If you'll recall, I did this last year at the mid-season point and at the end of the season.  Yes, I know we're not "technically" at the mid-season point yet, but we're pretty close to it, and I don't think one game is going to change these that much anyway.

Now, these aren't "official" or "scientific" or anything like that.  They're my take on how the players that the Minnesota Vikings have put on the field this season have performed.  I'm anxious to hear what some of you folks think about these. . .should be a good topic for discussion.

So, without any further ado, here are your mid-season Minnesota Vikings Power Rankings:

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Well, folks, it's Friday, and that means it's time for a check of the injury reports for both of the teams involved in this Sunday's clash at the Metrodome.  Oh, and there's one name on the injury reports that Vikings fans probably aren't going to like too terribly much.

We'll start with the visiting Carolina Panthers.

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I apologize for the lateness of the hour of this update, everyone.  It's been a long day over here at the Gonzo house, and I've had about a thousand different things to do prior to getting around to this.

So, here are the official injury reports for tomorrow's game.  We'll start with the visiting Indianapolis Colts.

It's going to be quite interesting to see what the Colts try to do with Saturday on Sunday.  (And don't act like you didn't know that line was coming.)  The Colts have a relatively early bye (Week 4), and even with as bad as the Colts' line looked in their opener, I don't know why on earth you'd risk a guy so valuable when you can, essentially, give him three more full weeks off before throwing him out there.  His injury was rumored to be a 5-6 week recovery, and if he goes out there tomorrow against the law firm of Williams & Williams, he'll be out there WAY ahead of that.

If you'll recall my interview with BigBlueShoe from over at Stampede Blue, he said that Tamme was going to be one of the Colts' players to watch on Sunday in the potential absence of Dallas Clark.  Well, now we know that Tamme is going to be absent as well, leaving the Colts with Gijon Robinson and rookie Tom Santi at the TE position.  With that being the case, I'd expect to see a lot of 3 WR sets from the Colts in this one, which should only enhance Minnesota's ability to slow down the running game and focus on the pass.

Now for the Beloved Purple:

Williams will, hopefully, be back by the time the Vikings travel to Tennessee in Week 4.  I don't think Tyrell Johnson played badly against the Packers, but it sure will be nice to see what we're paying for with #20 back there with Darren Sharper.  The play of the safeties will be key this week in our attempts to slow down Peyton Manning and the Colts' passing game.

If Hicks can't go, I believe we'll be seeing Marcus Johnson get his first career start at LT, and he gets the relatively simple task of taking on Dwight Freeney.  Wait, did I say "simple?"  What I meant was, "Look out, Tarvaris!"  Then again, for a guy with zero game experience at the position, Johnson actually did a serviceable job on Monday night, so I shouldn't complain too much.

Alright, folks. . .kickoff is set for about 14 hours from now.  Channel all your thoughts into a big performance for the Beloved Purple, because that's exactly what they're going to need tomorrow to avoid an 0-2 start.  Until then, enjoy the rest of your Saturday!

Both the Vikings and the Packers released their final injury reports for Monday night's game yesterday, and things look a lot better for the Vikings on the injury front than they do for Green Bay, in my opinion.

Let's start with Green Bay's injuries first.

And now for the Beloved Purple:

As you can see, the Vikings will have almost their entire complement of players heading into Monday night's game, while the Packers are going to have some injury issues.

Take a look at all of the injuries that Green Bay has on the defensive side of the ball, particularly along the defensive line.  Ryan Pickett isn't on their injury list, but he's also been limited in his participation during the pre-season.  The injury report might say that he's recovered. . .and the Vikings would be well served to test that.

If I was Brad Childress, I'd take my Tarvaris Jackson. . .provided he has his full mobility. . .and get him to the edge on rollouts, sprintouts, and so forth.  Make Green Bay's big uglies run around a little bit.  Between the injuries and the lack of depth on the interior of the Green Bay d-line, it would help the Vikings later on in the game, in my opinion.  Get Peterson and Taylor out on the edges, too, on tosses and swing passes.  Hopefully we'll see that early and often on Monday night.

More on the game as the weekend wears on, folks. . .I'm going to go back to tracking Hurricane Ike.  Yes, ANOTHER freaking hurricane.  Hurricane season has to stop eventually, doesn't it?

Alright. . .it's nice to take a second to not run from tropical storms and hurricanes and all sorts of other weather-related goodness and get back to what we do best around here. . .talking about the Beloved Purple.  Let's take a good look around at what's going on in Viking land this evening.

 The Vikings have released their first injury report for Monday's game against Green Bay.  It only has four players listed on it as of right now:

QB Tarvaris Jackson (knee)
HB Maurice Hicks (foot)
WR Robert Ferguson (ankle)
S Madieu Williams (neck)

Of those four, I believe that Williams is the only one that is set to miss Monday night's opener.  Jackson has repeatedly said that he's going to play, and I've not seen anything that indicates otherwise as of yet.  Ferguson was on the field for individual drills on Tuesday (according to Access Vikings).  I haven't heard anything else about Hicks' injury, but this is the first I've heard about it, which leads me to believe that it isn't terribly serious.

Green Bay's injury list is significantly longer at this point, as they've listed the following players with injuries:

S Atari Bigby (ankle)
T Chad Clifton (knees/chest)
DE Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila (knee)
RB Ryan Grant (hamstring)
LB A.J. Hawk (chest)
WR James Jones (knee)
S Charlie Peprah (hamstring)
G Josh Sitton (knee)
DE Jeremy Thompson (groin)
C Scott Wells (back)
LB Tracy White (ankle)

Players don't need to be listed as out, doubtful, questionable, or probable until the final injury reports come out on Friday.  I'll attempt to dig up more about the extent of those injuries throughout the evening and into tomorrow.

Over at SI.com, Dr. Z continues the warm, fuzzy Purple love by putting Minnesota at #4 in his first Power Rankings of the season, behind only New England, San Diego, and Dallas.

I'll tell you what. . .I'm not used to all of this pre-season warm fuzziness by any means, but I think that it's something I COULD get used to.  I don't like the fact that Dr. Z has decided that we made a "big push" for Brett Favre in the off-season. . .you know, considering that we didn't make ANY push for Brett Favre. . .but we'll take what we can get at this point, I think.

Apparently the love is, indeed, spreading over at SI, as out of nine writers polled, eight of them have chosen the Vikings to win the NFC North.  Three of them. . .Dr. Z, Peter King, and someone called Dominic Bonvissuto. . .have chosen the Vikings to get all the way to the NFC title game, only to fall one step short of the Super Bowl.  King and Bonvissuto have them losing to Dallas, while Dr. Z has Philadelphia ending Minnesota's season.

 If you want some entertainment, I went onto a BetUS Radio Podcast along with Brandon, the head blogger over at Acme Packing Company.  It was a lot of fun, as Brandon is a rare breed. . .a Packer fan that's not completely detestible.  Anyway, it's entertaining, and it leads into an interview with K.C. Joyner, who I happen to be a big fan of, so go ahead and check it out.

That's all for tonight, folks. . .we'll get some more taken care of tomorrow night.  For now, I'm going back to channel surfing a few different things and keeping an eye on the Atlantic.  Hurricane Ike is already a Category 3 storm. . .and we all know that if anyone or anything is capable of kicking someone's ass, it's something named Ike.  Heck, it's a good thing that there isn't a Hurricane Tina anywhere to be found out there anyplace.

With that, I'll take my leave for the evening.  Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday night, and we'll see you back here tomorrow. . .hopefully with details for this year's Daily Norseman Pick 'Em Pool.

Yes, I apologize. . .I'm sort of taking the easy way out on this one.  Hey, it's the weekend, and this one still has to be done, so let's get it out of the way, shall we?  The Vikings are pretty well set at all of the special teams positions.  Ryan Longwell is going to be the kicker, Chris Kluwe is going to be the punter, and Cullen Loeffler is going to be the long snapper.

I know that Steven Hauschika, a rookie from North Carolina State, is currently on the roster as a kicker, but he's pretty much just there to give Ryan Longwell a break during the pre-season.  I don't think he's a serious threat to Longwell's job security or anything.  Nor should he be, considering that Longwell has been pretty outstanding for us in the two seasons he's been in a Viking uniform.  Since escaping Green Bay for the much, much greener pastures of the Twin Cities, Longwell is 41/49 in the field goal department (missing 4 field goals in each season), and 5 of his 8 misses have been from 50+ yards out.  He's even thrown a TD pass since joining the Vikings (Week 2 against Carolina in 2006).  Longwell has also managed to improve his kickoffs since coming to Minnesota as well.  He'll continue to be the Vikings' kicker for the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, nobody has been brought in to compete with Chris Kluwe as of yet, and I'd be surprised if anybody was. . .although the Vikings DID work out an Australian punter by the name of Shane Phillips, according to the blog of former Vikings' special teams coach Gary Zauner.  However, Kluwe isn't going anywhere.  The best Vikings' rookie of 2005. . .which is sad, considering he was a UDFA and not part of our actual draft class. . .has done a solid job for the Vikings thus far.  I've got a soft spot in my heart for anyone that can go out and punt with a torn knee ligament, which is what Kluwe did towards the end of his rookie season after getting injured.  The Vikings signed him to a long-term deal not too long ago, so they obviously think he's the answer at punter.  With the way he's performed in his three seasons in Minnesota, I see no reason to disagree.

Cullen Loeffler is the long snapper.  He. . .ummmmm. . .snaps the ball.  Long.  He's been doing the job for Minnesota since 2004, and to be honest, I can't remember very many bad snaps during that time, if there have been any at all.  Long snappers are like baseball umpires. . .we don't notice them unless they screw something up.  The fact that I don't have a whole lot to say about Loeffler means that I haven't noticed him much. . .which, in this case, can only be considered a good thing.

So now that we've talked about the specialists, let's take a look at a couple of positions that need to be filled by guys that we've already discussed.  I'm referring to the positions of kick returner and punt returner.

I've mentioned my confusion over the signing of Maurice Hicks before, because from all of the reports that have been out there, the guy was primarily signed for his return skills.  It's puzzling because I thought that Aundrae Allison had done an outstanding job in that role for Minnesota in 2007, with his 3 returns of 60+ yards and 28.7 yard return average.  Hicks is also the #3 running back, but come on. . .barring injuries to both Chester Taylor and Adrian Peterson, how many snaps is he actually going to get back there?

I guess that I really, really just don't understand the role Maurice Hicks fills on this football team at the moment.  Allison is our best kick returner, in my opinion, and is the best choice to stay there.  I know that Allison's role in the offense might be increasing, but he's still, at best, the #4 guy on the depth chart right now (behind Bernard Berrian, Sidney Rice, and Bobby Wade), and possibly lower depending on your opinion of Robert Ferguson.  Allison has great speed, good moves, and seems to be a natural returner.  If I'm the Vikings, I'm not sure I want to mess with that.

As far as punt returning goes, our main guy last year was Mewelde Moore, who has since moved on to Pittsburgh.  The only other guy on the roster that returned any punts last year was Bobby Wade.  Neither of them have met a fair catch that they didn't like.  Hicks, again, doesn't seem to fit in here either, as he hasn't returned a single punt in his 4 years in the NFL.  This will be one of the more intriguing positions to watch in training camp this year.  Is this going to be how rookie Jaymar Johnson makes his way on to the roster?  Will the Vikings give someone like Charles Gordon (who was an outstanding college return man) a chance to win the job?  Or will they stick with the one real proven commodity they have and let Wade keep the job?  To be honest, I think that with Johnson's speed, I hope he can handle the role.  It would be nice to have explosive young returners on both the kick and punt return units.

What do you folks think about out special teams?  Go ahead and discuss it right here, and we'll be back either later today or tomorrow morning.  Continue enjoying your Saturday, everybody!

In our quest to project the 53-man roster for the Vikings, thus far we've filled three spots with quarterbacks.  Continuing along with the offensive theme, we're going to take a look at the guys that the Minnesota offense really revolves around, our running backs.  Here's everyone that's currently listed as being part of the Vikings' roster at the running back and fullback positions.

There they are, folks. . .the best and most talented group of running backs in the National Football League.

We start with the best of the best, or at least the best of the conference.  We knew going into the 2007 season that Adrian Peterson was talented. . .I started calling him the 2007 Offensive Rookie of the Year about five minutes after we drafted him. . .but nobody could have realistically expected what we got from AP last season.  1,341 rushing yards, 13 total touchdowns, two of the most electrifying single-game performances in franchise history, numerous Viking records. . .and he just turned 23 years old.  He might be the most exciting offensive player in the league, and if he's not, he's certainly a part of that conversation.

In a recent article, Peterson stated that his goal was to rush for 2,000 yards in 2008.  Do I think that it's an achievable goal for him?  Certainly, it is.  I don't think that there's any goal that #28 could set for himself that he couldn't possibly achieve.  But there's at least part of me that hopes that it doesn't happen.  Why?  Because I want AP to be productive for the long-term and not potentially shorten his career in any way.

If AP could maintain his 5.6 yards/carry average from last year, he would need 358 carries in order to break 2,000 yards.  I'm not sure how realistic it is to expect even a guy with Peterson's talent to keep up that sort of pace. . .LaDanian Tomlinson currently has a career average of 4.5 ypc, and has never had a season where he averaged as many yards per carry as Peterson did last year (his best was 5.3 ypc in 2003).  So 358 would be the minimum number of carries that he'd need to get to 2000, and would probably be closer to 400.  Looking at a very well-done article from the folks at FootballOutsiders, they have a rule called the "370-carry theory."  As it says in the article, the 370-carry theory basically says

A running back with 370 or more carries during the regular season will usually suffer either a major injury or loss of effectiveness the following year, unless he is named Eric Dickerson.

Some of the examples of this would be Curtis Martin in 2005, Ricky Williams in 2003, Shaun Alexander in 2006, and Larry Johnson in 2007. . .not to mention the careers of Terrell Davis, Earl Campbell, Gerald Riggs, and numerous others.

As much as I love me some Adrian Peterson, I don't want him getting 350 carries or 375 carries or 400 carries, even if it means him not getting 2,000 yards in a season.  I want the guy to remain healthy and fresh for as long as possible.  I want him to be in a Vikings uniform for a long time, and to contradict the great Neil Young, I'd rather see him fade away than burn out.  Besides, if we give Adrian Peterson all of the carries. . .

. . .it would keep us from exploiting the fact that we have the best backup running back in the NFL on the team.  Yes, Chester Taylor went from being, basically, the only competent skill position player on the team in 2006 to being a backup for most of 2007, and he did it without whining, crying, complaining, or anything else that could have hampered the Vikings.  He still ran for 844 yards (which would have made him the leading rusher on 12 NFL teams) despite only getting 157 carries, scored eight touchdowns, managed to go over 100 yards twice, and it was he. . .not Peterson. . .who had the Vikings' longest run of the season with his 85-yard sprint against San Francisco.  Taylor is an extremely vital part of the Minnesota offense, and I'm quite happy to see him still with the team.

The more I think about the signing of Maurice Hicks, the more it puzzles me.  I realize that he's the third RB on this team, but I'm really trying to figure out what purpose he serves.  For his career, he has 869 rushing yards on 205 carries, 75% of which came in his first two years in the NFL.  His strength is, apparently, on kickoff returns. . .in 2007, he had 63 returns with a 23.8 yard average, a long of 55 yards, and 4 returns of 40+ yards.  But, considering that we have a guy in Aundrae Allison that averaged 28.7 yards a return with 3 returns of 60+ yards and a team record 105-yard return for a TD, I kind of fail to see where he fits in on that front, either.  But, until I have a reason not to trust what this front office is doing, I'll roll with it.  It's not like we're going to have to rely on him heavily at any point this year. . .I hope.

Arkee Whitlock has been on the practice squad for the Vikings for a few years, and has yet to see a single NFL carry.  Albert Young was brought in as an undrafted free agent.  Honestly, I don't see either of them being a factor for the Vikings in 2008.  And that's about all I've got to say about that.

The Vikings carried three fullbacks in 2007, and with the run-heavy schemes that the Vikings' offense is centered around, I don't see any reason why that won't be the case again.

Thomas Tapeh comes back to his hometown team, as he grew up in the Twin Cities and matriculated at the University of Minnesota before being drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles.  Tapeh is basically Tony Richardson minus 10 years.  He's a very good lead blocker, and might catch the occasional pass.  I look forward to seeing him open up holes for Peterson and Taylor this season.

Remember when we all thought Jeff Dugan was just some guy that Mike Tice drafted because he went to the same college and played the same position?  Well, as sad as this is going to sound, Dugan is now one of only six players left on the team from the Tice-era drafts of 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 (the other five are Bryant McKinnie, Kevin Williams, E.J. Henderson, Marcus Johnson, and Kenechi Udeze).  With those kind of drafts in such recent history, it's a big surprise that this team is competitive at all, but that's another post for another time.  Dugan is listed as a TE, largely because of his uniform number, but lines up at both FB and TE, so we'll include him here.  His versatility makes him a nice addition to the team, and since he signed a long-term extension a few years back, I'm sure he'll continue in the same capacity he's been in for the last five years.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Naufahu Tahi.  Why?  I love the "bowling ball" type of running back, and at 6' and 255 pounds, Tahi certainly falls into that category.  If we didn't already have two very capable backs, I'd like to see him get some carries in goal line situations, but he still serves quite well as a lead blocker and provides good depth if something should happen to Tapeh and/or Dugan.

So, to sum up. . .

Potential League MVP:  Adrian Peterson
Best Backup RB in the NFL:  Chester Taylor
The "Other" RB:  Maurice Hicks
Fullbacks:  Thomas Tapeh (starter), Jeff Dugan, Naufahu Tahi
Cut:  Arkee Whitlock (because I don't think he has any practice squad eligibility left)
Practice Squad Candidate:  Albert Young

Next time, we'll look at the WRs and TEs. . .spots that might have some actual intrigue involved.  Until then, keep enjoying the long weekend, and we'll see you back here tomorrow!