Every Monday, we trade e-mails with Drew Magary, a Vikings fan living in the Washington, D.C. area. Drew is a noted author and blogger. We’re told his book makes an excellent holiday gift, but we wouldn’t know because all our friends are illiterate. He is also known as the “MacGyver of Snacks” for being able to sustain himself for an entire Sunday on nothing but a stick of beef jerky, a bag of Starburst, a cup of flour and some tin foil. Finally, if nothing else, he has proven to be an even more pessimistic follower of the Purple than we are. And that is tough to do. Here we go:

RandBall: How’s Leitch doing?

Drew Magary: He’s doing fine. He forgot, as did I, that 95 percent of all Minnesotans retire to or vacation in Arizona. There were more Vikings fans at that game than there are Vikings fan at Metrodome Vikes/Packer games. That annoyed him, as he knows full well that the Cards will be playing Dallas in Round 1, which makes it a virtual Dallas home game.

RB: Ken Whisenhunt wins the Awful Challenge Award for Sunday. He challenged two calls in the first nine or so minutes (the first was somewhat reasonable but he lost [Griffin’s pick], the second was Amy Winehouse as a babysitter bad [the strip by Winfield]). So he lost two timeouts and couldn’t challenge a call the rest of the day. Come to think of it, the coaching all day for Arizona seemed pretty terrible. I assumed they would carve up the Vikings with short passes. I thought Warner had a quick release. Why did it always seem like he was holding the ball forever? Was the coverage that good, or did they have a poor plan of attack?

DM: Warner ALWAYS holds the ball far too long. He’s always been conditioned to look downfield first. He’s never been a good short range passer. I agree that Whiz seemed to be throwing red flags for the heck of it. On the other side, how about Childress? He made the two excellent challenges last week, then he makes the good challenge on the Purple Jesus fumble. I also, GASP, liked the play calling yesterday (because they ran 45,000 times). In particular, I thought the call on the Chester TD was brilliant. I mean, it was a joke how easily he got in. I still hate Paul Ferraro, but between this game and Childress’ “vodka as big as your head” line, I’m almost beginning to not hate his guts.

RB: Adrian Peterson. MVP? It’s sure not Warner.

DM: Someone at KSK made the comment, and I agree, that no quarterback belongs within fifty feet of that award this year. It belongs to a defensive player, or someone like Michael Turner or Purple Jesus.

RB: Jared Allen, two more sacks. I expect to see skullets everywhere here in about 6 months. It’s a fun summer look.

DM: And he’s doing it while clearly more hurt than he’s letting on. In retrospect, that trade grows more and more insane by the way. Why did the Chiefs ever let him go? I’ll never understand that. Amazing.

RB: Bernard Berrian: Set. The. Tone.

DM: He seems to be good for at least one big play every other game or so. As up and down as he is, the fact that he makes that occasional deep catch is what allows the Vikes to run the ball 400 times in a single game.

RB: But your Monday Meltdown Player of the Week (sponsored by the Springfield Lemon Tree): Tarvaris Jackson, who removed the “Much-Maligned” from the start of his name and the swear words from the end of it with his four-TD performance and 135.5 QB rating. Gus was gutty in making enough plays to guide them to an 8-3 record. But I’ll say it again: T-Jack gives this team the best chance to win right now. He threw a great deep ball to Berrian, made a great third-down throw to Rice for the TD, set up the middle screen to Taylor for the TD beautifully and absolutely nailed the TD throw to Wade. There is no controversy. Play Jackson.

DM: I agree EXCEPT for a few things. First off, he was excellent. Totally different player. He’s not wasting time trying to make chicken salad out of chicken [redacted]. He’s far more relaxed, and I think that’s come from seeing how Gus has driven the car for the past ten weeks. His throw to Berrian was brilliant, and this is the second game in a row where he’s made easy first downs on tough third downs. So I think it’s fine if Gus “needs more time” to heal his back. But I tell you this now. If T-Jack even begins to revert back to his beginning of the year form, he needs to get the hook immediately. He needs to know there are consequences if starts being Mr. Fraidy Cat again.

RB: Things I loved: the TD drive after that blocked FG return; the way the Vikings relentlessly pressured and blitzed Warner, even in the second half; the punt return by Berrian.

DM: Yep. I agree. And I think the really interesting test will be next week against Atlanta. Because you could argue the Cards took the day off yesterday. So I’ll be interested to see if they can keep it up against a good team that is [redacted] dying to make the playoffs. I also like the way the NFC sets up for the Vikings right now. Odd as it may sound, two of the teams that they match up very well against are the Giants and Panthers. They shut down the run of those two teams and force their QBs to win games on their own, which is dicey. It’s the mobile QBs like Garcia and Romo that match up far better against the Vikings D.

RB: That’s 9 wins in their last 12 games, including a 6-1 mark since the bye. They’ve won 4 in a row, three of them by at least 18 points. Did I speak too soon last week? Is this a team that, courtesy of their running game and defense, could actually be rounding into dangerous form if they make the playoffs? And is it time to ease up on Childress?

DM: I agree, except that it changes week by week. They could easily go and lay an egg next week. They haven’t even clinched a playoff spot yet, and Lord knows they’ve screwed up their shots at the playoffs before.

RB: I think the magic number is 1 now. As in, any one win by the Vikings or loss by the Bears gives the Vikings the division title. A win in either game for the Vikings guarantees them a better conference record. A loss to the Packers by the Bears gives the Vikings a better division record. And a loss by the Bears to the Texans would give the Vikings a better record against common opponents. In all cases, the Vikings would do no worse than a tie in the previous tiebreakers. Will you recheck my math. I’d hate to be wrong about this.

DM: I think you’re right. I’m too lazy to prove otherwise.

RB: One thing that requires no math: the Packers will not make the playoffs.

DM: If the Jets also fail to make the playoffs, I will drink my weight in egg nog.

Call me crazy, but there is at least an outside chance the Vikings could get a first round bye. Now, this takes a hit if the Giants win tonight [note: which they didn’t], but if they lose at Dallas [note: which they did], both the Giants and Panthers will have three losses. Those teams then play each other next week, meaning one of them will have four losses. If the Vikings beat the Falcons, they go into the final week of the season with a shot at a bye. Say the Giants lose to both the Cowboys and Panthers. That would mean the Vikings would play the Giants in Week 17 with a bye on the line. If the Giants beat the Panthers, then the Vikings could still earn a bye if they beat the Giants and the Panthers lose at New Orleans in Week 17.

DM: I think it’s too easy to start looking at all this “HEY! Everything might turn out awesome!” scenarios before realizing HOLY [REDACTED]! MICHAEL TURNER NEXT WEEK! The one thing they’ve done very well the past few months is not look ahead and buy into their own [redacted]. So if they get a bye, great. But I doubt they or I really give a [redacted] until that playoff spot is clinched.

RB: Of course, as someone who has watched 25 years or so of Vikings football, I still always expect the worst.

DM: As do I. GAHHHHHH PAT WILLIAMS IS HURT NOOOOOOOO

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 11:33 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.