NFC North Roundup: MVP, Suh Re-Signing, and Jared Allen

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Feb 2, 2015
Image courtesy of Vikings.com

Before I get started on this week’s roundup, I want to take a second to recognize this week’s Blind Squirrel Award recipient:

Okay, now that we got that out there for the world to see, let’s take a look at the topics currently surrounding our greatest enemies.

GREEN BAY PACKERS

As if the Vikings needed another reason to continue their defensive growth under Mike Zimmer, Aaron Rodgers is again the NFL’s reigning MVP and is showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, the guy only seems to get better.

Rodgers ended the season with a 65.6% completion percentage that produced 4,381 yards and 38 touchdowns. He threw only five interceptions over the course of the 2014 season. He got 31 of the the 50 possible MVP votes and J.J. Watt came in second with 13.

I personally think Watt should have been the MVP this season, but that has more to do with my opinion of Watt than it does Rodgers. It is impossible, even for the most devoted Viking fan, to deny that Rodgers is playing at anything other than a truly elite level.

DETROIT LIONS

This segment will almost certainly contain a bit about Ndamukong Suh between now and when he signs a new contract. The most recent buzz, however, suggests that it might not be too long of a wait.

According to ESPN, the Lions are making the re-signing of Suh to be their top offseason priority and team president Tom Lewand recently said on television that something could get done as soon as the next few weeks. That would come as a bit of a surprise, however, as Suh is expected to chew up a huge chunk of cap space with his next team and the Lions would certainly have to create some cap space.

The team is confident that they can manage their cap to host the giant contracts of Suh, quarterback Matthew Stafford, and wide out Calvin Johnson. The most interesting bit in that linked ESPN article, though, is that one source believes the Lions would choose Suh over Johnson if they were absolutely pressed to pick one.

Johnson recently said he would do whatever he could to help keep Suh in a Lions uniform.

CHICAGO BEARS

Jared Allen was publicly opposed to Minnesota changing defensive schemes and he ended up departing as a new scheme arrived. Playing one year in Chicago, one disastrous season, Allen will either change his tune or once again change his uniform.

So far, with head coach John Fox and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio taking over in Chicago, Allen is saying all the right things and sounds willing to try new things after playing nearly his whole career with the same essential playbook.

“It’s not that I can’t do it,” Allen recently stated. “For me, it is a question of what kind of system are we going to run? How do I fit in the system? How do we achieve our goals? These things will play out.”

Unless Chicago trade him away for DVD copy of insurance company Super Bowl ads, they will almost certainly keep Allen around for one more year, as they would have $12.5 million in dead cap space by cutting him loose.

Time will tell just how accurate that old saying about teaching old calves new tricks is.

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