By spending more than $70 million on new talent, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf is telling Coach Brad Childress that his third season better include a playoff berth. Unless Tavaris Jackson doesn't improve a lick, the Vikings have the team to beat in the NFC North. If Jackson continues to make strides along with runner Adrian Peterson, Minnesota will be better equipped to control every game's tempo because their defensive pass rush should be the NFL's best. Yes, ex-Chief Jared Allen is that good, plus he's being teamed with Kevin and Pat Williams, already the game's best duo at defensive tackle.
The quarterback position has been upgraded with the arrival of veteran Gus Frerotte, who can win in a reserve role, and with USC rookie John David Booty who played on college's biggest stage with the Trojans. Ex-Bear Bernard Berrian gives Childress a bonafide deep threat opposite Sidney Rice. The defense is a lot more than Allen, too, because E.J. Henderson and Chad Greenway are above-average linebackers and ex-Bengal safety Madieu Williams is a lot better player and more reliable than the departed Dwight Smith. With the retirement of Brett Favre, the Packers won't be favored to repeat as division champions. The Vikings have two big tests this season — home to Peyton Manning and the Colts and at Jacksonville in late November. If they win one of those, watch out!
The Vikings have a great opportunity to set the tempo for the division in their first four games versus the Packers, Colts, Panthers, and Titans. If they can go 3-1 or 4-0, I think they will win 11+ and the division easily. If they stumble out going .500 or worse it will be a close race for the whole season.
I'm amazed at all the great moves Chili has made this off-season. This is going to be a very exciting season. The Vikings could make a run at the Super Bowl if T-Jack improves and cuts down his mistakes.
Way to plagiarize Czarnecki from Foxsports. Cut and paste works real well I see.
Sorry....had to call ya out on that, but I do love the synopsis. It is probably one of the most accurate portrayals of what can be expected and how good of an offseason the front office/team had.
I'm excited for the new season to start. T. Jackson has shown he has the ability to improve himself, which in turn can only improve the team. mix that with " All Day ", plus a defense that saw many improvements....division title, playoff year, I don't see those two out of reach
Since the theme of this thread seems to be "winning", I'm gonna put my two cents in. The one thing Tarvaris consistently did last year was win. For whatever reason you may want to declare for the success, we went 8-4 when T-Jack started and 0-4 without him. Therefore it makes no sense to say it was because of the D and AD that we won those games, because we had both of those elements in the 4 games T-Jack didn't start. Bu anyway, He had some crappy games and some really good games, all of them against very different opponents. His receivers have improved, he is more comfortable with his O-Line now and I think we will see him tucking the ball and running in order to pick up a first down a little bit more this year. I think he will be way more consistent this year which is going to be vital if the race for the North comes down to the last few games.
It seems this season is riding on T-Jack, which I agree, we really don't have any other excuses except for maybe at the corner positions which we all know is where we have been getting beat the last few seasons but only because we didn't have a very good pass rushing team. This is T-Jack third season at starting QB which is usually where QB either makes it or breaks what happens in the future for the Vikes. We will surely know within the first few weeks how this season is going to turn out especially with the Colts in week two.
I agree ... with the uncertainties in most teams in the nfc, its quite possible for a few teams to make a good run into the playoffs, and the Vikings are one of the teams with the potential !!! go Vikes !
