After their week off, the 1-3 Minnesota Vikings travel to Chicago to take on the Bears in a North Division rivalry, that dates back to 1967. In honor of this rivalry, we have the 1961 Vikings helmet, and the 1952-1967 Bears helmet. The Vikings currently lead the series between theses two teams 45-34-1. Since the year 2000 though, it's been the Bears who have been getting the best of the Vikings, leading that series 8-6. Minnesota will travel to Chicago this weekend in hopes of turning around their already dismal season, and beginning winning.The Chicago Bears swept the Minnesota Vikings last season, winning at the Metrodome 19-16 in week three, and then winning in Chicago 23-13, in week 13. Surprisingly enough, the Bears have had their share of troubles this season as well. Chicago is only posting a 2-3 record. Being the early season favorites, Chicago lost in week one, to a tough San Diego Chargers team, defeated a poor Kansas City team 20-10 in week two, then got spanked by Dallas 34-10 in week three. The Bears then lost in week four to their first division rival Detroit 37-27, but a week later snapped their two game losing streak with a come from behind victory over the Green Bay Packers 27-20. Chicago now has their third division rival in a row, and with last weeks win, they are 2-1 within their division.
Chicago's head coach Lovie Smith decided that Rex Grossman has not been the answer for his team this season, and made the move to bench him and go with Brian Griese. Despite Griese's poor performance against Detroit, where he had a passer rating of 68.3%, he still threw for 258 yards, but completed only 34 of 58 passes. Smith decided to go with Griese one more time, and it payed off. with a victory, where Brian threw for 214 yards, and completed 15 of 25 passes. In both games combined, Griese has thrown four touchdowns, four interceptions, and has been sacked eight times. He is set to do battle one more time, as he prepared to face the Minnesota Vikings.
Minnesota however has different plans for Brian Griese and his Chicago Bears. Despite a much better performance in week four for Kelly Holcomb, it appears that head coach Brad Childress will be going with Tarvaris Jackson this week. Jackson is coming off a two week absence with a groin injury. It looks as if he is now ready to play, and will get the start this week in Chicago. In his two weeks of play, Kelly Holcomb had a total passer rating of 70.9%, has thrown a total of 67 passes, completing 35 of them. Holcomb has thrown 1 touchdown, one interception, and has been sacked 10 times. Although Minnesota has one of the the weakest receiving cores in the league, Holcomb has had his share of trouble with over throwing the ball. His 10 sacks are due to a weak right side of the offensive line, and the obvious poor passer protection he gets. Kelly Holcomb did improve in his second week of play. He threw for 258 yards, completing 21 of 39 passes. He had a quarterback rating of 72. 4%, and threw for a touchdown against Brett Favre and his Green Bay Packers. This improvement came from the week before, where Kelly threw for 169 yards, and earned a passer rating of 68.9, completing only 14 of 28 passes against Kansas City.
For Tarvaris Jackson, the very raw rookie has a passer rating of 40.0%, throwing 1 touchdown, 5 interceptions, and has been sacked only 1 time. In week one, Jackson completed 13 of 23 passes for 163 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. In week two, Tarvaris threw for 166 yards, and completed 17 of 33 passes, no touchdowns, and 4 interceptions. Jackson has shown no signs of life, and has yet to break 170 yards passing this season, let alone the 200 yard mark like Kelly Holcomb did.
Most of our Vikings offense has come from the hands of stand out rookie Adrian Peterson. Peterson has rushed for three 100 yard games already this season, which has tied Viking legend Chuck Forman's record of 3 games with over 100 yards in his rookie season. In addition to his 383 rushing yards, he has also caught 9 passes for 166 yards. Peterson has also scored 1 of the Vikings 4 offensive touchdowns this season. Our Viking defense has totalled four touchdowns as well.
The key to winning this game for the Vikings, will be for head coach Brad Childress to stick with the game plan on offense that has been working. When a team has two powerhouse running backs like Adrian Peterson, and Chester Taylor, both those players need to touch the ball more than 12 times per game. In week four, Adrian Peterson had 10 carries for 100 plus yards in the first half. In the second half, he touched the ball only 2 times for about 12 yards. Why did Brad Childress abandon a running attack that was working for him at that time? The other question for Childress is, why was the hottest running back on the team sitting out on the bench with under two minutes to play, while the Vikings were making their final drive, in need of a touchdown to tie the game? Furthermore, why is last seasons "workhorse" in Chester Taylor only touching the ball 11 times this season? Grant it, Taylor missed two weeks with an oblique injury, but that still gives him less than 6 carries per game.
This Minnesota Vikings offense has been scrutinized since the inception of Brad Childress. Most people were blaming Brad Johnson last season. I understand that he is an older quarterback, and not nearly as talented as Brett Favre, however, I also look at Brad Childress' poor play calling, along with an ineffective receiving core. Troy Williamson had the most dropped passes in the league last season, and a weak arm of an aging Johnson did not help matters much either. This season however, an extremely raw rookie quarterback in Tarvaris Jackson is expected to lead this team to victory, and he has had barely any chances to accommodate to playing from a Division III team in Alabama State to the Big League play of the NFL.
The Vikings will need to utilize Chester Taylor and Adrian Peterson a lot this week, if they feel they will have a chance to win. Their passing game should rely mostly on guys like Sydney Rice and Bobby Wade. Troy Williamson has been relatively ineffective this season, catching 6 passes for 65 yards and no touchdowns. Although he has gained good yardage, he has dropped many passes this season. Guys ahead of Troy Williamson are Bobby Wade (15rec/153yards), Sydney Rice (10rec/106yards), Adrian Peterson (9rec/166), and Visanthe Shiancoe (9rec/107yards).
Hopefully this week, our Viking offense can get something going, and get into the end zone more than one time. Behind Tarvaris Jackson, we will need a much better performance than he gave in week two against Detroit, where he threw 4 interceptions. Jackson needs to work on not staring down the receiver he is throwing to, and complete more of his passes. Our running game will be the key element again. With Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor in the backfield, both players should be used to the best of their abilities. With a running combination like that in our backfield, we should be running the ball right down the throats of the Bears defense and Brian Urlacher. Urlacher is one of the best line backers in the league, but even he will have trouble knowing where the ball is going with the Peterson/Taylor combination.
Let's all tune in this week, after a boring week off last week, and see what our refreshed Minnesota Vikings team can do. Hopefully they have had time to lick their wounds, and
recuperate from an unexpected 1-3 start.
SKOL VIKINGS!!!!!
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