Vikings Update: Clash of the 1-3's

We knew going into Sunday that this was undoubtedly going to be the NFL's biggest game of the week, even more exciting than Patriots v. Saints. And if you watched this game from start to finish, it did not disappoint! Unfortunately for us, 90's teal was better than classic purple on this day.

One of my personal most pressing questions coming into this game was, "Who is this Jeff Locke guy? I mean, do we have a punter or not? Seriously, who kicks a ball with their left leg?" I feel a bit embarrassed now since Mr. Locke proved me dead wrong. Looking at the stats, he averaged 49.8 yards per punt with a long of 60 yards! Never mind that when you're offense is consistently punting from your own side of the field, this may have an influence on the high punting average. What I do know is that Jeff Locke is for real and is worth that fifth round pick that could have netted in let's say another player who would be getting all blowed up by small receivers. Which brings me to the only other highlights of the game worth mentioning.


Speaking of Vikings draft picks, one of our number 1's got blowed up by Ted Ginn, Jr., who I think is my height. Little Teddy had done nothing of significance with his career until this happened on Sunday. Boom.

Xavier Rhodes should have just laid there for the rest of the game, because he later pissed off Steve Smith with some after-the-play hand-slapping. I think it's common knowledge in the NFL to not make Steve Smith angry because he will personally dismantle your team. You should have just stayed on the sidelines for this play Chad Greenway.

Hey, Greg Jennings plays football! His spectacular one-handed catch for no gain was the highlight of the game for the Vikes. Do you realize at one point in the game, Jennings had four catches for six yards? Magnificent. Who needs Julio Jones when you can get this type of production on your fantasy football squad?

 

Interesting trivia question from this game: Who is the former pro-bowl Browns quarterback that is still on an NFL roster that everyone thought was dead? Answer: Derek Anderson. It was so nice to see him get some playing time against the Vikings!

On to next week versus the Giants on MNF! (side note: I'm planning on making my MNF debut for this). Any thoughts on the over/under on how many times we will see the salsa dance? I'm hoping to see this frequently as I had zero position players score TD's in my starting lineup last week.

So we should probably talk about Josh Freeman, right? I took a bye week from writing one of these last week thinking, "Well, at least the Vikings won't get any worse this week." And boy was I wrong! I really think they missed the boat by not also signing Matt Flynn while he was available because the only thing better than three incompetent quarterbacks would be four incompetent quarterbacks.The Freeman signing is a peculiar note in Vikings history because he is a young retread, not like the old retreads of Donovan McNabb, Favre, Jeff George, Randall Cunningham, Warren Moon, Bob Loblaw, etc. Maybe they were thinking, "He eviscerated us last year, so he'll probably do the same when playing for us." The only problem with this line of thinking is that he is not good at playing quarterback.

I think a few weeks ago I said something like this is a decent but flawed team, but that sounds like an overly gracious compliment after this past week. So what can Freeman do as quarterback of the Vikings? The easy and correct answer is nothing. Josh Freeman, please prove me wrong.