Killing Time: Lions Week!

It's Lions Week now! You know what that means--the Vikings get to play one of the worst teams in the NFL! Whooooooooooooo!!!!

Yes, I'm excited for the Lions to turn the ball over 5 times, let Adrian Peterson run for 150 yards and for the Vikings to get back to .500. How about you? While we're waiting for the inevitable blowout, let's see what's going on around these here internets.

• Antoine Winfield--Defensive Player of the Week. Winfield has unquestionably been the Vikings' Defensive MVP so far this year and it's not unreasonable to believe he's the overall MVP either. That snow storm that kept Winfield here until he signed was a God send--I hope it gets a bonus at some point. Jon Kitna and Kevin Seifert agree--Winfield is one of the best cornerbacks in the league (buying his jersey was definitely one my best decisions).
  

• It's all the more important that Winfield continue to play like this, now that E.J. Henderson is out for the season. Kevin Seifert has a short, but good piece on how important E.J. Henderson is to the Purple's defense. He's right--E.J. Henderson might have been the best player on the defense, which says a lot when you consider that defense includes the Williams, Antoine Winfield and Jared Allen. Ben Leber and Chad Greenway are going to have to step up, or the defense is going to run into some serious problems.
  

• According to Football Outsiders, the Vikings have a 25.3% chance of making the playoffs this year, up from 24.0% before Monday night's game. History tells us that 19.4% of 2-3 teams have made the playoffs in a 17 week season, but that doesn't factor in talent, performance or the remaining schedule. History also tells us that if the Vikings beat the Lions, they'll have a 40.0% chance of making the playoffs, but if they lose to the Lions, they'll only have a 8.7% chance of making it. That last number, of course, does not factor in the likely improvement Leslie Frazier would bring as head coach.

• Speaking of stats, Smarter Statistics argues for the use of advanced statistics in the NFL.

• Advanced NFL Stats has the Win Probability graph from Monday night's game. Unsurprisingly, it looks like a cardiograph.