After every Vikings game, we exchange e-mails with Drew Magary, award-winning blogger of Kissing Suzy Kolber and Deadspin semi-fame. You might remember him from any number of foul-mouthed rants or that one time back in 1999 when he cleverly put out that fire in your mouth despite earlier promises to the contrary. Big Daddy Drew lives in the D.C. area, but he is a huge Vikings fan. He also recently authored a book, “Men With Balls,” which he assures me is a delightful treatise on equipment managers and not in any way a double-entendre (and thus suitable for print on this blog). You can buy his book here, or you can have him come over and read it to you for an extra $25 and a nice glass of Chardonnay. Let’s do this.

RandBall: Tarvaris Jackson — what did he learn in the offseason? Looked like nothing.

BDD: Agreed. Same problems as before. Missing throws badly, especially on quick slants. And either the coverage was great last night or he can’t find open receivers. Also, the pass protection was awful.

RB: Jared Allen — Does he play for the Vikings?

BDD: Yeah, he got swallowed up by Clifton. That was stunning to me. Where was the beast from last year?

RB: Is it possible, for once, to have a game plan that doesn’t look tentative? Seriously, if there is so little faith in the offense (and the quarterback) to execute high-reward plays, then they need a new offense (or a new quarterback). The predictability and limits, particularly in the first half, doomed them to failure. Rollouts where the option is throw it away or throw it for a four-yard gain to the one guy in the pattern?

BDD: Agreed. Jaws even pointed out that the game plan lacked imagination. It was either straight run or straight pass. It looked like a Lloyd Carr offense.

RB: When there is a fumble, you dive on it. You don’t try to pick it up and run with it. [Redacted!!!] Sharper, you are better than that.

BDD: Eh, plenty of guys try and do that. I wasn’t that upset about that. They’re coached to try and get a TD out of fumbles like that. I thought the replay call on the Shiancoe catch was idiotic. HE CAUGHT IT!

RB: This game encapsulates everything I was afraid of: that the personnel changes were nice but more cosmetic than real; that Jackson really hadn’t taken a big step forward; that Aaron Rodgers was going to be pretty decent. Etc.

BDD: Agreed. They looked like the EXACT same team from last year.

RB: That said: I think gloom and doom is a little severe. They lost by 5 and had a chance to win at the end (if they had a scheme and QB that were able to function in a 2-minute environment).

BDD: True, but if the QB has shown no real signs of improvement, and his backup is a real stiff, are you really all that happy about the January prospects here?

RB: I don’t know why I’m not more upset. I should be, right? Maybe I’m taking my emotional flatline from the play of the Vikings yesterday, when only Adrian Peterson really seemed to give a [redacted] (except for when T-Jack tossed his helmet at the end. Ooooh).

BDD: I didn’t think they played flat. I thought they played BADLY, which is far more discouraging.

RB: Indy. Carolina. Tennessee. New Orleans. That’s next. Whaddya think? 2-3?

BDD: You never know. Who thought Chicago would beat Indy? You just never know.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.