No matter how bad it gets or how alone you feel, your appendix will always be lonelier.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Listening


I realized this weekend listening was really important. I had always known this, it is not like it is something I randomly discovered; like the guy who came up with sticky notes. It is something that is so essential though. Someone can say something but that is only half the message. If the person does not listen or hear you, the message never gets across. Also maybe even worse than not hearing the message at all is only getting bits or pieces. In this kind of situation the person may hear some of it but make up something else to fit for what they missed. Oh listening is such a vital key to our existence. Just image if the Sec. Of Defense said "Those blasted Russians" and the President heard "Blast the Russians". While usually not this drastic listening is such and important tool. Just thought I would say this.

Pro Toilet Bowl


The NFL may as well just not have the Pro Bowl. It is just a waste of time, and wasted effort. It may as well be called to Toilet Bowl, because it has all gone to waste. Now it is being held in Miami, and a week before the Super Bowl. While it was suppose to be a game to anticipate the Super Bowl, instead it is just a wasted attempt to see who players try to get out of playing in the game.

While it maybe considered an honor to be selected onto the Pro Bowl, it does not seem to be that way among the players. For them it is simply a way to earn more money and get higher salaries by saying that they are Pro Bowlers. Half of them try to come up with the lamest of excuses, in order to not have to play. I f a player really is in fact injured they should not have to play, but if they have a dime sized bruise on their leg they should not be able to escape the honor. That is one thing that I do not understand. It should be a honor to make it into the Pro Bowl. You are being recognized as one of the best at your position. Why would you try to escape such an honor. For 30 of the teams at this point the season is over, so you have nothing to really lose. If it is injure that players are worried about look at how few injures players actually get that take longer than a week to get better. Also the players that actually play in the Pro Bowl don't play as hard and physical, for the most part, because they don't want to get injured and they do not want to injure anyone else. Therefore the "game" is pretty much a cat walk for really good Pro football players to be seen by the public. The fact that the NFL put it in Miami and a week before the Super Bowl, in my opinion was a terrible idea. The two teams going to the Super Bowl are most likely going to have quite a few pro bowler on their team and now they will not be able to play in the game because of the slight risk of injury and practices. The NFL is making the Colts and Saints go and see the Pro Bowl I believe. This is honestly just making the Pro Bowl look more pathetic than it already is. Hawaii, by the way, sounded like a better spot for the Pro Bowl. In conclusion, I commend and congratulate those who were voted to be Pro Bowlers and those who are actually participating in the game. For those who are you better have a darn good reason. For those who are just pansy's, you are pathetic and should a decrease of pay since you are already making millions.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Alright Lets Talk

Breathe in. Breathe out. It has now almost been a week since the...breathe in, and out....Vikings loss to the Saints in the NFC Championship game. I had to blog about this post game, but I also had to wait to cool down, so I might have less curse words or such. It is still kind of difficult to know that now the Vikings season is over and now Farve is "highly likely not to return next year", but more on that case later.

The Vikings played, lets see how should I put this, like they wanted to win the game, but felt sorry for the Saints so they let them win the close game which should have been a near 14 point loss. I will just say this now that this blog will be full of all the would of, could of ,and have of's of the game. This entire game for the Vikings was missed opportunities, poor calls, and haunting pasts. The Vikings had turnovers in the game. When that happens the team should pretty much blow up the other team, right? Wrong in this game the Vikings had 6 turnovers and they forced the game into overtime, by tying the game up at 28 to 28. That stat right there was the most influential of the result of the game. The Vikings coughed up the ball three times while in the red zone. Had they not been able to convert on a third down they were close enough to kick a field. By the way the Vikings have a very reliable kicker, so he would have made at least one of the three possible field goals. Lets just say that the game played out the way it did all the way to the last minute of the game. The Vikings have the ball with about a minute left and they are about on the Saints 30 to 35 yard line. Close enough to kick a pretty long field goal, but yet still a chance. They choose to run the ball two times on first and second down. Nothing. Then they get caught with 12 players in the huddle. Right here I am like what the hell are they thinking right now. You should be more focused than ever at this point in the game. I didn't even know this was a penalty because I have never seem a team get it. It is a five yard penalty. So I am thinking fine get the five yards back and maybe a couple more if possible, just hang onto the ball. So the play starts. Then it ends in disaster. Watch the video again. So you decide what Farve could have done with the ball. He could have thrown it to any one else except to Rice. Someone was open to his left for a pick up of 8 to 10 yards. That was all they needed too. So the game came down to pretty much one bad, terrible, season ending play.

There was much more than the turnovers though. There were also the bad, terrible, season ending calls against the Vikings right near the end of the game and throughout parts of the game. The Saints said that they wanted to hit Farve, and they did. often times though it was after the fact that he didn't have the ball and he would get hit or pushed down. This ultimately led to him getting injured. I have a slight problem being that the Saints want to hurt Farve. Another terrible call which could have changed the game was the passing interference call on Ben Leber. The Saints receiver first of all tripped under his own legs. Second of all the ball wasn't even close enough for him to catch. Finally one last terrible call even after a challenge was when the guy supposedly caught the football. The Vikings challenged it because the receiver didn't have complete control of the ball until it hit the ground and he rolled over top of it. I mean he tried to catch the ball against his leg! Of course though it was ruled a catch, and then they show video of the receiver who was laughing about it on the sidelines becuase you could just tell it in his eyes that he didn't actually catch it.

Finally this game was of just bad history. The last pass that Farve threw as a Packer was an interception in overtime in the playoffs against the Giants, by the way the Giants went on to win the Super Bowl I believe. also the Vikings have always played bad in the playoffs. They have been to the Super Bowl 4 times and lost each time. This year was probably their year at going all the way. Now Farve will most likely retire, like Kurt Warner did just yesterday. Also Big man Pat Williams was thinking about retiring after this year. He was one of the guys to stop the run. But Farve. Oh Farve. If he reties what do the Vikings do next year? Looking Forward to NEXT YEAR? I just do not know? So many questions. So many disappointments.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Vikings vs Saints Preview

Tomorrow is the NFC Championship game. The Vikings go down to the Superdome to play the Saints. You can bet that this game is huge for both teams, but I would really like to see the Vikings come out on top.

The Superdome is going to be rocking. The Vikings are going to have to go to their silent count, which does kind of hurt their offense a little. Farve can sometimes get defense to jump with a loud count, but now the issue will be with the offense not jumping. Another issue that has evolved over the past few days is injures, for the Vikings. Ray Edwards hurt his knee in the Cowboys game and now one of the Williams has issue too. Harvin is one of the latest with his migraines. I personally use to get migraines, and I know how they feel, so I do not know if he is going to play. These injures are really bad for the Vikings because two of them are starting defensive linemen and Harvin in a dynamic returner and quick receiver. The Vikings really need to be pretty much at full strength if they want to win this game.

The Saints has shown their offense throughout the season. Their defense is also capable of stepping up when needed. They are very good at creating big plays, like turnovers. They had 26 interceptions this season. The weakest part of their defense might be their running defense. This in my opinion is key because the Vikings are going to need to run the ball. I have been saying this since the middle of the season, but Peterson needs to break out and get some big runs. This will and needs to be a key focus in the game tomorrow. Again to beat the Saints the defensive line while beat up, has to get to Drew Brees. If they do not apply pressure on him he will be able to pick apart the secondary. Defense is a must to stop the rolling Saints in the air and on the ground.

Here is a video preview of the game.

The Vikings will need to be playing well. Just to sum it up would be play your best and get the crowd noise out of the game as soon as possible. Get healthy, and play for the Super Bowl. Go Vikings! Go Purple!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Postgame Extra

This is the blog post with a follow up on the Vikings vs. Cowboys game part 2. This one is more just focused on the key plays, how it all went down, and just some random things I would like to say that I picked up on while the game progressed. I still am overjoyed that the Vikings won, and now they are one step closer to the ultimate goal of any football team at the beginning of their season. Just in case you happened to miss the game here is a video of the highlights, and how the Vikings totally dismantled the Cowboys.

As you could see the game was pretty much dominated by the front four of the Vikings D line and the offense of Farve and Rice. First to start off with the D line. They played great when they had to. They let the Cowboys drive down into their territory, but then came up with a stop. This is evident just with the score. By just allowing three points, and of course the two other missed field goals. Even with those missed field goals they did not allow the Cowboys to score a touchdown. Part of this is due to the fact that they never let them get a big offensive play. This will be key in this following game. The other thing that I mentioned earlier in this paragraph is the connection between Farve and Rice. Rice got three touchdowns in this game, which is very good and not very usual for a receiver. I would also like to point out that Peterson was not that big of an influence on the game. I find this to be rather depressing because he is such a young running back, and he has done so well in the past few years, but his year he does good, but nothing eye popping or stellar. This is one thing that I will talk about later in a blog. But Farve had a great game with four touchdowns. I like Farve, but I feel like with his presence that Peterson is not doing as well, and I will just leave it at that for now.

Another thing that I noticed in this game is that the offensive line did well against a well known pass rushing defense. They allowed just three sacks I believe, which is not that bad considering that Farve is not that mobile of a quarterback and he just took the sack instead of forcing the football down field. This is part of the new Brett Farve that the world is seeing though. In the old days Farve would throw the ball well under pressure which had the risk of an interception. This year though he has the lowest interception rate and the best touchdown to interception ratio out of all the starting quarterbacks in the league. This is a key part in the Vikings success: win the turnover battle. If your quarterback is throwing interception it makes it more difficult to win games. Just use the Bears season this year. Jay Cutler threw the most interception out of any quarterback this season. note that they did not win that many games. Some of these are close games and if you don't throw interceptions some of those drives can turn into points. The Vikings did not have any turnovers in the game vs the Cowboys, but covered two fumbles and picked off Romo once. These turnovers are huge in and game for two reasons. The other team now has the ball, and now they most likely have the momentum of the game.

Kind of to wrap stuff up I think it would be appropriate to mention something a thing of two about the last few things of the game. The play where Farve passed for a touchdown to their tight end on fourth and three with less than two minutes less in the game and already winning by 20 some points was considered very debating. Was it right or ok for the Vikings to go for it on fourth down when they already knew that they were going to win. I say yes, for many reasons. First of all this was the second time that the Vikings in the last few minutes were inside the 20 and went for it on fourth down. They could have easily kicked the field goal and most likely would have made it. Had they done this both times they just would have won the game 33 to 3, instead of 34 to 3. So was it really that much of a difference on the scoreboard. I do not think so. I fthis is not enough to the fact that it is ok to score, is that if the cowboys did not want to see the score on the board then they should have tried harder to stop it. They are a professional team like all the other 31 teams in the league, and they have professional players that get paid loads of money. If they did not like they should have stopped it. Plus it just gave the Vikings more confidence and and momentum going into this weeks game. The blog above this one will be a informative about the Vikings vs. Saints match up, and what the Vikings need to do to pull off a victory in a very loud and Saint supported stadium. Go Vikes!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Yipee! Win!


Yeah the Vikings just won! The Vikings beat the Cowboys! Yipee! This was a really good game for the Vikings, with the final score being 34 to 3. Brett Farve threw for four touchdowns, and Rice was the receiver on three of the four. I guess you could say that Rice got a hat trick of touchdowns. While their offense played pretty well game throughout it was the defense that I think earns the credit of today's game. In this blog it will mostly be about the defense and then I will address other things in a later blog post.

The Purple Eaters or whatever you call them the Vikings defensive line played so well today. They pressured Romo like a bottle of shook up soda ready to be opened. All day the had an eye on him and the ball. Romo was sacked six times, the most times in his career. During one series two passes where deflected in a row. Leber had an interception and the Vikings recovered two fumbles. The defense just seemed to play harder and with more determination than the cowboys offense. The Vikings only allowed one play that was more than 20 yards, and it was towards the end of the game and went for 22 yards. In summary of this point the vikings never let a big play slip by them. This kind of defense is always important to have in the playoffs. One that is on their heels and is able to put pressure on the quarterback when needed the most. One thing I will say that was not good about this game was whatever happened to Ray Edwards. He was having a stellar game with 3 sacks and just making key plays, but then something happened to his knee. He tried to come back into the game, but apparently it was still bothering him some. I really hope that he will recover and be ready for the Saints game which is next Sunday. I hope this good defense will continue because I believe that it will for sure be needed against the Saints really good defense. Congratulations to the Vikings on their win, but now it is time to look forward to the NFC Championship game. Here is a link to watch a video that has the game highlights in it. Enjoy!

Other Playoffs



Yesterday there were two playoff games. First there was the Cardinals vs Saints game. This game looked like it could be good right away just in the first play when the Cardinals running back ran for a 70 yard touchdown. This was about it for the Cardinals offense though. They final store ended up being a blow out of 45 to 14. As you can see the Cardinals had just about zero defense, and did not get the reliance that they usually get from their offense. This is to not take away the playing of the Saints though. They played a great game on both sides of the ball. If you can stop the Cardinals offense and hold them to just 14 points, your defense is really playing hard. Also the Saints were able to score like crazy on a tired Arizona defense that was on the field for the majority of the game. So congratulations to the Saints who will be playing the winner of the Vikings vs. Cowboys.

The other game yesterday was the Indianapolis Colts vs. the Baltimore Ravens. This game was not all that bad, but the Ravens were pretty much shut down by the Colts defense. The Ravens defense played pretty well, but they just did not get any help from their offense. The final score of this game was 20 to 3. So I guess you could say that the two Saturday games were very much similar. The Colts and the Saints were the number one seed of both the divisions, and they both won their game. They offenses both played pretty well and their defenses were very solid. This is what you need to see in a playoff game, a team that has a respectable offense and a great defense. People are always saying that defense is what wins championships, and this does have some truth. So you will be seeing the Colts play the winner of the San Diego Chargers and the New York Jets game. Good luck to these teams in the future, that is unless they play the Vikings.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

A Look In


Well this blog is kind of like a follow up of the previous blog about the Vikings vs. Cowboys playoff game this Sunday. I believe that this game will be anything from the biggest playoff game this year. Just think about. I will give you some time to think. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Got your thoughts together. Ok, good because here it is. Here is a game that has about 15 Pro Bowlers in it. This is just two teams we are talking about. The Vikings have I believe 9 and the Cowboys with 6. The Vikings actually have the most of all teams in the NFL! But anyway you always hear sports people say that the big time players have to come up with big time plays. If this was to happen the Vikings you could say should win because they have more big time players= Pro Bowlers in this comparison. Although they also say that the non big time players have to come up with big plays. This could be shown in the Cardinals vs. Packers game. Boldin had to sit in the sidelines, but that did not mean that his backup did not have a great game. In fact he played the best of his career in the game. That does not mean that the Cardinals won the game just by his individual performance, but you can sure bet that it helped. Back to the point I was making if this were true then the Cowboys could win this game. Who knows?

There are just so many variables in this game. For example how each team has been playing, the home field advantage, and the strengths and weaknesses. Well it is obvious that the Vikings have the home field advantage. The Metrodome you know will be explosive when the Vikings defense is on the field and dead silent when the offense is on the field. So the home field advantage will probably help the Vikings. Back to how each has been playing the advantage is kind of to the Cowboys. They beat the Saints and then beat the Eagles twice to make it into the playoffs and then play in this game. Their defense has been playing very well and shut down the Eagles offense. This is mostly due to their defensive line, like Ware. Their offense has also been playing with confidence too. The Vikings need to have their offensive line block well and either allow Peterson to run through the holes or create a passing ally for Farve. One way that the Cowboys have been winning is by creating turnovers. The Vikings need to stop this trend, and get their own turnovers in the game. If the Vikings can establish a run game this will help rest their defense and just make their offense that much harder to stop. The special teams for the Vikings also need to play well because in the past this is an area where it has hurt the Vikings. So I guess if you want a summary of what the Vikings need to do to win this game it just comes down to the basics of the game. Also with a little bit of experience and luck the Vikings should be able to win this game in my opinion. It would be great for the Vikings program to make it to the NFC Championship or farther, but I am not going to say anything because I do not want to jinx anything at all. Go Vikings! Stop the Cowboys in their boots and make them go back to Texas.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

The End

This last Thursday was the National Championship Game for college football. I was not that interested in it because there wasn't a team that I really liked, but I did want Texas to beat Alabama because they, Texas, are from the Big 12. If you go back to the Big 12 Championship Game as much as it may hurt the Husker were one second away from beating Texas. The score of that game was 13 to 12. The point that I am trying to make is that Nebraska defense is as good as Alabamas. Alabama allowed more points and more touchdowns in the game. Also Nebraska had to deal with Colt McCoy in the entire game and not just five minutes. While other may say that even if McCoy was in the entire that Texas would have still loss I believe that they are wrong. Alabama nearly lost to a freshman quarterback who hasn't played in an actual game for a long time. Are people trying to say that when Texas had the ball with three minutes left and down by three that Texas would not have been able to go down and at least tie the game. In the second half the Texas defense showed up and was really able to slow down the Alabama offense. It was really in the first half that Texas let Alabama get the better of them. Who wouldn't though. Your Heisman candidate quarterback was just injured and not expected to come back into the game. Had it not been so Suh winning the Big 12 area for points McCoy probably would have won the Heisman in my mind. So to the people who who thought that McCoy couldn't have a difference in the game I have got to say that you are wrong. Had it not been a dumb injury for Texas and a lucky one for Alabama, Texas would have been the National Champions. Here is a video of the game and how it all went down.

The Playoff Picture



So I was informed that the Cowboys and the Eagles played yesterday, today. I did not even know this because my life was wrapped in a 24 hour time span of straight show choir. My group had a show choir competition and it was a few hours a away, so waking up early and getting to bed late were on yesterdays schedule, and not so much as who was playing their playoff game. Well today I found out that the Cowboys defeated the Eagles and that the Jets beat the Bengals. The Jets vs. Bengals game did not matter too much to me because right now they are in the other division as the Vikings. The Vikings are in the NFC and they are in the AFC. Now the Cowboys vs. Eagles game did matter to me. If the Cowboys beat the Eagles for the third time this year the Vikings would be playing the Cowboys, but if the Eagles won the Vikings would be playing the winner of todays game of the Cardinals vs. the Packers. As I said earlier the opponent for the Vikings was chosen yesterday; the Dallas Cowboys. Now before hand I was trying to decide to decide who I thought the Vikings should play to have the best chance of going onto the NFC Championship game.They could have played either the Cowboys, Cardinals, or the Packers. The Cowboys have been playing very well lately, and at just the right time to be playing well too. You can go to this link to see how the Cowboys shot down the Eagles 34 to 14. Now another team that has been playing very well are the Packers. Now the Vikings did beat the Packer twice this year, but I I not really sure that I would want to play them a third time again. The last team that the Vikings could have played was the Cardinals. I did not really want to play them either because that was the team that the Vikings played so far this year and lost to. Soooo I guess that playing the Cowboys is the best team for the Vikings to play. The Vikings had been playing king of spotty the past few weeks, but last week I believe they found themselves again. The dominated the Gaints and pulled their starters out towards the end of the third quarter. Now the Vikings get prepared to play next Sunday and hopefully lasso the Cowboys.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Holiday Bowl

Well college football is coming to an end if it have not already (that is if I finish this post in time before the National Title Game). I watched or at least paid attention to the final score to most of the bowl games this year. This is kind of different because I am more of a NFL fan, but for some reason I was more involved in them. The easy reason would have to be that i probably just care more because Iowa went to a BCS Bowl, the Orange Bowl. While it is all good that they won, and do not get me wrong I am happy for them and wanted them to beat Georgia Tech, but there was one other bowl game that was more appealing to me. While it was not near as good of a game as the Northwestern vs. Auburn game or the Fresno State vs. Wyoming game. The bowl game that I am talking about, as you might of gotten from the title of this blog post is the Holiday Bowl.

While this bowl probably did not take in a lot of money or publicity I still enjoyed it. There were probably only two states that even really cared about the game too. Those would be Nebraska and Arizona. Again as you should have figured out the bowl hosted Nebraska and Arizona. As I said before this game was really not that good, and I am saying not good as in it was not very close. Lets just say that this game was about as close as the Florida vs. Cincinnati game where Florida owned Cincinnati 51 to 24. Lets just say that the game, or lack there of, could have been over within the first two minutes. This is due to the fact that the Nebraska offense actually scored 33 points. Yeah I know Nebraska scoring more than 30 points in a single game. Scary. If you do not know what I am talking about here is a website where you can see that besides a couple of their first games they were lucky to score 30 points a game. Also, and probably the main reason why Nebraska won the game so easily was because of their stellar defense. If you care to look back at the website you can see that only in one game did they allow the opponent to score more than 30 points. If you average the points that their defense allowed per game it comes up to a hair more than 10 whole points per game. Lucky for Nebraska with that kind of defense the offense does not really need to do much scoring. Besides one game versus Texas Tech, Nebraskas biggest loss was by two points. They had two games where they lost by one point. One of those games was the Big 12 National Championship Game versus Texas who is now playing for the National Title.

When to kind of get back on track to the actual bowl game, the huskers played in the Holiday Bowl against Arizona and crushed them. The final score being 33 to 0. The Huskers ended their season pretty well. The player that I will be missing the most along with practically any Husker fan would have to be Suh. Suh had a decent game, and it was his last. It ended pretty good for him though with the entire defense as a whole putting up a big old goose egg for Arizona. Now I am sure I will do a follow up and mention Suh in the future since he only won like five or more major awards and is foreseen to go in the top few in the NFL draft if not first. One last thing that I got a laugh out of this game was that the Huskers were actually the under dog in this game. Here is a video of the some of the highlights of the game. As you could see there wasn't much to it in winning the game. This was the first time in Holiday Bowl history that one team was shut out. Any how I enjoyed this bowl game and thought it was a great way for the Huskers to finish their 10 and 4 season. Go Big RED!