New Rules/Saints/Blackmon

So the meetings have adjourned and we have a few new rules. The overtime rules for the playoffs last year will now be the standard throughout the regular season. Also, I just want to express my disgust for these Saints rulings. Sure it's good for football to come down hard on them and good for the present NFC teams as a perennial power will be hindered a great deal this upcoming season. I just hated to see Favre getting rocked on Yahoo's Sports page when the story broke. How disgusting for us Vikings fans to see a punishment brought down on the very team that kept the Vikings from appearing in the Super Bowl and a realistic chance at winning our first. These punishments won't make Favre a better QB in 2011. They don't let Warner comeback for one last chance with the Cardinals. Enough about that.

Justin Blackmon. I heard that the Vikings may be interested in the stud receiver from Oklahoma State. As exciting as the kid is, I'm not sure he's the answer the Vikings should be looking for. We resigned Aromashadu; whoop-de-doo, I know. The fact of the matter is that what needs to be the focus is our offensive line. We need to establish the run and also give time for Ponder to well ponder where to throw. If you watched Ponder last year you may have seen that he made some good throws, some good runs to pick up 3rd down conversions and those pesky interceptions that you thought he wasn't watching the defense at all. He wasn't. He read the defense at the line and then decided pre-snape where to go with the ball. We need him to have enough time to go through a few reads and not have him assuming that so-and-so will be open. We get Ponder rolling we'll be fine. We don't need another season a QB doubting and us reaching for one in next year's draft. This is a team game. QBs are important yes, but defense, special teams and the running game have more importance.

Two-Face

Man! Did you see the Vikings on Sunday?! Wow! They moved the ball down the field on the Lions, rarely needing a third down. When they did they converted 4 of 8 times. We had the ball six times for a time of possession of 17:37. Adrian had people screaming on the first drive as his fourth carry of the game went for 43 yards. Don’t even get me started on how great the defense was. Two sacks in the first quarter and one in the second helped keep the Lions pass attack at bay. They remain to be stingy on the run as the Lions gained 10 yards on the ground. No takeaways but forced a fumble on one of those sacks of the young Lions QB. With no points allowed there was no way we were going to see a repeat of last week. The Vikings scored two-thirds of their possessions. Adrian was having a day on 12 carries for 73 yards. Percy wasn’t getting much action with his illness but was still contributing. And my Goodness, two words: Kyle Rudolph. He had two great grabs that set up AP’s lone TD run. Yes indeed this was a great day to be a Viking. Same old Lions, forget what they’ve done so far. 20-0, three points better than last week’s 17-0 start and with that game in mind there can be no way of squandering this lead.

Man. Did you see the Vikings on Sunday? Wow, they were terrible. I don’t know where to begin. Adrian carried the ball only five times for 5 yards. If it was third down forget about it. They had a grand total of 0 conversions on 6 attempts. They always talk about how a good defense is a good offense, and by that I mean, their offense can’t score if we have the ball. Unfortunately, they had the ball a lot. Well how much is a lot? You may be asking yourself. What if I told you the Vikings had the ball for 3:27 in the third quarter and only 9:17 in the entire second half? How can you expect the defense to play over twenty minutes and still be effective? The defense started to show holes as Stafford threw around to Megatron, Titus Young, and his favorite receiver of the day, tight end Brandon Pettigrew. Pettigrew had 11 catches for 112 yards. In just the second half he had nine for 88. We targeted our tight ends just three times in the second half, completing once for 20 yards. So why are we not looking to the tight end more? Rudolph had three catches in three targets in the game for 39 yards. That’s 13 yards per catch. It’s one of my pet peeves seeing the Vikes line up in a double tight end formation with Adrian in the backfield behind a fullback and knowing as well as the defense knowing, who is getting the ball. Adrian’s 5 carries went for 2 yards, 6, -1, 2, and -4. If we run play action and hit the tight end on a seam or in the flat we not only unload the box for AP but we’ll be moving the chains. I’m not going to harp on the fourth and one call because I think we all know AP should’ve carried it for us. Yes, we should go for it in that situation. I understand that three looks pretty good on the scoreboard, but at the time the Lions were moving the ball without a problem in the second half. If we get that conversion we run off a little more clock, keep their offense off the field, and most likely get points whether it’s three or six.
            The Lions picked apart our run stopping linebackers. We had no answer for Pettigrew. During the telecast the announcer said that giving up dump passes to the tight end weren’t going to kill us. Well they did. They kept the Vikings off the field by converting 5 of 10 third downs in the second half. 9.9 yards per catch for Pettigrew in the second half helped the Lions move the ball up the field. I came back to the point of the tight ends because it is my key to winning in this league. Top tier teams utilize their tight ends. The Patriots, who lost because of turnovers not a lack of offense, had their tight end go for two touchdowns in their loss. Top receiving tight ends play for winning teams. Gronkowski of New England, Witten of Dallas, Keller of New York Jets, Graham of New Orleans, Davis of Washington, and Finley of Green Bay have over 200 yards receiving and with the exception of Witten each has at least one touchdown. Gronk-nation leads the way with five. Our tight ends of Rudolph and Shiancoe have a combined total of 8 receptions for 100 yards. Targeted only 15 times this season, that’s five times a game, how do we expect defenses to not load the box in a double tight end formation, or even a single tight end formation? This week I do expect to add on to our 54-7 lead in the first half of games, and fully expect them to close out this upcoming game. Thank you for reading my thoughts. This is my first blog and I am unsure of how it will go but I am excited about it! Please feel free to comment or email your thoughts or questions to Vikes3rdandgoal@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @BloodrunPurple.