That's it... we're doomed. While the Vikings are indeed improving (and as a Vikings homer I am mindlessly optimistic) I just don't see such a big improvement to take us from 'just missing out on the playoffs' to 'genuine superbowl contenders'.

I mean, sure, it could happen. Virtually anything can. Allen will make a big difference to the D-line, and the improved pass rush (with three pro-bowl quality players on that line you've got to expect *some* kind of rush, surely) should greatly improve the pass defense of an already respectable defensive team.

And that Peterson guy should hopefully have another 'solid' year :). But we need a passing attack in the worst way, and while it may just turn up, at the moment it has to be considered one of those "if it all comes together..." things. I like Tarvaris Jackson mostly - I love his attitude, and he seems to have most of the skills needed. If only he would stop those off-the-back-foot hail-mary type passes that are 50/50 interceptions. It's not like he has Randy Moss on the other end to rescue him with another magically impossible catch. And maybe the Viking receivers will improve this year. *If* Berrian is a solid player. And *if* Rice continues to improve into a honest-to-goodness NFL-quality receiver, which he has been showing signs of.

Yeah, if it all comes together, it could look pretty nice. We don't need a spectacular passing attack, just enough of one that defenses have to play that as well as AP running at them.

But then, at this time of year pretty much every team could be a contender 'if it all comes together'. Meanwhile, other teams (Pats, Colts f'r'example) already *have* it all together, and are just hoping it doesn't all fall apart. Somehow I think they're in a stronger position.

#1

It's worse. In 2006 Dr Z picked Miami.

I think they and Cleveland are going to be this year's Arizona- the hot pick that's really a year away.

Let's get down to basics. Run the ball. Stop the run. Best in the league at both last year. I can't help it

"Besides the production, there's something to walking into the building every day and being the man. I mean every day. Tavaris is pretty good with that."
(Rich Gannon Quote)

The same old RUNNING THE BALL AND STOPPING THE RUN IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS! logic that's been thoroughly disproven along with saying that the team's QB essentially "totally sucks, but has great CHARACTER and is a MAN and a TEAM LEADER and looks like an OLD SCHOOL FOOTBALL PLAYER and TRIES HARD AT PRACTICE."

It's just more comically wrong football logic.

arizona last season was a year away from what? just sucking, as an improvement over sucking mightily? i can see cleveland or the vikings being "a year away" from success (though maybe not the super bowl), but never arizona.

will the patriots suffer from the curse of the super bowl loser, where they stumble out the gate and have trouble getting back into things? i can't imagine they'll struggle as much as the bears, but maybe they're just the east coast version of the seahawks?

hey, a colts fan can hope.

If Dr. Z coached, would he put 11 men in the box on defense?

I was guardedly optimistic for a good season, but there was a ceiling, one defined by Tarvaris.

Right now i just hope we do better than the Saints did last year....

... or the Panthers the year before?

"If" the injury bug doesn't bite, "If" the O-line can gel, "If" the D-ine can get some pressure, "If" the rookie WR can contribute.

I love this time of year! Everyone is undefeated.

#4 Yeah, I rolled my eyes at that too. The Vikings were great running the ball and defending the run last season and didn't make the playoffs, so why does that make them a Super Bowl team this year? This team might be a contended this year, but the run ain't why.

If Dr. Z picked wines the way he does superbowl champs the white would be turpentine and the red would be goats blood.

I think the Vikes have a very good chance to win the division and I'm sure lots of experts will pick them in the North. I doubt many others (than Z) will see them in the Superbowl. Same with Cleveland. Lots of folks will pick them to win their division, I can't see many (any?) picking them to win the AFC.

Dr Z wrote: For once, I wasn't trying to do a roster breakdown or getting myself all tied up in strengths and weaknesses. I was looking for a team with a chip on its shoulder, one that would be coming into the season with something to prove, a hungry team, nasty, etc.Is there a worse bit of logic in the world of sports punditry than the assertion that a team will win because it "wants it more"?? At least for this pick, he's being a bit smarter about it.

Re 11's quote - that's a stupid thing to say. I can think of many teams with bigger chips on their shoulders and more to prove than the Vikings. For starters, the Patriots. Even the Colts probably have more to prove and are angrier about how last season ended.

The Vikings were a crappy team that ended the season looking like a mediocre team. I don't think they have that much to prove coming out of last year, except that they really are a mediocre team instead of a crappy one.

Wow, that's some strong wine the Doctor's drinking these days. The Vikings? Tavaris Jackson, Super Bowl quarterback?

#12-- to his defense, that quote was how he picked last year's team-- the Saints. But your point remains valid. Thinking back to last year, one could easily have argued for other teams with big shoulder-chips and desires to prove, etc. If I compiled a team made up of players who'd all been cut before the season started, you'd have a pretty big bunch of motivated guys. But I bet they'd have trouble winning a game.

Wow, everyone knows the raiders are winning the superbowl anyway...

Re 14: Ah, that argument makes a little more sense of the Saints last year, except I'd change it to the Saints were an average team that ended the year looking like a marginally playoff-caliber team and needed to prove that they weren't really just an average team.

Except last year showed us that yep, they really were an average team.

The fact remains that the Redskins made the playoffs with a 35-year old QB, a patchwork O-line, and a defense with no pass-rush that lost its best player means anything can happen. Here's hoping for a Vikes-Titans SB. No passing, all rushing. Maybe they could did up Sammy Baugh to rejuvenate their aerial offense, if that's the case.

#17

The Redskins and Titans both lost in the first round of the playoffs.

Re. #11 - I constantly see weekly picks during the season that factor in one team "really needing or wanting" to win. It makes me cringe.

As a Packers fan, thanks to Dr Z I feel better already.

13 Mac - Is that really any different from Rex Grossman, Super Bowl QB or Trent Dilfer, Super Bowl QB?

#21 - Yes. Yes it is.

Dang I'm screwed. AP is going to step on a dog, break his leg and put his arm through a TV, while driving his boat drunk and getting shot while breaking into a South Beach store with his dead pregnant girlfriend in the trunk.

Thanks DR. Z for screwing me in one of my leagues!

The two biggest problems with picking the Vikings are two of the most important aspects of an NFL team ( QB and HC). They have Tavaras Jackson throwing the rock ( in some cases into the stands), and they have Brad Childress calling the shots. The rest of their roster could be fine, but when you have Hellen Keller steering your ship, you are in trouble.

this is all just feeding the torture machine. Vikings fans, there will be a day. But not today.
Run the ball / stop the run is out. Balance and execution is in. You have 2 of the parts needed. Offset the running game with execution of a passing game on any down for a multitude of distances and you will win consistently. In the meantime, enjoy the AP show.

Dang I’m screwed. AP is going to step on a dog, break his leg and put his arm through a TV, while driving his boat drunk and getting shot while breaking into a South Beach store with his dead pregnant girlfriend in the trunk.

If AP proves physically capable of doing all those things at once, I think he earns the Nobel Prize in physics.

RE15
Gooe chcnae the Raiders do win Super Bowl this season. Not surprising to see quick turnaround in league these days Raiders coaching staff among best in league. Wrs good, TE great up and cominger, RBs great, QB young John Elway cannon arm excellent accuracy, d line good, o line good, o line coach great, secondary best in league, lBs all good especallly T Howard (very fast LB- maybe fatest in league), K Morrison Pro Bowl type, Kicker one of best in league. Schedules is good too. Two games vs Broncos, two vs Chiefs, and lots of games against other crap teeams like Jets, Panters, Ravens, falcons, Dolphins, bucs, games vs Pates, Chargers, zBills, and Saints tough maybe.

re: 6

Dr. Z may not put 11 men in the box on defense, but I would if I were playing against the Vikings.

Also, it may not be a good idea to base your entire offense off any player who hasn't had an injury free season since 2004.

Yeah why can't Dr. Z make smart picks like Dr. Barnwell? For example the Giants would have the worst record in the league last season.

#27:

I think you may be underestimating the Panters. McFadden's excellent speed is wasted when his trousers are around his ankles.

Dr. Z might have stolen a sneak peak at PFP 2008, where the cover says T-Jack might be holding the Vikings back from the Superbowl.

STILL, sometimes it doesn't matter how much you "want it" have "something to prove", or have a "chip on your shoulder", if you suck, you suck.

RE30
A couple months ago I said Panthers could make Super bowl. Dont think thjat is possible now. team just not good enough. Vikings, seahawks, Giants, Egales maybe have chance. NFC is hard to figure out. AFc is easy. Going to be Raider,s Chargers, Pates , Cilts, and two other teams.

By the second page Dr. Z sounded like a man on a deadline trying to convince himself that his original thesis could be carried through to a conclusion. Not his most persuasive work, really.

At least he said something interesting, I get real sick of all he front running and band wagoning that gets passed off for expertise and analysis.

The Red Sox are going o be good this year. Really? You don;t say?

Alright, that's enough. Quit your wisecracks. Dr. Z has probably been drinking too much Purple Kool-Aid for even this Vikings homer's taste, but you all are blind if you don't see a good team here. It's he best team this organization has fielded in a decade—better than the Culpepper-Moss-Smith team of 2000 that got skunked in the NFC Championship game. Last year, the Purple b*tch-slapped the New York Football Giants, 41-17; the AFC runners-up, too, 35-17. Tarvaris Jackson, for all the crap he's gotten (for, say, that jump pass. ick.), is 8-6 for 14 starts, and 8-4 last year. The fact is, the Vikes lost all four games they played without him. And he managed that while throwing to guys like Robert Ferguson, Troy Williamson, Bobby Wade, and a couple of rookies. Sidney Rice (and Aundrae Allison, too) will be better during his sophomore year in the West Coast Offense. Bernard Berrian, though no Randy Moss, made Kyle Orton look competent. He'll make Tarvaris Jackson look great.

Oh, yeah—the reigning NFL sack champion Jared Allen joins Pat and Kevin Williams, both of whom are All-Pro tackles. And the running backs are the best 1-2 punch in the league; they averaged an astronomical 5.6 and 5.4 ypc, while routinely facing 8-9 man fronts.

So, tell me, why is this not a 12-win team?

RE35
U make good pints on Vikings, especialy when talking about Jared Allen.

In 32 I wrote Vikings have good chance to go to Super Bowl. How about a rematch of Super Bowl 11 when Raiders beat up Vikes 32-14? How about we see that happen again. This year NFC team decide on what jersey to wear in Super Bowl. Vikings would choose to wear purple jerseys instead of white because they like purple more. That means Raiders would have to wear white road jerseys. That is also like Super Boewl 11 when John Madden lead Raiders to 32-14 win over Vikings who wore purple jerseys that day.
All game Antonie Winfield and Cedric Griffin hear sound of wind in ears as another Jamarcus Russell pass go over their head

At least Troy Williamson is gone. Not that he can't be a good player, but he turned 50+ yard TD passes into incompletions.

Tavaris is unfairly penalized for Troy's lack of hands and thus forced to play vs. teams that do not respect those hands.

35, One of those DT is 35 and has a good chance of declining or getting injured.

35,

Because they can't pass the ball.

If Jackson and his receivers can consistently punish defenses which overload on the run, and Bryant Mckinnie gets no more than a two game suspension, the Vikings will be good.

I have no idea whether those things will happen.

The problem with mainstream media is that you have two options: guess a random fringe playoff team and hope you get lucky and they go all the way and you can be like "I was the only one who knew". This gives you an outside chance of being hailed as a genius by people such as poster # 29 or you can pick the obvious choice, and write something boring. Do you pick the Red Sox for the world series, or do you pick the phillies?

The nice thing about footballoutsiders is that they always will pick the best team, but they can tell you what is so good about them, and how good of a shot the other teams have. And of course sometimes teams like the giants will get lucky and make the playoffs despite only having like a 5% chance of making it there, and then they win the superbowl even though they only had like a 5% chance of going all the way, but its a calculated possibility that these things will happen. Like last year on baseball prospectus, mets had a massive chance of making the playoffs and folded completely, and dumb people pointed at that as baseballprospectus being "wrong". No, there is a reason why their "playoff odds" was not 100%, because it wasnt.

Picking the vikings is a terrible pick. I mean, if you are going to pick a frigne playoff team, why pick the hack pick that all the dumb overly traditional analysts would pick? If you wanna look smart, you gotta pick a team with no big star, and no "pure rushing and rush defense" stupidness. Id say this year's pick would be the seahawks. Near guarunteed playoff appearance, and no big names or chips on their shoulder to make people pick them. No one will pick the seahawks, and they have a better chance of going all the way than the viqueens.

Some of the commenters are better suited on the FOX boards.
Raiderjoe has hte wojrst grmir but he is one of the few with arguments.
The rest here is just bashing the writer - for the heck of it. (FO staff included)
.
This team was good last year and got better with Berrian at WR.
The DLine got better.
I like it.

Pat Williams is 36, Steve Hutchinson and Matt Birk are aging, possible McKinnie suspension, right side of offensive line has little talent, no defensive end depth behind alcoholic Allen, Adrian Peterson is injury prone, Bernard Berrian is overrated and doesn't fit their offense, 23rd ranked pass defense last season (with little done to improve secondary), Tarvaris Jackson.

Oh, and Tarvaris Jackson.

Tarvaris Jackson is no Trent Dilfer.

Worst subplot of the NFL season: more Tarvaris Jackson. I'm sorry but I'm sick of hearing about this guy. So far he has sucked, in 2008-09 who knows.

If you want to choose a team with a young performing QB, than how about Denver? How about Cleveland? What about Houston? What about Washington? Because all those teams were in the mix (save Denver) last season and those QBs were better than Mr. Jackson.

I think better picks would be the Packers, Cowboys, Eagles, or Seahawks, heck you could even say the Giants have a chance with their defense. It's like the Vikings are the new Cardinals.

But really, with New England, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, and Pittsburgh out there you are going to say that the NFC is going to win the Super Bowl? Wake up man!

"But really, with New England, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, and Pittsburgh out there you are going to say that the NFC is going to win the Super Bowl? Wake up man!"

If you're being ironic here I'm not catching it ...

Yeah, I love the Vikings, but I see more like 10-6 and a first or second round playoff exit than any kind of Super Bowl. Too many questions to be much more optimistic, and that's even before one considers the QB situation.

By the way, did anyone else think that raiderjoe's typo in 32 (where he meant Colts) said something totally different? Raiderjoe is just awesome. We need a column from him comparing tape of Russell v. Elway.

35- Did you say Berrian will make Jackson look great? Will you be saying that midseason or that Jackson has " no receivers"? Same thing happened when the Falcons kept drafting receivers and brought in Peerless Price.

41. Like the Giants, right?

Raida Joe wins the thread for the *Colts*.

The non playoff team with the best shot to win it all is Philly. This is coming from a NY Giants fan too.

Dr Z pegged the Bears as the worst team in football in his power rankings the season when the Bears got to the Superbowl. His predictions aren't exactly an exact science.

No thread about the Giants cutting Jared Lorenzen? The Pillsbury throwboy is doesn't matter? How would the Giants convert 4th and 1's without him?

I wish the Raiders had Jemarcus, Fumblepepper and Subway Jared as their quarterbacks and they all went to the Buffet together.

42: Agree completely

What has Tarvaris Jackson done to warrant all the vitriol? He just finished his 2nd year as an NFL QB from an FCS (I-AA) program. In McNair's 3rd year in the league, he completed 52% of his passes with a QB rating just above 70. Not exactly lighting the world on fire. Why don't we give the kid a chance before we conclude he's the the worst player EVER.

Second, Jackson has markedly improved (both visually and statistically). In his last 7 games, he completed over 65% of his passes with 7 TDs (7 INTs). I don't think he's ready to the be the focal point of the offense, but he can be an asset out on the field.

Third, what would you guess to be the DVOA of Vikings pass offense last year? Would you believe that it was better than 13 other teams (ranked 19th at -5.8%)? Would you believe it was better than the last two NFC representatives in the Super Bowl (it was)?

Didn't one of the FO staff write an article that argued that modern offenses require a competent passing game and that the ground game is secondary?

DobleB, I appreciate the optimism, but it must be remembered that the passing DVOA came against defensive fronts which had sold out COMPLETELY to stop the run. A competent passing offense, when confronting nine and even ten in the box with some regularity, should be putting up nearly 30 points a game without breaking a sweat. As always, the full context in which the stats are generated needs to be considered, and as far ahead of the conventional wisdom the FO stats often are, they still can't fully capture context. Until game charting becomes a contemporeaneous exercise, and fully integrated with the stats being generated weekly, we will be a long way from getting a good picture of the context which produced the stats.

43, Good point, age is always a factor to recon with. It is fine to point out that Rice and others may get better with experience but the lads on the down side have to be considered too. Adding to your list, Winfield celebrates his 31st birthday today, perhaps a bit old for a top corner?

Will,

I'm not necessarily optimistic. I don't believe he's the 2nd coming of Steve McNair. I think he's a young, raw player who has shown good improvement over the past two years which I would think anyone who's watched him can agree on. And while he has an excellent running game to take the heat off, he has had a big goose egg in the WR category which has hurt.

I had two main points in my first post. Jackson is better than most of the commenters on this board believe (in other words, he's not complete shit) and second, a great passing game is not necessary to be a Super Bowl contender particularly when a team has so many other great pieces in place.

Re 52:

Not to mention Winfield isn't very good for a top corner to begin with. Although, his isn't really a speed game, so he may age gracefully.

And, am I the only one who noticed that he picked the Vikes to win Superbowl XXIII? Joe Montana wants a word with you, Z.

In all the gushing about the Vikings it's interesting that nobody bothers to think that the defensive anchor, and this highly appropriate terminology, is a 35 year old defensive tackle who generates his own gravitational field.

Pat Williams makes that defense "GO". Period. And folks can gush about the other Williams and Henderson at linebacker and the prospect of Allen at end. You listen to ANY offensive lineman in the NFC North and they will say to a MAN that Pat Williams is a godd*mn nightmare.

Factor in that Brad Childress is dumber than ten dogs and is coaching the quarterback and the Vikings season hangs on some fairly precarious threads.

But that's just me....

45,

"But really, with New England, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, and Pittsburgh out there you are going to say that the NFC is going to win the Super Bowl? Wake up man!"

That was a joke right? Please tell me that was a joke?

Re 55:

You listen to ANY offensive lineman in the NFC North and they will say to a MAN that Pat Williams is a godd*mn nightmare.

Except Olin Kreutz, he'll call Williams fat.

Last year the Vikings had the 14th best DVOA at plus 4.9%. I wondered how often a team goes from a DVOA that low to the Super Bowl the next. The answer, 7 times in the last ten years at least one or both teams had DVOA's worse than the Vikings had last year. Of the last 20 teams to play in the Super Bowl - 9 had DVOA's the previous year below 4.9. Although the bad teams are more often losers at the big game.

Here's the list:

NYG 10.8 NE 23.3
Indy 33.5 Chic 2.3
Ptt 34.8 Sea -5
NE 22.8 Phil 15.6
NE 12.6 Car -9.2
TB 18.2 Oak 15.1
NE -7.9 StL 18.4
Balt 4.6 NYG -8.8
STL -7.4 Tenn -0.9
Den 27.6 Atl -3.2
14.96 4.76

I like Dr. Z, but this article was d*mn near indefensible. Not so much for picking the Vikings, but picking them for "running and stopping the run." News flash - they were one of the best teams in the NFL at both of those things last year, and they still only won 8 games, so clearly, there are more important things that they aren't doing well.

Re 58:
Last year, the Vikings' starting QB had a DPAR of 0.9. In the last 7 years, the only 2 teams to make a Super Bowl who didn't have a QB with at least 10 DPAR the year before were Chicago in 2006, and Carolina in 2003. Neither won the Super Bowl, although Carolina came very close.

So, it wouldn't be unprecedented for a team like the Vikings to make the Super Bowl (Jackson could be as good next year as Grossman was in 2006), and they might even win it, but I think there's at least a dozen or so teams with a significantly better chance at winning it all.

Doc... Quick, get out of the heat - seems Your brain is beginning to fry. If Minnesota wins 8 games this season i'll be suprised!

Comparing Tavaras Jackson to Steve Mcnair is a complete joke. Did you forget that Mcnair was shattering Records in college while Jackson was backing up Matt Jones before finally quitting and going to DIAA where he was nothing spectacular?

Jackson had defenses sell out to stop the purple jesus while Mcnair literally had nothing around him.

Was your opinion of the Doc greatly impacted by his pick of the Saints last year when the Saints didn't come through? Did anyone even remember it before he made his pick this year?

Hence the rationale. If the Vikings flop, who cares. If they win, he'll be lauded as a genius.

Picking the Colts of Cowboys or Patriots wouldn't gain much attention if they pulled it off.

The key to the Vikings' season, imho, is Peterson. If he runs like he did the first part of the season, Jackson does not have to be an All-Pro, just competent. If Peterson runs like he did after the ligament injury in G.B., well...

I know a lot of commenters here are used to refuting the "run and stop the run" logic, but Dr. Z discussed that for all of one paragraph. He started with the team's obvious strengths, and then went on for most of the article attempting to deflect objections people might raise (mostly focused on quarterback).

It's not really objectionable to point out that the Vikes can run and stop the run. Z did not base his entire prediction on that one paragraph--it was just his first point.

What I find interesting is how he defends his belief that Tarvaris Jackson will succeed: he believes in Brad Childress. A lot of Viking fans and MN columnists talk of Childress as a total bum that can't run an offense. Here's Dr. Z calling him "a coach who can do everything for the position except throw the ball," and listing off his experience with offense and particularly in tutoring quarterbacks. In this region, it's interesting to read praise of Childress's ability to coach quarterbacks and offense.

It seems to me Z went into this article knowing people would object to it--instead of glossing over Tarvaris Jackson and shouting "but they run and stop the run!" he did the opposite--he briefly listed their strengths, and spent the second half of the article defensively discussing the coach and quarterback.

PV:

And Childress' quotes are talking about elements of leadership as opposing to technical points that actually help a quarterback become more effective.

Which is Brad's MO all the way back to his days at Wisconsin. Over and over again he would discuss "moxie" and "guts" while over and over again Wisconsin quarterbacks couldn't consistently hit a 10 yard out.

And don't me lump me in with the MN contingent opposed to Childress. Personally, I am delighted he is the Vikings coach.

Re: 46/56
No, not being facetious but understand how my statement could be construed that way.

What I meant to say is that in the past 3 seasons the AFC has been (here come the caveats) "overall" the "better" conference. Now I'm not preaching some football professor type of cycles dominance of a conference, but what I am thinking is that if *I* were picking a Super Bowl winner in June I'd think that NE or IND were the best picks, admitting those are conservative picks...

As it was, in my post I mentioned a number of NFC teams also. Currently Vegas odds of Minny winning are ~ 30:1 which puts them at about 15th "most likely" (now I admit this isn't purely how to read the vegas line).

too funny, I was reading Pacifist Vikings comments on the Childress opinion, and was thinking to myself that "someone here in the past, a Wisconsin guy/Packer Fan - really has a very passioned problem with Childress....I think it's that Badger1000 guy"...then I read up a few comments, and sure enough there it was at #57. "Dumber than 10 dogs" I wouldn't know if the 10 dogs thing is true or not, but you guys make me laugh.

67. And yet, I've frequently heard Childress discussing the technical aspects of quarterbacking when discussing the strengths and weaknesses of particular quarterbacks.

63:

I simply compared McNair's 3rd year statistics with Jackson's 2nd year statistics. Neither were particularly noteworthy. I mentioned previously that I don't believe Jackson will be as good as McNair, but that he has made significant process over the past two seasons.

And the comparisons between the 1997 Oilers and the 2007 Vikings are striking. Both teams had a very good running game (apparently you forgot about Eddie George, who isn't nothing). Neither QB had anybody noteworthy to throw to, although Wycheck was better than anyone on the 2007 Vikings. Both defenses did extremely well defending the run and struggled against the pass.

I'm neutral on Childress, but in the interest of accuracy, I've frequently heard him speak in great detail regarding the required mechanics and physical abilities for competent play at quarterback.

68

No prob, I agree with you generally on AFC v. NFC. Haven't looked at the Vegas lines yet, but if I had to put money down on one team to take it all, it would have to be Dallas, just because to me they're head and shoulders above the rest of the NFC. To win the Super Bowl you have to get there, and that's tough to do when you have to play two games against NE/IND/JAX/SD/OAK. Some might say that OAK doesn't belong in that group, but I've seen people compare Russell to a young Elway.

And as a Viking fan, I'm 100% neutral on Childress. I think that you have to give a coach at least 3 years before you can pass judgment on him barring total, monumental, utter incompetence. For all the bad things one can say about Childress, it's tough to argue that he's demonstrated that.

Unlike the majority of people on this site and just about anywhere people discuss football; I thought pass rush was a far more pressing need than QB for the Vikings. I would have rated QB as the 3rd highest need after pass rush, and WR.

The Vikings were 8-8 last year which is about as average as you can get, but their wins tended to be blowouts:

Atl +21
SD +18
@NYG +24
Det +32
@SF +20
Oak +7
Chic +7
@Chic + 3

Even the games they won by 7 or less were all statistical blowouts for the Vikings.

On the flip side their losses tended to be close games, the exception being @ GB

@Det -3
@KC -3
@Den -3
GB -7
Phil -7
@Dall -10
Wash -11
@GB -34

I think 5 blowouts wins against 1 blowout loss is the sign of a fairly strong team.

That's an interesting theory, jimm, but one that needs testing, like all theories. Perhaps you should send an e-mail note to Aaron with this as a suggested avenue of inquiry; does a preponderance of blow out wins or losses in teams bunched in the middle (say, teams with 7 to 9 wins) have any predictive value for the following year? My gut feeling is that it probably does not.

The theory works well in determining the league's best teams in basketball. And maybe to a lesser extent in football.

Will:

Wouldn't this be reflected in a Pythagorean score which is generally considered to more indicative of future success than W-L?

The vikings had 8.8 estimated wins by DVOA, so they were a little better than their record, but not much.

Minny had 9.5 Pythagorean wins last year, which was 10th in the league. However, I think total team DVOA (they were 14th) has been shown to be more predictive for the following season than Pythagorean wins. I could be mistaken about that, though.

I think DVOA is believed to be a better indicator. It's definitely a better indicator of future DVOA. The Vikings had extremely high variance, so in any given game they can look like world beaters. That could be a good thing if they ever make the playoffs.

"I was looking for a team with a chip on its shoulder, one that would be coming into the season with something to prove, a hungry team, nasty, etc."
Way to make me stop reading Doc! Did I miss anything in the rest of the article?

Will - sent the question off to Aaron. I know that in baseball good teams when a high percentage of blowouts and one run games are essentially a toss up - it would be interesting to see if there is indeed any predictive value in such a stat in football. My guess would be different than yours.

Do you think the DVOA swings for the Viqueens can be attributed to A) How great are the shortcomings Tavaras Jackson B) Is Adrian Peterson good of freakishly good C) Defense/Take aways/Give aways?

jimm:

Personally, I have never disputed the Vikings level of talent. There are a lot of good players on this team.

I simply have not seen anything from the head coach that tells me that he has evolved any from his days at Wisconsin where he would continue to make the same choices despite prior results that were poor. Initially it was somewhat amusing. Over time it became bizarre.

I thought the discussion on blowouts, etc. has been covered in the past with the articles/discussion on stomps and guts? Not sure which PFP they showed up in...

Some might say that OAK doesn’t belong in that group, but I’ve seen people compare Russell to a young Elway.

Thank you for your awesomenessisity.

68,

Well I think Dallas is the best team (bias alert), but regardless of if they're better than Indy and NE or not, I think you have to at least say they're pretty close. And the fact that the AFC is stronger than the NFC only makes Dallas much more likely to win. Whereas I think Dallas is head and shoulders above the rest of the NFC, Indy and NE will have to play a lot of really strong teams in the playoffs. So your argument that the AFC is better should only strengthen Dallas' (or I suppose another NFC team if you prefer) case.