UMFan83

I keep thinking about how big these 2 games are. Actually how big this game is in particular to set up the rest of our season. If we can win this game, we are 8-3 with the worst team left on our schedule coming up. By no means is Detroit a gimme, although it seems like several close losses have killed their spirit a bit. But its a game that we should win if we are a playoff team. And if we beat Philly, theres no reason to turn around and lose to Detroit. I honestly think this team can beat Philly. And I am pretty sure that we will at the very minimum have a very close game on our hands. We haven't been blown out against anyone this year and with how good the defense is playing, I can't see even a good offensive team like Philly blowing us out.

Well the Packers did shut out the Jets in New York as well :) I'm aware of that. I'm talking about how their league leading point differential is built up over the last 2 weeks by playing teams that essentially have given up. Not saying the Packers aren't good. Not saying the Vikings weren't at a similar spot when they played the Bears the week prior. The Packers are a great team. I don't think they have the resume to be the number 1 team in people's power rankings.

Mccarthy for OC, Childress for Special teams. Lovie can be Defensive backs coach when he gets canned.

but omgz Miami is 8-5 how are they number 1, thats a jank system!! Who made that list ESPN??? Amirite!

The post I meant to reply to was yours, in which you said you don't see how they could win. Right? They've stunk in Minneapolis, but they've also been a pretty weak team for a long time. And 7-9 teams tend to lose road games in the division to anybody that doesn't suck balls. If Chicago doesnt' take a step back the next few games I could see them winning in Minnesota without having to take luck into account. Every NFL team has talent. Detroit is talented, but they have only 2 wins for a reason. Cincy has loads of talent but only 2 wins for a reason. The Vikings have a lot of talent but they have 3 wins for a reason. A lot of it is old and/or banged up and their flaws go much deeper than head coach. I said I don't see them winning, but I didn't literally mean that I don't think they can win. I just meant that it's gonna be harder to win then it was if Chilly wasn't fired and the team continued collectively falling into apathy. We just do strange things in the Metrodome, and it scares me with a potential revitalized team waiting for them. I guess we should see how they respond before I start throwing out proclamations like that though.

Childress isn't why the Vikings struggled. They might get a bounce with the coaching change, but that will fade over the next three weeks' worth of games before Chicago arrives. Leslie isn't going to bring Moss back, and he isn't going to make Favre change his stripes. I'm not conceding that game until we see how the next three week's shake out. I'm not conceding any game, but understood. I'm not conceding any game either but it is gonna be tough. The amount of effort the Vikings put into their last couple of games is questionable at best. The Vikings are still relatively talented. They are better than other 3-7 teams out there you would think. The Vikings players supposedly hated their coach and were mired in a funk of controversy and undisciplined play. Say Leslie gives them a little bump. Say they win a couple of games in a row. The effort is there, the players like the coach, and although the playoffs are highly unlikely, the team has a new common goal to finish the year strong to keep Leslie as their coach. Suddenly a Monday night game in the dome seems a lot more difficult than it did yesterday. I'm not gonna pretend that Brett Favre is randomly gonna stop throwing INTs like he's auditioning for a role in ABC's movie of the week: "The Rex Grossman story". I'm not going to hide the fact that the Vikings are a bit banged up and the Williams wall is not the same as it was 2 years ago and the secondary is questionable, etc. But it will most likely be a more difficult game than I had hoped for, in the stadium we've won in only 1 out of the last 9 games there.

I'm waiting for students to discover Touchdown Jesus with a tear running down His face at some point.

The season will probably end with a fizzle this weekend. Let's hope Michigan is at least competitive in the bowl game. This game against OSU is going to be painful. The majority of the projections I am seeing suggest Michigan is gonna end up at the Insight Bowl playing Missouri. I can't see us being favored in that one. Considering there's a good chance that Michigan won't have beaten anyone with a winning record this year going into the game (if ND loses to USC and Illinois at Fresno St.), it's gonna be a tough matchup. Edit: Didn't realize UConn is all the way up to 6-4 this year, but they have Cinci and South Florida to finish the year.

I'm surprised they didn't just make Favre the interim coach.

Nice....it definitely had to be done your right. That will be the move that wins the division for the Packers most likely. If the Vikings get a similar bump in effort as the Cowboys did, I can't see the Bears winning in our house of horrors, on a Monday night no less (when everyone plays their ass off...see Bears/Vikings last December).

Yeah for the Bears to have a chace to win, they're gonna have to keep the Eagles under 24 points. Gonna be an interesting matchup of contrasts. Our units somewhat match up evenly with each other. Scoring rankings Bears offense: 25th Bears defense: T-1st (GB) Eagles offense: 2nd Eagles defense: 20th

The division is a much safer route to go than the wild card if you want to make the playoffs. As far as the Wild Card goes, there are realistically 4 teams fighting for 2 spots: Bears/Packers loser Saints Bucs Giants Technically the Redskins (5-5) have an outside shot as well. But based on having 4 different 7-3 teams fighting for a spot, I'm starting to wonder if 10-6 is not going to be good enough to make the playoffs. Will the Giants go worse than 4-2 and the Bucs finish 2-4? In that case 10-6 will take a WC spot. If the Giants go 4-2 or better, and/or the Bucs do better than 2-4, we're looking at a 10-6 team not making the playoffs most likely. I wouldn't go handing the divisions to the Falcons and Eagles just yet, either. In reality, there are 7-8 teams fighting for 5 spots, between Atlanta, Philly, Chicago, Green Bay, New Orleans, Tampa Bay, New York and maybe Washington. At this time, I think the odd teams out are going to be Washington, Tampa Bay and Chicago, but there's still plenty of time left for those teams to improve, or the other teams to get worse. Yeah what I really meant was there are 4 teams fighting for 2 spots: -1 of GB/CHI -2 of NO/ATL/TB -1 of PHI/NYG/WAS I just chose the teams that are currently not in a sole division lead. At this point, I am a homer so I'd say the 3 teams out will be TB, NYG and WAS :)

How has NE not been impressive? They are 8-2 this year and have beaten Miami, Baltimore, San Diego, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis this year. GB does have the best point differential in the league, but I guess I just don't credit them to destroying a teams that have given up. Kudos to them for playing well and not taking their foot off the pedal but the last 2 weeks they've destroyed 2 teams with a combined record of 6-14 by 66 points. Don't get me wrong it certainly is impressive to beat an NFL team by that margin, but based on the teams played it isn't enought propell them over a team like NE at this point. Or Atlanta.

Peter King randomly vaulted the Packers to number 1 in his "Fine Fifteen" on the basis of how they've played over the last month. The games they played? 4 point win over the 3-7 Vikings, a 9-0 win over the 8-2 Jets, a 38 point win over the 3-7 "We're trying to get our coach fired" Cowboys, and a 28 point win over the 3-7 "We are too" Vikings. I'm not necessarily arguing they shouldn't be ahead of the Bears or anythng (Bears are 9th). But nothing in that schedule from the last month screams "We should be ahead of 3 different teams that have a better record than us, including 2 in the tougher conference".

The division is a much safer route to go than the wild card if you want to make the playoffs. As far as the Wild Card goes, there are realistically 4 teams fighting for 2 spots: Bears/Packers loser Saints Bucs Giants Technically the Redskins (5-5) have an outside shot as well. But based on having 4 different 7-3 teams fighting for a spot, I'm starting to wonder if 10-6 is not going to be good enough to make the playoffs. Will the Giants go worse than 4-2 and the Bucs finish 2-4? In that case 10-6 will take a WC spot. If the Giants go 4-2 or better, and/or the Bucs do better than 2-4, we're looking at a 10-6 team not making the playoffs most likely.

I have nothing against Vinny as a person and wish him well with the Clippers. But instead of crediting VDN for leading the Bulls to the playoffs with mediocre teams the last two years, I start to wonder if we could have been much better with real offensive and defensive sets instead of the garbage vinny had us run.

Might? That is a no brainer. The fun thing is that if we finished with a 6 seed we could be looking at a WC game against GB. Even though thats a much harder game I'd love to play the packers in the playoffs. It would be nice to propel packers-bears over pakersvikings as the chief rivalry in the north

Devin Hester accepts your challenge.

That's a good point. As much as I'd love a home game, I might rather go to St. Louis to play the Rams, then play New Orleans or Philly at Soldier Field.

Ohio State 45 Michigan 27

Not a great day for the Bears today. Falcons won to stay a game ahead for best record in the NFC Packers won to tie the Bears in the NFC North Bucs won to keep pace with Bears in potential WC race Saints won to keep pace as well. At least either the Giants or Eagles are going to lose, meaning that there will be a 3 way tie between the Saints, Bucs, Packers/Bears for the 2 Wild Card spots. Also it slightly is good that Seattle lost, meaning that if we are fortunate enough to win the division, we have 2 games on Seattle for the 3rd seed.

Bet more average baseball fans could identify Tom Collins than Mike Quade.

This Favre/Vikings marriage couldnt have turned out better. Watching Favre build up the expectations of Vikings fans only to crush them in the NFC championship game. Then the next year completely destroy the team first with an embarrassing controversey then with awful play.

Just one of those nights, or was the beatdown a wakeup call that their effort so far this season isn't going to get it done? May be a fluke but the timing, coming the night after getting beat down is curious. I missed the game, was the score indicitive of how well they played.

What did your signs say? I am watching the recording on my DVR right now.