Fitting Brett Favre Into the Vikings Offense: Leave Your Guns at Home

Picture this one, Vikings fans: Bernard Berrian streaks down the sideline, the Metrodome crowd roars, and Brett Favre cocks his arm back, looking for a home run.

Thrilling? Hell yes.

Advisable? Heck no.

At first blush, Favre seems like the perfect candidate to give Minnesota’s passing game, ranked No. 25 last season, some big-play pizazz. He brings a cannon arm to an offense that features Berrian, whom ESPN’s Christoper Harris calls “a bomb waiting to go off,” and Percy Harvin, who is no stranger to the long ball himself.

Favre likes to throw long; they like to go long. Even in practice, he sends ‘em hard and he sends ‘em deep (that’s what she—er, Visanthe Shiancoe, said.)

The Vikings don’t need the Mighty Mississippian out there launching missiles, though. They need him wielding a scalpel.

The obvious reason is that Minnesota doesn’t need the turnovers that Favre’s aerial ambitions generate. There’s merit to that idea—but not as much as you think.

Nearly half of Favre’s league-leading 22 interceptions last year came on throws of 20 yards or longer. He attempted 57 passes in that range, and tossed up 10 picks to show for it.

That’s one turnover for every five-and-a-half deep attempts. Bad odds? Sure, but no worse than Gus Frerotte, who posted a nearly identical interception rate on long throws in his 11 starts, or Sage Rosenfels, who gave the ball away on one in six tries of 20 yards or more.

In other words, Favre throwing deep is a risk, but isn’t really a downgrade.

(Tarvaris Jackson fans, now’s your chance to complain about leaving him out of the mix. Just remember what happens when you ask him to carry the load.)

The real reason Favre is best served sticking to the short stuff has as much to do with accentuating his positives as it does with eliminating his negatives. Simply put, he’s deadly from close range.

Even in a down year, Favre completed nearly 76 percent of his passes within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage last year. Those sound like “gimmes,” but they also make up around the vast majority of a quarterback’s throws—typically, around 70 percent.
Frerotte and Jackson connected on just 67 percent of short throws last year. If Favre had the same number of attempts they did, he would have completed about 27 more passes on short attempts alone.

Under the same conditions, he would have completed 15 more throws than Rosenfels, who made good on about 71 percent of his passes of 10 yards or shorter.

But Favre isn’t merely an upgrade over Minnesota’s lackluster collection of passers. When it comes to picking defenses apart underneath, he’s an artiste of the highest order. There isn’t a starting quarterback in the league—not Philip Rivers, not Peyton Manning, not even the oh-so-meticulous Chad Pennington—who was more efficient in short-yardage passing last season.

Any strong-armed quarterback can launch a rocket toward the end zone and hope for the best—heck, T-Jack could play that role just fine. It takes talent to play a dink-and-dunk game that controls the ball and moves the chains. Favre still has plenty to offer in that department.

So if Favre the gunslinger lands a few deep shots against the Chiefs tonight, cheer all you like—it’s a rush, after all, and a nifty highlight.

But save some applause for Favre the surgeon, too. When he starts slicing away, he’s got the tools to bleed the other guys dry.

Say What You Want, But the Vikings Are Just More Fun with Favre

Vikings fans are cheering. Packers faithful are jeering. Pundits are bouncing between, “Say it ain’t so,” and, “I told you so.”

And Sage Rosenfels probably feels a lot like Ben Stiller in There’s Something About Mary, standing in front of Cameron Diaz and wondering, “What the hell is Brett Favre doing here?”

There’s a red No. 4 on the practice field at Winter Park today, and it’s not John David Booty.

Surprised? Don’t be. The only real shocker here is that Favre pulled such a clumsy “no means yes” routine to avoid training camp, when it would have been just as easy to dodge the Mankato State dormitories by postponing his decision until the team was back in the Twin Cities.

Beyond the time lost in camp, however, signing Favre makes as much sense today as it did three weeks ago. Brad Childress hit the nail on the head: “The same variables that made this a unique and positive situation previously, still exist.”

In other words, Favre was the Vikings’ best option at quarterback on July 28, and he still is. He was better than Rosenfels and Tarvaris Jackson then, and he’s better now, too.

You can rip Favre for giving the team the run-around. You can rip Childress for going from “there’s not a chance” to picking up Favre at the airport, leaving the quarterbacks with whom he vowed he was “going forward” in the dust.

But it’s hard to rip the decision from a football perspective. As we examined last week, strong quarterback play is a key indicator of a Super Bowl contender.

There are fewer than 32 quality quarterbacks in the league right now. There may be fewer than 16. If Favre is effective, he’s one of them. If he isn’t, Rosenfels will still be there, and the team will be no worse off than it is right now.

Some media outlets are just happy they got it right. The headline at FOXsports.com, where Jay Glazer predicted a Favre comeback yesterday: “Told ya so.”

Some are convinced the team got it all wrong. SI.com’s Peter King called the Vikings Favre’s “enablers”, and said both the player and the club are “making a mistake.”

If they are, it may be the most profitable misstep in franchise history.

The front page of the Vikings’ official Web site has been replaced by a banner bearing Favre’s face that reads “Are you ready 4 some football?”—complete with links to purchase Favre jerseys and season tickets, of course.

The team’s Ticketmaster site reportedly crashed under the sudden influx of traffic this morning.

The Metrodome’s cheapest nosebleed seats for the Packers-Vikings game on Oct. 5 (face value: $30) are going for $200 each on Stubhub.com.

For the rematch at Lambeau on Nov. 1, the cheapest tickets will set you back $349 (or a cool $1,750 for six). Now that’s a stimulus package.

Oh, and those Minneapolis stadium talks that have been frustrating the team for more than a year just might get a shot in the arm.

Think fans are getting jazzed up about the situation? Go check out the commentators Star Tribune’s story, telling us that we’ll see “Favre hoisting the Lombardi trophy (to the envy of all cheeseheads) in five months.”

Then pop on over to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and listen to the faithful explain, “If you found out your wife was cheating on you, your kid was doing drugs, or your best friend was only using you for your money, you’d be feeling the same thing…that many people feel about Favre going to the Vikings.”

Twin Cities sports radio host Dan Barreiro even tracked down Packers fanatic Carl Gerbschmidt, who may or may not exist. Gerbschmidt reported that he was drowning his sorrows at a bar in Chippewa Falls, Wisc., after setting the Favre-owned truck he won at an auction on fire.

This ought to be fun.

Everyone in Minnesota who took their shots at Favre for his love of attention might want to take a minute to bask in the glow of the cameras currently pointed at our state.

Doesn’t that feel good? You start to understand why he enjoys the sensation. And nothing could have delivered that kind of spotlight like Favre.

So what the hell is Brett Favre doing here, anyway?

Is he trying to win another Super Bowl for his daughter, as he said in tonight’s press conference? Is he trying to go out on his own terms? Is he just trying to play some football and put $12 million in the bank?

We don’t know yet. But it’s going to be a hell of a ride.

For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

For Vikings Fans, Love Doesn’t Come Cheap

When the Vikings made the trek to Indianapolis on Friday, team executives noticed how nicely the one-year-old Lucas Oil Stadium suited the Colts.

They made sure the Minnesota public noticed, too.

“This would be great in Minneapolis,” said Lester Bagley, the team’s vice president of public affairs and stadium development. “The frustrating thing is that the person that’s working the hardest to get a deal done and keep the Vikings in Minnesota is [owner] Zygi Wilf.”

Translation: We’d love to build one of these ourselves, and it would be a shame if we had to do it somewhere else.

After a 48-year romance with the good people of Minnesota, those Vikings still know how to push our buttons.

They know we’re just a teensy bit insecure about a slicker, sexier city making a play for our purple pride. They know we’re still wary of losing a hometown team after Bud Selig tried to contract the Twins in 2002. And they know we love the Vikings enough to put up a fight for them when push comes to shove.

In this case, however, love isn’t a battlefield. It’s a stadium, and it costs $950 million.

That’s a lot of love.

For Vikings ownership, commitment issues are nothing new. Red McCombs toyed with the idea of moving the team to Los Angeles for profit. He kicked around the notion of moving it to San Antonio, his hometown, for fun.

When Wilf bought the team in 2005, he promised that his involvement with the Twin Cities was more than just a fling. Heck, when he vowed, “We will be in the Minneapolis area forever,” he practically dropped to one knee.

At this point, though, his words sound an awful lot like sweet nothings. Bagley said in February that if a stadium deal isn’t done when other cities come calling, “it’s not going to be a favorable outcome for the Twin Cities in terms of the long-term future for the club.”

Why can’t this team quit playing games (with our hearts)? Because they’re set to quit playing games in the Metrodome after the 2011 season. Once that lease expires, they’re back on the singles market, looking for a shoulder to cry on and a place to crash.

The latest homewrecking suitor to throw himself at the team is California real estate developer Ed Roski, a billionaire who helped finance L.A.’s Staples Center.

Roski’s come-hither trump card? A proposal for a privately financed $800-million stadium in Industry, Calif., 15 miles east of Los Angeles.

He’s got a list of small-market teams with whom he’s flirting. The Vikings are on it.

So far, the team has given him the cold shoulder. Apparently, he hasn’t called lately (just what kind of a gentleman does that make him, anyway?).

But Bagley’s comments on the stadium situation remind us that Roski and other out-of-town admirers certainly aren’t out of the picture, either. There are still plenty of Casanovas out there with eyes for our beloved Vikes—and if we can’t tie the knot, somebody else will.

We’re fiercely loyal and faithful to a fault, but those qualities won’t be enough to keep the team by our sides. NFL owners aren’t romantics. They’re gold diggers. Wilf is in this business for the money, and it’s going to take money to get the Vikings to embrace the state the way the state embraces the Vikings.

Given the shortage of private investors lining up to invest a billion dollars into a downtown Minneapolis facility, most of the cash is going to have to come from public sources—around $700 million, by current estimates.

For a state facing a $4.6 billion budget deficit in the next fiscal year, that’s an awfully pricey wedding.

Should we pony up? You’ve got me on that one. Like most citizens, I hate the idea of using public money to make a rich man richer. Like most fans, I hate the idea of losing the team.

But that’s the dilemma Minnesota will face over the next two years. It’s the question all small-market fan bases face: How much love can we afford?

The answer could leave plenty of people with broken hearts.

For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

How Close to a Title Are the Vikings? Not as Close as You Think

Whatever the Minnesota Vikings are putting in the Kool-Aid this offseason, it sure goes down smooth.

The team’s presumptive blueprint for success this year—run the ball, stuff the run, rush the passer, and turn Percy Harvin loose on the league—is an easy-to-swallow cocktail of conventional football wisdom.

Listen to the pundits talk about “a team that appears to be a competent quarterback away from winning the Super Bowl,” and the buzz sounds even better. It’s enough to make you stop asking how the Vikes are going to make the Super Bowl, and start wondering what the heck is going to stop them.

We’ve got Adrian Peterson! We’ve got Jared Allen! We’ve got the Williams Wall! How could this go wrong?

Well, we’ve got a few ideas. A quick look at the factors behind a typical championship contender reveals a few glaring holes in Minnesota’s title hype.

To be sure, the Vikings boast trophy-caliber elements in a few phases of the game. In the 39-year history of the Super Bowl, the average title game participant has finished around No. 9 in rushing and a little better than No. 8 against the run.

Minnesota clocked in at No. 5 and No. 1 in those categories last year. That’s good news.

But the average Super Bowl team also finishes right around No. 7 in passer rating. In fact, 80 percent of Super Bowl contenders finish in the top 10 in passer rating, while just 65 percent finish in the top 10 in rushing. Despite conventional wisdom, passing the ball efficiently is more important than racking up yards on the ground.

The Vikings finished No. 18 in passer rating in 2008—worse than all but seven of the 78 participants in Super Bowl history. That’s bad news.

Along the same lines, disrupting an opponent’s passing rhythm is almost as important as shutting down the running game: Super Bowl teams average league ranks of 7.78 in run defense and 7.93 in opposing passer rating.

Despite a top-five pass rush, last year’s Vikes finished No. 16 in defensive passer rating. That’s more bad news: Of the 39 teams who’ve won the Super Bowl, just four have allowed their opponents to pass the ball with comparable efficiency.

And for a team that hangs its hat on a stout defense, Minnesota falls short in the most important measure of a Super Bowl contender: The ability to keep points off the board.

The average Super Bowl team finishes between No. 6 and No. 7 in scoring defense. The average champion finishes a bit better than No. 5. Eighty-two percent of teams that are good enough to make the title game finish in the top 10.

Last year’s Vikings finished No. 13. Respectable? Certainly. Title-worthy? Not really.

Falling short of Super Bowl averages in a single category, or even a few categories, doesn’t knock a team out of contention. Plenty of teams compensate for shortcomings in one area by excelling in another (recall that the 2000 Ravens won it all with Trent Dilfer under center).

The Vikings’ real problem is that there is little precedent for success among teams that are terrific at stopping the run, but less successful in keeping opponents out of the end zone. Almost every Super Bowl contender built around a dominating ground game has also featured an elite scoring defense.

Just three teams have reached the title game that finished in the top five in rushing defense, but outside the top 10 in scoring “D”: The ’86 Broncos, the ’83 Redskins, and the ’92 Bills.

All of those teams finished No. 6 or better in scoring. All of them sent a quarterback to the Pro Bowl. All of them lost the Super Bowl, by an average margin of 27.6 points.

This year’s Vikings are only in a position to do one of those things.

So the next time somebody tells you the Vikings are a quarterback away from the Super Bowl, ask ‘em which quarterback (Brady? Montana? Tarkenton?) they have in mind.

Next time you hear about Minnesota’s championship-caliber defense, remind them that most opponents don’t run the ball on every down.

And the next time the Vikings offer you a glass of Kool-Aid, well, drink up and hope for the best—frankly, the season is more fun that way.

But don’t be surprised to find a few key ingredients missing.

For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher

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Adrian Peterson’s Poundage and the Art of Saying Nothing

Way back in April, when NFL Draft coverage was in full swing and the Minnesota Vikings had precious few headlines to offer, Adrian Peterson gave us something to talk about.

The league’s leading rusher announced that he was looking to gain as many as 12 pounds in the offseason, pushing his playing weight to 230 “just to see how it feels.”

It was the easiest media mini-frenzy he’s ever incited.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune listened to him, tracking down a wary reaction from Brad Childress for good measure: “230 is awful big.” So did USA Today. The Washington Post gave the comment a blurb.

Sports Illustrated ran with it, hunting down reactions from prominent NFL running backs about what the extra bulk could do to Peterson (lost speed, knee injuries) if he followed through and packed on the pounds.

And then he didn’t.

When Peterson reported for training camp last week, he tipped the scales at 220, three pounds heavier than his playing weight last season. All the fuss was dedicated to extra junk that never made its way to AP’s trunk.

Peterson said he learned his lesson: “Never talk about my weight, because it’ll be something you hear about the whole summer,” he told reporters at camp last Friday.

If he meant that, he missed the point. The real lesson here is that with a few choice words, a media-savvy star can reel in a boatload of offseason attention without lifting a finger.

The remark that started the whole ordeal—”God willing, I will get to 225, 230″—was a throwaway line. It was nonsense. It was fantasy. It was a daydream (Gosh, I wonder what it’d be like out there if I was a real big guy…) that Peterson happened to voice aloud.

He wasn’t going to get to 230. That’s bulldozer territory—Shaun Alexander, Fred Taylor, Deuce McAllister. If Peterson had rolled into Mankato looking like any of those guys, Childress would have had a heart attack.

He wasn’t going to get to 225. Look at the man. Where are those extra pounds gonna go? Unless he borrows a page from the Pat Williams book of nutrition, he’s carrying about as much punishment as his frame will allow.

None of that mattered. In the absence of actual Vikings storylines over the summer, weighing the pros and cons of a beefier Adrian Peterson was terrific fodder for football pundits.

His “goal” of playing at 230 was enough of a stretch to be easy to criticize, but not quite outlandish enough to dismiss as absurd. It was simple enough to market for public consumption, and specific enough to throw a smidgen of analysis into the equation.

Feasible or otherwise, real or not, it’s a softball of a topic that provides an easy fix for all those maniacs determined to keep football in the spotlight year-round.

Adrian, you don’t need to learn to avoid dispensing these kinds of innocuous verbal gems. You need to learn to keep them coming.

Tell us you hope to catch 50 passes next year. Tell us you’re aiming for 3,000 all-purpose yards. Tell us you want you throw five or six touchdowns out of the Wildcat. Tell us you’re going to grow an 18-inch ‘fro, “just to see how it feels.”

Are any of those things going to happen? Nope. But if you don’t think about them too hard, they sound like things that could happen. They sound just legitimate enough to write about—and make no mistake, we’ll write about them.

You don’t have to mean any of it. You just need to say it. Just put it out there and let a few media types run with it.

Will these kind of proclamations be the kind of thing “you hear about the whole summer?” You bet they will. And that’s a good thing.

We get a few story ideas to tide us over until August. You get column inches dedicated to you and to the Vikings during a stretch on the calendar when football has no business being in the news.

There may be other ways to get that kind of attention—get a DUI, shoot yourself in the leg—but in terms of return on your investment, it doesn’t get much cheaper than a passing statement about a made-up aspiration.

If you need to see how it’s done, look no further than Shaquille O’Neal, the master of non-information himself.

Last September, Shaq-fu told us he was going to retire in exactly 735 days (never mind that that number would put the end of his career right at the start of the 2010 season). He told us Amar’e Stoudemire’s new nickname was “Sun Tzu,” and even let an Arizona Republic beat writer pick the moniker (never mind that nobody in their right mind has called Stoudemire that since).

He’s not talking to make a point. He’s not talking to make a difference. He’s just talking to talk.

It’s a gift, really. So keep talking, Adrian Peterson. We promise we’ll listen.

Even if it turns out you’re not really saying anything.

For more on the Vikings, follow Marino on Twitter @MarinoEccher.

The Minnesota Vikings Shouldn’t Burn the Brett Favre Bridge Yet

Driving, e-mails to your boss, and quarterback decisions: It’s best to steer clear of all three when angry.

Right now, the Minnesota Vikings have plenty of reasons to be angry.

They’ve been jilted at the altar by The Indecider himself. They’ve got too little quarterback talent on the depth chart and too many purple No. 4 jerseys on backorder. They just spent an entire summer making locker room-wrecking overtures, only to become the crash test dummies for the newest phrase in Brett Favre’s vocabulary: “No more.”

And the fans? If you stick your head out the window in Minneapolis, that sound you’ll hear reverberating through the streets is the cacaphony of slammed doors that the Vikings faithful had propped wide open in welcome.

In a few fleeting ticks of the clock, the local barometer on Favre has swung from blissful to bitter.

Star Tribune blogger Seth Stohs declared, “The second that training camp starts on Friday should be the exact moment that Vikings leadership should delete Favre’s number from their phones.”

Columnist Jim Souhan opined, “Favre should be ashamed of himself for toying with an entire organization.”

And while Favre hinted at the possibility that he’ll consider a midseason return (“If someone calls Nov. 1, who knows?”), Brad Childress proclaimed, “There’s not a chance from my standpoint. I’m going forward with the guys that we have.”

Pump the brakes for a minute, Chilly.

You’re still steamed about the Favre situation, no doubt. After waiting on him all summer, you want to sound firm and decisive to remind everyone who’s in control. And you need to throw a some support behind the guys whose jobs have been hanging in limbo for months.

But before you say anything you can’t take back about what will and won’t happen, step back and take stock of the situation.

You’re about to hold a quarterback competition between a journeyman backup and a project who has bounced between the starting role and the bench three times in the past two seasons.

You’ve got a stacked defense and a talented offense with a great big doughnut hole under center.

You didn’t get any closer to a solution this week. “The guys you have” didn’t get any better.

The difference between the 10-6 squad that got bounced from the opening round of the playoffs at home in January and the one taking the field in training camp this week is Sage Rosenfels, a handful of rookies, and a new special teams coordinator.

So like I said, let’s not rule anything out just yet.

Believe me, I’m as irked about Favre as the next red-blooded Minnesotan. I saw him as a clear upgrade at the position. I thought he gave the Vikings the best chance to win.

When his arm isn’t falling off, he’s still a better passer than Jackson or Rosenfels.

When he’s healthy and under control—as was did for the first two-thirds of last season—he’s still a quality quarterback in a league in which quality quarterbacks are awfully hard to find.

Here’s the thing: If that’s true today, it’ll probably be true on Nov. 1, too.

Of course, if the Vikes storm out of the gate 6-1, with T-Jack or Rosenfels looking sharp all the way, this will be a moot point. Nothing would put Favre in the past faster than a fast start.

But what if Minnesota stumbles early? What if they get hammered at home by Green Bay in Week Four? What if the quarterback situation starts messy and gets messier?

What if they’re 4-3 as October winds down? What if they’re 3-4?

At that point, it might be handy to have Favre waiting in the wings.

There are issues of pride, loyalty, and control at play here. There are hurt feelings and bruised egos. None of those things are especially helpful in making sound football decisions.

Brett Favre was a sound football decision on Tuesday. Unless Jackson and Rosenfels make leaps and bounds, he’ll be a sound football decision in two or three months.

If the Vikings need him at that point, Brad Childress needs to pick up the phone.

Unless he deleted the number, that is.

 

Follow Vikings posts and updates on Twitter: MarinoEccher.

Dear Tarvaris Jackson: Time to Prove Us Wrong

Dear Tarvaris Jackson:

It’s been a rough year for you, big guy.

In January, you went 15-for-35 for 164 yards and a pick in a playoff loss at home.

In February, the Vikings imported a 31-year-old career backup to compete with you.

And from early May through yesterday afternoon, the team did its best to acquire a 39-year-old passer with a bum throwing arm to replace you outright.

Brad Childress said missing out on Brett Favre “doesn’t change anything about how I feel about our football team.” Given that his recent pursuits don’t suggest he feels all that hot about his chances with you under center, I’m not sure that’s a good thing for you.

Local sports radio producer Darren “Doogie” Wolfson ranked yesterday’s news as the third-biggest letdown in Minnesota sports history.

In other words, heading into this season with either you or Sage Rosenfels under center is third-worst thing ever to befall Twin Cities sports fans, right behind the ’98 NFC Title Game and “41-doughnut.”

Stop me any time here.

So your coach isn’t crazy about you. Your fans aren’t crazy about you. And if you put stock in reports that Adrian Peterson, Jared Allen, and Steve Hutchinson all lobbied Favre to join up even after he told the team he wasn’t coming back, your teammates aren’t all that crazy about you, either.

What are you going to do about it?

The way I see it, you’ve got two choices: Sulk and shrink from the occasion, or whip yourself into shape as the quarterback nobody seems to think you can be.

It sounds like a no-brainer. Nobody wants to throw in the towel. Nobody wants to show the doubters they were right.

But if option No. 2 were easy, we wouldn’t have a list of quarterback washouts waiting on the tips of our tongues. Tim Couch, Joey Harrington, Cade McNown, Quincy Carter: It’s not hard to find guys who started early, bounced in an out of the lineup, and never found their footing again.

For a man on the brink of joining the ranks of those who couldn’t cut the mustard—and make no mistake, you’re on the brink—there are a few obstacles to overcome that must be nothing short of maddening.

By all accounts, you’re already working plenty hard. Some of your teammates even said you were having such a good offseason that all the Favre talk was nonsense. Now, you have to figure out how to work harder.

We have to imagine you already wanted the starting job. Now, you have to figure out how to want it more than the other guy.

Think Alice in Wonderland here: You’re already going full speed to hang on to what you’ve got; if you want to get better, you need to go twice as fast.

Then there’s the matter of repairing whatever damage your confidence has sustained. It’s hard enough to believe in yourself after winning, losing, and regaining the No. 1 role in each of the last two seasons—now, you have to lead an offense in which a handful of the key cogs tried to lure someone else under center.

It’s safe to say that none of those cautionary tales mentioned above intended to be busts. At one point or another, all of them undoubtedly tried to turn things around.

None of them did. That’s another hurdle: The knowledge that some people work their butts off and fail anyway.

Starting to see where these situations take a turn for the worse? Feel like sulking yet?

The good news is that if you’re still game for the self-improvement route, you’ve got a whole stack of motivational kindling piled high and ready to burn.

Every time the Favre debacle creeps into your mind, do an extra set in the weight room. Every time some idiot columnist picks Rosenfels to edge you out, put in an extra hour in the film room.

Memorize the playbook until you forget it. Focus on five or six throws and repeat them until your brain stops interfering with your arm. Print out a list of things that went wrong this offseason, tape it to the treadmill, and see if you get an extra mile or two out of it. Make the team drag you off the practice field kicking and screaming.

We’re skeptics, not haters. We don’t want you to fail. We just want somebody to lead this team to the promised land.

So far, all we’ve seen is a pet project that never quite panned out.

Prove us wrong.

Follow Vikings posts and updates on Twitter: MarinoEccher.

How Antoine Winfield’s New Contract Could Change NFL’s Old Loyalty Standards

In one sense, the NFL’s non-guaranteed contract structure makes for the harshest send-offs in any professional sport.

A basketball, baseball, or hockey star may be locked in for tens of millions over multiple years, even as he begins to fade.

In most cases, players who fit that description and still have two working legs are guaranteed a roster spot as well, if only because their clubs are hesitant to pay them not to play.

In those sports, loyalty means giving a player a long-term that will almost certainly pay him more than he’s worth late in his career. It’s unlikely that Kevin Garnett will be a $21 million talent at age 36, for instance, or that Alex Rodriguez will be worth $27 million at 41.

But for NBA and MLB clubs, overpaying for those twilight seasons is standard operating procedure.

Football players enjoy no such long goodbyes: When an aging gridiron warrior’s salary outstrips his value, he’s simply cut loose.

It happens to record-setting quarterbacks (Daunte Culpepper), MVP rushers (Shaun Alexander), and defensive studs (Derrick Brooks). One season, you’re the lining up under center in Honolulu; the next, you’re lining up to collect unemployment benefits.

As far as personnel decisions go, “loyalty” is practically a four-letter word. Like I said, harsh.

From another perspective, however, the NFL’s economic model lets teams take care of their own in a unique fashion: Write ’em a big check up front.

It’s a lousy system for compensating high draft picks, who collect eight-figure bonuses before taking a snap. But it’s a great way to reward veterans who can still play at a high level, without putting the franchise on the hook for a burdensome contract down the road.

Case in point: The extension the Minnesota Vikings hammered out last week with cornerback Antoine Winfield.

A 2004 free agent signee from Buffalo, Winfield holds a special place in the hearts and minds of Vikings fans as one of a handful of acquisitions that helped Minnesota end a long spell as a defensive whipping boy.

Last year, he became the first Vikings cornerback to make the Pro Bowl in 16 years, with two picks, two sacks, four forced fumbles, and a fumble return for a touchdown. He’s tough. He’s popular. He’s gotten better every season since coming to Minnesota.

He’s also 32, and heading into a contract year. In cornerback years, that’s the beginning of the end. Deion Sanders retired (for the first time) at 33. Rod Woodson transitioned to safety at 34. Among active players, Champ Bailey qualifies as an elder statesman at the position—and he’s 31.

In another sport, Winfield’s situation would put the front office in the “lose him now or regret paying him later” bind described above.

In football, no such dilemma exists. The Vikings can reward Winfield for his services with a cool $16 million in guaranteed cash without hitching the team’s wagon to his long-term health.

Who knows if Winfield will still be productive at 36, in the final year of his five-year, $36 million extension—and moreover, who cares? Minnesota’s financial obligations to him go no further than the deal’s bonus money.

If he’s still humming a few seasons down the road, that’s fantastic. If not, the team can shift him to nickel back after 2011 at a reduced price (an innovative feature of his extension), or part ways with him outright.

Winfield won’t be thrilled if he gets cut, of course. Nobody likes to be out of a job (or at that point, what could be career).

But thanks to his new deal, he won’t be broke, either.

For the NFL club, that’s about as loyal as it gets.

Clearing Out the Vikings’ Impending Quarterback Logjam

With a glut of out-of-work veterans flooding the job market, it’s tough for the unproven young guns out there to impress employers.

Just ask Tarvaris Jackson.

Six months ago, T-Jack was starting under center for the Vikings in a home playoff game.

Today, he’s sitting around wondering when his graybeard replacement will roll into town.

If there’s someone in Minnesota who isn’t going ga-ga over Brett Favre this summer, odds are it’s Jackson.

Rumor has it that Jackson will ask for a trade when the Favre signing becomes official. At this point, we don’t know if that’s true—and certainly don’t know if it’s prudent, given that Jackson still enjoys a “pet project” status in Minnesota under Brad Childress that wouldn’t travel with him if he sought greener pastures.

But we do know that by July 30, when Favre tells the world he’s suiting up in purple (or July 31, when he decides for real, or Aug. 1, when he really decides for real, or Aug. 2, when he really for sure decides for real), the Vikings will be carrying an overload of passers in Jackson, Favre, and Sage Rosenfels (we’ll get to John David Booty later).

The latter two expected a shot at a starting job that assuredly will belong to the former come training camp. Unless the Vikes are keen on stockpiling bruised egos under center, something’s gotta give.

What exactly is that someting going to be? Here’s a look at a few scenarios that could shape the Vikings’ quarterback depth chart this season.

Jackson Gets Moved If…

…the Vikings have already decided they prefer Rosenfels and want to get some value out of a deal.

From my vantage point, Jackson’s experience in Minnesota’s offense and support from the coaching staff gave him the edge over Rosenfels before Favre came into the picture, so I’m not sold on the idea that the team is eager to ship Jackson out.

But some forces in the football universe—including fantasy wonks, who, in their drive to seek out the best information on a team’s projected starters as early as possible, are not unlike gamblers—gave the nod to Rosenfels.

After all, the Vikes didn’t bring Sage into the mix because they thought he was cute. Jackson’s lackluster playoff outing inspired enough doubts that the team grabbed a second quarterback to compete for the job, and spent the offseason chasing a third one.

If either Jackson or Rosenfels has the inside track on what should now be the No. 2 job behind Favre, the front office has been quiet about it. But if the team has had Rosenfels penciled in ahead of Jackson all along, they might see if Jackson—who is still just 26 and boasts plenty of physical tools—can fetch a mid-round pick or a role player in return.

If he’s moved in time, Jackson likely could compete for a No. 1 or No. 2 position on a club with needs at quarterback.

Of course, any such move would leave Minnesota without a long-term plan at the position, but at this point, it’s not clear that Jackson still fits that description.

Rosenfels Gets Moved If…

…the team doesn’t think it can get him the preseason action he needs to back up Favre effectively.

Before the Favre courtship began, there were plenty of training camp snaps available to get Rosenfels acclimated in the offense and to hold a quarterback derby with Jackson if necessary.

But Favre will have plenty of work to do in camp himself. As often as we’ve heard him say he knows the offense he’ll be stepping into, Childress’ West Coast variant is two generations removed from the system Mike Holmgren ran in Green Bay.

Favre also needs to develop timing with a first-team offense that includes two new linemen (John Sullivan and Phil Loadholt) and a rookie receiver in Percy Harvin.

Rosenfels and Jackson need that work, too, and with Favre around, both of them aren’t going to get it. If Favre gets hurt or runs out of gas midseason, the Vikings need a backup who is ready to step in and contribute right away. That might be enough to tip the scales in Jackson’s favor.

The trouble with shipping out Rosenfels before he gets a close-up is that a Favre injury would put the team right back where it started: Relying on Jackson to come through.

The team also is unlikely to get equal value on the fourth-round pick it paid to get Rosenfels, so this move would be of the cut-your-losses variety.

Both Stay Put If…

…Favre drags his feet getting to camp, or needs more time to recover from surgery.

This scenario would say as much about the team’s assessment of Favre’s health as it would about Jackson and Rosenfels. If the Vikings are confident that they’ll get 16-plus games from Favre, they should feel fine about moving one of the other two and taking their chances.

But the longer it takes Favre to get rolling in Mankato—or the longer it takes for his surgically repaired bicep to return to full strength—the better the odds that Minnesota will give both Jackson and Rosenfels a long look during camp, in case one of them ends up under center midway through the season.

If Favre limits his action during the first few weeks of camp while his arm rounds back into shape, the team could find the time it needs to hold an earnest Jackson-Rosenfels showdown (and to get Rosenfels up to speed in the offense, as mentioned earlier).

The real value in carrying both Jackson and Rosenfels into the season, however, is that the team would have the chance to see both in action against real opponents before choosing one or the other. Keeping both quarterbacks would let the Vikings put those all four of those otherwise tedious preseason outings to good use.

Together, Jackson and Rosenfels will make around $2 million this season, so keeping both isn’t cost-prohibitive.

After Favre crashed and burned two-thirds of the way through last season, one has to imagine that the Vikes have a keen interest in slotting a quality backup behind him on the depth chart. This scenario would allow them to take their time in doing so.

The casualty here would be 2008 fifth-round pick John David Booty, the former USC passer (and current owner of Favre’s No. 4) who has yet to see the field for the Vikings.

Booty, the presumed third-stringer if Jackson or Rosenfels departed, would be cut or stashed on the practice squad (and free to depart as a free agent) if the team kept both.

Will the “Williams Wall” Case Sack the NFL’s Entire Labor Agreement?

A few months ago, the biggest question surrounding the pending suspension of the “Williams Wall” was the blow it could deal to the Vikings’ pass rush.

At this point, however, it’s time to wonder whether a court victory by Minnesota’s two star defensive tackles—whose suspensions were blocked again by a judge today—will land a knockout punch on the league’s collective bargaining agreement.

When Pat and Kevin Williams (no relation) first drew four-game bans for testing positive for a banned diuretic last October, along with a handful of other players, the notion of toppling the NFL’s doping policy via lawsuit seemed absurd.

After all, the rules were crystal clear: Put a banned substance in your body, and you sit, no matter how it got there or whether it was on the label. The Players’ Association signed off on the policy as part of the collective bargaining agreement.

And really, that’s just about the only way a drug-testing program can work. You need to leave complaints about tainted supplements, rogue physicians, and other “accidental” ingestion at the door. If you test clean, you’re clean; if not, you’re suspended.

As Bill Parcells might have put it, “You are what your urine says you are.”

The league’s drug policy may have plenty of other problems—HGH, designer steroids, suspensions for marijuana use—but until the Williams’ case, ambiguity on the consequences of a positive test wasn’t one of them.

In this case, the question that most impacts the NFL’s doping rules is whether players can challenge the policy based on state labor laws.

Via federal appeal, the league hopes to establish that players cannot contest the drug tests. Winning that battle would be a big step in quashing further challenges to the policy.

But what happens if the NFL loses?

If some or all of the CBA’s provisions become open to challenge in state court, the league’s labor agreement effectively goes down in flames.

Even a relatively minor victory for the Williamses on the state level—a ruling that the league was out of line in stepping up testing after the first positive, for instance, or that the league is limited in its ability to discipline employees for using a legal product at a non-work location on their own time, would send CBA spiraling into chaos.

Drug testing could become a case-by-case quagmire. The Williamses have already staved off their suspensions for five games and counting—why wouldn’t other players who felt slighted by suspensions employ a similar tactic to keep playing (and getting paid) as long as possible?

What about the code of conduct and the discipline Roger Goodell administers for incidents that take place off the field, outside of business hours? Is that up for debate, as well?

What about the financial side of the equation—roster cuts, the franchise tag, and the cap? If the CBA isn’t ironclad at the state level, there are very messy questions to answer about how the league’s labor agreement jibes with workers’ rights under state laws, both in Minnesota and elsewhere.

In other words, the Williams’ case could be the loose thread that unravels the NFL’s entire labor relations structure.

Want to chew on a real doomsday scenario? Think about the ramifications across all pro sports if a precedent in which state court decisions can pick apart league labor agreements is established.

Ultimately, it shouldn’t come down to that. The cut-and-dried nature of the league’s drug policy should give the NFL the edge in the long run here, regardless of the circumstances surrounding who knew what about the contents of the diuretic in question.

Then again, most of us expected this case to be resolved much faster than it has been. The courts presiding over it clearly see some grey area in the NFL’s substance rules, and at this stage, the outcome is no sure thing.

Vikings fans hate the idea of losing the Williamses for a quarter of the season. But if the two do manage to dodge their suspensions, no one with an interest in the NFL should  relish the wider implications for the game.

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