Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Purple Pride Ponderings 9/10/2013

Purple Pride Ponderings

Week1 2013
Vikings 24
At
Lions 34

Better late than never is a truthful statement and I’m sticking to it (this week anyway). Staying along that golden path of honesty I can say that starting off the season with a loss makes it tough to write one of these. It's time for me to step back off that ledge, take a breath, and realize that the season has just begun. So let's get to it and welcome back to Vikings Football everyone!

Hot out of the gates, busted down the stretch
Adrian Peterson's first touch of the 2013 season went for 78 yards and a touchdown. I can't speak for everyone else, but I was already envisioning one of those special games for number 28 and the Purple. Hell, I was already looking towards how special the entire season could be. My phone started vibrating like crazy as I was getting text messages from all my friends and even my sister. Caught up in all the hype, I started replying back that 2500 yards is clearly in sight and the Lions are still, well the Lions.
17 carries for 15 yards later the hype was gone. The Lions Defensive line completely owned the Vikings O-line, penetrating it time after time taking Peterson down before he even had a chance. While Peterson Fantasy owners grinned with pride over his three touchdowns, those of us in Viking Country felt betrayed after the opening drive.

Lost without Winfield
Let's face it; this game was more of a blowout than the score indicates. The Lions made plenty of mistakes on offense and Megatron had two TD's taken away that 99 times out of a 100 he makes. Reggie Bush feasted on this horrendous defense and I have to think that if Winfield were on the field, he would have found ways to contain him more. Winfield not only made the Vikings secondary better, he was a major force when it came to stopping the run and sniffing out screen plays. There are no personnel changes for this team to make on the current roster that could possibly fill that void. The Vikings need to bite the bullet and beg Winfield to come back for one more season. Just his leadership and lockeroom presence alone will resonate throughout the rest of this defense.

Ponder This
One has to Ponder that it might be time for Spielman and Frazier to be realistic about what they currently have in Ponder at quarterback. I'm not here to call for Ponder's head and claim that Cassel should be the week two starter, but it is time to consider how long the leash is. Ponder is in his third year with the Vikings now and has failed to show a significant improvement over that time. His poor decision making while under pressure leads to far too many turnovers. He's got skilled players at every offensive position now so he needs to step it up and prove that he belongs as a starter on this team - or any NFL team for that matter.
Deep down I do want Ponder to be the guy. I'm sick and tired of all the retread quarterbacks the Vikings seem to constantly go through. A few more weeks of this kind of play and Cassel will be starting for sure, once again solidifying the rotating door of has been’s trying to lead us to the Playoffs. It's pretty sad when you have to go back to Culpepper as the last drafted Viking QB to have some kind of stability at the position. Before him you have to go back to drunken Tommy, I mean Tommy Kramer. We really do need Ponder to figure this out and be the guy for the next several years. This team can't afford to keep starting over, especially with Peterson's clock ticking away.

Final Thoughts
Take a breath, look at the schedule and realize it's only early September (I am totally looking in the mirror on this one). There's plenty of time to fix some of this on offense. The Offensive Line needs to step it up to give Ponder and Peterson more time. Musgrave needs to drop the vanilla offense and let Ponder sink or swim. Get Patterson involved more; he's a first round pick for crying out loud! We have the reigning MVP, the time is now to make something happen and it all comes down to this coaching staff taking the needed chances to see what we've got. It's always hard to win at Soldier Field so this is a perfect opportunity for Ponder and Frazier to shut people like me up and show us something.

I normally add a Quick Hits from around the League section here but since I'm already a couple of days late on this one, I'll attempt to start that back up next week.

PS, as you can see, I need a new graphic for this Blog should anyone want to create and donate one. I’ll make sure to give you props for it!



Till next week,
SKOL Vikings!