Category: Football

Okay, I was wrong. When I said yesterday that the game against the 49ers wouldn’t be a test of anything at all, I was wrong. I admit it. It was a test for kicker Aaron Elling, and he failed.

I feel for the guy; even moreso as he sounds like a stand-up guy, which the Strib’s Mark Craig pionted out in his piece today by saying that "Elling didn’t duck any question after the game." That’s getting rarer and rarer these days. Still, the guy is having problems and there’s no reason they need to be our problems.

Mike Tice didn’t want to answer questions about his inaccurate kicker after the game but he had to acknowlege that Elling was an issue, saying "we can’t continue to go down this vein." Or keep opening that vein. Tice voiced his annoyance with Elling but did pull his punches. VikingUpdate appeared to be charitable by appending a question mark to their Elling on the bubble headline cause I’dve figured that after that performance, Elling was a sure-fire goner. Again, I’m wrong because ESPN has reported that Tice is going to give the guy another chance:

"If he comes back and nails his kickoffs and hits his PATs, then I’m just chalking (Friday’s performance) up as, he had a bad week," Tice said.

[You can throw your hands up now.]

It is time for Tice to look in the mirror and face the fact that he has a blind spot when it comes to evaluating kicking talent. It’s okay–Dennis Green‘s blind spot was much more damaging; he couldn’t evaluate defensive talent–just recognize the fault and address it. By finding a replacement for Elling.

The Vikings do have rookie kicker Dan Orner on the roster who has kicked a 46-yarder. But apparently, the coaches aren’t convinced in his leg-strength for kickoffs. But it’s not like Elling could possibly be any better; one of his kickoffs landed at the twenty on Friday.

Dominance & Submission

It was nice to see the Vikings completely dominating the 49ers. Not that it wasn’t expected but so often in the past we’ve seen the team struggle against teams they should beat. It has also been a long time since I’ve seen the Vikings look so crisp from the opening kickoff. If they play that way against poorer teams in the regular season, we’ll be just fine.

Looks like Tice was prescient by insisting on holding on to all his running backs when Ricky Williams left the Dolphins because it now appears that Michael Bennett‘s sprained kneee is worse than originally thought and he’ll be out from one to three weeks. It is enormously reassuring in retrospect that Mewelde Moore has looked so good this preseason.

Don’t expect this game to be a test of anything, least of all our depth at secondary. The 49ers were a bad team when they had Tia Streets, Jeff Garcia and Terrell Owens. They are a worse team now that they’ve lost them. Add to that the fact that they are a injury-plagued team right now (minus the frontline quarterback, center, defensive lineman and their one recognizable star, linebacker Julian Peterson). It is what it is and we’ll find out what it is tonight.

Online Showdown – Most Popular Searches

The Vikings are far more popular online (according to search popularity) than the 49ers, with 1906 searches related to the Vikings being performed over the past sixty days versus 1624 for the 49ers. (Read my methodology here.)

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When it comes to player-versus-player searches, Brock Lesnar is again the hands on favorite for the second week in a row, beating out not only Randy Moss, 1651 to 739, but also just edging out the entire 49ers team. Ouch! Daunte Culpepper beats both of the 9ers QBs and the only area where the 49ers beat the Vikings is on searches for the teams’ first round draft choices, with San Fran’s Rashaun Woods beating out the Vikings’ Kenechi Udeze 53 to 11:

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The importance of depth at center became apparent to the Vikings during the Falcons game when, with Matt Birk already out with an injury, Cory Withrow suffered a concussion on the first play of the game, forcing third-string center Billy Conaty into the game. As the Strib‘s Kevin Seifert points out in his piece today, the Vikings didn’t miss a beat with Conaty manning the line.

Seifert goes on to report what a pleasant surprise Conaty has been to Tice and the other coaches and says that the center could become a nice piece of trade bait, possibly commanding a conditional late-round draft pick.

Or, maybe, a back-up corner? That’d be nice.

But how ’bout this scenario that, surprisingly, Seifert didn’t broach?

Seifert reports that Conaty is also a long-snapper. In the article, he says that Tice could keep as many as 10 lineman, but carrying three centers is luxury few teams can afford. Tice has complained about incumbent long-snapper Brody Lilliard, whom he says has a hitch in his snap. And, in order to spur Lilliard to fix his hitch, he brought in Cullen Loeffler to compete with Lilliard.

Well, if you’ve got a guy who so far has cost you nothing, who’s proven to be a quick study in picking up the offense, who’s proven himself capable of handling the duties of a center during much of a preseason game, and who is a long-snapper, why not have Conaty compete for the long-snapper position?!? If he wins the job, you’ve got your long-snapper (minus the hitch) and you’ve got an emergency center you can feel confident about. And you’ve got an extra roster spot to boot!

Is it just me, or is that a no-brainer?

Kevin Seifert‘s piece in the Star Tribune today is headlined "Injury talk irritates Robinson." Well, that’s funny cause it sure as hell is irritating me and I’m sure plenty of other Vikings fans. Especially the injury talk coming out of Robinson’s own mouth, the talk that says he needs to be 100% before he can play. The Pioneer Press‘ Bob Sansevere properly tears into Marcus Robinson for his primma donna attitude over what Coach Mike Tice calls a "mild, mild [hamstring] strain." Sansevere quotes Tice’s dripping sarcasm regarding his new number three receiver:

"He’s one of those gifted athletes who I guess needs to be right all the time. I’ve never been right, so I don’t know what it would be like to be 100 percent. I guess he feels like in order to have his great abilities come through, he wants to feel better than he’s feeling.”

Robinson, however, seems oblivious to Tice’s obvious irritation , telling Sansevere "When I go out there on Sunday, I need to be 100 percent. If you can’t run 100 percent in this offense, you’re not going to make it.”

Dude, you just signed a four-year, $9 million contract. You’re playing opposite the most talented receiver in the world–a zillion times more talented than you–and who will make you better by the mere fact of his presence on the field. Not to mention that Moss himself is playing through the pain of planter fasciitis. Get out on the field and play!

Mike Tice says that the Vikings’ starters may play into the second quarter and Falcons coach Jim Mora, while non-committal about Michael Vick, has indicated that his starters will probably play into the second quarter as well.

That will be nice because it will give Vikings fans plenty of time to watch running back Onterrio Smith, whom it looks like will be joining Kenny Mixon in exile for the first four games of the season. KFAN broke the story that the sophomore back faces a suspension for violating the NFL substance-abuse policy. The KFAN story points out that it is the third violation that triggers the four-game suspension. They speculate that Smith may have entered the league in the first phase of the policy due to substance abuse problems in college.

The violation? He tested positive for marijuana. Smith was tossed out of the University of Tennessee after testing positive for pot and, in 2001, was arrested for drunken driving. This all explains why the guy fell into the fourth round to the Vikings. It’s a bit hard to complain, considering that at the time he was widely considered among the top three tailbacks in the draft. It’s the price you pay, I guess.

Kevin Seifert of the Star Tribune reports that if any appeal fails, Smith "will be ineligible to play until the Oct. 17 game at New Orleans. He also will forfeit four game checks, worth $71,764." [My emphasis.] Well, O., I hope it was good ganja, ’cause that’s one mighty expensive joint! In the same story, the Strib also reports "Second-year player Larry Ned, who likely would have been a final cutdown casualty, now almost certainly will make the team. "

Hmmm….currrrrious. I wonder if Ned and O. hang out together?

Finally, from the Dubious Declaration Department, this: Viking Update‘s Smith story closes with this doozie of a sentence, "Smith remains with the team in Atlanta, but his long term future has come into question."

Really?!? I guess that’s true in as much as any player’s long-term future is in doubt in the NFL. The Vikings passed on a chance to sign a replacement for perennial trouble-maker Kenny Mixon during the offseason, knowing that he’d be suspended for the first four games, so why would the Vikings abandon O. Smith? They paid a clearance sale price for the guy by drafting him in the fourth round and if he continues to perform the way he has, there’s no reason to think the Vikings will all of a sudden dump him because of his first suspension, especially when you consider how deep we are at running back.

Falcons’ top pick (eighth overall) DeAngelo Hall will get a major test today lining up against Randy Moss. The delightful benefits of the mismatch created by making a rookie cover Moss usually accrue to Vikings fans, but you never know; I seem to recall expecting the same when Moss first lined up against one Mike McKenzie, who, at the end of the day, didn’t do such a bad job against Super Freak.

Speaking of cornerbacks: As the Strib’s Seifert points out, with Brian Williams out, tonight’s game will be a good test of the Vikings’ secondary depth.

While reporters interviewing reporters smacks far too much of journalistic incest for my tastes, it nevertheless provides some context to the great videos of the team at training camp that the Star Tribune hosts in their multimedia section. The video features sports editor Willard Woods interviewing beat writer Seifert as the voice-over that accompanies the pictures.

Lastly, another annoying journalistic idiosyncrasy is the way that media outlets handle swear words. I understand that kids will be reading the paper–especially regarding the sports section–and you’d get an avalanche of criticism if you printed those swear words. but it does beg the question of who, exactly, they’re fooling.

Last Wednesday, the Pioneer Press had a textbook example. In a story about Tice’s goofy attempt at instilling the power of positive thinking in his team, the paper printed this quote by Coach Tice: "I told them, if you walk around telling yourself you feel like (junk), you’ll feel like (junk)."

He’s saying "shit," right? I mean, that’s what I’d say. The word gives the sentence a natural feel: "I told them, if you walk around telling yourself you feel like shit, you’ll feel like shit." It is, I’d hazard to guess, a fairly frequently used word from Tice’s lexicon. Do you really think the kids reading that don’t get what word he’s really using?

Online Showdown – Most Popular Searches

If the frequency with which people are searching online for Vikings versus Falcons information is any indication, the Purple should crush the Falcons tomorrow. How do I know this? It’s my job to know; it’s what I do…[FADE IN TRIUMPHANT MUSIC]…I’m a search engine marketing expert! And so, having such highly-valued skills, expertise, and knowldege, I thought I’d put them to work for Vikings fans worldwide. (That’s how much I care.)

The following graph (see my methodology below) shows just how much more popular Minnesota Vikings related searches are versus Atlanta Falcons searches. Most people using general phrases to find information on the team (e.g. "minnesota vikings") or they are looking for team-related merchandise (e.g. "minnesota vikings seat covers"). Among the Vikings-related searches is one that Vikings fans will find particularly painful: "minnesota vikings vick 173 highlights." Ouch. That was the December 1, 2002 game in which Michael Vick rushed for 173 yards while beating the Vikings in overtime.

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But if you go by individual player searches, the Vikings don’t fare too well. Michael Vick-related searches (3,634) outnumbered searches for all the Vikings players I tracked combined (2,948). Poor Daunte Culpepper: There were only 266 searches for information on him. With the exception of Michael Vick, Randy Moss gets more searches than all other Falcon players I tracked combined. But he’s not the most-searched-for Viking: That honor belongs to professional wrestler cum defensive tackle Brock Lesnar. Marcus Robinson edges out both Falcons receivers Peerless Price and Dez White combined. But the Falcons beat the Vikings on head-to-head matchups between running backs (Warrick Dunn gets 108 searches versus Michael Bennett‘s 64) and first round picks (DeAngelo Hall gets 55 to Kenechi Udeze‘s 15).

Michael Vick Is Gay Rumor

Searches for information on Michael Vick were inflated somewhat due to the Internet hoax that Vick had come out of the closet (he’s denied it on a radio show): Of Vick’s 3,634 searches, 438 were related to the gay hoax.

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Methodology: I’ve compiled searches from the Wordtracker.com database, filtered the searches for irrelevent search phrases, and the resultant charts are based on those phrases. The numbers cited are a compilation of related searches; so, for example, for "Minnesota Vikings" searches, I add all related searches together (e.g. "minnestoa vikings" and "mn vikings", etc.) to arrive at a total seach number. These numbers were compiled today, August 19, 2004 and reflect the number of times people have searched during the past 60 days.

Behold, The Bright Football Player!

The Pioneer Press‘ Jason Williams runs with the obligatory "smart athlete" story today with his article "Scholar-athlete Moore seeks a less hectic lifestyle." Moore is definitely a very impressive young man but I always get a kick out of these stories because it’s like, hey! the guy’s smart! You’ll recall that we had the same stories when Robert Smith was our running back. I guess it must say something about say something about your average professional football player if having a smart guy on the team is such a novelty story to reporters. Still, it seems awfully stereotypical.

The locals all focus on the nascent investor group from Arizona looking to maybe buy the Vikings. It’s a story I’m not that interested in, frankly; having watched and commented on the stadium battles over the years, it ain’t something I get all worked up about anymore.

I very much doubt the Vikings are going anywhere, regardless of who owns them and not because of their "iron-clad" Metrodome lease. I don’t think they’re going anywhere because at the end of the day, the Vikings (and, for that matter, the Twins) aren’t just another business. They’re an emotion. They’re are our memories.

John Holler‘s piece at Viking Update illustrates what I mean. The title of the article–"Et Tu, Red?"–betrays Holler’s emotions. In the article, he talks about his memories around which the Vikings revolve. And there’s the rub. Professional sports teams are perhaps the only type of business to which ordinary people have such an intense emotional attachment.

Finally, though, I believe the Vikings will eventually get a new stadium for purely pragmatic reasons: If we let them leave, five years from that date we will be clamoring to bring the NFL back to town and we will be promising to build a state of the art stadium to lure a team here.

And that stadium will cost a hell of a lot more than a stadium we build to prevent the team from leaving in the first place.