THIS ONE COULD GET UGLY

High Flying Packers Meet Muddling Minnesota

At the beginning of the season the matchup between the Vikings and the Packers looked to be one of those circle it in red ‘cause it’ gonna be a BIG one types of games.

Now? Not so much.

While the Packers have now reclaimed first place in the NFC North after a somewhat slow start the Vikes have gone from the penthouse to the outhouse. Last year Christian Ponder was hailed as the new savior and this year he has becoming a part of the Vikings revolving door QB situation that seems to have existed in the Vikings history. Even Fran Tarkenton left the great white north.

What is so puzzling about the Vikings is the fact they have talent, in some cases tremendous

 

All Pro if not Hall of Fame) talent. Start with the raison d’etre of the Vikes, their premier, numero uno alpha dog of the pack in Adrian Peterson, as sure fire a lock for Canton as there has ever been. Last year Peterson defied the odds, medical science and virtually anything else in his way as he not only returned early from a massive knee injury he loaded the entire franchise onto his broad shoulders and carried Minnesota into the playoffs against the Pack and damn near broke the all-time single season rushing record in the process.

Ponder also had his moments against Green Bay last year. New T Matt Kalil was a plug n play from USC and looks to be a fixture for many years to come. DE Jared Allen should have welcomed the re-signing of Marshall Newhouse as Allen abused, ran around and bowled over the Pack’s Left Tackle last year in chasing down Aaron Rodgers like a hungry beast. Rookie Cordarelle Patterson showed a flash of what many expected of him when he broke a 105 yard kickoff return for a TD. Percy Harvin was another thorn in the Pack’s side and the playoff rematch was not one many Packer fans felt very good about seeing. The Packers did down the Vikes but it was apparent and obvious to everyone the Vikings were on the uptick and in a rapid fashion.

Over the offseason the Vikings had 3 1^st round picks, one a courtesy of dealing the oft injured and migraine prone Harvin to the Seahawks and another to the trade happy Patriots. The Vikings looked to have restocked the shelves nicely by adding DT Shairf Floyd, S Xavier Rhoades and WR Cordarelle Patterson. Much like the Packers the Vikings identified their weaknesses and went after them in the draft.

They also went shopping and found a bargain in Green Bay in WR Greg Jennings. Jennings

had been one of Rodgers favorite targets in Green Bay and a key component of the team that won it all in ’10. The Packers tried to learn from the painful divorce from Brett Favre how to let a former star leave without acrimony. GM Rick Spielman really has a thing about signing former Packers. Ted Thompson, Mike McCarthy and team president Mark Murphy came to the conclusion that at age 30 and coming off 2 seasons marked by injury Jennings was too expensive to keep. They did submit a 2 year deal to Jennings but GJ chose the Purple Gang’s offer of approximately $1 million dollars more. With the talent at WR Jennings had become expendable.

So it should have been a relatively quiet summer.

Wrong.

In the time it takes to say “Childress flies down to Hattiesburg to pick up Favre in the Vikings’ owner’s private plane” Jennings was anywhere and everywhere a camera was and a reporter sniffing for a story was slithering. Jennings, the hometown hero, the family man, once so revered in Green Bay took the opportunity to lash out at the Packers, the organization and even Aaron Rodgers.

To be fair it began with a joke. When asked about how he would adjust to losing one of his favorite targets Rodgers grinned and replied “Who??” Jennings took the opportunity to up the ante.

“Brainwashed” was term he used in describing the Packers approach. In referring to Rodgers he did not even use Rodgers’ name; instead he opted to call him simply by his number – “12”. His shots at Rodgers were a litany of churlishness that made Packer fans blanch, the media drool and Head Coach Leslie Frazier cringe, so much so that Frazier finally called Jennings into his office to tell him to tone down the anti-Packer rhetoric. Jennings’ theatrics bought him much face time and much like the Favre mess the likes of ESPN simply could not get enough of it or dissect it enough.

Jennings attempted to downplay his comments but saying he was just messing around, you

know, goofing and having some fun. While there may be a kernel of truth for all the world Jennings words and barbs were not only unexpected but it took the shine off his star and replaced it with a dark smudge. Ticking off the likes of an Aaron Rodgers is not exactly the smartest move to make. To give a guy who has been so routinely dismissed and pooh-poohed as to pour gasoline on an open flame to try and douse it. And Rodgers needs more fuel to his fire like the Great Lakes needs another pond beside them. It’s already big enough. With this being the final season the Vikings would play in their Hefty Bag dome this was viewed all summer as a must watch game.

And so the Shakespearean plot lines were all in place. Funny thing happened on the way to the forum… the Vikings suddenly and inexplicably forgot how to play football. While the Lions and Bears broke fast from the gate and threatened to leave the Pack in the dust Minnesota began to find new and more inventive ways to lose football games.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the sum total of the Vikings season.

The offensive line has more leaks than a Holland dike. The defensive backfield couldn’t cover a bed with a sheet if they tried. The QB mess has now come full circle with the signing of the released Matt Cassel (a KC bust and jettisoned after Andy Reid found his man in Alex Smith) and the mid-season addition of Josh Freeman to go along with the next messiah in Ponder. And the erstwhile Mr. Jennings? For the season he has 24 catches and 2 TD’s. Good, but hardly great. On the Packers those numbers would have him 4^th on the team. In Minnesota he is right behind the Vikes leading receiver Jerome Simpson in catches, yards, and yards/ catch average.

Minnesota is in a death spiral and one more loss in the NFC North could all but ensure

another cold, lonely winter in the Twin Cities. After rah rah Coach Greg Schiano effectively ran Freeman out of Tampa Bay or Freeman was the victim of an abusive and overbearing coach - depending on whose version one chooses to believe - Frazier not only jumped at the chance to sign Freeman he inserted Freeman right into the lineup. The winless Giants and the one win Minny’s hooked up in laughable embarrassment of a game so wretched that even Minnesota fans were tuning in to watch reruns of “Welcome Back Kotter” than to bear witness to the fiasco on the field.

Freeman was absolutely wretched in his performance. 13 for 48 and a passer rating of 38.9. Freeman could not have hit the water of he threw the ball from a pier at high tide. His passes sailed high, wide, fluttered, fell short, skipped, bounced, missed, were tipped, blocked or intercepted. When the “Welcome Back Kotter” crowd tuned back in the game resembled not an expected key matchup but a tragi-comedy of errors on the part of both teams. Even the MNF announcers had a hard time in this game keeping it interesting. The Vikings only semblance of offense came not from their offense but their special teams. Marcus Sherels returned a punt 86 yards for the Vikings lone score of the night.

Now the floundering Vikings face the heating up Packers in the last dance in the Metrodome. Peterson has been lost in the quagmire this year. No matter how well he plays he cannot do it by himself. The Packers are defining their new image and it now begins with a running game that not only must be respected but feared. Eddie Lacy is proving to be one of the steals of the draft. Without donning Green and Gold glasses it is no stretch of the imagination to call Lacy the best of the rookie crop of runners so far. He has not disappointed.

Peterson will be the ultimate test for a Packers defense that got younger, faster, stronger

and more athletic. And this is a defense that will have to do it without Clay Matthews, Nick Perry and Brad Jones. Peterson is a beast but beyond Kalil the Vikings do not have road graders in front of him. The Pack must force the Vikings hand and keep Peterson from repeating the past few showings against them. The Packers defense, especially in the front line has not only escaped any major injury they have become a stout run stuffing D. The equally shockingly awful team in the Giants has now shown how to stop Minnesota. It is not only a strategy used to hold Minnesota and Peterson in check it is the very reason the Packers set out to improve their running game.

New York ignored the pass completely and routinely dropped 7 and 8 defenders into the box. As Freeman pressed and became worse in the process the Vikings line looked like it was being overrun by a swarm. Peterson was beaten, battered and bottled up. The 10 point differential forced Frazier to go to Freeman. The Packers saw the converse in the past two seasons. So unintimidated were defenses by the Packer paltry run game they would simply drop into coverage and force Rodgers to beat them.

Expect the Packers to do just that to Peterson. They will force Freeman, Cassel, Ponder or Joe Kapp to have to wing it to win. As the Packers become a more balanced ball control team it will be essential to not turn the ball over and put points on the board. The greater the differential the harder it will be for Minnesota to keep pace. In their current form the Vikings simply do not have the talent base to match the Packers. For Frazier he will have to pick his poison – the slow, painful death of defending the pass while Lacy pounds inside or stuff the run and let Rodgers run wild.

One expected key matchup to watch will be between DE Jared Allen and the Packers’ rookie LT David Bahktiari. Bahktiari is another late draft pick (4^th round) who has not only filled in but stepped up to become an integral member of the offensive line. While far from perfect Bahktiari has been a huge upgrade over Marshall Newhouse and has played well against the likes of Michael Johnson (Cincinnati) and Terrell Suggs (Baltimore). Unfazed and focused would be apt descriptives for Bahktiari.

Bahktiari is a player whose talent alone should never have allowed him to slip to the 4^th

round. But buried in a horrendous Colorado offense, coming out early and falling short of some of the (over) highly regarded NFL standards for a tackle in the NFL saw him fall. Thompson was more than happy to pluck him and McCarthy has been so impressed by his play he is now no longer a rookie tackle but a starting tackle in the NFL.

The ‘Dome will likely see a significant amount of Green and Gold attendees. The media is trying to hype a “fear the divisional rival” slant to this game. Don’t buy into it. The Packers have the talent on their side of the field and the Vikings lack the horses to keep pace. Jennings, for his part, held a telephone press conference to backpedal and emphasize he was only just kidding with his acrid remarks from the offseason. He also proffered a ‘nothing but love’ posture towards his former QB.

This one could get ugly. Jennings will hug “12” in the end but Rodgers will leave the field with a smug grin. Rodgers said he would forgive his old buddy. But he added “I didn’t say anything about forgetting.”

Call it ugly. And ugly early.

 

 

 

 

 GREEN BAY 37  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Minnesota 6