groups of four games and lowering the overall record the Vikings are aiming for to 8-8. While 9-7 would almost guarantee a wild card spot, 8-8 will likely be good enough, especially if they are able to gain tiebreakers over likely competitors like the Giants and Eagles.

Must Win	3-1	Should Win	3-1	Can Win	1-3
Team	Mean Wins	Team	Mean Wins	Team	Mean Wins
@ CHI	6.3	DET	7.3	@ GB	10.9
CHI	6.3	PHI	8.0	@ DAL	11.3
@ SF	6.0	SD	7.8	WAS	9.2
@ DEN	6.5	OAK	6.9	@ NYG	8.7

Luckily for the Vikings, they have seven games remaining against teams projected to finish below .500 and another game against a team projected to finish at exactly .500. And what looked to be a murderous second quarter of the season (@ CHI, @ DAL, PHI, SD) includes three teams whose projections have dropped, and only Dallas is currently projected to have a winning season. And in the second half, the Vikings face five teams projected to finish below .500, which means that if they can go 2-2 in the next four games, they wouldn't have to beat another team projected to be above .500 to finish at 8-8 and have a shot at the playoffs.

The bar has been lowered, which is what happens when you start out 1-3 and fail to show any signs of an offense. If the Vikings can find a way to generate 6 or 7 more points a game, however, the Vikings still have a very good shot at the playoffs, thanks to a soft schedule.

Did the Vikings lose games they shouldn't have?

Due to the fact that the Vikings managed to drop three games, none by more than seven points, all three losses can be considered opportunities squandered. If the Vikings had managed to make one or two more plays in each game, they could easily be sitting at 4-0. Were they beaten by superior teams? Or did they drop games against teams that they should have beaten? To answer this question, I've used Football Outsiders' Mean Wins and DAVE and compared each teams to the Vikings' Mean Wins and DAVE. After their first four games, the Vikings currently sit at 7.1 Mean Wins and -0.4% DAVE (the higher the DAVE score, the better).

TEAM	Mean Wins	DAVE	Wasted Win?
@ Detroit	7.3	-18.7%	YES
@ Kansas City	6.6	-22.3%	YES
Green Bay	10.9	16.7%	NO

As you probably would have guessed, the Vikings first two losses came against teams that they should have beaten, while their loss to Green Bay, while frustrating, was against a better football team. One of the ways to check the usefulness of statistics is to see whether they confirm what your intuition would say. It's obviously not the only way, but the fact that Mean Wins and DAVE tell us that the Vikings losses to Detroit and Kansas City came against inferior teams, which I would agree with, shows us that it's likely that these statistics are useful ones.

A Guide to Making the Playoffs

I'm too good to quote Jim Mora. There--I said it. Never said I wasn't an arrogant SOB. And that's why I'm not leading off this post with his infamous "Playoffs" rant. And now that I've said that, let us delve into the Vikings' schedule and see whether or not it's going to help them return to the Playoffs.

Last year, the Vikings had a ridiculously easy schedule, one of the main reasons that I thought they were going to make the playoffs. And they came pretty close (something no one seems to be mentioning--one more touchdown at San Fransisco and one more field goal against Green Bay, and they would have made it). This year, they have the 21st easiest schedule, according to Football Outsiders, with their projected opponents averaging a -2.1% DVOA. In comparison, the hardest schedule in the NFL belongs to Buffalo, whose opponents average DVOA is 8.6%. So that bodes well.

As we saw last year, however, just having an easy schedule isn't enough. The Vikings have to get to nine wins to assure themselves a spot in the postseason. Luckily for the Vikings, there schedule is easy because it's relatively extreme, with both good and bad teams on it, rather then full of teams competing for the last spot in the playoffs.

I've sorted the Vikings' schedule into four groups, using Football Outsiders' Mean Win projection for each team and whether it's at the Dome or on the road. The groups are games the Vikings "Must Win", "Should Win", "Can Win" and "Might Win" and each team is followed by their mean win projection and the week in which they square off against the Vikings.

Must Win

3 -1

Should Win

3 - 1

Can Win

2 - 2

Might Win

1 - 3

@ KC

5.2

Wk 3

ATL

7.6

Wk 1

SD

8.6

Wk 9

GB

9.5

Wk 4

@ DAL

6.4

Wk 7

@ DET

7.1

Wk 2

CHI

8.3

Wk 15

@ DEN

8.7

Wk 17

OAK

6.5

Wk 11

@ NYG

7

Wk 12

@ SF

8.1

Wk 14

@ GB

9.5

Wk 4

DET

7.1

Wk 13

WAS

8.2

Wk 16

@ CHI

8.3

Wk 6

PHI

11

Wk 8

To the left of each group name is the record the Vikings should post against that group in order to reach 9-7 and the promised land of the playoffs. Obviously, the 3-1 record in the "Must Win" games seems to contradict the group name, but it takes into account a Vikings dropping a game they shouldn't, something I'm more certain of then anything else.

The schedule also works out nicely for the Vikings in that six of their eight easy games are against NFC teams, giving them an easy path to a winning conference record, an important tie breaker in the fight for the last Wild Card berth. What isn't so good, however, is the fact that all four games against Chicago and Green Bay fall on the wrong side of the easy-hard divide. As the NFC East demonstrated last year, however, three teams from a conference can make the playoffs, with 9-7 Cowboys and the 8-8 Giants filling the two Wild Card spots.

And so, once again, the Vikings' schedule gives them a great shot at the playoffs, with more then enough winnable games. We'll have to wait to see whether or not they'll be able to seize the opportunity this year, or if they'll fall short again, but not too long--only until Sunday.

Tom Brady is a Choker

After the Bears and Bernard Berrian turned what was shaping up to be a good game into a blowout, the AFC Championship game somehow managed to entertain all the…how did Simmons put it again…oh yeah—“Haters”.
To be honest, I gave up on the game after Samuel housed an interception to make it 21-3 Patriots and turned on the Simpsons. Luckily for me, I flipped back to check the score in time to see the Colts threatening for their first touchdown. And after they punched it in, got a stop and somehow managed to tie it up when Manning threaded a ridiculous throw to Marvin Harrison for the two point conversion, well, I stopped caring about whether Family Guy was a rerun or not.
As a Kevin Garnett fan, I have a soft spot for athletes who get labeled as chokers. That means, of course, that I’ve always had a soft spot for guys like A-Rod and Peyton Manning. And I’m glad to see Peyton turn in a clutch performance, especially after it looked like he was going to fall short again when the Colts went three and out with less then four minutes remaining. And I have to say, I also took a lot of satisfaction in Brady’s failure on the Patriots last two drives.
Which leads me to my next point—if the Colts just completed the biggest comeback in a conference championship, does that mean the Patriots had the biggest choke job ever? I know New Englanders like to label the Yankees as the biggest chokers because of the 2004 ALCS—is it fair for Indianapolis fans to label the 2006 Patriots as the biggest chokers now?
Finally, IchirioHoya maintained a one game lead in the Playoff PickOff by going 1-1, but both Stud and Jason can catch him in two weeks with the right pick. And if you’re wondering, I’d rather not talk about my picks this week. Thanks.

	Overall	Wild Card Round	Divisional Round	Conference Championship Round
IchiroHoya	7-3	3-1	3-1	1-1
Jason	6-4	2-2	3-1	1-1
Stud	6-4	3-1	1-3	2-0
Mookie	4-6	3-1	1-3	0-2
TBird41	4-6	2-2	2-2	0-2

[I’ll have my thoughts on the Mike Tomlin situation up Monday Afternoon. If you’re wondering, there is a silver lining—at least Tomlin moved up, rather than laterally like Scott Linehan did when he left for the Dolphins in 2004.]

Thoughts on the Weekend of the Playoffs

• After a first round with one well played game, two close games and one clunker, there's a three way tie atop the Playoff PickOff leaderboard: Stud, IchirioHoya and Mookie were all 3-1, with Jason and myself bringing up the rear at 2-2. How people arrived at those totals was also kind of interesting. Jason went 0-2 on Saturday, but was 2-0 on Sunday, while I did the opposite. To go along with that, Stud, Ichirio and Mookie all got different games wrong.
• Weirdly enough, the game I enjoyed the most was the Patriots-Jets game. It was the only game that was well played by both teams (at least it was until the Jets fell apart at the end). The other three games were all pretty much slopfests, filled with turnovers, missed tackles and poor execution. Of course, despite this, the media has already started calling the two NFC games "Instant Classics" because they were close.
  
• While I enjoyed Tony Romo's mishap immensely (Schadenfreude is the best), I don't think I'm going to enjoy the media'a rehabilitation of his image, They've obviously chosen him as the next overhyped quarterback that plays with a love of the game that no one else can match (or as I like to call it, the Farve), but they can't do that if people view him as a goat. So far, it looks like they're going to paint him as a victim of fate, but make no mistake about it, they'll switch tactics if that doesn't stick. Just you watch.
  
• Can someone explain to me why Herm Edwards doesn't get skewered for being so happy after his team lost? Or at least explain to me why Kansas City was willing to give up a draft pick for a coach that wasn't able to exploit the Larry Johnson-Colts Run Defense matchup?
• I think (and hope) that Tomlin is just getting interviews because he's a minority , rather than because he's going to get a head coaching job. I know it's crass, but I like watching the Vikings when they have a good defense and I'd like to have that experience again next year.
  
• Finally, for those who aren't confident in Brad Childress' abilities as a head coach, I offer some hope--Bill Cowher will be a head coach in the NFL again in a year or two (or right around when the Vikings would be looking for a replacement for Childress).