NFC North Predictions - 4th Place: The Minnesota Vikings

Over the next couple of posts, I will be previewing the NFC North division for this season. It's great to have football back, and this will be the only division I'll look into in-depth. I will release my full NFL predicitions on September 6th, two days before the New Orleans Saints travel to Green Bay to take on the Packers!

We'll start at the bottom of the division and work our way up. Today's team will be the 4th place Minnesota Vikings:

Minnesota Vikings:
2010 Record: 6-10
2011 Record: 7-9

Key Departures: QB Brett Favre, WR Sidney Rice, LT Bryant McKinnie, DT Pat Williams, LB Ben Leber, S Madieu Williams, DE Ray Edwards

Key Additions: QB Donovan McNabb, DT Remi Adoyle, LT Charlie Johnson

The Minnesota Vikings 2010 season was...uh...a disaster.

Coming off of a dominating season at 11-5 and coming one 3 yard Brett Favre scramble from the Super Bowl, the wheels fell off. The Vikings endured a season full of sex scandals, a moody wide receiver, and it got so bad that their stadium broke! Ouch.

Good news is the toilet has been re-inflated and will be ready to go when the Vikings take on the Dallas Cowboys Saturday night. The only problem is that the product on the field won't be much improved from the one seen at the last Vikings home game.

The Vikings have lost a lot, but some of them are viewed as interchangable pieces. Brett Favre was awful last year, and some people think that it was because Favre had his mind on the Jenn Sterger thing. The Vikings lost their coach, but he was replaced by one of the most highly regarded assistants in the NFL. They also lost Ben Leber and Madieu Williams, who will most likely be replaced at a lower cost.

However, the one move that may have giant reprocussions is the release of Bryant McKinnnie. I've given McKinnie his fair share of verbal abuse, but it doesn't hide the fact that he could block a body if he really wanted to. McKinnie was a starter at left tackle for almost every game he played as a Viking, and on his good days the quarterback wouldn't get touched. On his bad days, uh oh...

This wouldn't be too bad of a move if the Vikings had a normal offseason, but Charlie Johnson has to learn the offense within a month as opposed to three. The Vikings seem confident that he can do it, but Johnson has given up some nasty blindside sacks in the preseason. Hopefully, Johnson can improve as the season comes along and keep Donovan McNabb from taking some nasty hits.

Speaking of McNabb, he is the new Viking quarterback. The Vikings selected QB Christian Ponder out of Florida State with the 12th pick in the NFL Draft. At the time, the Vikings said they viewed him as their version of Matt Ryan or Mark Sanchez (Quarterbacks who started right out of college and had immediate success.), but then came the lockout. The Vikings will play it safe and give McNabb the starting job and Ponder will sit and wait at least one season.

The receiving corps also took a big blow when Sidney Rice decided to join Tarvaris Jackson in Seattle. Rice claims the Vikings didn't call him to negotiate after the lockout, but he was offered a lucrative contract before the lockout began, which Rice rejected. This leaves Percy Harvin as the only reliable target in the receiving game. The Vikings signed Michael Jenkins to try and give the outside receiver spot some credibility, but he projects to be a possession receiver. The Viking offense will need Bernard Berrian to revert back to his days of being a downfield threat to be successful.

The defense may need some help. The Vikings let Pat Williams go, and Kevin Williams is now dealing with a foot injury plus a two game suspension for his 2008 Drug Test. The defensive line also lost Ray Edwards, and the Vikings hope that Brian Robison and Everson Griffen can fill that void.

At linebacker, the only loss was Ben Leber, who may be considered expendible because of the rise of Erin Henderson. Henderson was scarcely used by Brad Childress, but played a lot once Leslie Frasier took over. The tryout impressed Frasier enough to let Leber walk so it will be interesting to see how Henderson does. If Henderson starts in the regular season, he will do so next to his brother EJ. That would mark the first time two brothers have started in the same linebacking corps in NFL history.

The secondary continues to be a mess, as the Vikings released Madieu Williams and did nothing to adress their aging cornerbacks. Antoine Winfield isn't getting any younger and Cedric Griffin is coming off of two torn knee ligaments. Chris Cook and Asher Allen haven't looked impressive in preseason and it's opened the door for a guy like ROCHESTER JOHN MARSHALL ALUM MARCUS SHERELS (cheap pop), to compete for a spot on the roster.

(507 Note: If Sherels makes the team, he will be the first JM alum to play in the NFL since Darrel Thompson did it for the Green Bay Packers in the early 90's.)

So with all of this, where will the Vikings wind up in the 2011 season? The same place they were last season: last place.

It seems like the other teams in the division have passed the Vikings by. Even the Detroit Lions are on the up and coming, but the Vikings should be a somewhat better team this year despite this prediciton.

The Vikings will hover around the .500 mark for most of the season, and finish with a 7-9 record. This may even be a high mark considering for what the Vikings lack on offense and defense. The Vikings also lack true depth which would prevent them from making any sort of Packer-like run late in the season.

Although Frasier will never admit it, the Vikings are in a rebuilding stage. For the Vikings to have any success in the future, they will need to develop Christian Ponder as an effective quarterback and surround him with talent offensively and defensively to make any sort of run.

Officially...R.I.P. for the Minnesota Twins

This will be the third-ever R.I.P. for the Minnesota Twins post that I've done since this blog existed. Let's look at the previous two, shall we?

September 2009 - Justin Morneau suffers a stress fracture in his lower back and can't play the rest of the season. The Twins get red-hot and force a game 163 against the Detroit Tigers. They get swept by the Yankees in an unexpected playoff appearance.

May 2011 - With the Twins 20 games under .500, another one is written. The Twins get red-hot again and feed off their starting pitching which was constantly turning in eight inning efforts, masking the deficiencies of their bullpen...

Which leads us to August 25th, 2011. This time I mean it, the Twins are dead. (I would have said this earlier, but without a computer...yeah.)

You could say it was a fun ride for those couple weeks in June, but the reality was, this team was going anywhere without leadership in the clubhouse, a staff ace, and a bullpen.

All three are major issues, but looking inside the clubhouse it's clear to me that there is no vocal leader capable of pushing players to perform at an elite level. Back in 2005, a struggling Justin Morneau was confronted by Torii Hunter. Hunter, sick of Morneau's lack of effort and complaining, took a swing at the future MVP. The light bulb went on, and Morneau realized his potential.

Yes, there's Michael Cuddyer, but he's more likely to pull a rabbit out of his cap than take a swing at someone. Then there's Mauer and Morneau. Personally, I still have no problems with Morneau, as he has been the one player on this team that has been trying to get back to his pre-concussion form, but he has ran into multiple injuries. He's not a leader that will get in someone's face, although it seems like he has it in him.

But then there's Mauer. Mauer has played the role of 2005 Morneau on this team. I'm not calling him lazy, but the whole 2 month vacation in Fort Myers in the middle of baseball season might rub people the wrong way. As will the supposed reluctance to play another position (I actually liken the first base move to the old Life cereal commercial. Can you see Gardy jumping up and down screaming "Joey likes it!"?). I would like to see someone take a swing at Mauer, the 23 million dollar athlete with 1 bomb and plenty of general soreness, but that guy is not in the clubhouse.

Second, there's the lack of a staff ace. Remember when we heard that Carl Pavano was going to be our ace and we loved the idea? Pavano has rewarded our trust with a 6-10 record and a 4.54 ERA. Not exactly what the Twins were thinking.

Joe Nelson of KFAN put this perfectly. The Twins need a TRUE ace, and not one of these bargain basement aces. C.J. Wilson (13-5 3.08 ERA with Texas) will be available this offseason, and the Twins need to spend some of this new-found revenue on a guy like this.

If you don't believe ace is a problem, read Tiny Joe's blog. Then take a look across the river. The Milwaukee Brewers looked at their mess of a rotation at the end of last season, and went and did something about it. They acquired two potential aces in Zack Grienke and Shawn Marcum. (Marcum was a bit underrated, but had good stats in the hitter friendly AL East before coming to the NL.) There's a reason for this! Pitching wins championships. Remember the San Francisco Giants from last year?

The Twins need to upgrade their rag-tag, "pitch-to-contact", batting practice machines and get a proven streak stopper like every team in the AL Central has (with the exception of Kansas City, but with that farm system he may be coming.)

Then there's the bullpen. Oh, the bullpen. The Twins tried to convince themselves that they would be fine after letting half their bullpen walk away last January. WRONG! They tried to plug holes by trading J.J. Hardy for two minor league relievers. Then, they tried to use Alex Burnett as a capable reliever, Joe Nathan and Matt Capps as closers, and...you get the idea.

This bullpen continues to be such a disaster that Joe Christiansen of the Star Tribune went nuts over Lester Olivesteros getting a couple of outs the other night. Really? REALLY? Ugh, come on. The Twins may need to get creative to fill these holes, but it will take more cash to do so.

This leads me to a fourth problem: Twins GM Bill Smith. Smith is spending the money to get these guys and if Smith has another failure of an offseason, he may be getting a pink slip. The moves of the Bill Smith have included:

- Trading Johan Santana and J.J. Hardy for nothing.

- Trading away a potential ace (Matt Garza) for a bi-polar hitter (Delmon Young).

- Signing a Japaneese version of Nick Punto.

- Signing Joe Mauer to a shockingly overpaid contract (still could turn around.)

- Letting half of an effective bullpen walk away in free agency.

The truth is this will be the biggest off-season in the Bill Smith era. What he will do with it remains to be seen.