The Vikings did wind up winning the first matchup, at their house, by seven points. When Rodgers wasn’t being knocked flat, he moved the ball pretty effectively through the air, and that was with Antoine Winfield, not Paymah, playing defensive back.

Now you have the Packers in Lambeauuuuuu Fiiiiiield, playing to stay in the division race. Oh, and there is that guy who used to play for them—Longwell? That might be a motivating factor for Green Bay.

Thought I’d get those out of the way before the Cheeseheads do. I actually think the Vikings will win Sunday, because the Packers have not really upgraded that porous o-line, and their defensive front is primed to get gashed by AD. However, if I were an objective observer, or oddsmaker, I would definitely see this game as a toss-up, for the reasons listed above.

But this year is different our Vikings are on a mission: they have come from behind to win games they would have lost before, the offense is rolling, the defense only gives up big yards after the game is decided, and our Vikings have a confidence and swagger about themselves that cannot be taught or given, they have have earned it with hard work and dominating play…yes I said it dominating.

 In years past I was losing my hair watching our Vikings blow games they should have won, but now I watch each game with excitement knowing that we have the talent , the leadership, and the vision to impose our will on anybody. I am looking forward to a blow out this sunday and I am going to enjoy watching our beloved Purple march into Lambeau and make a statement for all the rest of the league to hear…the Vikings are coming! Go Vikes!

You would think that after last weeks game, when we showed we can play with anybody, we would get a little bit of respect, but nooooooo.. Anyway, I dont believe that GB can move the ball on us, and I know that we can move the ball on anybody, so this game does not trouble me. The only thing I hope for is that Brett’s emotions dont get the better of him and that he doesnt try to do it all. If he continues to play the game he has been playing so far this year then we are in good hands. He knows how to use all his tools in order to keep the opposition guessing. Go Vikes!!

I don’t think anyone is truly worried about Grant, but we don’t want to see rodgers throwing 400+ yards. I think this time we’ll let AD slip the leash and show people why Minnesota is a feared rushing team.

SKOL!

Vikes 34 Pack 27

The status of “doubtful” for Chad Clifton doesn’t sound right. They haven’t posted that yet. I believe Clifton was doubtful last week. This week, as seen on nfl.com/injuries, Clifton has “limited participation in practice.” News media reports have stated that Clifton will be available. The Packers also brought back Mark Tauscher and Ahman Green. Green is something like 47 yards away from the Packers team record in rushing. He is also a good pass-protecting running back.

On defense, the Packers have some changes. They promoted Clay Matthews to starter at OLB, and they have Aaron Kampman lining up with “his hand in the dirt.” He might have moved to defensive end. The Packers have Atari Bigby back.

Against the only good running team they have faced, the Bengals, the Packers gave up 151 yards on the ground. The Bengals won that game by rushing for more yards, winning the time of possession battle, winning the third down conversion battle, getting sacks, limiting Rodgers’s passing to about 50% completions, and limiting explosive plays. The longest Packers play from scrimmage was 26 yards. The Bengals won despite losing the turnover battle.

To win the Vikings, must play great team defense, tackle well, contain Rodgers in the pocket, collapse the pocket and get lots of pressure and sacks on Rodgers, and, on offense, run the ball effectively. The Vikings need to keep their line steady in the hostile environment and not commit pre-snap penalties. If a call goes against the Vikings, even unfairly, they must not lose focus. Instead, stay cool-headed and run the ball.

The Packers will attempt to blitz Favre heavily, so the Vikings might have the possibilty of explosive plays in the air if everybody on offense reads the blitz correctly and stays on the same page.

The Vikings have the talent to go into the hostile environment and win. Just go out there with intensity, and have fun, and win the game.

I’m pretty upset with you guys. We appreciate you beating the Ravens but we really needed you to beat the Steelers last week. That 2nd pick in the 4th quarter hit me in the gut almost as much as it did you. Straight up I think you guys are SB bound. My prediction at this point is the Colts and Vikings with the Colts winning only because Peyton Manning is just too good and in his prime while Favre is just as good but lets face it he is 40. He showed signs of wearing down toward the end last year and I fear the same could happen. No knock on Favre as age catches up with everyone. The Bengals will have a very hard time beating you and frankly I just hope Favre does wear down toward game #15 when we play you. As for this coming game… well the Vikings win by 2 TDs IMO. GB isn’t bad but not really good either.

What do you guys, as outside objective observers think of the Bengals so far? Do you think we are contenders or pretenders? I enjoy hearing opinions from guys who aren’t too close and can give an objective view.

I have been saying the same things all along. So Green Bay comes off its bye week and kills two of the weakest teams who were further hampered by key injuries in the case of Detroit. In Cleveland’s case so many starters out with the flu that the league was considering roster exemptions for them because of the number of players that were sick.
All the sudden this makes them a contender again? Will someone please get Don Banks head out of Ted’s ass?

On our side of things…we dominated the Pittsburgh game statistically while shutting Big Ben and their new found aerial attack to 175 yards and Heinz Ward to 3 yrds. We lost on a stripped fumble in the red zone and a fluke deflection in the red zone. These thing happen but I’m glad to get the lose monkey off our backs and move on.

To be honest, I don’t think I would want to be the Packers playing the Vikes this Sunday after the way things went down last weekend. They will come in pissed off that the unbeaten streak is over and because of the way they lost. I hope to see the Vikings turn it up another notch and shut these media doubters up once and for all.

SKOL Vikings.

which actuall scares me. I’ve never liked Collinsworth because he’s a typical east coast biased punk, but he did say on NFL weekly “I was more impressed with the Vikings in their loss in Pittsburgh than their other games” and it’s a statement I couldn’t agree with more.

The only real “hole” or “weakness” this vikings team has is defense in 2 minute drills. It’s something that should get fixed, and if it does, this team is unstoppable. Rare and unexpected events occurred in Pitt which is the only reason we lost. We DOMINATED nearly the entire game vs Baltimore, SF, and GB!!! If you watched those games, you would think the Vikings D was #1 in the NFL. We didn’t allow a single 3rd down converstion vs San Fran!! why are these stats not brought up?

Personally, I’m glad the sportswriters of america are picking the pack, it’ll make the win even more sweet. And it will allow me to make a butt-load of money off this game. Despite the silly-ness of the packer arguments for winning this game, it’ll be even more enjoyable to hear all the packer fans whine and cry about ref calls, coaching decisions, single out a player’s poor performance, etc. It will be all enjoyable because their season will be nearly over before week 9.

has lost to any half-way decent team they have faced. Examples- Cincy and us. Wins- Chi (barely, if you can call that a win), Cle, Stl, Det. Keeping racking up numbers on powder puffs when no one cares. Good luck with the second half of your sched….

Hey Pack…who are you going to decide to try and stop??You know if you decide to not let AP beat you, your boy Brett will pick you apart as he has done to everyone all year so far. And if you decide to back off and defend against the pass, AP will just roll all over you. Just ask Mr. Gay how he feels today..if he remembers the steamroller that hit him!! Of the 3 interceptions BF has thrown this year, 2 were off receiver’s hands. All he has to do is contain himself and you guys are toast. Unless you come up with some inventive way of pressuring him that he has not seen before (doubtful). As much as I hated BF when he was a Packer, I must admit that he has been the difference for us this year and you Packer fans are just too pigheaded to admit it was a mistake to let him go. You damn well know if he was still on your team, you’d be on this blog claiming how badly he was going to beat our pass defense. Anyway, we’ll save you Packer fans some playoff seats so you can watch us carry on the NFC North torch.

I’m going to go to a hated rival’s website, read a post ovbviously designed to pump up the home bloggers, take offense, and insult the head blogger of the site. Sound like a good idea?

ESPN.com fans have voted 61%-39% so far that the Vikings will win. At least some people realize who is the superior team. The only state that feels otherwise is of course our Favre-hater neighbor to the east.

How about the guy that let up a big play touchdown and the big screen pass last game is not going to be out there…..Atari is back in town, his replacement Martin is no longer out there. Also, you talk about the rookie tackle that Allen got by for the safety being out there, but remember 3.5 of his sacks were on Colledge…..remember, when he got hurt GB started scoring points again. And now Colledge can play his natural position LG, and we have a better LT, even if Lange isn’t that good, he is better than Colledge on the island. And you talk about us sqeaking by the Bears with 4 picks. How about the queens sqeaking by GB by only a touchdown and if the game was 5 seconds longer overtime was about to happen, and it was that close in a game that Rodgers was beaten around like a pinata and had 2 redzone turnovers….which he almost never has. This game will be much tougher for MN.

Thanks for the clear insight into why we should probably be more optimistic about this game than many of us Viking fans have been. It’s still tough to feel 100% confident against such the Packers on their home turf but I hope we pull off the victory. Hitting our bye week at 7-1 AND with the Division lead more firmly in hand would be fantastic.

That being said, I think Packer fans are drinking a bit of the media Kool-Aid by expecting that a victory in this 2nd leg of our infamous rivalry would ensure that they’re very much back in the hunt for the Division title. Looking at their schedule and ours, and being very charitable, I still see them just missing the title by a win or two (and that’s if we’re charitable and assume that they’re going to continue improving).

So even if we DID lose (which we could – it’ll be a tough game, despite the fact that I think we’re a better team) to the Packers, it really wouldn’t be the end of the world.

SKOL VIKINGS. I’ll pick Vikings 23 – Packers 17.

Respect to flynsqris and Wytefang for two really good posts, nice to see that Minnesota and Green Bay still have good fans.

Personally I hope that Minnesota wins, and I will be gutted if Green Bay beats us, however I have got respect for Green Bay and wish them luck!

My apologies for the sloppy grammar above, in a few places. I should have written “I suppose you could also argue that if my Vikings win, it does prove that we were the better team but then I think a lot of us already knew that. So from my perspective, it (again) wouldn’t prove all that much.”

I also meant to add the word “WIN” to the last sentence of the 2nd paragraph as in “…so even if we WIN, which I would celebrate as a good fan, I won’t be resting any easier.”

Sorry about those mistakes!!