Opinion

Top Five TC Storylines: The Offense

July 24, 2012, by 11 comments

I’ve said it a number of times before, and I’ll gladly say it again:  I am looking forward to this season more than any in recent history.

I can’t wait to watch the Vikings (hopefully) begin to take strides towards a rebuild and (hopefully) grow and develop into what will (hopefully) become a true Super Bowl contender in the somewhat near future.

All of that begins in Mankato on Thursday, and here are the five things I will be keeping the closest eye on when the offense takes their training camp reps.

5.  Adrian Peterson’s Health

I’ll be honest, I still haven’t figured out any upside to rushing Peterson back into action for a season that is likely to end with the Vikings looking at the playoffs from the outside.  Still, the Vikings invested an astronomical amount of money into their superstar running back, and seeing the same old Adrian at some point this season would please many fans.

So, in training camp, it is natural that a number of stories will be written about Peterson’s participation or lack thereof.  Don’t get your hopes up too high, however, as Toby Gerhart is likely to carry the load while his young backups gain some experience with the twos and threes.

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Favre: “…The Money Was Too Good”

July 20, 2012, by 2 comments

In 2009, despite the disgust from many fans and at least one hack blogger, Brett Favre joined the Minnesota Vikings and provided some of the most memorable moments in franchise history.  Months after that faithful game in New Orleans, Favre appeared set to retire for good.

So, what changed his mind?

“First of all, the money was too good,” Favre recently said on NFL Network. “The money was too good, and I hate to say it’s about money. But, you know, I felt the money was a lot.”

It is hard to remember all of the twists and turns of the circus that was the 2010 season, but I remember clearly the day that reports surfaced that Favre texted that Favre was hanging the cleats up for good.  In the middle of training camp, with Tarvaris Jackson taking reps as the starter, the Vikings brass pulled together on the field and found a way to raise Favre’s salary.  A trip in Zygi Wilf’s private jet was taken by Jared Allen, Steve Hutchinson, and Ryan Longwell in an attempt to bring Favre back into the fold.

The whole thing was a mess and it should have been a sign of things to come.  The 2010 season turned out to be one of the worst (and weirdest) in franchise history, and Favre claims he knew the magic from 2009 wouldn’t be regained.

“Now, that’s not to say I didn’t give my all,” Favre said. “It just wasn’t to be, and I think I knew that. I really know it now.”

I’m not one to pull punches when it comes to ragging on Favre, but I can hardly blame him for playing another NFL season for over $16 million.  Being on a losing team may not be much fun, but most people would do much less enjoyable jobs for that kind of money.

Adam’s Take On Peterson Situation

July 11, 2012, by 12 comments

Brett is busy compiling an extensive “Links of the Week” feature and I have finally gotten a brief moment amongst the chaos that is life to write a quick blurb.  Everybody in the world seems to have weighed in on the Adrian Peterson arrest, so this is probably a little redundant.  Still, it is a topic worthy of discussion, obviously.

I’m not going to rehash all of the TMZ “reports” and supposed eyewitness accounts, and I’m not going to copy and paste all of Peterson’s lawyer’s recent comments.  Instead, I just want to make a few simple points.

1.  Ever since hearing of the news on Saturday I have wracked my brain in an effort to imagine a situation in which it took three police officers and a pair of handcuffs to subdue me.  I couldn’t.  First of all, I’m not Adrian Peterson so one police officer (male or female) could surely take me down easily enough.  Second, I couldn’t imagine a situation in which this would be necessary if I were doing nothing wrong as Peterson asserts was the case in his scenario.  If one cop doesn’t do the trick… I have a hard time believing the guy in handcuffs wasn’t resisting arrest in some fashion.  I’ve never been to Houston, however, so maybe they really do have cops that jump people and rough them up for no apparent reason.

2.  What is the deal with Peterson only being arrested for resisting arrest?  In order to resist arrest you must have been doing something illegal to warrant the initial attempt at an arrest in the first place.  So… what were they arresting him for?

3.  I’m not one to defend criminal actions, but this is probably being blown out of proportion because of Peterson’s celebrity status.  To me, this isn’t the same as a DUI or beating up your girlfriend.  No lives were put in danger and you will be hard pressed to find many guys that didn’t have some late nights that they regret while in their twenties.

4.  I’m guessing this whole thing gets dropped because of the mess Peterson and his lawyer intend to turn this into.  This type of thing will gain extra attention during the slowest part of the NFL year, but I’m guessing it ends up living on as an obscure punch line reference, perhaps a Jeopardy question, but dies a quick death from a legal standpoint.

So, yeah, I’m not calling for his release or trade.  I’m not prepared to get on a soapbox and cry foul on Houston’s finest.  In general, I guess this thing is just kind of a yawner.

And for that I am grateful.

Bad Things Come In Threes, But So Do Silver Linings

July 9, 2012, by 24 comments

As you may have read at the onset of the weekend, I packed up the family and headed to the famous Tangle Lakes for a weekend fishing trip with long-time Vikings Territory (and Vikings Gab) reader Fran the Man.

So, after getting approval to take off of work a few hours early on Friday, I headed to the house to get the family ready to go.  These days, the family consists of Mrs. Warwas who is about a month away from having our second child and Gates, my almost-two-year-old son.  Additionally, my two brother-in-laws (ages 8 & 13) are staying with us this summer, wanting to get their fill of a true Alaskan adventure.

We were all looking forward to a peaceful fishing trip up north and I was also looking forward to yet another weekend of uneventful Vikings news.  I’m guessing you can tell from this lead in that things didn’t go quite as planned, but go ahead and continue reading if you are interested in the full story from this weekend (and some pictures, too).  This is more of a journal entry than a football post… but that’s okay, I make the rules around here!

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Adam Gives His Opinion On Leslie Frazier

July 6, 2012, by 10 comments

I am heading out for the weekend, off to meet long-time internet friend and fellow Vikings fan “Fran the Man” to do some fishing on the famous Tangle Lakes (pictured  above). 

Before trekking off into the wild, however, I wanted to get one last post up as sort of a response to a comment received under my recent post on Leslie Frazier’s USO Tour.

B. Grant wrote:  “Nice piece here, Adam. Shows some real class on Leslie’s part (and on your part for pointing it out to us). Gonna put you on the spot, now…  What’s your true gut feeling about Leslie Frazier as an NFL head coach? Is he gonna have a long term and eventually successful run here in Minnesota, or will we be looking at a different head coach in the not-too-distant future? Can Leslie be a Super Bowl champion head coach? Go ahead, give us your honest take on this.”

Okay, it has been a while since I have taken a real hard stance on something and made foolish predictions, so now seems like a fitting time to rekindle my old love for hack bloggering.

Yes!  I think Leslie Frazier can be a Super Bowl winning head coach.

Now, there is a long laundry list of reasons to doubt Frazier.  He mistakenly hung his hat on washed up veterans like Donovan McNabb and Bernard Berrian last season.  Chris Cook’s disasterous arrest prior to a Packers game and Adrian Peterson’s horrible injury during a garbage game, both happened under his watch.  Bill Musgrave, under Frazier’s authority, seemed to greatly underutilize players like Percy Harvin, Kyle Rudolph, and even Adrian Peterson at various points last season.  There was even some unexpected wishy-washy decision making at the end of the season when a hobbled Christian Ponder, who perhaps shouldn’t have been playing to start with, was replaced a number of times by Joe Webb.  Familiarity led to jobs being handed to Fred Pagac and Mike Singletary but the results were not at all favorable.  Botched challenges and too many penalties were just more signs of a dismal season.

More aggravating to me than anything listed above, and also more worrisome, were some very questionable play calls that ended up deciding games… and not to the Vikings benefit.  Who can forget Toby Gerhart’s fourth down carries against Detroit and Atlanta, both of which screamed “desperation” and signaled to the fans that the 2011 was forever lost.

Still, despite all of the negatives, I think that this is not only a new season but also a very different season and Frazier will make improvements that show exactly why he is an asset to the team.

First, there is no lockout.  Taking over a roster with a shortened offseason and two new quarterbacks as a first year head coach is not an enviable position to be in.  The negative consequences of the craziness that was the 2011 offseason were evident throughout the season, but I think we have already started to see (outside of Percy Harvin) a cohesiveness this year that just simply wasn’t there last year.

Secondly, Frazier gets to be a coach.  He put his name on enough poor personnel decisions last offseason that the Vikings ended up essentially demoting him and giving sole authority over the roster to General Manager Rick Spielman.  I think this will take a lot of pressure off of Frazier and allow him to sit back and do the two things he does best:  coach football and mentor young men.  What we saw this offseason, in the way Frazier and Spielman handled the sudden eruption from Percy Harvin, was a refreshing change from the days of Brad Childress and, while we don’t know all the details, this is the first true evidence we have to suggest the new power structure is an improvement over the old Triangle of Authority.

Cutting down on off-the-field problems, instilling a sense of discipline on this young roster, and seeing progressive improvement and development in all phases of the game are essential to Frazier’s future with the team.  No single factor will have more weight, however, than the progression of Christian Ponder.

If Ponder excels, Frazier has a future.  If he stumbles, Frazier likely doesn’t.  Fair or unfair, right or wrong, I think that will be the case regardless of how Frazier does in all the other aspects of coaching this season.  Ponder and Frazier (and possibly Spielman) are tied together with a knot that is too tight to undo.  Ponder’s improvement and success are paramount to the future of this young team, and the employment status of Leslie Frazier and his staff.

So far, all signs are pointing towards an improved quarterback situation, so right now I have no reason to doubt Frazier or his ability to turn this mess around and get started down the right track.

Okay, have a good weekend everyone!

I’m off to catch some fish.

K-Will Looks For A Longer Commitment

July 4, 2012, by No comments yet

Kevin Williams has chosen an interesting time to let it be known that he would like a contract extension, especially since he has almost no leverage whatsoever.

Williams is set to make $7 million this year which is a considerable sum considering that both injuries and a lack of production have made Williams a less-than-stellar defensive tackle over the last couple of seasons.  This could technically be a contract year for Williams, but the Vikings could also pick up an option next offseason that keeps him on the roster for two more seasons at an annual salary of over $8 million.

Nobody currently on the roster has been a Vikings longer than Williams, and speaking from his football camp this week he told reporters that he had previously approached the Vikings about making sure he stays with the team, but isn’t sure how the team feels about his future wearing purple.

“They might not feel the same way,” said Williams. “We have a lot of things to take care of between now and then. My main thing is to have a good year and whatever happens after that happens after that.”

Williams seems to recognize that the option built into his current contract gives the Vikings options next offseason, and he knows that he can’t have a bad season if he wants to earn that extension.

“But I don’t plan on doing that, and I know they don’t plan on me doing that,” Williams said. “I plan on having the best year ever, and we can move on from there. You definitely want to show you can still be one of the top guys, if not the top dog in the league.”

“I think I’ve done enough and proven myself enough in this league where — it’s like your mom tells you when you’re little, if she don’t like you enough, another one will,” Williams said. “As long as I go out and demonstrate my abilities and play at a high level, my legacy will write itself. I just try to put it on the field.”

This story won’t exactly set off some sort of crazy domino effect of reports like Percy Harvin’s shenanigans from last month, but Williams is typically an incredibly quiet dude, so him speaking about this at all just illustrates that how his career ends is weighing on his mind.

Obviously, the best scenario for everybody involved is for Williams to go out and have a killer season.  With any luck, that is exactly what will happen.

2012 Vikings Predictions – Game By Game Record Predictions (Part 3)

June 26, 2012, by 14 comments

[Note: This is the continuation of a series where I attempt (that word is extra important) to make predictions regarding the Minnesota Vikings 2012 season. The previous two iterations (Part One and Part Two) take an in-depth look at the Vikings first half of the regular season. Today, we move onward to the third quarter of the schedule.]

Since the 2012 schedule was released, I’ve maintained that the Vikings, in my opinion, have an incredibly favorable schedule. There was a caveat though: the daunting string of games where we play division opponent after division rival after division opponent. This series of games will be the Vikings true test of the 2012 season and will ultimately determine where they stand when all is said and done Week 16.

This intimidating chain of games though doesn’t really begin until Week 12 when the Vikings travel to Soldier Field to square off with the Bears. Positive matchups in Weeks 9 and 10 (followed by a bye in Week 11) are crucial for the Vikings to get ahead far enough to brace themselves for the following brutal, division battles.

So without further delay, let’s look at Week 9 when the Vikings face off with the Seahawks at CenturyLink Field.

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