the ineffective John Wade

How bad is Washington's front office and coaching staff? They're apparently playing a guy from the Bucs instead of their own Todd Wade!

Or at least that what's the WWLIS ign.com would have you believe.

'-)

Well, yes, Bill, the Vikings should have traded for the next Joe Montana or Steve Young. I have no opinion on Jackson's prospects, other than to note that he barely snuck into the second round, which means that he never was a likely prospect, especially given his collegiate background. Trading for good qb prospects, however, is damnably difficult. The Brett Favres and Mark Brunells are uncommonly available, especially in October.

What are you talking about? T-Jack is bonafide!

I bet I was available. Wouldn't I be an upgrade over Tavaris Jackson?

Will,

I just moved away from Minneapolis a year ago, I'm curious to know what the average fair-weather Vikings fan (not you, obviously) thinks of Jackson. Primarily I'm curious because it seems like the national media has been kind of down on him, but every once in a while you hear about his physical skills.

Mainly I'm curious because it has seemed like the average Vikings fan tends to get really high on prospects for about a year, and then turns on them. Maybe that was just my perception.

(I'm of course, a Packers fan from WI, but what are ya gonna do?)

So Bill, to follow up on Will Allen's post, any suggestions for who the Vikes should've traded for?

I guess the answer of who the Vikings could trade for is Chad Pennington.

#7: Or Mark Brunell. Following the buyers/sellers section, they could give up backup tackle Marcus Johnson, who is somewhat competent but won't see the field ahead of McKinnie/Cook.

I actually liked the idea of trading away Orlando Pace and tanking the season, but are you allowed to trade players on IR? Otherwise I'd be up for it, I just don't think any NFL GM would be even contemplating it unfortuneately.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't pace entering the decline of his career? He will be 32 in Novemeber, is injured, and has a lot of miles on him. Drafting a rookie OL player to spend 2 years at RT or Guard while he learns the NFL game would be perfect timing. Just an opinion.

Xian, I don't live in Minneapolis any longer, so I really don't have a feel for the sentiment of the Viking fan in the street. Hey, if he can continue to come in about 15 or 16 in DVOA rankings this year, that would be tremendous, and I guess the reason I wouldn't quit on him just yet is because he does seem to be able to make the required throws, albeit with some needed improvement in accuracy, and by all reports he has an extraordinary work ethic, even by NFL qb standards. A good athlete who is willing work like a total maniac should be given the opportunity to fail.

I do wish they had pursued Jeff Garcia at some time over the past two off-seasons, however.

ugh, I hate IGN. Anytime I think sports reporters are bad I check out the free advertisements that pass for articles on that site.

That said I still check it out a couple times a week, and I'm thrilled to see someone with some talent added to their staff.

T Jack did not "barely sneak into the second round." T jack was to be an underafted free agent. Not one of the sites that I looked at had him even being drafted. The fact that the Vikes traded up to draft him says way, way more about the Vikes than t jack. It is that whole other "garbage in, garbage out" thing. Hard to be a Vikings fan these days. Maybe any days.

Well, goodness, db if not one of the sites you looked at said so, that settles it.

Yeah and Mel Kiper told me that Mike Williams was the best player in the draft and all the sites had him going 5th to the Buccaneers. How did Matt Millen ever go wrong.

15 -

Kiper also said Williams was going to the Hall of Fame...

Were there more in-season trades before the cap era? The cap considerations(eating the entire signing bonus, teams right up against the cap in-season) seem to be a much bigger disincentive to making trades then any concerns over learning plays or whatever

I enjoyed this article and eagerly anticipate future Bill Barnwell IGN content

Will Allen:

I watched the NFL replay of Bears-Vikings and thought T. Jack looked pretty damn good. OTOH, his receivers, if possible, looked worse than the Pinkston-Thrash-Mitchell era of the Eagles. I could not believe how many passes in their hands and on the numbers they dropped during the game. The Vikings would be an offensive juggernaut if the wideouts just caught the catchable balls.

Awesome! As a video game designer I have to deal with the idiots at IGN far too often, great to see an Outsider bring some sense to the enterprise.

Re: 18 - but you have to admit, seeing Troy Williamson literally get hit in the numbers before the ball bounces off of him was pretty funny.

Jackson played so-so against the Falcons, terrible against the Lions, and pretty decently against the Bears. Let's hope the Bears performance is more indicative, and there is no doubt that his numbers are being significantly degraded by guys who don't catch well. He has, however, also missed his share of open receivers, especially on deep patterns, and that is where he needs improvement.

"An aged Eric Moulds, Roydell Williams, Brandon Jones, and Justin Gage makes a receiving corps not. "

They're not the problem in this case. The guy throwing the ball is. Young needs to develop atleast adequate passing ability, and he hasn't done that yet.

When Kerry Collins significantly outperforms you with the same receiving core, you're the problem.

Jesus, people. It's CORPS.

Receiving CORPS.

I wouldn't even want to speculate on what a "receiving core" might be.

Orlando Pace has had a great career, but why would anybody trade for him now?

Usually GMs wait for an injured player to recover from his injury and to clear a physical before thinking about trading for him. What if Pace never gets back into playing shape? What if he returns too slow to block anybody?

Tarvaris Jackson is getting a bit of a raw deal. As mentioned, he looked pretty decent against the Bears. But most writers act as if the Vikes have been struggling along with him at the helm for years now. He's a second-year QB with seven games under his belt. He might never be great, but at least give him a chance.

re. 23.

Or in the case of the Vikings, receiving corpse.

re:4

No Brian you are not.

You are completely ineffective. However you showed enough last year that a team will hang on to you for way too long. Whereas everyone knows T-Jack is just DMac's placeholder.

It's the we have Aaron Brooks why would we need Matt Leinart, Vince Young, Jay Cutler, Drew Brees Phenomenon.

4: No. Go back to your hole.

I find is amazing that I went to read Barnwell's article on IGN, a site I hate, after seeing an interstitial ad for Microsoft, a company I hate, on the same page as online football meathead comments (again, hate), next to an add for The Replacements (which I hate already).

I blame it on his haunting, roguishly beautiful eyes.

I don't know if it will make x-tra points, and it has to do with significant roster additions, so I will post it here. Koren Robinson's reinstatement just made the Packers a much better team, assuming he is in shape and can stay off the bottle for four months. He knows the Packers' system, and the only thing that has held back his All Pro level talent is his boozing, which he was able to avoid for most of one season with the Vikings. If Favre stays on track, and Robinson stays sober, the Packers have a very good chance to win the conference, which drives me nuts, given that Robinson's drunkeness hurt the Vikings more last season than any other factor in a 6-10 season.

Re 14,15,16. Let me use little words to get by your limited language skills. Regardless of merit, the sites are very accurate at draft order for the first three rounds. Kiper keeps his job by predicting who goes where. Mike Williams is a perfect example of that. The selection of T Jack ahead of Croyle was dumb. Trading up to draft T Jack at 64 was dumber. The pick smacks of Guruitis, that ego driven malady that many head coaches seem to have. Jackson was a nobody from Alabama State who couldn't beat out Matt Jones at Arkansas. He has physical skills but is a 5 year project at least as an NFL QB.

Re 29: Will Allen, do you really think that Koren Robinson is that much of an upgrade at this point? Last year he could have been GBs second best WR after Driver and ahead of a nicked up rookie Greg Jennings.

While James Jones had the fumble issue against the Bears, he's been pretty solid as a rookie, and Jennings has been effective after missing the first couple of games (a TD in 3 consecutive games before last week vs Washington). Even #4 WR Ruvell martin has been very effective in spot duty with a high YPC average. I'm not sure that Robinson is a significant upgrade at this point, or where he fits into the mix.

I suppose if he can be the guy who doesn't get hurt like Jennings and doesn't fumble like Jones he could be GBs second most reliable WR, but putting Koren Robinson and the word "reliable" together is a bit of a stretch at this point.

db, prove that the sites you mention are "very accurate". Otherwise, please stop making unsupported assertions. Like I said, I have no opinion on Jackson other than he barely made it into the second round, and thus was never a very good prospect. Tell me, though, where you have displayed enough expertise for anyone to value your opinion on who is a at least a five year project as an NFL QB.

Arkaein, if Robinson isn't drunk, he is an elite receiver in the in the NFL, and is a Pro Bowl caliber kick returner as well. I make no predictions of him staying sober, of course, but I don't think it is extraordinarily unlikely that he might manage it for three or four months.

30,32: I bet that getting in a massive pissing contest will definitely lead us to the bottom of this tricky issue!

Well, Fnor, I don't even disagree with him that much, but it is amusing when someone cites "sites" as an authority.

When will this craptastic fad of nicknaming people with the first letter of their first names and the first syllable of their last name end? It is so unbearably irritating. Somewhere in this thread someone claims that "T-Jack" is just "Dmac"'s placeholder or some such. Who the hell is Dmac? This is not a problem that I would run into if it hadn't been declared illegal to refer to a sports figure by his freaking name.
23 - core/corps is pretty annoying, but one thing that I just cannot begin to understand is the replacement of the word "dominant" with the word "dominate."

DMac is Darren McFadden I thought. I know he plays some QB, but I am not sure Minnesota is that desperate. But a McFadden-Peterson-Taylor backfield, while it may not win a lot of games would be a hell a lot of fun to watch.

Mel Kiper had Tarvaris Jackson as a 3rd rounder before the draft. I guess, one of the last picks in the 2nd round is uh a reach or something.

I thought DMac was Donovan McNabb, injury prone and on his way out in Philly as they groom Kolb, soon to be reunited with Childress in Minny. Or something.

37 - Ah, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I was there with 36, thinking of McFadden and the fact that it would be pretty strange if Tavaris Jackson (that took about one second more than typing T-Jack, for those scoring at home) was warming the seat for a runningback who they certainly won't draft.

T Jack did not “barely sneak into the second round.� T jack was to be an underafted free agent. Not one of the sites that I looked at had him even being drafted.

That means that all of the sites that you looked at were wrong. The fact that he was drafted is evidence that those sites are inaccurate. You can't assume that no other team would've drafted him in a later round just because those sites said so. Those sites said he wouldn't be drafted at all, and they were clearly wrong in that prediction.

39.

Alex, the fact that they were wrong and he was drafted at the end of the 2nd round does not mean that they were wrong about their evaluation of him as a player.

IIRC, Scouts.com projected Bethel Johnson to go in the top of the 5th round. The Pats grabbed him in the 1st or 2nd, IIRC. Obviously, Scouts.com was more accurate in their assesment of his talent than the Patriots were.