Killing Time: More Reasons to Fire Childress and Other Thoughts

A few more thoughts on Childress and other things, now that the Vikings are a quarter of the way through their games:

• Under Brad Childress, the Vikings are 3-8 against playoff teams. What makes that record even worse than it appears is that all three of their wins required some kind of fluke. Matt Hasselbeck got hurt during their win against Seattle in 2006 and Chester Taylor set a franchise record with a 96 yard touchdown run. Their win over San Diego featured Adrian Peterson setting the NFL record for rushing in a game. And Eli Manning threw x picks, x of which were returned for touchdowns, in their win over the Giants last year. Against winning teams, the Purple are 4-9 under Brad Childress and 1-1 this year (and their two losses to the Colts and Packers will likely qualify at the end of the year). This isn't a case of the Vikings being inconsistent-this is a case of the Vikings being unable to beat a good team unless something crazy happens. That's not good enough for a team this talented or for a franchise that plans on winning a Super Bowl.

• Despite not rushing for 100 yards the last two games, Adrian Peterson is only two yards behind Michael Turner for the NFL rushing lead. Larry Johnson, who has 415 yards, is the only other running back with more than 400 yards. Peterson's been a lot more consistent, however, and has been successful against more than just the worst rush defenses. Michael Turner has amassed 324 of his 422 yards (76.7%) against Kansas City and Detroit, who are 27th and 32nd in rushing DVOA, and was held to 42 yards by Tampa Bay, who is 3rd in rushing DVOA and 56 yards by the Carolina Panthers, who are 19th in rushing DVOA. Peterson has faced the 29th (Packers), 25th (Colts), 19th (Panthers) and 6th (Titans), while rushing for 438 yards, but he has yet to be shut down in a game like Turner has been twice and his best two games only account for 62.6% of his yards. Larry Johnson has been erratic, like Turner, only rushing for 22 yards against the Raiders (21st in rushing DVOA) and 74 against the Patriots (26th) while racking up 319 of his 415 yards (76.8%) against Atlanta (15th) and Denver (10th).
  

• Chad Greenway is 5th in the NFL in tackles, with 34, only 7 behind Dhani Jones, who leads the league.

• Adrian Peterson needs to average 131.6 yards per game over the last 12 games in order to accomplish his goal of rushing for 2000 yards. If he kept up his average of 5.1 yards per carry, he would need 308 carries to get the 1580 yards he needs. That would also mean he had the fourth most carries this decade, behind Larry Johnson in 2006 (416 carries), Eddie George in 2000 (403) and Ricky Williams in 2003 (397). None of them made it to 1000 yards the next year.

Another Lost Season (A Plea for a new Coach)

I'll admit it--I watched the Twins game yesterday from the start. I only caught the first hour or so, and some of the game during commercials. And you know what? I made the right decision.

The Vikings' have their draws--the Purple Jesus, E.J. Henderson, the defensive line--but this team isn't any more special than last year's team. It has the same talent level, the same massive question marks in the passing game, the same poor play calling and the players make the same fundamental mistakes. So why should I get excited about a team that's on its way to another 8-8 season at best?

And let's be honest--this team is on its way to another .500 season. The Bears are looking like the Bears of 2006 and 2004 again. Brad Childress can't beat the Packers. The Jaguars, Giants, Saints and Buccaneers are all good teams. And really, would any one be surprised to see the Texans or Cardinals beat the Vikings? There are easily 5 losses left on the Vikings' schedule, if not more. I don't know that I see 7 wins, let alone the 8 or 9 that would be required for the Purple to win the division.

And yes, I place the blame for this firmly at the feet of Brad Childress. It is his fault that the Vikings are forced to rely on Gus Frerotte to quarterback. It is his fault that the offense is designed so poorly. It his fault that the play calls are so inexplicable (he called the punt with two minutes to go with the Vikings down two and he called the deep pass play that took Adrian Peterson off the field on a 3rd and 1 to name two horrible decisions). And it is his fault that the Vikings are 1-3 despite having a team that is playoff caliber in every aspect of the game except for when they are throwing the ball.

If the Purple do not make the playoffs this year, Brad Childress should be fired. He's had three years and all the support he could possibly want from his owner. And he's only been able to manage a 15-21 record that includes a home loss to the Redskins with the playoffs on the line. We have to remember that the ultimate goal for this franchise is not the playoffs or the division title. The ultimate goal is a Super Bowl victory. If Brad Childress can't make the playoffs with this team, there's no reason to believe he'll ever be able to coach a team to the title (not that he's shown any reason to believe he could do that so far). And if the coach doesn't have the ability to win the Super Bowl, the Vikings need to get a new coach. It's that simple.

A Tale of Two Lines

The Vikings-Titans match up will feature two of the most hyped defensive lines coming into the season. We all know about the Vikings' line, but the Titans, fresh off a playoff berth, feature Albert Haynesworth, one of the only tackles that can be fairly compared to Kevin Williams, a Pro Bowl defensive end in Kyle Vanden Bosch, and Javon Kearse, who while getting up in age, is still a big name defensive end.

And unlike the Vikings line, the Titans have been living up to the hype all year. They have 11 sacks already almost all of which have come from their defensive line. Haynesworth has 3, and Vanden Bosch, Kearse and DT Tony Brown have 2 each. With those sacks have come a 9.9% adjusted sack rate, the third best in the NFL, and well above the NFL average of 7.0%. They've also held opposing running games to 3.54 adjusted line yards, the 7th best in the NFL. And these totals aren't out of line for the Titans, as they've finished 9th and 11th in ASR in the last two years that they weren't missing Haynesworth because he was hurt or impersonating a Riverdancer.

The Vikings will try and counter with an offensive line that is still missing its starting left tackle. But, while they've been below average, allowing 6 sacks and an adjusted sack rate of 7.5%, the 18th best in the league, they're still doing better than the last three years. The Vikings offensive line's best finish in ASR was 22nd, in 2006. Last year, they were 30th, and they were 28th in 2005. Of course, they've always been able to run the ball and they're 2nd in the league, behind Denver, with 5.03 adjusted line yards.

The Titans offensive line is more well rounded, but they haven't had quite the same success running the ball as the Purple. While they're 17th overall in Adjusted Line yards, with 4.15, they were 4th in Adjusted Sack Rate last year and have been even better this year, allowing only 2 sacks in their first three games and with a 2.8% ASR, they have the second best Adjusted Sack Rate in the NFL.

That means the Vikings' defensive line will not have an easy task on Sunday if they plan on meeting their preseason hype. While the new Purple People Eaters have looked impressive the last two weeks, and especially against the Panthers, their ASR still isn't much better than it was last year. The last three years, the Purple have been 28th, 31st and 21st overall in ASR. This year, they're 18th, but they're still below average, with a 6.8% ASR. They've still been dominating the run, holding opponents to a league best 2.66 adjusted line yards, but as we've seen, that's not enough to be the kind of dominant defense line that can carry a team to the playoffs.

For the Vikings' to be successful, they need their pass rush to get to the quarterback like the Titans' pass rush has. They've shown they can do it against the Colts and especially against the Panthers. They need to be able to do it against the Titans as well if they want to continue to climb out of the 0-2 hole they've dug for themselves.

The Sweet Smell of Victory

A few more thoughts after the Vikings' first win:

• It was big touchdown catch, but I still don't trust Visanthe Shiancoe's ability to catch. Maybe because he also let a a sure first down bounce off of his chest earlier in the game.
  

• In 18 career starts, Tarvaris Jackson has only thrown for more than 200 yards four times. Gus Frerotte did so in his first start.
  

• I didn't mention him in the Three Stars post, but Chad Greenway continues to live up to his first round potential. Dr. Z gave him some love in his Power Rankings last week, and Greenway showed why against the Panthers, racking up 9 tackles and a sack that forced Jake Delholmme to fumble, killing a Panthers' drive that started in Minnesota territory.

• I didn't think the Heath Farwell injury was that big a deal when I found out about it. The Vikings' inability to cover kickoffs and punts has proven me wrong. His loss has been a huge loss to the coverage teams and the Panthers took advantage of it, averaging 29.2 yards per return on kickoff and averaging 10 yards on punt returns. The Vikings are currently allowing the 10th most yards per kick return and the 3rd most yards per punt return. That's especially bad considering the Vikings are a defense and run oriented team--field position is especially important to them.

• In that vein, the Vikings need to cut down on the penalties. They've been penalized 20 times already, for 147 yards (that's the 9th most penalties for a team). They do not have the kind of offense that can overcome a lot of penalties, as shown on Sunday, when they lost a touchdown and two drives to penalties.

• The odds of the Vikings making the playoffs prior to Sunday was a little worse than 1 in 8 (11.7%). With the victory, they more than doubled their chances and now have a little worse than 1 in 4 chance to make the postseason (22.4%). If they beat the Titans, they'll have about a 1 in 3 chance of making the playoffs (33.4%), while a loss would drop them down to 1 in 7 again. So, once again, the Vikings' game on Sunday is approaching a must win (though, to be fair, the Chargers went 11-5 and won their division after a 1-3 start last year, so it's not the end of the world if they lose).

Three Stars: First Victory

This post is a lot harder to write after a win. But you know what? I can't say I mind too much. The Vikings first win featured, as all wins do, many outstanding individual performances, especially on the defensive side of the ball. And in a game in which Steve Smith was expected to destroy the Vikings and the Panthers' offense, particularly their running game, had been so successful even without Smith, it was only fitting that all three stars go to defensive players.

So while Adrian Peterson averaged over 4.5 yards per carry on a bad hamstring, he's not going to crack the top three players this week. The same goes for Bernard Berrian, who lead the Vikings in receiving, caught his first deep pass and looked like the deep threat he was supposed to be. Berrian fails to crack the top three because his inability to haul in a deep pass led to the Vikings' only turnover. And while Gus Frerrotte calmed the offense down in the second half and he was the first Viking to crack 200 yards passing, his performance wasn't anything special (except in comparison with Tarvaris' first two games). He still missed open recievers, took three sacks and generally put together an average game. With the defense dominating in the way it did, it was enough to win. It wasn't enough to crack the Three Stars though.

Third Star: Kevin Williams

The lighter of the two Williams had another dominating game, racking up six tackles while helping keep the Panthers and their running game under 50 yards for the game. He also had two crucial sacks while keeping Jake Delhomme under constant pressure. Both sacks came when it mattered, as his first came on final drive of the first half and his second came on 4th and 27 with under 3 minutes to go in the game and basically ended whatever hope the Panthers might have had of coming back.

Second Star: E.J. Henderson

Twelve tackles, three for a loss, one quarterback hurry and one flying, highlight reel tackle. Just another game for one of the best middle linebackers in the game and the leader of the best run stopping defense in the game. What else can you say, except that, in a defense full of playmakers, E.J. Henderson has moved his way to the top of the list of Vikings defenders worth paying to see?

First Star: Antoine Winfield

There's no question that the biggest play of the game was Antoine Winfield's blitz that forced a Jake Delholmme fumble that Winfield returned for a touchdown. Steve Smith was open on the play, Delholmme knew it, Smith knew it, and who knows what might have happened if Winfield hadn't gotten to Delholmme? The best case scenario would have had the Vikings' going into the locker down a touchdown. The worst case scenario would have had them down two touchdowns and staring at a loss likely to end their playoff hopes. Because of Winfield, however, the Vikings' didn't have to worry about the various scenarios that might have played out if Delholmme had gotten the pass off. Instead they went into the locker room tied, with all of the momentum going their way. And the capitalized on that momentum, holding the Panthers scoreless in the second half and giving the offense a chance, which they capitalized on, to take the lead on the first drive of the second half. Without Winfield's play, none of that happens. Really, without Winfield's play, the Vikings' fall to 3-0. And that's why Winfield's the First Star this week.

Desperate for a Win

As I said yesterday, if you look at the Vikings and Panthers' records, this game seems like a mismatch. However, when you delve a little bit further, it becomes apparent that the Vikings not only have a very good chance of winning this game, they've played as well as the Panthers have, only without the results. If Gus Frerotte can get the passing game to work better than Tarvaris Jackson did, the Vikings should beat the Panthers and begin climbing back into contention. If he can't, however, the Vikings will be sitting at 0-3 and basically done for the season, with only a 3.4% chance of making the playoffs.

Rank	Team	Total DVOA	Last Week	DAVE	Rank	OFF DVOA	Rank	DEF DVOA	Rank
18	MIN	-1.7%	22	17.2%	8	0.4%	18	-5.8%	11
19	CAR	-2.0%	17	2.7%	17	1.4%	15	3.4%	17

As you can see, the Vikings have a slightly better DVOA than the Panthers do and are still considered the better team by DAVE, which combines the preseason projection and the results so far in an attempt to get a more reliable ranking of teams early in the year. The Vikings have been much better on defense overall (you want a negative defensive DVOA) and have been relatively comparable offensively.

When you start to break it down a even more, the differences between the Vikings and Panthers becomes more apparent.

Rank	Team	OFF DVOA	Last Week	OFF DAVE	Rank	Pass OFF	Pass Rank	Rush OFF	Rush Rank
18	MIN	0.4%	19	9.5%	9	-18.1%	24	16.1%	7
15	CAR	1.4%	9	2.1%	13	-3.8%	19	6.4%	14

Offensively, the Panthers are a much better passing team than the Vikings are. You probably knew that. They aren't a great passing team though, as their DVOA passing is negative. Of course, that's without Steve Smith and as we've all seen before, Steve Smith is the kind of difference maker that can practically win a game by himself. Runningwise, the Panthers have a solid line and two good backs, including a stud rookie in Jonathon Stewart. Stewart's actually fourth overall in DYAR and DVOA so far this year, and he's 8th in Success Rate, which isn't a surprise because he is a load to tackle (The Purple Jesus is 2nd, 5th and 6th in those three categories). DeAngelo Williams is a good back as well and is 17th in DYAR and 16th in DVOA. So while it's not unreasonable for them to be splitting the carries 50/50, he's going to start losing carries to Stewart, just like Chester Taylor lost carries to Adrian Peterson. That hasn't happened quite yet, however.

Defensively, the Panthers have trouble against both the pass and the run, but their issues stopping the pass are nowhere near as pronounced as the Vikings.

Rank	Team	DEF DVOA	Last Week	DEF DAVE	Rank	Pass DEF	Pass Rank	Rush DEF	Rush Rank
11	MIN	-5.8%	23	-8.0%	7	15.6%	22	-31.1%	4
17	CAR	3.4%	27	-3.0%	11	3.6%	14	3.1%	19

The Panthers’ struggles against the pass come from their inability to get pressure. This isn't a new or unexpected issue, either, as the Panthers had the second fewest sacks last year and lost two of their best pass rushers when they traded Kris Jenkins and lost Mike Rucker to retirement. They've also had problems against the run (something the Vikings just might be able to exploit), though they've done a better job than the Packers and Colts, who are ranked 23rd and 24th, respectively, in DVOA against the run.

So, the statistics say that there's hope for the Vikings on Sunday. That might not matter, however. The Vikings' do have the home field advantage and they're definitely the more desperate team, but I think the Panthers still have the edge for two reasons. The first is the Vikings' injuries. Bernard Berrian and Sidney Rice are banged up to the point where they might not be able to be effective with Peyton Manning circa 2004 throwing to them, let alone with Gus Frerotte. Adrian Peterson is having hamstring issues. And that's not even factoring in that Visanthe Shiancoe is perfectly healthy and just waiting for the perfect moment to drop a key pass.

The second reason I think the Panthers have the advantage is that this will be Steve Smith's first game back from his suspension. There are few players in the NFL that scare me more than a fired up Steve Smith. And Steve Smith will be fired up on Sunday, which, when combined with the Vikings' mediocre to awful secondary, means that, while we likely won't see him mock-rowing in the end zone, we are likely to see him do some shadow boxing there.

I think the Panthers win this one, 27-13, dropping the Vikings to 0-3 and guaranteeing that a new regime is going to inherit a team one quarterback away from Super Bowl contention. Wonder if Bill Cowher will want to coach a running game like the Vikings have?

Killing Time: Fallout from the End of the Tarvaris Revolution

Fallout from the end of the Tarvaris Revolution:

• Tarvaris' failure has shaken Brad Childress' confidence (and no, I don't think that's a bad thing--maybe it will lead to him reassessing his awful playcalling).
• Gonzo and Jason Winters are shocked that Childress would actually make the change after his hard headness this offseason.
• Cold, Hard Football Facts point out the large knife sticking out of Tarvaris' back.
• Player reactions.

Playcalling issues:
I still believe Tarvaris' development was hurt by his coaches. Would it have turned him into Jay Cutler? Probably not, but better coaching on fundamentals and better play calling could have been the difference between 0-2 and 2-0. The predictability of the Vikings' offensive game plan is pathetic, and not something that should be a problem for a third year head coach with an offensive background.

Advanced NFL Stats and Smart Football both have pieces on the negative effect of predictable playcalling.

Injuries:
Sydney Rice and Bernard Berrian are both battling injuries right now. Bryant McKinnie is still out for two more games. Tarvaris wasn't able to overcome his top two receivers being dinged up. Will Frerotte? (Probably not. Why couldn't the Vikings get a real backup quarterback?)

And that doesn't even factor in the injury to Madieu Williams, who might not have made the same mistakes rookie Tyrell Johnson has made that have lead to multiple deep completions.

And sadly, Visanthe Shiancoe is not injured, nor will he be on the inactive list.

Power Rankings:
After falling to 0-2, the Vikings continued to fall in the power rankings. They've dropped from just outside of the top ten to inside the top twenty and now, are outside of the top twenty with an average of 20.2. A win over the Panthers, who have an average rank of 7th, would certainly help the Vikings' move up, but don't expect them to get near their preseason ranking unless they go on a winning streak.

1. Cold, Hard Football Facts.com (19)
2. Foxsports.com (19)
3. ESPN.com (21)
4. CBSsportsline.com (22)
5. Dr. Z's rankings on CNNSI.com (20)

Sunday:
People are already talking about the Panthers as one of the best teams in the NFL, which is no surprise after going 2-0 against the Chargers and Bears. The interesting thing, is, according to Football Outsiders, the Vikings have a higher overall DVOA. The Panthers have higher DVOA on offense, but they're only ranked 15th, while the Vikings are 18th. Defensively, the Purple have played better, and are ranked 11th, with a -5.8% DVOA, while the Panthers have a positive DVOA (you want a negative DVOA defensively), and are 17th overall.

Then again, Steve Smith is going to be playing for the first time on Sunday, and he'll be fired up (his family is even going to be there). I fully expect him to torch Cedric Griffin like he did Fred Smoot, if Leslie Frazier makes the mistake of not keeping Antoine Winfield on Smith all game long.