The Monday Meltdown with Big Daddy Drew
Posted on December 18th, 2007 – 11:17 AMBy Michael Rand
Hey kids — sorry, we usually have the same old image with this post, but we’re having 18 different kinds of problems with WordPress today (note to the good folks there: it could be on our end, too). So you’ll have to enjoy The Monday Meltdown without any art. Please welcome back Big Daddy Drew, who loves the Vikings from a safe distance.
RandBall: Holy [redacted] did they play awful for the better part of forever last night. The offense was tentative, and the whole team looked like a combination of nervous and burdened by expectation. It was the perfect storm for one of those late-season losses that makes you hate being a Vikings fan. And yet by some piece of magic, they were able to grind out a home victory against an inferior opponent. Were those really the Vikings last night? The team I know would have lost 13-12 because of that extra point.
Big Daddy Drew: Yeah, it was sort of encouraging that they pulled it out of their butts. Good teams win even like when play like [redacted], and holy [redacted] did they play like [redacted]. I think the o-line had one of their worst games of the year.
RB: T-Jack can go ahead and never throw that loopy pass over the middle ever again.
BDD: If he was Brett Favre, it would have been a BOLD throw!
RB: How stunned were you that the Vikings didn’t just sit on it after that horrendous pass set the Bears up for their only touchdown at the end of the first half, and that the Vikings (aided by a perhaps questionable late hit) moved into field goal range and cut it to 13-6? Those might have been the most important 30 seconds in the game. Credit to Childress for taking a shot.
BDD: Agreed. That could have been a total disaster, but I give Childress credit: he’s shown patience with TJ when no one else would. Credit to T-Jack for coming back from such glaring [redacteds].
RB: T-Jack can go ahead and never leave a 13-12 game in the fourth quarter in the red zone because of a leg cramp.
BDD: Ever cramp your leg? It [redacted] hurts, man.
RB: I’m a little worried that PJ is looking to hit home runs on every play. His success earlier in the year was based on exploding to the line, never having negative plays, making an early guy miss and then going off to the races. Maybe the blocking hasn’t been as good the past couple of games, but it also feels like he’s struggling, too.
BDD: He only had one really bad run, where he passed up an open hole to bounce the play outside. Otherwise, defenders were just wrapping him up before he even got to the line. Urlacher played like a maniac.
RB: Darren Sharper. Thank [redacted].
BDD: Indeed. You know what I like? The defense hits HARD. When they hit people, they don’t keep going.
RB: Why in god’s name do you punt the ball to Devin Hester with 3 minutes to go and leading by 7. Just kick it out of bounds. Or go for it on 4th and a foot. It worked out OK, but it was inviting disaster.
BDD: Yeah, but that may have just been a mistake by Kluwe. He had screwed up those punts a couple times earlier.
RB: This Washington game is going to be pesky. Can you charter a boat for Smoot and co. sometime this week?
BDD: I’ll do my best. They’re just as baffling a team as we are. I hope the crummy Skins show up, and not the mildly competent Skins.
29 Responses to "The Monday Meltdown with Big Daddy Drew"
I think the reason they called the late hit near the end of the first half was because both T-Jack and the defender were out of bounds when the hit came. If the defender still was in bounds, no call. But his left foot was a few inches out when he hit T-Jack - thus the flag.
I live in DC and I am already getting cocky Skins fans telling me that they are going to blowout the Vikes next week.
Skins fans are much worse than any Packer/Bear/Lion/Dallas fan IMHO.
(aided by a perhaps questionable late hit)
Don’t even get me started that cost the Bears the game. If they don’t score the Bears are only down 3 at the end of the game and need a FG instead of a TD. That’s a huge difference.
God do I hate the Bears and the Vikings right now.
“cocky Skins fans”
Are these really just Spurrier fans?
They pretty much suck, but still won. As a long-time fan, I’ll take that over the standard. I would like to ask the following:
1) Why not go for 4th-and-inches on the 50, when our running game was starting to fire and the option is punting to Hester (whom Kluwe had proven unable to avoid?) and 2) Why did the Bears not use their last time-out in order to get a potential tying punt kicked to that same Hester with about 20 seconds left on the clock? The first was a poor decision by Chilly, the second makes me think (along with everything else that the Bears offensive did) that the game was rigged. I mean I’ll take it, but c’mon.
BDD, if Favre threw that ball, it would have been completed. Minor point
muxhut — good points, especially the timeout point. I didn’t realize the Bears still had one until I heard the discussion this morning (was a little, um, loud at The Park Tavern, what with the greatest hits of 1997 playing instead of the game audio). I don’t think it’s a sign the game was fixed or anything like that. Just that the Bears have given up.
That’s right, PP, the all-time leader in interceptions would never throw an interception.
BDD, if Favre threw that ball, it would have been completed cured cancer. Minor point.
Fixed…
Damn…one more try
RB, I watched that Sharper interception on a digitally recorded tape Usbed (if that’s a word) to my monitor) ….very impressive gadget that DVD recorder is…wonder what magic they use under those hoods or if they are taking a breather (they are OLD guys, you know)
Anyway, the only reason Sharper got that int. is the ball was about (measuring on-screen) 2-3 ft short. So, again I do believe Sharper, although that play was decent but not outstanding, will be gone next year or should be. He is noticeably slower and in his Pack years would have intercepted that ball even if it was on target..which it wasn’t.
BDD, if Favre threw that ball, it would have been completed cured cancer. Minor point.
On another note: I’m not good at basic HTML and should leave “fixing” things to Stu. Sheesh.
Crap. I give up.
BDD, if Favre threw that ball, it would have been completed cured cancer. Minor point.
Hooray! No one will call me a quitter.
If Favre completed that ball, they would have panned the crowd and found Jessica Simpson scouting the game
Hmmm…it’s simply stunning that P3 thinks that a player was godly during his Packer days, but the second he leaves, he’s washed up.
I’d love to see Favre go to a division rival just to see the internal battle between wanting to verbally fellate him and wanting to say he should retire because he’s not nearly as good as when he was a Packer.
RandBball, saying he threw the most ints. is like saying the vikes are the worst pass defense i.e. the Vikes are the worst, so the sad tale of woe goes, because they are thrown on the most because the Wall of Flesh stops the runs. That may be true (I think not. I just think the dbs are slow to the ball) but if it’s true, then their poor performance being linked to the # of balls thrown their way is equivalent to saying Brett, the savior, has the greatest number of ints. because he throws the most. Dig it ?
Sorry Dave, he’s not. Read some net reviews of players. He’s a decent safety but there are very many better, and yes he was alot better in Green Bay. I watched him in person there and here. His coverage is sloppier and his tackling less sure
Paul, your Favre point is actually salient to a degree, but it’s ludicrous to say Favre wouldn’t have thrown a bad INT. If he’s had one Achilles heel through all his success, it’s been the ill-advised throw. both his loyal fans and foes know it.
Rand: Paul’s point would have been salient if he’d not gone off on how that (the vikes are the worst pass defense i.e. the Vikes are the worst, so the sad tale of woe goes, because they are thrown on the most because the Wall of Flesh stops the runs.) was a flawed argument a couple days ago…
OK, OK but the point is the same…get thrown at you more, get completions against you more…run more, fumble more, yet there still are, objectively, worse ds, runners who fumble more, qbs who throw more intercetions, but to really know these you need to have the actual ratios involved and I’ve never seen, for example, the ratio of Favre’s passes over his ints. Not even sure such stats are kept.
The Vikings don’t really have the worst pass defense, they just give up the most yards, but they also face more pass attempts than any other team in the league because teams cannot run on them. It seems like a “chicken or the egg” type of argument but if you look at a more telling stat - yards given up per pass attempt - they rank 15th, middle of the pack for the league.
dano,
Yards given up per pass is a accurate measure of pass defense, but the argument that they get thrown on the most isn’t until you can ferret up some stat about what % of balls thrown at them are completed. I think they are an ok bunch, so middle of the pack might be accurate.
On kicking the ball to Hester — just about every kick off I saw last night, with a few exceptions, were ending up at midfield. Why not just kick out of bounds and give it to them at the 40? The Bears offense certainly wasn’t going to do anything to take it far beyond that point.
You’re not sure that ratio of INTs to Passes is kept? It’s a pretty easy calculation.
For his career, his INT% is 3.3. Surely not the worst (Tarkenton was 4.1%), but also not the best (Peyton Manning is 2.9%, Brady is 2.4%, Marino was 3.0%, Elway was 3.1%). Favre’s career high (ignoring the 50% in year one) was 2005, at 4.8%.
Both P3 and RandBall are right–Favre has thrown more picks than anyone else largely because he’s played a long time, and they’ve thrown a lot (he’s led the league in attempts 3 times). But he also has shown the propensity to force balls (sometimes good, drawing the oral pleasuring of announcers–sometimes not good, yet still drawing the oral pleasuring of announcers) and throw bad picks.
He’s adjusted to his age. He knows his arm strength is still there, but it’s accuracy isn’t. That’s why the Packers have adjusted as well calling mostly short to midrange balls and letting their young lunatics run after the catch. That’s also the main reason why they are division leaders.
Good call on Sharper P3. He is the starting FS in the pro bowl.
bc twins guy,
I have to disguise this old joke to get it past old man censor(as a reply to your Sharper schtick)
..but when someone gets their jollies jumping on some peer pressurized bandwagon (like you are) simply say “eat sh.t. 10 million flies can’t be wrong”…get it. I didn’t think so.
