Tim Tebow Mic’d

Tebow mic’d for the game against the Bears.

HT: Andy Naselli

The Choices the Vikings Have Made

These paragraphs are revealing:

Even though Daunte Culpepper has not played in the NFL in two years, his mark on the game is still being felt. Culpepper affected the fate of the franchises in Minnesota, Miami, New Orleans and Green Bay as much as almost any player who has worn those teams’ uniforms.

Were it not for the success Culpepper enjoyed in 2004, Minnesota would have been more inclined to use one of its two first-round picks in the 2005 draft on a quarterback. But Culpepper was coming off a 2004 season in which he threw for 4,717 yards and 39 touchdowns. Minnesota thought it was set at quarterback. So it used the seventh overall pick in 2005 on South Carolina wide receiver Troy Williamson. It used the 18th overall pick on Wisconsin defensive end Erasmus James. And then, with the 24th overall pick, the Green Bay Packers drafted Aaron Rodgers.

The very next offseason, after Culpepper struggled at the start of the 2005 season and then tore up his knee on Oct. 30, the Dolphins traded a second-round pick to Minnesota for the then-disgruntled Culpepper rather than signing free-agent quarterback Drew Brees, who wanted to land in Miami. And so, with Culpepper landing in Miami, Brees had no choice but to go to New Orleans.

Rodgers and Brees, the men whose fates are tied to Culpepper’s, have combined to win the past two Super Bowls. Their success is an ongoing story, a reminder of how timing really is everything and why teams are wise to draft the proverbial best player available. Now Rodgers has the Packers unbeaten. Their march to perfection — going strong enough to make Mercury Morris and the 1972 Dolphins uneasy — is under way. And Rodgers is leading the Packers into Monday night’s game against a Minnesota organization that bypassed him twice in the draft.

Brees has the Saints in first place in the NFC South. He is leading the Saints into Sunday’s NFC South showdown against the second-place Atlanta Falcons. And Culpepper, who worked out for the San Francisco 49ers in August, is out of football while Minnesota and Miami still are trying to make up for multiple mistakes. It is a different form of fantasy football, detailing NFL hypotheticals that could have but didn’t happen. But it also is a glimpse of how much one quarterback helped change the way the league is viewed today.

What Criticisms of Tim Tebow Reveal

Here are some insightful comments about the Tebow criticism:

Imagine for a second, the Denver Broncos quarterback is a devout follower of Islam, sincere and principled in his beliefs and thus bowed toward Mecca to celebrate touchdowns. Now imagine if Detroit Lions players Stephen Tulloch and Tony Scheffler mockingly bowed toward Mecca, too, after tackling him for a loss or scoring a touchdown, just like what happened Sunday.

I know what would happen. All hell would break loose.

You cannot mock Muslim faith, not in this country, not anywhere really.

It is primarily a respect issue, because religion is sacred and should be off limits. Yet when Tulloch and Scheffler dropped to a knee to mock how Tebow prays — an action known as “Tebowing” that has gone viral among the public, too — we yawned and told Christians to lighten up. We blamed Tebow for making a show of honoring God rather than himself in moments of joy. We excused them because Tulloch said he was mocking “Tebowing,” not God.

What this whole repeating cycle of Tebow — rip his game, mock his faith, rise to his defense, repeat — has revealed about religious discourse in America is ugly. We have become so enamored of politically correct dogma that we protect every minority from even the slightest blush of insensitivity while letting the very institutions that the majority holds dear to be ridiculed. And this defense that Tebow invites such scrutiny with his willingness to publicly live as he privately believes calls into question what exactly it is we value…

Thoughts About McNabb

It is hard to admit one is a Vikings fan these days. But I cannot cut my loyalties loose, despite the fact that they spun me around last year and kicked me below the belt.

Now they have gone (or so it seems) and picked up another veteran quarterback, Donavan McNabb.

What should we make of this?

First, they had no other choice. They need more options in the quarterback position.. Even if McNabb does not start, we need someone there if Ponder is not ready.

Second, I am not convinced the McNabb is done. He did not have the weapons around him in Washington that Minnesota provides. He could come in and have a dud year, but then again he could have another breakout year. I am willing to take the chance. Like I said we don’t have many other options.

So in conclusion, I welcome McNabb, whether it be as a mentor to Ponder or as our starter.

The Viking’s Quarterback Problem

Kevin Seifret writes about the desperate need the Vikings are in of the most important position in maybe all of sports, a Quarterback.  The list of our past Quarterback’s is depressing. It is time to make a move and plan for the future.

The Minnesota Vikings arrived at this week’s scouting combine carrying the most intense personnel burden a team can face: They have no starting quarterback and no clear path for finding an obvious answer in the draft.

“We’re going to look at all avenues at the quarterback [position],” vice president of player personnel Rick Spielman said at the NFL scouting combine, which he and his scouts are scouring for quarterback options. “… But you’re hoping that by the time all the dust settles and we’re getting ready to go into the season that we have that position pretty much resolved.”

We’ve seen this act before, of course. Consider the first chart: The Vikings have been patching together this position for an extended period of their history, spanning multiple ownership regimes, personnel executives and coaching staffs.

In the 21 years since Tommy Kramer’s final season, the Vikings have used 10 different primary starters. Most recently, they set themselves back with an indefensible plan to develop Tarvaris Jackson as their long-term answer. Jackson is a pending free agent and, with the departure of coach/benefactor Brad Childress, seems unlikely to return.

Can the Vikings make a similar grab at No. 12 overall this year? Will they move up to ensure they can draft Auburn’s Cam Newton or Missouri’s Blaine Gabbert, both of whom will likely be off the board at No. 12? Would Washington’s Jake Locker make sense at that spot? Or would the Vikings identify a second-level prospect, perhaps Florida State’s Christian Ponder, and maneuver to draft him in the second or third round?

Who should the Viking’s pick up?

Rick Reilly on Aaron Rodgers’ Unforgettable Forgiveness

Aaron Rodgers is the MVP of this teeth-grinding, palm-sweating Super Bowl, and it has nothing do with how he throws or how he runs. It has to do with how he lives.

In 50 years, when they write Rodgers’ life story, they won’t praise so much his freakish arm.

They won’t write about his Houdini feet.

They won’t go on about his grace under pressure, his rifle-scope accuracy or his courage while the land around him burned.

No, they’ll write about his unlimited capacity to forgive.

Through all the hell Brett Favre put him through, through all the yo-yoing Favre did with Rodgers’ career all those years, Rodgers never lost his patience. He never lashed out. Instead, he forgave and got to work.

Fast-forward to the biggest moment of his life — Super Bowl XLV — and teammates started turning on him again.

They started dropping the ball. Literally.

Read the rest HERE.

The Best Super Bowl XLV Ads

Here is my list:

P.S. Chrysler making a cool commercial makes me want to buy one of their cars 0% more.

The Oregon Ducks and Nike Founder

Pat Forde has an interesting article about the rise of Oregon, which he partially attributes to Nike’s founder, Phil Knight getting involved.  Here is the intro:

During Rich Brooks’ tenure as coach at Oregon, campus recruiting visits were more of a walk of shame than a chance to show off…

Today’s Oregon players enjoy facilities that compare favorably to any in America. They enjoy every imaginable creature comfort, technological advance and fashion indulgence. A program that once was as trendy as Larry King’s suspenders is college football’s capital of cool.

“The performance wear we get, from a fashion standpoint, and the facilities and infrastructure, they fit with the innovative theme of who we are,” said Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens, who just arrived at the school during the summer. “Very forward-thinking. It is kind of a hip brand.”

Mullens said that while wearing DayGlo green Nike sneakers and a sweatshirt with DayGlo trim. His football players were walking around in sharp hoodies with their numbers on them in the same futuristic font the Ducks use for their jerseys.

Auburn’s players looked good in their Under Armour sweats. Oregon’s players looked better in their Nike gear.

And yes, that four-letter word is vital to understanding how the Ducks went from football pushover to powerhouse. The benefits of Nike founder Phil Knight bestowing most-favored-program status on his alma mater are impossible to understate

The Agony of The Vikings

From January 2010 to Now:

1. Loose a trip to the Super Bowl that should have been won in about a million ways to the Saints.  I will always argue that we were the better team.  Look at the stats.  Just get us a new coach for the game.
2. Rumors that Brett Favre is retiring during summer.
3. Brett Favre comes back, but Sidney Rice is out for half the season.
4. First couple games are painful, could have won, but choked.
5. Suddenly our offensive line can’t protect.
6. Brett’s throwing interceptions.
7. Childress is calling the same plays every game.
8. Pick up Randy Moss, drop Randy Moss after he criticizes coaches.
9. Childress gets fired about 5 games late (highlight of season)
10. Metrodome roof collapses.
11. Favre is washed up/injured.  Jackson has no future. Officially out of playoffs.
12. Jackson injured.
13. Joe Webb (converted wide receiver/third-string QB who’s never played in cold weather before) will start this week.

As Bill Simmons puts it:

How can this Vikings season keep getting worse? If this Vikings season was “Con Air,” we’d be at the part where the plane is about to land on the Las Vegas Strip and you’re thinking, “Come on, THAT isn’t going to happen now, right?”

Name me a more agonizing football season from January to December than the 2010 Minnesota Vikings just had. You can’t. In January, they blew an almost-certain Super Bowl trip. February through November was about as much fun as Andy Dufresne’s first two years at Shawshank. And then, just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, the Metrodome roof caved in right before two home games and now they have to deal with a winter of “Los Angeles?” rumors. You know what’s really crazy? Every true Vikings fan over the age of 35 (like my buddy Geoff) is secretly doing backflips that the team is finally playing another outdoor game in Minnesota on a rock-hard field in dreadfully cold weather … but they have to play 10 against 11 while on offense. Sports can be a cruel mistress.

Football and the Limits of Conscience

Owen Strachan has a controversial (just look at the amount of comments) article on football and the limits of the Christian conscience over at First Things.  He begins the article saying:

A recent slew of football deaths have shaken many who follow the game. Research is increasingly suggesting that there may well be definable links between the blunt trauma of football and the early deaths of players. This body of evidence raises weighty questions on a seemingly quotidian matter. Should we support football? Evidence increasingly suggests that the violence of the modern game tests the limits of the biblically informed conscience.

Read the rest HERE. 

Any thoughts?