A Three Step Blueprint to a Playoff Run

Okay, having your favorite football team at 1-3 flat out sucks. There's no getting around that. And in the preseason if you told me that the Vikes would be 1-3 and the NFC North Division leader was 4-1, I'd be ready to hit the panic button.

But, let's just calm down and relax.

The NFC North Division leaders are the Chicago Bears led by Todd Collins with an absolutely awful offense that is not capable of contending for a championship; and the Green Bay Packers have massive injury problems starting with their quarterback who has a concussion and will either miss some time or might not be the same for a few weeks. They also lost their running back and have not found an answer to replace that production.

Now, when Rodgers and Cutler are healthy, those teams improve dramatically. But with a RB in GB and with the Bears offensive line issues, I don't think either team is capable of running away with the division.

And the Vikings, at 1-3, are not that bad of a 1-3 team. All three losses were within a play of being a win (sorry to sound like Tim Brewster, but this statement applies much more to the Vikes than the Gophers). Their three losses are to teams who either are playoff-bound or will be in the playoff picture come December. At New Orleans and at NY Jets are both quality losses, and although we had to have that Miami game at the dome, that's a quality football team as well. Plus, with two of the three losses going out of the conference to AFC teams, that could help later as well.

I'm certainly not saying the Vikings played to how we expect them to in any of the three losses. They didn't, and they lost those games for reasons that were within their control. That makes it even more frustrating as a fan. It's what we as Vikings fans go through every year, and it sucks!

But the fact remains that they are capable of playing better football, I'd like to see what happens when they put together a complete game.

I think nine or ten wins COULD win this division. Obviously that could change, but this early in the season it's certainly a possibility.

So, let's figure out how the Vikings can get to that 9-10 win range with realistic goals based on how the team has played, and how they can be expected to improve with Moss getting acclimated with the offense and the potential return of Sidney Rice...

1. Go a minimum of 5-1 against the NFC North. The Vikings are 1-0 against the division with a win over lowly Detroit. The Lions are flat out not a good football team, and we took care of that game. It was kind of ugly, but not as ugly as the Bears "win" against them at Soldier Field... I maintain the fact that the Bears and Packers are not very good, partly because of injuries (Ryan Grant, Rodgers, Cutler, etc.) and partly because they just aren't that good (Bears offensive line). Splitting the Soldier/Lambeau away games, winning out at home and beating Detroit again gets us to 5-1. I think we still can sweep the division, but that's an unrealistic expectation for how the team is played, so we'll stick with 5-1.

The 5-1 against the NFC North gets the purple to 5-4.

2. Beat Dallas and Buffalo at home and win at Arizona. These are very realistic expectations for this team. Buffalo is awful, Dallas is coming to the Dome next week in a "must win" for both teams, but at the Dome and with Dallas' problems I like a big win next week. Arizona has a horrible QB situation, if we can't win these three games and go 5-1 against the division, we don't deserve a playoff run anyway.

That three game parlay gets us to 8-4.

3. Out of the remaining four games, the squad needs one or two of the other four games: at New England, at Washington, Giants at home, at Philadelphia. I think the Giants at home and at Washington get us into the playoffs, and we won't choke at Washington like Green Bay did (DOINK!).

By the time we play at Washington and the Giants at home, we have Sidney back, and hopefully Favre is doped on pain meds and has a cortisone shot per week so his elbow feels 20 years younger!

Let's not forget that this team is capable of winning at Philly and at New England, and is capable of sweeping the division. I hate to say that we need that Green Bay game in Lambeau in two weeks, but it could get us to 3-3 if we take care of the Cowboys at the dome.

We need to be 3-3, and will need to pick up a win against the Packers to gain some momentum on the green and gold. A loss there would be a set back, but not season ending. It just gives the team ZERO margin for error the rest of the way.

They already have a very minimal margin for error after the hole they put themselves in. Looking at the schedule in the preseason, I thought we'd be 2-2 right now, that Miami loss hurts but at 1-3 it's not the end of the season.

So I plead with my fellow Viking fans to stay on the ship, don't jump off yet, and if you do - don't get back on, because this division is still there for the taking!

Ramps & Bumpers

I definitely overstated the ease of capturing my first bowling league championship.

So, Steph and I stroll to the alley, check the scores and we did completely dominate last week. Team high scratch game, team high series, etc, etc. etc.

It wasn't even close.

However, here's the deal, we went 2-1. That means we lost a point. To a team of an eight year old and his non-bowling aunt who was tired just watching her nephew during warm-ups.

WTF?!

Handicaps.

FML...

I mean, I knew there would be handicaps, but we seriously have our work cut out for us.

But, after checking the scores quick, we had two minutes to warm-up. I rolled two warm-up frames, Steph decided to pass on her warm-up tosses.

Our opponent this week? A mom presumably in her early 30's with a pair of pint-sized kids. Couldn't have been older than six.

And yes, he used ramps and bumpers.

It's fricking league play, and this kid has the audacity to use bumpers?

COME ON!

I almost went John McEnroe on this very cute, well behaved family. (The little girl, probably four years old, was wearing a Brad Johnson jersey and gave her mom high-fives on gutter balls and absolutely no love on the strikes she threw!)

So, whatever, they are spotted like 200-plus on us going into each game, we have to make up some 400 pins in the series.

I come out, throw a strike, spare and two more strikes and have like a 116 through five frames. Things are looking good. Steph was throwing well, too.

In the eighth or ninth frame, Steph's like, "Oh crap, we are down like 85 pins!"

It's at that point we learned about their massive handicaps.

We closed the gap, but lost by 14, I rolled a solid 191, Steph was at a solid 139.

Game two, we get absolutely pummeled. So bad in fact that the kid was basically taunting us when he decided to forgo the use of his ramp.

If only he would've scrapped the bumpers as well. He freaking threw two spares, following each with a nine! That's already like an extra 40 pins on his puny 40 average! He doubled up his score.

The mom was on her A-game too, despite the fact that she wasn't getting any high-fives on her numerous strikes and spares!

Meanwhile, I dropped from a 191 to a 159 and Steph dropped from a 139 to a 119. That added up to a 100 pin loss.

Yuck!

We went 0-3 against a kid that had to use a ramp and bumpers.

Wow.

I definitely overstated our cakewalk to a championship.

We have our work cut out for us!

Loyal readers may be in store for a mid-April let down when we don't win the championship...

Side notes:

• The Vikings are 7-1 and in control of the NSIC North and swept the Packers (I'm still bracing for the let down...).
• Our wonderful friends, Scott & Laura, helped us put in our new windows in our bedroom and I'm already feeling the increased heat efficiency! They will be back tomorrow to help pop in two more! Considering I'm the opposite of a handy-man, their help is invaluable!
• My awesome wife makes me laugh for completely random reasons everyday and I love it. If I could be disciplined enough to take notes on the stuff she says I could make millions on a book deal...

Prepare for a Let Down

I'm pretty psyched that I have a comment, thanks sis! I also know of at least three other readers aside from my commenter, which is huge. That's two more than I anticipated. I was banking on my loyal wife, Steph, to be only reader - and that was only because I was going to make her read it immediately after I posted it before my writings drifted off into cyberspace irrelevance!

So, with that, here comes a big let down. It's been nearly a week since my last post, and everyday I think of things that inspire me to write, and I really don't have anything.

But, it's okay, by now we should all be used to let downs, at least Minnesota Sports Fans should be...

I'm well trained in being let down, but I am very poor at handling it. I get my hopes up any time a MN sports franchise appears to be succeeding.

So, in preparation of the next big let downs - the next two that occurred to me today are from the Minnesota Vikings. This sucks because they are 6-0 and not even playing to their potential. I can see a 1998 coming. Dominant regular season, some big wins (including at Pittsburgh this Sunday much to the chagrin of our soccer coach Joe!) and even a dominating playoff win at the Dome. Then, wham, a huge shocking loss.

But that's not even the let down I'm worried about most. I'm far more concerned about what I saw in my Sports Illustrated (SI) this evening. One of the first articles is about a billionaire LA mogul who wants to build the Taj Mahal of NFL stadiums. Yikes. This thing is sweet. Who wouldn't want to play there? And why WOULDN'T the Wilf's want to sell the squad for a pretty billion dollars and make a huge profit a la Red McCombs?

Clearly Minnesota will not build a Vikings stadium. Fresh of the Gophers' TCF Bank Stadium and the Twins' Target Field along with the awesome economy, I think the public (liberals and conservatives alike) is done with ponying up public funds for pro sports.

What concerned me most about the SI article is that we were not one of the four front running teams mentioned as likely suitors. In fact, SI even went as far as to write us off completely because they thought it was a forgone conclusion that we'd solve our stadium issue here because of the fact that the Twins and Gophers both got new houses.

What the fuck happened to journalism? Do your homework buddy. What a hack. All it would take would be to find ONE stinking stadium article on Star Tribune's website, and if that article wasn't enough, just read all the "insightful" comments.

No Chance!

Speaking of let downs, tonight is the Powerball drawing, and yes, I did get my ticket. I was smart enough to "delegate" that assignment to my awesome intern, Tim Evans, who also works part time at the North Mpls EZ Stop. I told him today that no matter what it's the last time I have him buy my ticket, because if I win, I won't be purchasing more Powerball tickets (duh) and if I lose, he fucked that assignment up, why would I give it to him again?

I apologize for the course language, but one of my favorite writers, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, curses like a sailor and his shit cracks me up. So, grow some thick skin America. You can watch rated R movies, and if you take the time to read this far down on my blog, I'm not even worried about offending you at this point.

Wish me luck on overcoming my next big let down - tonight's Powerball drawing.

Peace.