Clouds are always purple for me!

Well it was probably the ugliest game I've ever had to endure last night.

• 3 First downs
• 10 penalties
• We entered GB territory only once and that was cause we started there.
• We punted every possession but 1 and that was cause we threw and INT
• We lost without giving up a TD

YIKES, was that ugly. I've questioned today if things would have been different with Brad in at QB. He at least has been capable of driving us into scoring position a few times per game. But I think with Brad in at QB we would have moved the ball better but we also would have given up an extra TD because of a turnover for TD.

Positives from the game?

• we won the turnover battle
• Smoot played very well
• The Williams tackles played great as well
• the money paid to Bubba Franks by the Vikings was worth every penny as he did his best to give us the game.
  

Thats about it, but that wasn't nearly enough. Last night the biggest glaring weakness was on the sideline. The playcalling was atrocious. There was an obvious reluctance to open up the playbook for TJ and there was an stubborn determinedness to run to the right side regardless of how unsuccessful it was. I am going to devote an entire post to the effectiveness of play-calling in the NFL, but we are lacking in this department. I'll give Childress 1 more week but then the honeymoon will officially be over. There are things I greatly appreciate about him, but there are areas that he has to significanly improve upon or his tenure as the Vikings head coach will be short lived.

Well, now we look towards 2007! Just 2 days ago we were hoping for game results to aide our playoff hopes. Now we switch gears and hope for a better draft pick. Realistically we could land as high as the 6th pick and as low as 15th depending on tie-breakers. So here is what we want to happen on Sunday...

1. Was over St. Louis - the skins have 5 wins, getting to 6 would be helpful, but they have tiebreaker since we beat them in week 1. We'll be chearing for St. Louis next week.
   
2. Cleveland over Tampa Bay - this is a shot in the dark, but if the Browns go 2-0 and we lose to the Rams we could move into the 6th draft slot.
3. San Fran over Arizona - we can't catch AZ since we beat them, but we own the draft pick tie breaker with SF so a win for the Niners permanently keeps us drafting ahead of them.
4. Miami over NY Jets - Miami is playing well and we own this tie breaker as well, but a win for them only helps us.

According to my calculations here is the current draft order.
1. Oakland, 2-12
1. Detroit, 2-12
3. Tampa Bay, 3-11
4. Houston, 4-10
4. Cleveland, 4-10
4. Arizona, 4-10
7. Washington, 5-9
8. Minnesota, 6-9
9. St. Louis, 6-8
9. Carolina, 6-8
9. San Fran, 6-8
9. Miami, 6-8
13. Pitt, Buf, KC, 7-7

We get Greenway back and then possibly a top 10 pick to have virtually 2 first rounders helping the team out next year. Soak up last night and next week, TJ, we'll need better production in 2007 than what we've seen in 2006.