Category: Football

This week, the Vikings again tower over their opponents in search popularity with the homeboys getting 3,895 team-related searches (an uptick of nearly 200 from last week) and the Titans getting only 1,797. (Read my methodology here.)

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With seven Vikings or former Vikings making the list of 2005 Hall of Fame nominees on Thursday, I thought I’d check on their search popularity. Three of the seven–Jim Marshall, Matt Blair, and Gary Zimmerman–played all or the majority of their careers with the Vikings. The rest (Chris Hinton, Darryl Talley, Herschel Walker, Roger Craig) and played three or fewer years with the Vikings. The following are their searches by popularity:

• Herschel Walker, RB, [Played for Vikings from 1992-1994]: 273
• Jim Marshall, DE, [Played for the Vikings from 1961-1979]: 67
• Roger Craig, RB, [Played for the Vikings from 1992-1993]: 41
• Matt Blair, LB, [Played for the Vikings from 1974-1985]: 29
• Gary Zimmerman, OT, [Played for the Vikings from 1986-1992]: 25
• Chris Hinton, OG/OT, [Played for the Vikings from 1994-1995]: 5
• Darryl Talley, LB, [Played for the Vikings in 1996]: 0

Chris Hovan searches (71) edge out Titans defensive end Kevin Carter (42). Daunte Culpepper‘s amazing play has begun to pique interest online; his 273 searches are nearly double the number of searches he had last week and outnumber his Titans counterpart, Steve McNair, who has 251. People may be anticipating Michael Bennett‘s return, as his searches continue to increase from week to week, this time with 133. Both Onterrio Smith (83) and Mwelde Moore (54) saw slight increases from last week, while searches for the Titans new running back Chris Brown are a robust (194) for a relative newcomer. You need to keep in mind, though, that Chris Brown is a common name, so searches on his name are likely artificially high.

Randy Moss continues to blow by everyone, breaking the 1,000 search mark this week with 1,040. While Marcus Robinson is a fine complement to Moss on-field, he’s got a lot of field to make up online with a mere 12 searches this week. The Titans most popularly-search reciever, meanwhile, is Drew Bennett with 69.

The match-up of first-round picks falls, finally, in the Vikings’ favor, with rookie defensive end Kenechi Udeze‘s 10 (which has remained at that number for awhile) outpacing the Titans’ first pick, tight end Ben Troupe‘s 5 seaches. Kenechi has a bit of an advantage though, because the Titans actually didn’t have a first-round pick: Troupe was taken in the second round.

Finally, the much-touted matchup of future Hall of Fame Anderso/en kickers–former Viking and current Titan Gary Anderson vs. current Viking Morten Andersen isn’t even close, with Gary winning hands down. Gary gets 62 searches versus zero for Morton Andersen. Only Morton’s last name is misspelt as Anderson does he get any searches, and then only 13.

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This week’s Online Buzz finds the Vikings trouncing the Saints in team-related searches with 3,699 for the Vikings and 1,207 for the Saints. (Read my methodology here.)

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Chris Hovan searches (70) edge out Saints defensive end Charles Grant. Daunte Culpepper has exactly double (182) the number of search that his Saints counterpart, Aaron Brooks has (91). Interest in the Vikings running back situation has increased, with an uptick in searches on Michael Bennett (124) and Mwelde Moore (48) from last week, while searches for Onterrio Smith remained flat (81); these compare searches for Saints featured back Deuce McAllister whose 42 searches don’t even equal the Vikings’ fourth-string back. Ouch.

The match-up of first-round picks falls in the Saints favor, with rookie defensive end Will Smith‘s 32 searches more than tripling Kenechi Udeze‘s 10. That may be a bit unfair to Udeze, however, since the Smith shares the same name as search category killer, actor/musician Will Smith, so presumably some of his 32 search are people looking for information on the I Robot star.

The most glaring example stardom versus superstardom becomes clear when you compare Randy Moss seaches against practically any team’s star player: Randy Moss’ 963 searches verus the Saints most popularly-searched player, Aaron Brooks, who had ninety-one. Or even add up all of the aforementioned Saints players’ searches, and you get 246.

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I do like the Star Tribune‘s online game photo gallery feature. I have only one complaint: They need to get a new person to write the captions for the photos because whoever is currently doing it, really has no clue.

I wouldn’t make a big deal of it if it was a one-time thing, but I’ve seen this sloppiness before. A few examples from this week will suffice.

A photo of Randy Moss going horizontal includes this description: "Randy Moss is upended in the second quarter by Rushen Jones after picking up a first down." You don’t even have to look at the photograph to know what’s wrong with this picture. Rushen Jones plays for the Vikings not the Texans, and so therefore, it’s impossible for him to upend Randy Moss. Okay, I guess it’s possible; he is one the the lesser talents on the team, so I guess he could have unintentionally upended his teammate.

Anyway. It doesn’t matter. Because the caption writer did get it wrong. Check the photo. Rushen Jones is nowhere to be found.

Example two: A photo of kicker Aaron Elling getting facemasked by Texans’ kick returner J.J. Moses sports this description: "Texans’ J.J. Moses was given a 15-yard penalty for face masking during the kick on a punt return on Vikings Darren Bennett in the fourth quarter."

Well, there are two obvious things wrong with this caption. The first hint is that the picture clearly shows that the name on the back of the jersey of the Viking in the photo begins with the letters ELL. That should have tipped off the caption writer–even if (s)he did not watch the game–that the person in the photo was not Darren Bennett, whose last name begins with the letters BENN. And if you’d followed the Vikings at all this year, you could not have avoided being aware of the Vikings maddening kicking problems and their attempts to correct them. And therefore you would know the names Darren Bennett and Aaron Elling. You would know that Elling is the Vikings kick-off specialist and that Bennett is their punter. So if you have Elling in a photo, the picture must’ve been taken during a kick-off return and not a punt return, as the caption said.

It ain’t no big thing to me personally because I know the Strib made the mistakes and I know how they should be corrected so I haven’t been led to believe something that not’s true. But I’m sure that’s not true for everyone who reads the captions.

Sure, it’s only football we’re talking about, not the war on terror or ethnic cleansing in Sudan for which the Star Tribune has got their facts wrong. But they’ve still got their facts wrong. They’re a newspaper. They’re supposed to get their facts correct–especially the easy ones. That’s what has me annoyed.

This week’s Online Buzz finds the Cowboys trouncing the Vikings in team-related searches with a whopping 11,459 for the Cowboys and 1,906 for the Vikings. (Read my methodology here.)

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In the quarterback matchups, Daunte Culpepper (161) beats out the Cowboys starting quarterback Vinny Testaverde (46) but, unforturnately, gets outsearched by the Cowboys’ backup signal-caller, the relatively obscure Drew Henson (172). The reason Henson is such a draw is most-likely due to the fact that even before the season was underway, they had a full-blown quarterback controversy on their hands when last year’s starter Quincy Carter allegedly failed drug tests and was subsequently cut by Coach Parcells. (Carter alone garnered 364 searches). Chris Hovan (50) gets trounced by Cowboys safety Darren Woodson (186); Michael Bennett (106) gets smothered by Eddie George (536); and among top picks, the 11 searches for Kenechie Udeze are a faint whisper to Julius Jones‘ 186. Among coaches, third-year guy Mike Tice (26) is overmatched against the legendary Bill Parcells (204). The only match up that favors the Vikes, is–you guessed it–among wide recievers: Randy Moss dominates here, of course. The freak gets 739 searches compared to Keyshawn Johnson (130) and Terry Glenn (19).

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Jermaine Wiggins

Our big offseason offensive pickup was TE Jermaine Wiggins, who was supposed to serve the Byron Chamberlain role of a big, soft-handed tight end who would stretch the middle of the field. Wiggins has plenty of swagger but he hadn’t backed it up on the field, until last night.

As the Strib‘s Kevin Seifert reported, Tice acknowledged that Wiggins would have been cut were it not for his six catch, 50 yard and one touchdown performance yesterday. Still, after watching him last night, I remain wary. I’ll be perfectly happy to be proven wrong, but I think he looks a bit too thick to be much of a recieving threat.

Speaking of tight ends…maybe Tice should have added another player to his list of those he wouldn’t play last night: Richard Angulo. He looked extremely impressive–more impressive than Wiggins–and he’s a huge target at six foot eight. But he sprained his knee last night. I hope we keep him.

Brett Conway

As the Pioneer Press‘ Jason Williams points out, the jury is still out on new Vikings kicker Brett Conway. His first kick0ff landed at the 17, his second kickoff went two yards further to the 15, and it was only on his third kickoff that the ball reached beyond the five, to the three yard line. But he did make his PATs, which was an improvement over Aaron Elling.

I just had to shake my head when we first signed him. The book on him was that he was injury prone. A kicker? Injury prone? How can a kicker possibly be injury prone? And how slick are we for signing one?!?

The latest edition of Online Buzz shows that people are far more interested in the Vikings than this week’s competition, the Seattle Seahawks, with more people doing Viking-related searches (1,906) than Seahawks-related searches (784). (Read my methodology here.)

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Searches for individuals again show Brock Lesnar kicking everyone’s ass with 1,651 Lesnar-related searches, more than twice as many as Seahawks-related searches and ab-so-LUTE-ly towering over his defensive-line "competition" on the opposite team, Grant Wistrom, who had only 40 searches on his name. Sadly (well, not really), I will no longer track Lesnar searches since he was cut. Daunte Culpepper (161 searches) walks all over both Seahawks quaterbacks starter Matt Hasselbeck (36) and backup Trent Dilfer (51). Randy Moss-related searches remain high with 739, far more the all of the individual Seahawks players I tracked combined (209). From the No Respect Department: Again, Vikings first-round pick Kenechi Udeze gets trounced by the opposition’s first-round pick. Udeze got 11 searches on his name compared to Seahawks rookie DT Marcus Tubbs‘ 31.

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Former Vikings/Seahawks: For fun, I decided to see how former Vikings who had played for the Seahawks fared online. Former Purple People Eater, Viking DE Carl Eller had 74 searches on his name but that number is likely artificially high because of his recent Hall of Fame induction. Eller played for the Seahawks in 1979, the last year of his career.

John Randall, another former Viking defensive lineman who played the last three years of his career for the Seahawks (2001-2003) had 21 searches on his name.

Former 4-time Pro Bowl wide reciver Ahmad Rashad had 121 searches on his name. That popularity, however, couldn’t keep him from getting a 60-plus percent rating at AmIAnnoying.com for the past three years.

Finally, the man the Vikings traded to the Seahawks for Rashad (clearly among the best trades in Vikings history) and local celebrity, Benchwarmer Bob Lurtsema had a paltry 3 searches on his name. The Benchwarmer moniker is something of a misnomer, however, because he was actually a pretty decent defensive lineman. Lurtsema had the misfortune of playing behind Eller, Page, Marshall and Larsen/Sutherland. After being traded to the Hawks, Lurts actually started 25 games for the two years he spent there.

Finally, a little treat: