Vikings Recap: Week 10

All I have to preface about the Vikings win yesterday was that it shouldn’t have happened the way it did. For a game played as dominantly as the Vikings played it, it should have been a 21 point game, but thanks to a few key people we had to win it on a missed field goal. I think the Packers offense was only responsible for 10 points, and 3 of those were because Childress is a douche that should never be allowed to call a play on 4th down. Either way, I think we should declare a state wide holiday, because I love to see the Packers lose, and it deserves a day of rest when they lose to the Vikings. I love it even more when the stadium is half full of drunken idiots wearing their lord's jersey #4.

Defense

Goddamn these guys are great to watch, and it sucks that the two Williamses will eventually be suspended. It was a ton of fun looking forward to each play just to see the new way that Jared Allen was going to plow over Aaron Rodgers. Two safeties in one quarter? Fuck, that was amazing. I don’t care if we would have lost, that was amazing. Congrats to the unit, this was your best game, no doubt.

All Day

The second coming of Purple Jesus happened 11/9/08, and it was GLORIOUS. It was funny, the minute I saw Peterson fired up on the sidelines before the last drive, I told my buddy that he was going to bust some skulls on his way to the endzone. After carrying a struggling, stalled, and tired offense on his back for a whole entire drive, I laughed a hearty laugh. The guy is a leader, he knows how to find the tiny holes and blow through them, and after 4 straight 100 yard games against some tough teams, consider me among the saved. He proved without a doubt that its his league now, don’t fuck with him.

Special Teams

Fire the whole squad, every last fucking one of them. I have never watched a team play such awful special teams for a long, long time. Blackmon's TD should never have gotten past the first wave, except for the fact that they are all lazy ass arm tacklers. You are fucking pros, act like it. I swear to god I want to play special teams myself - alone - because I could play better than they have this year.

Gus Frerotte

What an awful game. He looked worse than jackson on a lot of those plays, not even the fade to Rice on the first drive looked like he was capable, it was no where close. Luckily he got it in later, otherwise I would have killed him personally. The TD "pass" to Taylor was awesome, but not because of him, so Im not going to count that one as a win for him. His play was inexcusable, and I am ready to say throw in Booty-call because he could be better than both combined.

Ryan Longwell

You have a foot cannon, thank you for being awesome in the first half. The one you missed was beyond awful.

Bernard Berrian

Being shut out is inexcusable. Make plays, that is your job.

Brad Childress

You have to go away, now. Its fourth and 1, you know their offense hasn’t done shit, Kluwe is playing well, and you still go for it. You are a douche.

Overall, it feels like I am writing about a loss, but this was actually a ginormous win. Vikings are now tied for first, they have won two straight, and if they beat Tampa next week, we are in a really good position for the playoffs, actually. I think its time to re-evaluate the QB position, maybe give Jackson another chance. Either way, you know you can just hand the ball off, because Taylor and All Day are the best tandem in the league.

The Boys Are Back In Town

What time is it?

…GAME TIME.

Well, kind of. Football is back, *THANK YOU GOD*, and I am fucking excited. In fact, I watched some lame ass game between the Saints and Cardinals just to get my fix. That all ends tonight when a seemingly better Vikings team takes on the Seahawks. Yeah, All Day probably wont play, or if he does, the exploding shoelaces wont be laced up. But that doesn’t mean there isnt anything to watch for. In fact, this is prime time for prospecting, as many of those guys you get as box hits will be on display. Here are some players to watch and see:

Darren McFadden and JaMarcus Russell - These guys will be playing, but Russell probably wont play for long. Instead he will spend most of the time on the bench contemplating why his parents gave him such an awful name. McFadden, on the other hand, should be on display to see what he can do much like All Day was last year. If he does well, expect his cards to rise to even more inflated prices, despite it only being pre-season. The people who buy then are not prospectors, but idiots. I expect McFadden to have ten carries and maybe one or two runs broken for long yardage. Again, this is preseason, so this wont transfer. Its basically a glorified scrimmage.

Felix Jones, Jonathan Stewart and Rashard Mendenhall - I have a feeling these guys will have better years than McFadden because they are playing behind more polished teams. Outside of McFadden and Russell, I can barely name more than a few guys on the squad. I have said before that Felix Jones is the guy to collect, but his prices are so high that I am cancelling that. Im guessing all three have pretty good pre-seasons.


Matt Ryan, Brian Brohm, and John Booty - All of these guys are playing on teams with QB drama. Now that Favre is gone, thank god again, Brohm has potential to see the field this year behind a good team. Rodgers may not perform and you can guess that Packer fans will call for heads to roll if he sucks. Ryan, on the other hand, shouldn’t start, but he probably will make it on to the field by week 4. This never, EVER works, unless your name is Peyton Manning, who still managed to suck his first few years. Preseason will be a good place to watch and see what potential he has. Last but not least, Booty is on a team with 4 QBs, 2 of which are inconsequential. I want to see him in a pro-style offense and see if he can work some magic with the scrubs of the scrubs. Frerotte and Bollinger are worthless journeymen who are on this team because Jackson cant stay on the field. I would expect one of them to be gone if Booty does well.

Domique Rogers-Cromartie, Tyrell Johnson, and Calais Campbell - These defensive guys were at the top coming into the draft. Most of them will play pretty early, and I would expect that all of them will be pretty good. Keep on the look out as these guys wont have many, if any cards, and it might be wise to jump on them if they are cheap and playing well.

Vernon Gholston, Chris Long, and Glenn Dorsey - These guys will probably be very good, with Gholston as the highest bust potential. All three will play from the beginning, which means you might want to get the cards now. Chris Long will be the best of the three, so make sure you have some of him saved up, he wont be around much after this year.

Calvin Johnson, Trent Edwards, Selvin Young and Kolby Smith -Calvin was ok for the lions last year, but I think they are expecting more this year. Same with Edwards. Now, as for Selvin and Kolby, they better show some good things to justify those prices. Need I remind you that Selvin's SPAs have approached $250 a piece? God, people are stupid.

So, with that, pull up a comfy chair and some popcorn, and get ready for some football. Yes its only pre-season, but for card people this is a good time to see your guys in action before they ride the pine for the year.

Run DMC and the All Day Funky Bunch

Right now in football products, Darren McFadden is the shit. He is the guy you want to pull and really, its kind of expected with the numbers he put up in college. The problem with this is that the Joe Collectors are jumping all over his stuff because of what All Day did last year, not because he actually deserves to be at 175 for his Classics autos (just wait until SPX and the Topps RPM autos come out). Last year at this time, Peterson autos were at 100 bucks a pop out of classics and the like, and his cards were MORE short printed at 100 instead of DMC's 125. Yet, due to an explosion mid year, All Day's stuff doubled in price. That wont happen to Mcfadden, I can almost guarantee it.

The other funny thing is that for the first time in as long as I can remember, ALL the running backs are the big pulls instead of just the top guys from the skilled positions. Felix Jones is at 80 bucks, Stewart is at 50, Matt Fucking Forte is at 30, and Mendenhall is up there at 75 too. What the fuck are people thinking? Now, thanks to the JCs, affordability just went out the window with most of their intelligence. I would say that eventually, years down the road, one or two may be worth that, but definitely not now.

Back to McFadden, there are some huge reasons why he wont do what Peterson did. First and foremost being that the Raiders are fucking awful. They have a rookie QB, a shitty O-line, and NO 2nd RB like Chester Taylor to carry some of the load. Fargas is good, but not THAT good. Once people see that teams are not going to take any chances with McFadden, his prices will come down, but still not far enough. He will be a good player, but not until the Raiders get better. Peterson had an AMAZING line to run behind, and even he had problems late season. Who is to say that McFadden even makes it that far with the team he is on at the moment.

Besides, the JCs who drive up the price are a fickle bunch, and once Felix Jones or Johnathan Stewart has a big game, it will be those prices that jump - hell most of these guys arent starters yet. Personally, I wont be buying a McFadden card all year. If I pull one, its going straight to TWGM. Its not worth keeping right now, but most people don’t get that.

Just wait, week 8, you will be able to buy both McFadden and Peterson at rock bottom prices because its tough to live up to hype, even with the talent that those two have. Peterson is #2 on the fantasy board and number #1 in your heart, but that wont help when he goes against 8 and 9 in the box every play. Just keep this in mind before you fall in with the JCs.

Lets Play A Game

I want to play a game that I have gloriously dubbed, "Singling Out Of A Wax Box." Wow, check out all its Majesty! Yes, so here are the rules, instead of me spending 95 dollars on a box of Donruss Classics at my local shop or from blowout, I will scour TWGM for 95 dollars worth of singles from the set I want to get instead. That way, I get what I want and its still Donruss Classics 2008.

Before I start this, I want to document something. From a box that will cost you 95 to get, arguably the best pull is a McFadden Auto. Right now, they are going at a 200 dollar clip, give or take a few bucks. Not only is that DOUBLE what All Day went for last year, but he is with a team that has one of the worst offensive lines in recent memory and a QB that is FOB (Fresh Off the Bench). The JCs are crazy here, but that also makes this pretty much the best pull you can get.

For me, I wanted a JDB auto, a Felix Jones base RC, and maybe a few other scattered cards. It would be nice to get an All Day auto jersey out of this set, but I think I will wait for Premier. So, lets break this down:

Auto: John David Booty-call /349. $29.99-39.99 for the card, shipping not included. I could have also gotten a Joe Flacco Auto here if I had seen it, but it was off the board pretty quick. Booty is a pro-style QB on a team with a shitty starter and even shittier backups. Flacco is good here too because I have a feeling he will be playing for a long time. The only problem was that he didnt play anyone good in college. Eh, toss up.

Base RC: Felix Jones /999. $12.99 for the card, 5-7.99 if you can wait 4 weeks. In my opinion, which is all that matters, he has the best looking RC base card in the set. He is on a great team, though he will be working with Marion Barber, so dont expect a lot of TDs to start unless he breaks a few from long distance. The JCs are all over the running backs this year because of All Day last year, though I have a feeling they will be sorely disappointed.

Base RC 2: I would go Brian Brohm or Chris Long here. 5-12.99 for the card. Brohm because he will be a Packer with a good shot at a starting job and its a spank looking card, and Chris Long because he wont have many releases after this year. You could probably get both.

Jersey Hit 1: Adrian Peterson Sunday's Best. Should be around 7-10 bucks for this card, and that is a really mean looking picture. Its not going to gain much value, but its still a cool GAME USED card to have rather than the event used crap from last year.

Jersey Hit 2: Tom Landry Timeless Treasures. $15-20.00 for the card. I like this piece because Landry doesnt have anything in cards before this other than Treasures 2007. For this kind of money for a jacket he wore, could be kind of cool. Better than a college jersey from DMC. Not to mention this card is a personal homage to a really nice DLP baseball set that really brought me back into collecting full swing in '04.

Card total: Around 95 bucks. That would be a nice box right?

Or we could all just pay 86 fucking dollars for a Wes Welker fucking auto jersey. WES FUCKING WELKER.

Explosions in His Shoelaces pt 2

Annnnnnnnnnnnd PRE-ORDERED. October cant come fast enough.

Could be the coolest figure yet, definitely tied with the Mauer in my book.

100th Post: Adrian Peterson Has Explosions In His Shoelaces

Because I am a transplanted Minnesotan living in LA, its tough to be a Twins and Vikings fan because none of the teams are broadcast on TV. This year was special, however. As a birthday present from my parents, I got the MLB package on my digital cable so I can watch all the glorius wonderment that are the 2008 Twins games. This includes the games this week where Mauer hit two Morneau sized home runs into the right field upper deck. Fucking blasts and a half.

Clip? We got a clip?....




....okay, no clip. Stupid YouTube rules.

Funny enough, I find myself enjoying the commercials more and more each day because they remind me of home, and because some of them are PURE GOLD.

Here is one from the All Day Foundation Celebrity Golf Tournament(follow link - cant embed).

Three things I want people to recognize from this classic piece of American Advertising:

1) Looking at that swing, All Day sucks at golf. Bad. I would want to go to the tournament just to watch him shank wormburners all over the course for 18 holes.

2) The Vikings Mascot had no business walking on the range while someone is hitting. It his own fault he got hit (Or maybe its the weak armed intern who tried to throw that golf ball at him).

3) All Day has explosions in his shoelaces. No wonder he can blow past defenders with the greatest of ease!

I cant wait for football this year, its going to be a "blast." Pun intended.