Gonzo Reads the First NFL Preview Mag of the Year, and Is Thoroughly Confused

Why else would the widely respected Yahoo! Sports Dept. ignore their own rankings. Unless they like the color green.

As for the projected playoff success. Must be their playoff tested QB versus our novice … oops!, that don’t work either.

They rarely like to take the rational approach and pick the best teams from previous years to be the best again. The second place team is always pumped up for the next year and the gap between the division winner and their challengers is always being narrowed in sports writers view whether it’s factual or not.

I haven’t read this magazine yet but I’d venture a guess that at least 3-4 of last years division winners will be predicted to be wild-card teams or worse. Knowing the NFL this could end up being true but it will be the teams that few predicted that will drop back or rise up.

Wait for it…

It’s the “Schism Factor”.

place the 4 teams logos on the ground, cut the head of a chicken and where ever the chicken falls is the winner of the nfc north.

There are still a lot more Packers fans nationwide than Vikings fans, so they tell the larger group what they want to hear.

No one in our division is going 13-3 with the schedules that we have…

The Packers will have a quality team and certainly do have the up and coming QB. It is O their line that makes me wonder if they have what it takes to be us out. I could certainly see a split between our teams this year and that means whomever has the best remaining record wins the division. Since I believe they get the slightly easier schedule and start off very soft, it could very well be us chasing them all season long… Can we catch them? I think so as we put the pressure on late!

If italicized letter grades mean that a few players are iffy from injury/retirement or stars must align or if nobody says anything about anybody else’s mama, etc., then it might make some sense or more sense.

While I don’t think it will happen, if the Packers enter the playoffs with the #1 seed (and thus home field advantage throughout) I don’t think anyone will stop them until the Superbowl. And especially not a 41 year-old QB whom they know very well.

Too. Damn. Cold.

They tend to get overrated by many as some sort of dreamy, love story pick. Yahoo and SI’s Peter King are perfect examples. It is the last vestige of small town teams and the community owned nestalga that goofy writers go for. It doesn’t amount to anything more than the Packers being overrated.

except, of course, all Vikings’ sites. SKOL FAVRE! SKOL VIKINGS!

However they have the easier schedule. Since it looks like we’re not going to lose the wall I can see us winning most of the games in the beginning of the schedule IF Favre gets some reps in with his receivers early. Last year the first couple of games were pretty sketchy and we were playing some of the easier teams. This year we don’t have that luxury so we’ll need to come out firing on all cyclinders.

Hopefully a season together will mean Favre and the WRs come out firing on all cylinders. They will need to get some extra reps in to shake the rust off when Favre comes in after training camp. Longer preseason practices for Favre and the WRs?

For us, anyway. I share their concern about the secondary and linebackers; I think that is our Achilles Heel. Quality, depth, and injury concerns all together make me anxious.

Offensive line of Packers C+? Hmmm …. I don’t know what I would give them. They seem to be Jekyll and Hyde: sometimes the are solid B/B+, other times they are D-. I would have given them “incomplete” if I could.

Kinda damning that they rated Cutler B- Also interesting that they rate GB and our QBs the same. I think Rodgers deserves to be ranked up there with Favre, but I think we are overall better off because we the deepest bench in the NFL there, and the Packers have … well, only question marks behind their starter. Maybe Flynn is another Warner or Cassel, but the odds say, probably not. I would rather have one bird in hand than two in the bush for the backup QB position of a team that has aspirations of a Superbowl.

Every year it is the same with the media, now with Favre " the media god" the stations have to swallow their pride and give the Vikes some air time…as much as they may hate doing so because as we all know team owners like Jerry Jones have been floating teams like the Vikings for years now…Meaning that they always bash the Vikes and they always will until our team wins the big one. Until then we get spit on and teams like the Cowgirls almost are given the trophy during pre-season. It’s all a bunch of shat.

Atogwe please!!!!!!!!!! That would bump up our secondary. I know the Vikes have a lot of money invested in Madieu, but who cares, chalk it up as a loss we need a FS that can make plays. Madieu can be there for depth. If either OJ or Tyrell go down with injury Madieu could fill in.

Brett Favre will lead the Vikings to a Victory in Super Bowl XLV!

Guaranteed!

19-0!

Strong Possibility! Will probably Guarantee before season’s first game!

I’ll admit I haven’t read the Yahoo predictions, but I think it was one writer who made the tables and another who made the predictions, See it all the time in these preseason prognositcator’ s articles. You would think they should get together to make sure they’re on the same page before they print it. Not likely though.

On average most experts and fans would pick a majority of the same playoff teams to have records enabling them to go back to the playoffs the next year. But in actuality it does not happen. At least 4 or 5 teams out of the 8 playoff teams do not go back.
     The reason for this is unexpected injuries, injuries that do not heal as expected ( Griffen, Winfield, Henderson, Leber), and the proverbial unlucky bounce of the ball.

I would expect everyone to rate the Vikings as the team with the best players at most positions, since all starters are returning. To me that doesn’t mean that one would pick them as the team with the best record at the end of next season.
If one believes that GB will be lucky and the Vikings unlucky then the GB pick makes sense. If you think the Vikes have significant injury issues to overcome then the GB pick makes sense.

But if you look at last years games between the two teams… then the author is an idiot.

The Vikes will win the north but the pack will win the SB. It would be the perfect ending to this Favre ordeal. Come to expect it and it won’t hit you as hard.

Preseason prognostication is far more useless than even predicting the outcome of a single game, which is very hard as well.

Last year, if you recall, the Packers were the vogue pick. In some cases, it was the Bears. For some reason, almost no one had the Vikings ahead of both of those teams, despite the fact the Vikings won the division.

Now, I think for some, like Peter King, they are trying to validate their incorrect predictions that the Pack would win the division and perhaps the Superbowl. Maybe they will, I don’t know, but I think the reasoning is fairly suspect.

I think the Vikings and Packers will compete for it. With the Packers, you still have to wonder about the performance of their O-line and running backs. I think the Bears took a step forward, but without depth from the draft, a few injuries especially in the secondary and their defense will fall apart. Their O-line is suspect as well. I think the Lions might have taken a big step forward on defense especially, and could be quite competitive.

I think our O-line has got to play better in the running game. We had too many 2nd and longs last year for my comfort. If we can do that, I think the Vikings will be very good and tough to beat.

it is only a prediction. nothing more. besides, i would rather not be favored because that puts pressure on a team to live up to speculative pre-season predictions. i would rather be the slight underdog, and end up proving them wrong.

For having the 3rd most receiving TDs in the league the last 2 season and a big cock, rather than this twitter garbage.

First, you have a QB who (as usual) won’t commit to playing. Even if he does, he’s over 40 and will be coming off another surgery. You lost Chester Taylor (thank you, by the way) and replaced him with Gerhart. Gerhart may do well, but as of now he’s an unknown quantity replacing proven production. Peterson is a hell of a back, but his fumbling is obviously starting to concern people. I’d also venture to say McKinnie’s attitude is becoming a concern as well, at least from an outside perspective.
   The biggest reason though, is that almost EVERYONE thinks their team is underrated and being disrespected by the media. I guarantee if you go to different team blogs throughout the year, you’ll see everyone bitching about the same things; the media doesn’t give us enough credit, they don’t rank (insert favorite player) high enough, they don’t like us because we’re in whatever location, etc. Somewhere right now, there are Oakland fans trying to justify why they should be ranked in the top ten.
   That being said, I don’t see GB hitting 13-3. They’re on the rise, but I think they’re still a year or two away. Assuming all three teams stay healthy, I think we all may be scrapping it out at the end of the season for playoff spots, but can also see any of the three falling to 8-8 territory if things don’t break right. Let’s face it, all of us have some pretty big “if’s” at this point.

the reson pfw comes out so early is to sell more mags and not many peopie is like me and can buy 8 NFL mags and pfw last year made a 2 mag in early july its rosters was upated as of june 15 the best NFL mag is phil steele’s NFL he upate the rosters last year late june this year early july he had b favre on minn last year when no else did and he picked minn to go to miami against indy i think