Killing Time: Tomlin v. Childress, the 3-4, Daunte Clones and Assistants

• Grant's Tomb compares the approach Mike Tomlin and Brad Childress took when starting as head coach. Guess which one he liked better? (Here's a hint--it's not the one who won Football Outsiders' Keep Chopping Wood award for Head Coaches.)

• The Green Bay Packers are going to be running a 3-4 defense next year. This is both a good thing and a bad. It's a good thing because the Packers don't really have the personnel to run the defense, as Acme Packing Company explains. That will exacerbate the weakness of the defense, and de-emphasize the strengths (both of which the Acme post explains). Then again, if Tarvaris Jackson is going to be playing quarterback next year, seeing the 3-4 will cause problems, because it will require him to recognize where the blitz is coming from and adjust accordingly. I'm sorry, but I just don't think he'll be able to do that.

• Draft Countdown's most recent mock draft has the Purple taking Josh Freeman, a junior quarterback out of Kansas St. At 6'6", 250lbs, Freeman's a Daunte clone, and I mean that in a good way. Would he be the best choice? Maybe, maybe not, but make sure you check back because I'm going to breaking down the draft again like I have the past two years.

• Leslie Frazier isn't going anywhere, but Special Teams Coordinator Paul Ferraro might be. Come on Spags! Hire him! Ignore the performance of the Vikings' Special Teams. He's your best friend! You've got to offer him a job!
  

Da Bears Made More Big Plays

Well, it looks like I was right. The team that made the most "big plays" won the game. And unlike last year, when the Purple always seemed to be able to make one or two more, especially against Chicago, it was da Bears that made more, and it was da Bears that won the game.

When a team throws four interceptions, gives up two special teams touchdowns (now, I'm not the type that thinks Zygi should fire Childress now, because its too Al Davis-like and because he can fire him at the end of year, but Paul Ferraro? He needs to be fired and fired right now.) and a 51 yard touchdown pass to Marty Booker (yeah, I have no idea how that happened either), they aren't going to win. It doesn't matter if Adrian Peterson has a Purple Jesus type day or that Jared Allen has two sacks and a forced fumble. And it especially doesn't matter if you are so afraid of Devin Hester you let Chicago start every drive in field goal range for an entire half.

It didn't help that the lack of Madieu Williams and E.J. Henderson was exploited by Kyle Orton, Greg Olsen and Desmond Clark either. The Bears attacked the middle of the field and it worked to the tune of 9 catches, 133 receiving yards and a touchdown by Olsen and Clark. And the Purple made it worse by not tackling. The thing is, they weren't missing tackles so much as not attempting them. Time after time a Bears' receiver would catch a pass in a crowd of Purple and somehow emerge unscathed. Maybe the orange served as camouflage? I don't know, but that was the worse tackling by the Vikings since 2004 and it couldn't have come at a worse time.

Offensively, this was the first time since December 9th, 2001 that the Vikings' offense put up 40 points by themselves (and their QB was Todd Bouman!), and the first time under Brad Childress that they scored 30 or more without help from their defense, special teams or 250+ yards from Adrian Peterson. They might even have been able to score more if it weren't for the four interceptions, muffed punt by Charles Gordon (remember how worried I was about the lack of a real punt returner on the roster?) and inane decision by Childress to pass the ball on 4th and 1. The Purple averaged 4.8 yards per carry against Chicago on Sunday. They have the best running back in the NFL and an above average runner as his backup. Why not put both of them in the backfield and give it to one of them? It worked in the red zone. Even if you don't want to give Peterson the ball (he does have a pretty mediocre 47% success rate and has been stuffed on multiple 3rd and shorts this year), then give Chester Taylor the ball. Don't put the game in the hands of Gus Frerotte. His job is not to win games-its to stay out of the way while Adrian Peterson, Chester Taylor and the defense wins games.

Decisions like that are why there's almost no doubt in my mind that the Vikings should fire Brad Childress at the end of the year (assuming, of course, that they miss the playoffs, a pretty safe bet at this point). The special teams issues, poor roster construction and predictable play calling all reinforce that. Given the two weeks he has to prepare for the final 9 games (in which the Vikings must go at least 6-3, if not 7-2, to have a shot at the playoffs) Childress might turn into Bill Belicheck. I doubt it though.

Coming up: 3 stars (yes, there were good games by Vikings) and later this week, a look at potential replacements for Childress.

Fourth Quarter Thoughts: It's Better to Be Lucky...

(If you're trying to figure out what I'm referencing, these are all in roughly chronological order. Thoughts on the First Half and Third Quarter are below.)

• Ben Leber has been great in coverage today. He's knocked down two deep passes to go along with his acrobatic interception, one in the Third Quarter and one near the beginning of the Fourth Quarter. The most impressive part was that he was covering Devery Henderson, the Saints' deep threat both times.

• Martin Gramatica's absolutely launched the field goal that tied the game at 20. It was a 53 yarder, but it would have been good from much further back--it was still at the top of the goal posts when it crossed the bar. A tape measure field goal if you will.

• I think I understand now what Bears' fans were talking about when they said that Bernard Berrian had too many drops--he should have caught that pass for a first down.

• Either Chris Kluwe just massively screwed up, or Brad Childress should be fired for not telling Kluwe to punt the ball out of bounds. Inexcusable.

• Bernard Berrian more than made up for his earlier drop--both catches he had on the drive following Bush's second punt return touchdown were catches that a lesser receiver doesn't make. Both balls were underthrown, but he was still able to adjust, come back to the ball and hang on while being covered by multiple defenders, and, on the touchdown, by Aundrae Allison. I don't know how long it's been since the Vikings' have had a receiver with 100 yards in a game, but Berrian has 110 yards already and the 69 yards he had on that drive might have saved the game for the Purple.

• Cedric Griffin absolutely LIT UP Billy Miller. I think it was a legal hit too, despite Mike Tirico's politicking for a fine. That was Greg Blue-esque (heh). Ben Leber's coverage was pretty good on the play, but Drew Brees' pass was perfectly placed just above Leber's outstretched arms. I have to say, I've enjoyed watching a good quarterback work, even if it's come at the expense of the Vikings. We really have got to get ourselves one of those.
  

• I don't know what Sean Payton was thinking when he called his final two plays before the Two Minute Warning. Rather than run the ball on 2nd Down with 2:13 left, letting the clock run down to the two minute warning (or forcing the Vikings' to burn one of their two time outs), he called a pass, which ended up incomplete. Then he did it again on third down. And that left 2:04 in the half , a 46 yard field goal attempt (which Gramatica left--whoooo) and the Vikings with two timeouts.
  

• Yeah, I'd have to say that Bernard Berrian has more than made up for that dropped pass. Not a bad thought by Frerotte to chuck it deep on 3rd and 3 and not a bad throw either. That play doesn't happen last year and without it, there's almost no way the Vikings get down the field in time to get a field goal attempt.
  

Third Quarter Thoughts

The Saints are continuing to show that they're the better team on both sides of the ball in the third quarter, but the Vikings are still ahead, albeit barely.
(If you're trying to figure out what I'm referencing, these are all in roughly chronological order. First half thoughts are below.)

• Brad Childress continues to call outside running plays, despite the fact that the Vikings' haven't been able to block the Saints on any of them. Nothing like continuing to call plays that lead to 4 yard losses on first down when your offense has a horrible passing ame.

• Leslie Frazier is a very good defensive coordinator. The blitz he just called where he stacked Ben Leber and Tyrell Johnson behind Jared Allen was a thing of beauty, and it got Allen into the backfield untouched. I'm really excited for some team to hire him, so that he can continue the Vikings' tradition of coordinators becoming more successful head coaches than the guy they worked for.

• Once again, the Vikings' punt coverage has failed them. Vinny Cuirciu missed a tackle on Reggie Bush's punt return touchdown and the outside contain didn't stay in their lanes. One big block on Erin Henderson later and Bush was gone and the Vikings 10 point lead is suddenly 3 points. That's not a good thing against a team that's dominated the Purple on both sides of the ball.

• If Reggie Bush doesn't trip, he was going to return a second punt in a row for a touchdown. What happened to the Vikings' ability to tackle when covering punts? Husain Abudllah, Maurice Hicks,Vinny Ciuriu and Chris Kluwe all missed a tackle on that return.
  

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).

Allison v. Ferguson v. Johnson

As I noted on Friday, the folks at FanHouse had a post about the battle between Aundrae Allison and Robert Ferguson for the fourth wide receiver spot. I don't think the post goes far enough, however, as it should include Jaymar Johnson, who'll be competing with both players for the fifth reciever spot. The decision that Brad Childress makes about those final two spots will tell us a lot about him and his ability to maximize his roster. If he keeps Ferguson, it means that he cares more about run blocking and experience than receiving talent and it means that Allison will be relegated to the fifth spot, bumping Jaymar Johnson to the practice squad (if he clears waivers) and forcing the Vikings to use someone with no experience (college or pro) as their punt returner.

And that right there is reason enough to hope for the Vikings to cut Ferguson. While he's a very good run blocker, he showed last year that he just doesn't have what it takes to contribute as a receiver. His speed is gone, his hands remain suspect (he's only had one season with a catch percentage over 50% since 2003) and at 28 years old, he's not going to improve all that much.

Unlike Ferguson, both Allison and Johnson have potential to be quality contributors for the Vikings. As I've said before (and I'll say again in the next paragraph), Allison should be returning kickoffs. I've also said that Jaymar Johnson should be given every opportunity to return punts next year. If he doesn't make the team, it will mean that the Vikings will have to choose between using Bobby Wade (their best receiver statistically last year) or someone without any experience as their punt returner. I'd much rather have a talented rookie returning punts than someone without any experience at it whatsoever, which adds one more reason to cut Ferguson in replace of Johnson (assuming he has a decent training camp).

No matter what happens in the battle for final two receiver spots, I think Aundrae Allison should be returning kickoffs for the Vikings next year. Honestly, he's the obvious choice--he's returned 20 kickoffs for 574 yards, an average of 28.7 yards per return. He also returned 11 kickoffs for more than 20 yards, three for more than 40 yards and one for 104 yards and a touchdown. He did have one fumble, but the rewards more than outweigh the risks, especially when you consider that Maurice Hicks, who is an average returner at best, would be his replacement. Hicks' had a career high last year, with four kick returns over 40 yards, but it took him 63 returns to do so. His career high is 25.1 yards per return in 2006, and while he's never had issues with fumbling (he's only fumbled four times in 185 returns), he's never returned a kickoff further than 64 yards. The Vikings are team that needs offensive playmakers and they can't afford to use a solid returner when they have a returner that's a threat to score.

Childress has repeatedly said that he places an emphasis on special teams. We won't know whether that overrides his (and every coaches') desire for veterans until the end of training camp when he decides between Allison, Ferguson and Johnson for the final two receiver spots. I'd take Allison and Johnson and their upside and special teams skills over Ferguson's blocking and veteran saavy. I hope Childress will too.

Don't Kick to Hester (But not for the reason you think)

While the consensus seems to be that a football team would have to be "Packer Fan" stupid in order to kick the ball to Devin Hester, there are a few voices out their that suggest it might not be as dumb as its made out to be. And I've spent a lot of this week wondering if those voices were right.

One of the things about people is that we tend to have a selective memory. We remember the big plays, but not the average one. We tend to overrate small sample sizes. It's one of the reasons why baseball players that make flashy plays get overrated defensively--they might not have the range of another player, but because they made a jump throw (*cough* Derek Jeter *cough*) where a better player would have made a routine play, they're considered better, because we remember the jump throw and not the routine play or the numerous seeing eye ground balls that he couldn't reach.

So I've been wondering if people have been doing that with Devin Hester. When I started looking into it, I figured that Hester would have a ton of the Bears Big Plays, as measured by Cold, Hard Football Facts. He had six, one of which was his 81 yard touchdown reception against the Vikings. The rest were on kick and punt returns. The Bears have a total of 45 big plays, with 24 of them made by the defense. So Hester has 1/9 of the Bears big plays, a solid total, but not anywhere near as high as I would have expected.

That's not the only thing that struck me when I was looking at Hester's stats. He has six fumbles, two on kick returns and four on punt returns. And he's very much a boom or bust returner, only gaining more than 40 yards the five teams he went the whole way. That means over 36 kick returns and 37 punt returns, Hester only has five returns for more than forty yards. To put that in perspective, of Aundrae Allison's eleven kick returns, he has three returns for more than forty yards.

Honestly, I think there are a lot of good reasons not to give up field position because of the fear of Hester returning a punt or kick for a touchdown, the main one being that it's much more likely he'll fumble or contained than it is that he'll score.

Here's the thing though-even prior to Orton getting named the starter, the Bears have had one of the worst offenses in the NFL. They're 25th in yards per passing attempt with a 5.50 YPA and are the worst in the NFL at running ball, averaging only 3.18 yards per carry. Quite simply, their offense is a joke. And that's why the Vikings shouldn't be kicking the ball to Hester--he's the only threat the Bears have to score. If he were on a better offense, I would likely argue that giving up field position by kicking away from him was worse than kicking to him, but he's not. Now Chris Kluwe just needs to make sure that he actually gets it out of bounds.

Putting Off the Questions

Saturday's game was an interesting one, in that in answered some questions well...actually, it didn't really answer too many questions. Rather, it put them off, showing us glimpses of both positive and negative answers.

The biggest question everyone had coming into the game was whether Tarvaris Jackson had what it took to be the starting quarterback. And based on what we saw, the answer is: kind of. He started out the game by completing 9 of his first 13 passes, but then finished it with five straight incompletions, many of them on deeper throws, something he needs to improve considerably. He also showed that he's willing to stay in the pocket and make his reads, rather than pulling the ball down and running at the first hint of pressure. Of course, the fact that he didn't scramble meant that he failed to use a potent weapon in his arsenal. And there was the fumbled snap. Not the best way to start out the game. Finally, Jackson has yet to throw or run for a touchdown. I'm not sure whether or not that's something Vikings' fans should be worried about, however, since he has lead two drives that culminated with touchdowns (One of which was Bobby Wade's pass to Visanthe Shiancoe on a nifty play that SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN USED IN THE PRESEASON. There's no need to use trick plays in games that don't count. Especially when you have a quarterback that could use the red zone experience.)

That wasn't the only question that the game didn't answer. Those hoping to see whether the newest Vikings, Robert Ferguson and Fred Evans, would make an impact were left wondering if Ferguson's one catch for 11 yards (He had one other pass thrown his way) and Evans' two tackles were signs of bigger things to come or if that's all the Vikings can look forward too from their "big" training camp picks.

Not all of the ambiguous answers leaned to the positive, however. The Vikings special teams continued to be awful. Ryan Longwell missed another field goal, his third miss of the preseason. Chris Kluwe had a twenty yard punt. And that was from the Vikings' 31 yard line. The kickoff team gave up returns of 26 yds, 13 yds (after Longwell's squib kick was fielded at the 13 yard line) and 38 yards. And the return squad didn't do much better, with Aundrae Allison and Chandler Williams averaging 23 yds and 22 yds respectively.

Williams didn't make much of an impact in the return game and he also failed to make much of an impact as a reciever, catching one short pass for 4 yds. Of course, that was one more reception than Martin Nance, Billy McMullin or Todd Lowbar caught. The first round of cuts (trimming the roster to 75) comes tomorrow afternoon, with those surviving getting one more preseason game to make an impression before the roster has to be cut down to 53.

Next: Defense questions that weren't answered
After that: Can Kelly Holcombe play backup QB? How awesome are Chester and AD? And more!

Even the Vikings Aren't Perfect

Before I go into some of the negative aspects of last Friday's let me a take a moment to welcome Robert Ferguson to the Vikings. I wrote about his potential earlier, and while he's not quite a "good" receiver, that doesn't mean he won't be able to contribute. Hopefully, he'll also be able to impart some veteran wisdom to all the young'ins the Vikings have at the position.

Now, back to Friday. First off, the Vikings need to address their kick off units. Alex Reyes is awful at kicking off. His inability to kick it past the fifteen yard line played a large role in the Jets' great field position, but the coverage team should share the blame as well. It seemed like the Jets' kick returner was breaking into the second and third levels of the coverage almost every time. Not good. And the Vikings' kick (and punt) return games looked about as mediocre as last year's.

Now, this might seem tremendously important, but it is. Field position has a huge impact on a teams' ability to score and it's ability to prevent the other team from scoring. This is especially true when you consider the way the Vikings' offense and defense work. Every fewer yard the Vikings' offense has to go to score makes it that much more likely they'll actually get into scoring position. It works the same with the Tampa-2 defense the Vikings employ. Every additional yard the opposing offense has to go makes it more likely that they'll screw up their drive somehow, something the Tampa-2 is designed to lengthen anyway. This concept has been part of the conventional wisdom for awhile, and the Football Outsiders have done some work with it as well (Scroll Down to "Field Position is Fluid"). Add in the fact that the Vikings are clearly trying to emphasize the importance of field position by their style of play and it's not a good sign that they spent most of last year losing the field position battle and will likely continue to do so this year.

The other concern that arose from Friday's game was the Jets' focus on attacking Cedric Griffin. Obviously, his half hearted "attempt" at tackling Justin McCareins was inexcusable, but it was the Jets' obvious desire to throw to his side of the field (and by obvious, I mean even the announcers noticed) that worries me. Eric Mangini is a pretty good coach and if the Jets were throwing left every time, you can be sure there was a reason for it. I'm not worried about Griffin's abilities however. He earned that starting position last year by playing well. The Pro Football Prospectus had him as the 14th most successful defensive back in coverage, breaking up 58% of passes thrown his way. While he was only thrown at 61 times, that success rate was better than Antoine Winfield's, who successful defended 56% of the 91 plays in his coverage area (oh, and don't worry too much about Darren Sharper--he was the 4th best defensive back in coverage last year, successfully defending 69% of the plays targeting his coverage).

So why were the Jets so focused on throwing at Cedric Griffin? The Star Tribune postulated that it was partly due to a respect for Antoine Winfield's abilities and partly due to the Jets' success last year against Griffin last year. To be honest, I don't really buy the first rational. Make no mistake--I think Winfield is a tremendous cornerback (I even have his jersey). A lot of that is due to his ability to stop the run (PFP had him as the best corner in the NFL at stopping the run by a long shot). He's good at coverage, but he's not Deion Sanders. And something about the second reason bothers me. Griffin is a good corner, possibly as good as Antoine Winfield in coverage. And it's not like any of the other teams the Vikings played after the Jets really went out of their way to target Griffin.

So is the benefit in targeting him so great that it outweighs the benefits of throwing to all parts of the field? I wouldn't think so. But the last time a good coach decided to focus on one part of the Vikings' defense, the Patriots waltzed out of the Metrodome with an easy win and in the process created the blueprint for success against the Vikings' defense.