How 'Bout Them Vikings! - Offense

A look at how the Minnesota Vikings have done so far on offense and how far they could go entering the second half of the season.

Going into week 10 of the 2009 NFL season, the Minnesota Vikings have a 7-1 record and a comfortable three-game advantage over the Green Bay Packers as they lead the NFC North Division. Adrian Peterson is having another phenomenal season, the defense is dominant and some guy by the name of Brett Favre is having a pretty good season. Friday, I will give a grade for how the Vikings' offense was for the first half of the season. Sunday, I will give a grade for how the Vikings' defense was for the first half of the season. Next Sunday, I will view how the second half of the season will go for Minnesota, predict how far they could go and what could prevent the Vikings from winning Super Bowl XLIV.

Vikings 1st half of the season:

Offense: A-

Before the 2009 NFL season began, I knew two things about the Vikings' offense:

• Adrian Peterson was not only going to have another Pro Bowl season, but maybe even a MVP season.
• With arguably the best left side in the NFL in tackle Bryant McKinnie and guard Steve Hutchinson and 6'8", 345 lbs. rookie tackle, Phil Loadholt to compliment the right side, Minnesota's offensive line was going to be one of the best in the NFL.

Unfortunately, if Minnesota was going to be a more balanced offense and go farther in the playoffs this season, they needed a better passing game and a better right side of the offensive line. The position the Vikings' needed an improvement the most from was a quarterback that could lead the team and take pressure off of Peterson. After eight games into the season, I believe the Vikings are now a scary offense for defenses to defend and I'll tell why:

QB - Brett Favre: Did anybody really believe Favre was going to be this good? Who really thought Favre was going to be a mid-season MVP candidate this season? I sure didn't think so. He is 40 years old, had a terrible second half of last season with the New York Jets where he started to show his age and after having just three weeks of training camp to gel with the team, I thought Vikings' coach Brad Childress was taking a huge risk bringing Favre to Minnesota. Childress has had a past for not taking risks, but getting Favre was exactly what the Vikings offense needed. Just look at Favre's stats so far this season:

• Favre has thrown for 1925 yards, completing 174 out of 256 passes with a 68% completion average.
• Favre has the second most passing touchdowns (Schaub & Brees, 17) in the NFL with 16 TDs and out of all the quarterbacks that have started every game this season for their teams, he has the least amount of interceptions in the NFL with 3 INTs.
• Favre has the second highest quarterback rating (Brees, 106.1) in the NFL with a 106.0 rating.

Minnesota's wide-receiver targets are playing better than ever now as players are emerging as weapons for Favre to throw to. Minnesota's passing game has not been this explosive since 2004 when Randy Moss was still a Viking, and has been productive with young receivers like:

WR - Sidney Rice: There may have been some players on the Vikings offense that were going to do well this year with Favre added to the team, but Rice's emergence has been the biggest surprise for Minnesota's offense this year. He has gone from a fourth-option wide-receiver in 2008 to arguably Favre's favorite target the first half of this season in 2009. Here are his stats:

• In Rice's first two seasons of his career (26 games), he had a total of 537 yards, 46 receptions and eight TDs. In his first 8 games this year, he already has 585 yards, 37 receptions and two TDs.
• Going into the 2009 season, Rice never had a 100-yards plus game. He has had two of them this year.
• In 2009, Rice leads the Vikings in receptions (37), yards (537) and yards per catch average(15.8).

WR - Percy Harvin: Rice may be the biggest surprise this season, but Harvin has been the biggest addition (besides Favre of course) to Minnesota's offense this year. People knew Harvin could do it all coming out of college whether it was catching the ball, running the ball or being a kick-off returner, but how good he has been at the NFL level this season has left him as the clear favorite for the 2009 Offensive Rookie of the Year award. Just look at his impressive stats:

• Harvin leads all NFL rookies in 2009 with 369 receiving yards, 28 receptions and three TDs.
• As a kick-off returner, Harvin leads the NFC with an average of 30.7 yards per return and two kick-off TDs, leaving him a great chance to go to the Pro Bowl as a rookie at the end of this season.

TE - Visanthe Shiancoe: After having his best season in 2008, some people thought Shiancoe's stats were a fluke and would have a disappointing season in 2009. Boy were they wrong. Shiancoe reminds me of what Bubba Franks was for Favre in his days at Green Bay, because he may not get many receptions per game, but is very productive with scoring touchdowns in the red-zone. He is one of the best tight ends in the NFC this year, and this is why:

• Shiancoe has just 22 receptions and 209 yards so far this season, but he is a touchdown machine as he leads the Vikings with six TDs.
• Shiancoe not only leads the Vikings, but when it comes to tight-ends in the NFL, he is tied for second in TDs (Davis, 7).

Then it comes to Minnesota's running game, still one of the most dangerous in the NFL. Statistically, the running game has been down a little compared to last season, but it is because of how balanced the Vikings's offense has been in 2009. Here is a look at one of the NFL's best running back combos:

RB - Adrian Peterson: I do not care if Peterson is third in the NFL in rushing yards right now in the season, he is hands down the best running back in the NFL. I believe I can say this because if you asked any defender in the NFL to pick which RB they would least like to play against in a game, it would not be this years rushing leaders Chris Johnson or Cedric Benson, it would be Peterson. His stats still are one of the best when it comes to RBs this year, just in different ways:

• Peterson respectively is third in NFL with 784 rushing yards, setting him on pace to run for over 1,500 rushing yards by the end of the season.
• Although he doesn't have as many yards by this time last season, Peterson's yardage per carry in 2009 is 4.8, the exact same as it was in 2008.
• Last year Peterson only had ten rushing TDs, but just 8 games into the 2009 season he already has ran for nine TDs, third-highest in the NFL.
• Peterson's biggest improvement this season has been his passing game. After just 21 receptions for 125 yards and no TDs in 2008, he has already caught 19 passes and 189 yards in 2009. Peterson still hasn't scored a passing TD this year, but expect that to change as the year goes on with how well Favre is playing.
• Even though this should never be a problem with how much of a beast he is, Peterson this year only has 2 fumbles, a major improvement to the 9 fumbles he had last year.

RB - Chester Taylor: Probably the best back-up running back in the NFL that has been lost under Peterson's shadow, Taylor has made the most of what he can this year for the Vikings as a third-down running back. Look at his stats for the first half of the season:

• Taylor has 209 receiving yards in 2009, the fourth-highest for the Vikings this season.
• Taylor has 22 receptions in 2009, also the fourth-most for the Vikings this season.

#1 Stat: Vikings average 30.5 points per game

In 2008, the Vikings scored an average of 23.7 points per game. In the first 8 games of the 2009 season, the Vikings have scored an average of 30.5 points per game. That is an improvement of 6.8 points a game, almost a full touchdown more than last seasons average. That is huge. The scary thing for Vikings' opponents is that Minnesota's best wide receiver last year, Bernard Berrian, has not really had a great game so far this season. That is why I gave an A-, instead of an A to grade the Vikings offense so far this season. If the Vikings can find a way to use Favre's strong arm and Berrian's speed to score more long touchdowns, the Vikings could average even more than 30.5 points by the end of the season.

Also, I believe that Peterson will have a better second half of the season running the ball because their opponents so far have focused on stopping Peterson, and making Favre win the game which hasn't worked with the Vikings' 7-1 record. Now, I think some defenses will respect Favre's arm and not focus on Peterson so much. If teams try to stop Peterson from running the ball, Favre with his young weapons will pick apart any defense which they showed against a good Baltimore Ravens team. If teams try to stop Favre's passing game, Peterson, the best running back in the NFL will destroy any defense that tries to match him up one-on-one, just ask the Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback William Gay. Either way, the Vikings offense will cause problems for any defense as Minnesota goes on to win their first Super Bowl in franchise history.

So What Do You Think Of A-Rod Now?

Alex Rodriguez's breakthrough postseason performance was the difference this year for the Yankees



Used steroids. Madonna rumors. Got divorced. Underperformed in the playoffs. Hip injury in spring training. Media saying he will never go to the hall of fame.

How the New York Yankees third-baseman, Alex Rodriguez or "A-Rod" overcame all these distractions before the 2009 season and play as well as he did in the playoffs, is truly amazing. What he did this postseason, in my mind, was the missing piece the Yankees had needed this year to win their 27th World Series Championship in franchise history.

What about their dominant ace pitcher, C.C. Sabathia? What about their captain shortstop and "Mr. November", Derek Jeter? What about the actual World Series MVP, Hideki Matsui? What about the best pitching-closer in MLB history, Mariano Rivera?

While all those players had their part in the Yankees winning the World Series, A-Rod was the missing piece this year for the Yankees because they finally got the performance they had been waiting for, and out of their most talented player.

It's like how the Boston Celtics did without Kevin Garnett in the 2008-2009 playoffs; they got to the second-round with everyone besides Garnett, but couldn't defend their championship without their best player. It's like how the New England Patriots did without Tom Brady in the 2008 season; they had a solid 11-5 record with everyone besides Brady, but didn't make it to the playoffs after making it to the Super Bowl the previous year without their best player.

Even with an organization that has had as much talent as the Yankees have had on their teams with A-Rod, it comes down to this: when a team doesn't get the most out of their best player, it is very difficult for them to be champions that season.

Ever since he was traded to the New York Yankees in 2004, A-Rod has been a great regular season player but a huge disappointment in the playoffs. Playing in a total of 13 playoffs games from the 2005, 2006 and 2007 seasons, A-Rod in 44 at-bats had just seven hits, one home-run, 15 strikeouts and a terrible .157 batting average. In all three of those playoffs series, the Yankees lost in the first round.

This postseason in 2009, A-Rod was much better. In 15 games and 52 at-bats, A-Rod had 19 hits, six home-runs, 13 strikeouts and a much improved .365 batting average. Even though those stats are impressive, he played better then what the stats show for the entire playoffs because after the first two rounds he already had five home-runs, just five strikeouts and an unheard of .438 batting average.

Those are the stats the Yankees organization, fans and even the media had been waiting for from A-Rod in the playoffs, and this year he finally delivered. He overcame all the distractions from the New York media and finally got his life together off the field, and showed in the postseason why he is so good on the field.

Which leads to the media and A-Rod's critics: What do you think of A-Rod now? At the beginning of the 2009 season he had many critics that were very tough about the steroids issue, his playoffs struggle and that he will never win a championship as a Yankee.

In its own way, the steroids issue was kind of a blessing in disguise for A-Rod. Yes, he lost a lot of respect from his fans, the media and baseball in general. He lost a majority of endorsements and had many people believe that no matter what his starts are at the end of career, he tainted baseball and should never be accepted to the baseball hall of fame.

It may sound weird, but admitting that he used steroids may have been the best thing that happened to A-Rod this year. He had this huge secret that must have built loads of guilt and shame to his conscience and to finally admit his use of steroids, was a huge monkey off his back. A-Rod could now do one thing that he hasn't done in a while as a professional baseball player: simply be a kid again and have fun.

As for A-Rod's playoff struggle, he really changed his critics' minds after this postseason. No matter how much the New York media may have not liked him, I hope they will realize that without A-Rod's performance in the playoffs this year, the Yankees would not have gotten to the World Series and win a championship.

I mean he almost scored as many runs as the Minnesota Twins did all by himself in the first-round. In the second-round against the Los Angeles Angles, he delivered clutch hits when the Yankees needed him the most, something A-Rod had never done beore. Although he didn't do as well in the World Series, remember that his opponent, the Philadelphia Phillies were the defending champs, the best team from the National League two years in a row and the best pitching staff he faced all throughout the playoffs. Lets just say he showed he was human by coming back to earth for the World Series after putting up out of this world stats in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

As for championships, he now has a ring and being just 34 years old with a very good New York Yankees team, expect him to have a few more by the end of his career. Its remarkable that in just one season, A-Rod's image has changed from a steroid using, overpaid, playoff disappointment, to not only to one of the best players in baseball again, but now a champion and a leader to his team. Congratulations A-Rod to your first World Series championship, after what you went through this season, you deserve it.

Senior Paper: How Technology Communications Have Changed and Afftected Sports Journalism

“When you did journalism before the Internet, you controlled the time. Nobody could read what you wrote till the paper came out the next day. Now, you could put something on the Internet, Twitter or Facebook, and you’ll get an immediate reaction…like someone is reading it almost instantly.” – Jeff Legwold

Being born in 1985, I grew up knowing how to use the new media of the past fifteen years. It came natural to me because the technology was part of my generation’s everyday lives. The transition from old media to the new media began in the late 1980s, when compact discs (CD’s) and computers came out. Then in the early ‘90s came the Internet and cellular phones, but the real transformation in technology communications has definitely been in the past fifteen years.

Since it is so simple in the world today for people to communicate and that I plan to be a sports journalist someday, I decided my senior paper would be about how technology communications have affected and changed sports journalism in the past fifteen years and what the future is for journalism. Before naming the communications used today that author Dan Gillmor discussed in his book, We The Media, I must talk about his book and how to tie it in with sports journalism.

In the second chapter of We The Media, Gillmor informs the public, especially journalists, about the new technologies of today so they won’t be left behind with the communication of tomorrow. Before the emergence of the Internet in the 1990s, Gillmor explained,

"We’ve essentially had two distinct means of communication: one-to-many (books, newspapers, radio, and TV) and one-to-one (letters, telegraph, and telephone). The Internet, for the first time, gives us many-to-many and few-to-few communications."

What Gillmor is trying to say is the Internet has expanded the way for people, and in this case sports journalists, to communicate in so many ways that communication has gone to another level. We now have technologies like e-mails, blogs, mobile phones, text-messaging, Facebook and now Twitter for journalists to communicate with athletes and coaches anywhere in the world and at any time.

Senior Paper: The Internet

In December, 2007, there was a talk at an EG (Electronic Gathering) conference where executive editor of WIRED, Kevin Kelly discussed about what has happened to the media in the past 5,000 days. The Internet has gotten so popular in the past 5,000 days, it has become part of people’s everyday lives. Kelly believes there are so many uses for people to use the Internet that whether it’s finding out what the weather forecast is for tomorrow, buying tickets so see a sports game, finding if a book is available at a library, paying your monthly phone bill or applying for a job, people forget how amazing the Internet is and how far it has come.

"It’s amazing that all this stuff (on the Internet) is here. It’s in 5,000 days that this stuff has come, and I know that ten years ago if I told you that all this stuff was coming, you would have said that’s just impossible….and if I told you it all would be coming for free, you’d say simply, you’re dreaming."

Before the Internet, the basic technology for people to communicate with was the telephone, radio and television. Nowadays, people expect the Internet to do so many things that it helps their businesses, their social lives, their personal lives and in some cases, their entire lives.

So how does the past of sports journalism have to do with what Kelly said at the conference? Well before the Internet, when sports journalists wanted to interview an athlete, they did it face to face or over the telephone. Also prior to the Internet, after journalists talked to the athletes and wrote an article, readers had to wait for the following mornings’ newspaper to read it.

Now, after the past 5,000 days, the Internet has changed sports journalism because all of the new technologies used to communicate with athletes, coaches, owners, agents, etc. are now at their grasp. ESPN The Magazine columnist and former Sports Illustrated magazine sportswriter, Dave Fleming feels because of the Internet, in some respect, it has changed everything in sports journalism today.

"When I was at Sports Illustrated in 1999, I was still covering NFL games on a Sunday, where the stories about the games would come out in that week’s magazine on the following Friday. But because of the Internet and its speed which can allow people to consume and gather their information within 24 hours, a story that comes out five days later is irrelevant these days."

So let’s say a sports fan saw a NBA playoff game and it’s now two days later. That person has already seen the game on television, they probably watched the highlights after the game on television a few times, have already read about it in the newspaper at least once and even may have seen it in some blogs on the Internet. That’s why when Kelly says the Internet is amazing, that’s just one more example why. Which leads me to one of Dan Gillmor’s new technologies used on the Internet, weblogs, or as most people call it now, blogs.

Senior Paper: Blogs

Blogging off the Internet is probably the biggest reason why journalism has changed so much in the last fifteen years. Gillmor believes blogs are tools to make it easier to publish on the Internet and is like an online journal with links and postings keeping the newest blogs at the top of the page. They are also linked to other websites and blog postings to give readers an opportunity to comment on their post, sometimes resulting into audience discussions.

With sports journalism, blogging has become a huge phenomenon. It gives fans the freedom to put their opinions about whatever they want in sports on the internet for everyone to see. In a way, it slightly evens the field between sports fans and journalists, which can be good and bad. Blogging can be good for journalism because it’s not just professional journalists posting articles in newspapers and magazines anymore, everyone has the chance to do that now in their blogs. It takes just a few minutes to start your own blog, you can write whatever you want on it, anyone can read it and last but not least, it’s free.

Star Tribune assistant sports editor, Michael Rand covers high school sports in the Twin Cities and has a blog of his own at the StarTribune.com called “RandBall” that he started in 2006. Rand was the youngest journalist I interviewed whom had his own blog and decided to start one because he noticed how sports journalism was changing,

"I did it in response to what the newspaper needed to be doing, kind of a more constant source of sports news. Also with the emergence of what other newspapers were doing with blogging, it seemed like a smart thing to do to stay ahead of the game."

Blogging has become something common for upcoming journalists to do to get their name out there and Rand gets at around a dozen posts a day on his blog. Since Rand mainly covers high school sports, blogging has been another way for him to communicate with readers that normally wouldn’t read his material.

As for Jim Trotter, sportswriter for Sports Illustrated (SI.com) who follows teams all across the NFL, believes there are some good parts with blogging, but definitely has some concerns too. He believes the immediacy of information getting out to the public for readers to blog is great for journalism, but sometimes citizen journalists who sometimes put out false information in their blogs is hurting journalism even more.

"Let’s say for example, I am at a Vikings practice and Adrian Peterson sprained his ankle that day, as a professional journalist, I can blog Peterson’s injury on the Internet and people will hear about it instantly within minutes if not seconds. But you do have some people who blog, who aren’t real journalists, and people mix them in with professional journalists, where the standards aren’t the same. Therefore, you have some information put on the Internet that is inaccurate, not complete or just false."

What Trotter was saying about blogging is similar to what’s going on in Minnesota right now with NFL legend quarterback, Brett Favre, considering coming out of retirement to play for the Vikings this season. On May 8th, 2009, a source from Yahoo!Sports.com reported that they got information from Favre himself that he is not coming out of retirement. That reported information spread across the world so quickly with the Internet and blogging, it was the topic of the day when I watched SportsCenter on ESPN that day. Yet the next day, Minnesota received x-rays from Favre of his right arm because of a biceps injury he had last season when playing for the New York Jets.

The rumors about Favre were great for sports and bloggers because people could express their opinions online for everyone to see whether they would like it or not if he played for the Vikings. The bad part of Favre’s rumors is that they are rumors, and nobody’s blogs are accurate until Favre is recorded visually or verbally by professional journalists what he is going to do. So why is incomplete information about Favre all over the Internet? Who really is telling the truth about coming to the Vikings; Yahoo!Sports.com or Brett Favre? Why would Favre send x-rays to the Vikings if he wasn’t interested in playing for them?

If people can tell the difference between rumors put on the Internet and accurate information from real journalists, then I believe blogging is great for journalism. Unfortunately, people do forget the difference sometimes because they get hooked up in the media wanting to know the most recent news and forget what they really want to know: accurate news.

Senior Paper: Mobile Phones - Text-Messaging

It started out in the late ‘90s with e-mail, where you can type a message on a computer and send it to other people’s computers. People can respond back to your message, add additional information back and forth with each other and do it with very minimal effort. Nowadays, people use text-messaging on their mobile phones like Blackberry’s and iPhones. Gillmor described text-messages as short message services (SMS), where if blogs are becoming the opinion newspapers of the Internet, SMS are the headlines. Text-messaging is like e-mail, but can send a message to whomever you want instantly with use of mobile phones instead of computers.

With the use of text-messaging, or as most people call it, “texting”, it is has changed sports journalism in many ways. Just from personal experiences with interviewing athletes in the NFL, SI.com’s Trotter has noticed over the last few years texting has become a very popular communication for journalists to use.

"It has become a pattern, that when I call (NFL) players to interview them, not all, but a good amount of them won’t answer their cell phone. But if I text them, they will respond to me immediately. It’s kind of their way of screening people, and not be bothered with people they don’t want to be bothered with."

When talking to Boston Herald sportswriter, Ron Borges, with the use of text-messaging he has received information instantly from athletes or their agents to put in his articles without having to interview with them face to face. For example, New England Patriot quarterback, Tom Brady injured his left knee in the first game of the season on September 7th, 2008. The next day he had an MRI to see how bad his knee was and it came out on Monday that Brady tore his ACL and MCL on his left knee. With Borges text-messaging back and forth with Brady’s teammates, that day after practice when the players knew about his condition, Borges was the first person to know about Brady’s knee and was the first to put it on the Internet.

It just goes to show that the way athletes are adapting to the new technology communications of today, it’s a must for journalists to adapt likewise. Good journalism is based on interviewing and getting accurate information written out to the public, but within the last fifteen years, part of good journalism has now been getting the accurate information out to the public within hours or minutes. If journalists don’t use text-messaging and other technologies like Twitter to communicate, they will be stuck in the past and most likely without a job.

Senior Paper: Mobile Phones - Twitter

Within the 2000s, it seems like every few years there has been a similar yet new, more creative way for people to communicate online by using their identity. In the early 2000s, MySpace became the first, really popular website on the Internet with its users keeping in touch with old friends, putting up pictures of them and their friends, and was a new way for businesses to network themselves. Then Facebook became popular in the mid-2000s with it being more organized and mainly set up for college students. Facebook was similar yet more advanced than MySpace because its users’ pictures had their names added to them and were labeled when a computer mouse is pointed at a specific person. Now Twitter has become a new way to communicate with the world using identity, and even though it is not the most popular way to use technology communication today, Twitter has taken Facebook’s “walls” to another level.

Seeing how popular Twitter was becoming after coming out in 2006, Facebook tried to do the same thing by making micro-blogging “walls” in 2007, but Facebook has not come close in that department with Twitter’s dramatic growth in 2009. Twitter is basically a micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates known as “tweets.” Tweets are text-messaged posts of up to 140 characters (spots to type) that are located on the user's profile page and sent to other users who have subscribed to them, called “followers.”

Users can send and receive tweets to people in their group of friends or anybody else they allow. Facebook and Twitter users’ both can via their websites and text-message using advanced mobile phones, but who the users actually are has been the difference between the two. Facebook was made for college students, so it’s identity communication is between college students and their friends. Twitter is different because it was made for people of all ages to communicate with people of all ages. Twitter has brought people like Oprah Winfrey and President Barack Obama from older generations to do what college students do on their walls in Facebook, and now Twitter has become the thing to do when it comes to text-messaging.

With the rise of Twitter, it has also made it easier for sports journalists to communicate with athletes and other followers because they can send or receive a post within a matter of seconds. FOXSports.com sportswriter, Jeff Legwold, has his own Twitter account and believes it has helped sports journalism.

"It is much faster (with Twitter) to do research and those types of things with new technology at our fingertips. I can twitter or should I say, tweet, something right now that I knew about the (Denver) Broncos, the NFL or whatever, and it will reach to the reader instantly."

Twitter is a fairly new technology to sports athletes, so not too many athletes have their own account but has gradually become popular with them. Helen Ross, golf reporter for PGATOUR.com, follows the PGA Tour all season long, and has noticed golfers like Stewart Cink and Adam Scott are using Twitter more and more these days.

"We have one player, Stewart Cink, that is really into twittering. He started twittering in February of this year. He told me he was going to provide updates for his followers during The Masters and by the time The Masters came in April, Stewart had over 46,000 followers. Then I talked to him yesterday (May 2nd) and he told me he has over 128,000 followers. He now sometimes tweets how his practice round went the day before a tournament, and I can put that online for golf fans to see how he might do that weekend."

From the work end of the job though, with the addition of Twitter and text-messaging, the demand for quality journalism has increased making it more difficult for journalists because there isn’t as much off-time. Since they are on the job all the time, it’s like there are no deadlines anymore because journalists constantly have to update and add information to their articles or stories. Personally though, I believe the emergence of new technology communications just mean journalists have to work harder to do their jobs and still post accurate information for their audience to read.