NFC Power Rankings Week 10

The wait is finally over, here are the Power Rankings.

1. Dallas (8-1) - beat one of only NFC contenders
   
2. Green Bay (8-1) - played best game of their season last week
   
3. NY Giants (6-3) - needed a better showing, clearly a gap between 2 and 3
   
4. Detroit (6-3) - barely hanging on to #4
   
5. Seattle (5-4) - best of this mediocre group (5th thru 10th)
   
6. Tampa Bay (5-4) - chance to win a few games in the next 3 weeks
   
7. Washington (5-4) - lost to Philly hurt playoff hopes a bit
   
8. Philadelphia (4-5) - big win over Washington but playoffs are still a ways off
9. Arizona (4-5) - beat overrated Lions, big deal
10. Carolina (4-5) - LOST to Atlanta, things will get ugly for the Panthers
11. Minnesota (3-6) - welcome to the roller coaster that is Brad Childress
    
12. Chicago (4-5) - bad team beat a bad team
13. New Orleans (4-5) - lost at home to previously 0-8 Rams, NOT back
    
14. Atlanta (3-6) - remember when they were 1-6?
    
15. San Francisco (2-7) - remember when they were 2-0? me neither
    
16. St. Louis (1-8) - put in on the boarrdd!
    

Know how I know you're gay?...

WARNING: Lambeau Leap may be hazardous to your sexual orientation!

This is almost too easy. Here is a little primer before the pics below...

CAPTION THIS

A bounce here and a bounce there

Chalk this one up as another game where if you change just one play the Vikings get a W.

• Detroit - FG hits the upright
• Kansas City - botched TD call by the refs gives Chiefs a W

Green Bay this week, I'm telling you IF...

• Purple Jesus would have rushed for 200 more yards
• Bollinger would have hit open receivers
• Childress called a better game
• the Defense didn't go into hybernation
• and if Brett Favre wasn't a tool

We would have killed the Packers. It is at times like these that I can't help but echo the sentiments of Redskins LB, Randall Godfrey...

"That was blatant disrespect. I hope we can see them again, definitely."

That's right I can't wait to see the Packers in the playoffs (if they even make it)! We'll show them!

On a side note be sure to post your best caption on The Nose Bleed's Blog.

GRADES

Offense (F) - playcalling, execution, blame whoever you want but the KAO is bad, the game plan was bad and the players asked to execute it were bad.

What bothers me most is the mind set. Other teams face the Vikings and come up with a gameplan that is intended to exploit our defensive weaknesses. Green Bay came in with screens, draws, shovel passes and spread formations to exploit our pass defense and make it hard for our LBs to get to Favre. It worked great.

What the KAO does is run our stuff and run it over and over and over again. If the opposing defense stops it, we keep running it. This works great when the other defense can't stop us (see San Diego and Chicago games). But it is awful when the other defense thinks to stop Purple Jesus. When they do that we seem to be unable to adjust and come up with alternative plays that might work.

There are many who are upset that we kept running to the right side of the line. You may recall that we did this in the first Green Bay game as well. Childress commented at that time that we were doing it because the coaching staff thought Kampman often rushed upfield so we could run by him and get PJ into the 2nd level. It really wasn't successful then and it clearly didn't work this week, but did we adjust? Nope. The gameplan said that would work so by golly it is going to work.

Defense (C) - a lot has been made of Ryan Grant getting 100 yards. I'm not too concerned. I didn't see this as a total breakdown on run defense. Grant had 2 plays where there were defensive breakdowns on the first drive. After that he had 77 yards. 2nd half was 13 carries for 27 yards.

I know the defense gave up 34 points and nearly 500 yards, but I pin this loss on the offense. The defense got WAY more camera time than the offense did. Time of possession was doubled in the Packers favor. This defense is designed to give up plays in short yard increments. If teams are capable of putting together a 12 play drive that ends in a TD more power to them, more often than not they'll make a mistake and have to punt. When Brett Favre is managing an excellent gameplan things will be tough on this defense. What would really help is the offense making a first down or two.

Hopefully THIS will make you feel better!

NFC Power Rankings Week 9

I skipped Week 8, but after a Viking win I have to put out Week 9's Power Rankings. I think there are 3 teams that are clearly ahead of the rest. After that it is anybody's guess who will make the playoffs.

1. Dallas (7-1) - best team in NFC
   
2. Green Bay (7-1) - wins ugly, but still wins (except for that Chicago thing)
   
3. NY Giants (6-2) - great D and hot, should be a fun game v. Dallas
   
4. Detroit (6-2) - this pains me but they are deserving to be at #4
   
5. Seattle (4-4) - OT loss @Cle isn't the worst loss in the world
6. Washington (5-3) - beating a bad Jets team doesn't make up for NE debacle
   
7. Tampa Bay (5-4) - inconsistent and mediocre (welcome to the NFC)
   
8. Carolina (4-4) - 2 straight losses but losing to Indy and Tenn was expected
   
9. New Orleans (4-4) - what the hell...?
10. Philadelphia (3-5) - beat MN so they have to be ahead
    
11. Minnesota (3-5) - why can't they dominate line of scrimmage like that week to week?
    
12. Chicago (3-5) - Jim Harbaugh at QB isn't getting it done
    
13. Arizona (3-5) - 3 game losing streak
    
14. Atlanta (2-6) - a win, a win, hooray!
    
15. San Francisco (2-6) - New England has your pick, start winning would you?
    
16. St. Louis (0-8) - didn't lose to BYE last week, moral victory?
    

In Case you Didn't Hear

Adrian Peterson (aka "All-Day" or "Purple Jesus") had a pretty good day running the football yesterday. I'm pissed, what was he thinking? Seriously, how are we going to get a top 5 draft pick (and get a future QB) if he goes out and wins games by setting NFL rushing records and stuff.

Yesterday was pretty amazing to witness. The Vikings have something special here and they need to make sure they do 2 very important things...

1. Keep him healthy!
2. Build a real team around him!

You won't see me this tempered very often but here is what has been lost in all of this Purple Jesus hysteria.

The Following had their best performances of the season (beyond Peterson)

• EJ Henderson - his statline isn't impressive but EJ was all over the place. He had a great day. Going into the game I was very worried about 2 things, Ladanian Tomlinson and Antonio Gates. Slowing either (or both) of these guys was going to take a tremendous effort by EJ Henderson (and the other LBs). Tomlinson finished with 40 yards rushing and Gates had 1 catch for 10 yards.
• Cedric Griffin - with Winfield out Griffin had to step up. And he did, having his best day as a Viking. 2 passes defensed that were both very good plays. The Chargers 2 best receivers (Chambers and Jackson) combined for 6 catches and 75 yards. For a pass defense that has been scary bad all year this was a great game let by #23.
• Chester Taylor - had his best day of the 2007 season. 9 carries, 60 yards, 6.7 avg and 1 TD. Everybody wants to give PJ the ball 40 times a game but maybe sharing the load is aiding him in racking up huge 2nd half yards. Taylor has now been the backup RB in the 2 greatest single game rushing performances in NFL history.
  
• Offensive Line - While Peterson was amazing on Sunday, let's not forget the guys who gave him massive initial holes. 296 is awesome, but so is 378 which is what the entire team had because of this offensive line. They haven't dominated a line of scrimmage like this all year. The Bears game was great, but that rush D has been struggling all year. The Charges rush D was 7th in the league giving up only 88.9 yds/game, not anymore!
• ADRIAN PETERSON - after a ho-hum 43 yards on 13 1st half carries, he breaks out 253 in the 2nd half. Incredible. When Jamal Lewis set the previous record he had a paltry 5 carries that netted over 10 yards. AD had that in the 4th quarter alone and he had 9 total. There are a number of impressive numbers for Purple Jesus but ultimately it comes down to the fact that this kid is 8 games into a career and he has already turned the league upside down. It's not like he was running against the Gopher defense, the Chargers are were one of the best teams in the dominant AFC. They were manhandled on this date and then run over by Purple Jesus.

GRADES

QB (B+) - all this position had to do was hand the ball off. I thought Jackson was having a solid game before getting knocked out. He picked up 3 1st downs through the air and used his legs for 2 carries of 9 and 10 yards. All in all that is about what we can expect from him at this point. Bollinger stepped in and did admirably. His injury may have been the stimulant to Peterson's big day. When you are down to your 3rd string you run, run and run. Then you take 1 shot over the top and he completed it.

RB (A+) - nothing more to say really.

WR (C+) - not their fault really, they were just irrelevant. Rice had one of his best days as a pro. Solid day, but nothing impressive.

OL (A) - Bollinger was destroyed on his first play from scrimmage but other than that it was a near perfect day.

DL (A-) - only 1 actual sack but had pressure on Rivers ALL DAY. I would have liked to see the safety instead of a facemask, but I'm just getting greedy.

LB (A+) - I was very happy with this group, their rush and pass defense was exactly what it had to be.

CB (A) - My favorite play all day was Dwight Smith's tipped pass on the deep ball down the Viking's sideline. That got me more excited than anything else.

Fun day to be a Vikings fan and the perfect game to lead into Packer Week. Unfortunately Peterson's performance still only counts for 1 win and we are still sitting at 3-5 (with no significant NFC wins). The worst thing that can happen to this team is we finish 7-9, miss the playoffs and get stuck outside the top 15 draft picks. If you want to make the playoffs you need to rattle off a few wins in a row. Starting NOW.