The Sunday Viking Vegur, "It's Freaking Hot Outside" Edition

Currently living in Arkansas for the year and it was over 100 everyday this last week, this week a cool streak, only in the 90’s.

I miss Minnesota.

It’s cooled off a little bit in Michigan, thank goodness.

I lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for a little over three years and feel your pain about the heat. You actually dreaded the rain showers (more like storms anywhere else) because it was hotter afterwards and the steam would be rising from the sidewalks.

I understand how Defensive Indifference arrived at their conclusion but I think that it fails to take one vital consideration into account when looking at all the NFL teams and their games last year, and how the defenses responded to the offensive threats; Adrian Peterson. Which seems odd, since they were looking at this expressly because of AP.

Most teams don’t have the passing vs running game disparity that the Vikings have. A passing game that’s very suspect, coupled with an AP waiting in the backfield to make opposing defenses look silly if they fail to put 8-9 guys in the box (and quite often, 43% of the time according to DI’s research, even if they do!). Meaning that in most games, the opposing D’s don’t stick 8-9 guys in the box against their opponents because, 1) they don’t need to do so, and 2) they have other threats to deal with. Since there aren’t 4 other RBs in the league that are in AP’s league, and even the teams that do have explosive superstar RBs tend to have better passing games than the Vikes have displayed the past few years and so the D can’t bring a laser-like focus on where to put their personnel, as they do with the Vikings.

I just don’t think it’s a valid comparison, looking at the entire NFL’s passing game vs running game to say that a great passing game doesn’t improve the running game; bottom line is there’s no other team that has a similar situation as the Vikings in that regard.

So yes… I do believe that if the Vikings have a pair of very good WRs and a decent QB, it forces the opposing D to have fewer men in the box, and that’s going to decrease the coverage they can apply to AP, which will give AP more yards every time he touches the ball.

The real question is; are the Viking WRs good enough to fill the bill, and is the QB situation fixed so that those WRs are put to good use?

Same question, really, that we’ve been gnawing on for years…