All I've written about so far is baseball, but since it's prime time in football season I might as well go ahead and share some thoughts about that. I've been a Vikings fan for awhile now. And it's been painful; the first season I remember was 1998, when they went 15-1 but lost in the championship game when Gary Anderson missed his first field goal all season. Since then they've had some other playoff teams, but very underwhelming. When Cris Carter left in the early part of this decade I have to be honest and admit that I kinda stopped following them. There was nothing exciting about them anymore.
With that said, I'm really not expecting much from them tomorrow. The team has been a little shaky all season, even Adrian Peterson has let me down once or twice, and he's the centerpiece of this team. They did win the division title, but that was in a fairly weak division. For them to win tomorrow I see three things that need to happen:
1. Adrian Peterson finds a way to keep up what he's been doing all year. Protect the ball (we don't need to see what we saw in the Falcons game), and keep up the strong running. He needs also to quickly realize how the Eagles will try to shut him down and adapt to get around that. He is the Vikings #1 offensive weapon and no doubt the focus of the Eagles defense this past week.
2. Tavaris Jackson needs to be ready: he will be tested early on. As mentioned above, the Eagles will be after the run and it will be up to Jackson to break that up and make them realize that the passing game is a threat too. He will be tested early on and needs to pass that test.
3. Defense needs to step up: it looks like DE Ray Edwards will be out, Pat Williams is still listed as questionable. If Williams comes back then that is a huge pickup for the defense and they might be able to cope with the loss of Edwards. The rest of the defense needs to step up and compensate for that loss.
Hopefully this can happen and the Vikes can pull off a win for their fans. But I'm not holding my breath.
Keywords: Eagles, Minnesota Vikings, NFL
