Round One of the Vikings' quarterback battle is in the books, and it's no secret that Sage Rosenfels came out of Friday's game in Indianapolis as the victor in his battle with Tarvaris Jackson for the starting job. Sage looked extremely sharp in his performance at Lucas Oil Stadium, completing 10 of 13 passes for 91 yards. He went five-for-five on the opening drive, including a beautiful toss to Visanthe Shiancoe on a fourth-and-two that kept the drive going and eventually led to a five-yard Chester Taylor TD run. Yes, Rosenfels has the advantage of playing with the starters and so forth, but that's the call that Brad Childress made.
Well, the call has been made for this Friday night's game a whole lot faster than it was for the Colts game, and Childress has said that Tarvaris Jackson will get the starting nod on Friday night at the Metrodome against Kansas City.
"I thought he had a decent rhythm," Childress said. "I thought he knew where he was looking. He got the football up the field, checked it down a little bit, had a good command. So he started off this week, and Tarvaris will kick it off next week against Kansas City."
Honestly, T-Jack is going to have to show a heck of a lot more on Friday night against KC than he did in Indy. I'm not sure how much of it has to do with the injury, but for all the talk of Rosenfels being unable to grasp the offense and such in camp, he certainly looked more calm and in control of things than Jackson did.
The third pre-season game is generally considered the most important, as that's the game that the starters see the most time. With Jackson and Rosenfels having split the starts in the first two games, the guy who starts that third pre-season game will more than likely be the guy that takes the field as the starter in Week One against Cleveland. The choice right now seems to be a pretty clear one. . .but will that be the case after this coming Friday? We'll have to see.