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Vikings Discussion & Random Thoughts
It’s Thursday already, I don’t know where the week has gone. A billion thanks to Surly for covering the past couple days, I owe him.
We had the distinct pleasure of seeing Cris Carter last night! He was the guest speaker at the Bismarck Cross Training Champion banquet, which is a fundraiser for Cross Training, a non-profit, Christ-focused youth sports ministry. Our business sponsored a table, so we invited some old friends to join us for the event. We had a blast, and as always, we pulled our weight at the silent auction, we had to get help carrying stuff to the car afterward.
Cris Carter is a really good human being, and he gave one of the most honest interviews I’ve seen from an athlete. He minced no words when it came to how he truly feels about Buddy Ryan, and had some other really interesting and inspiring stories about his life and career. He’s a genuinely funny dude who had us laughing throughout his time on stage. It was a really cool event and a great cause. If you’re interested in reading more about the organization, you can do so at their website: Cross Training Camp, Bismarck, North Dakota, Christian Basketball and Volleyball Camp Headquarters
Vikings and NFL News
The initial week 14 Vikings vs. Commanders injury report from Vikings.com. Also from Vikings.com, the Vikings designated Ty Chandler to return from IR.
From CBS Sports, a league-wide NFL week 14 injury report.
The Ravens signed TE Mark Andrews to a 3-year contract extension worth $39.3 million, per NFL.com. That move makes it likely that Likely will be available next year.
CBS Sports looks at who’s in and who’s out in the NFL playoff picture.
Media Selection
Yikes. Our unit was THIS close to getting sent to Bosnia, we had our overseas shots & everything.
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Better late than never….
From the discussion below; what if KOC’s plan was to fix JJs mechanics last year while Sam was the starter? The injury set that back, and neither of the possible starting QBs on the roster wanted to stay, knowing there was a good chance JJ was going to replace them as the starter at some point this year.
Now this year had started and JJ didn’t get to start practicing until OTAs. Was still rehabbing his knee and trying to play QB at the pro level. Yes, he was able to absorb the play book all last season, but he still got zero reps, even in a practice situation, to put that knowledge to use. I myself struggle to understand concepts unless I am able to put them to practice. So, now he starts the season applying the knowledge he absorbed last year into practice, while the coaches are trying to change his mechanics. That is a lot to learn all at once.
If KOC is being honest about JJ just playing the rest of the season and waiting until the offseason to work on mechanics, we could see some really fun games coming up.
Could be.
I just know that today, JJ and Penix look like busts. Hope that changes for JJ.
The Loins put up 44 on the Cowpatties.
@sure hate to see that@
Someone had to win I guess.
Hmmmm Meteor game tonight, not sure who I want to win tonight Loins or the Cowpatties. Or maybe it is just because I can’t bring myself to actually care.
Same… it’s 3-3 and I’m fine with a tie.
Yeah they can kiss their sisters all that they want to, I don’t care.
Something most folks don’t know…
Laughing… this is perfect…
Like Gay-der Nation wouldn’t welcome any fans at any time to help support their pathetic team.
That event looked killer, that’s awesome!
The world and facts most people know nothing about…
Yea, that’s from around 2008 or so…I have shared on facebook several times…its even worse now.
I’m starting to think McCarthy is a head case… painting his face up, having some alter ego, meditating before games… he has voices in his head.
That is quite a presentation.
Meant this for the Immagration post.
I figured that. I saw this many years ago, but it just popped back up on my twitter account. I figured folks might find it interesting.
I stand by my golf analogy. Just play while on the course. Practice is where you try and tweak things.
Fix the mechanics in the offseason.
My wife usually has her worst rounds of the season right after a lesson. No natural swing, and too much thinking.
Let JJ play, and try to fix mechanics in January when the team is watching the playoffs.
Well, he wasn’t hitting open receivers before they started focusing on his mechanics. So they gave that some focus. Now they realize he can’t think and play at the same time, so we’re back to square one. Go out and play football as best you can. We’ll try and fix you in the offseason.
Meditation gets a bad wrap for what it really is. Just recognizing how reality actually is in that moment… That said, it has a lot of twists and contortions of it is really is. No idea how McCarthy is using it. Could be a head case, could be he is just using it to stay present which is awesome.
I’m going with head case at this point… just my personal opinion.
No doubt money well spent.
Remember in Economics something called utils.
Well we all got tons of utils feeling warm and fuzzy with Adam coming back.
Bye bye, society. It was a good run we had in the U.S. of A.
https://notthebee.com/article/cnn-partners-with-kalshi-prediction-market-to-usher-in-new-era-of-media
Some interesting names on this list.
Some more realistic than others cap-wise. I won’t comment on abilities since I am not a QB expert like some here.
Just frustrating to see backup or young QBs have success on other teams while ours have been historically bad. Will other QBs be able to replicated what they did elsewhere or would our issues not allow them success?
https://thevikingage.com/5-veteran-qbs-minnesota-vikings-radar
You mention young QB’s. Before the season started, virtually every analyst indicated McCarty was the luckiest of all being able to come here with the available talent and coaching staff. So much for that thought.
Depending on how he plays the rest of year, will make for an interesting off season evaluating the entire QB situation here.
JJ (QB) may very well have been the ‘luckiest’ of all the young QBs to come to Minn and get the training, the support, the teammates, the coaching, and even the scheme and play calling to succeed. But if he doesn’t have the mental processor to put in all into effect then all that won’t help him.
Hopefully things start to ‘slow down’ for him soon and he can start to take advantage of all those things on offer.
I felt that McCarthy came into a very, very good situation. Then the injury last year basically gave him time to absorb the play book, go through QB meetings, and game planning sessions, and watch Darnold execute the game plan. That should have set him up perfectly to come in this year, work with the ones in the spring and summer, and come into the season as prepared as any young QB could ever be. Should have been way more successful.
Then must ask, what happened?
Honestly… I think he’s a kid with a lot of problems. The NFL is simply way beyond his abilities right now.
Started watching “Stranger Things” Episode 1 Season 1 last night with the wife.
That should keep us busy for quite a while….we will only watch when there are no interesting sports sports sports on TV. My son and future daughter in law are really into it so we thought we should see what its about.
When you get to season 4 you can give me a summary…I thought the series ended with 4 but now there is a new season?
Season one is great. Season two is good. I keep getting stuck on season three.
Carters best all time advice is: “Everybody needs a fall guy”
Saw something last night watching TV that made my aw drop.
WTH – Donald Trump is doing commercials selling Trump Brand wrist watches!
What is he doing? He’s the President of the US.
‘What is he doing?’
Ummm selling watches??
He is. and always has been, a businessman.
I would bet it’s an A.I. ad.
Im sure Trump signed off on it.
Trump is a brand, and he sells everything imaginable. Wine, wine glasses, clothes, shoes, etc, etc, etc. All of it is high end, and pricey. My wife wants to buy me stuff from wherever his website is, and I tell her that I really don’t need a $125 polo shirt.
Being kind, it looks extremely strange to see the sitting President hawking merchandise in a commercial.
It is not closest to the strangest thing that Trump has done.
I would rank the Middle East/Gaza Peace Deal as the ‘Strangest’.
Careful, you question anything Trump does, no matter how warrented the gripe is the mindless drones around here will come to defend him about literally anything. It’s just as bad as the dumb dumb Dems who’d support Biden’s cognitive facilities. I very much salute you! I still would have voted for Trump over Harris but that doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything he has ever done ever.
I read where Justin Jefferson being home vs a Redskins defense that ranks dead last in EPA allowed per drop back, is an opportunity for him to “get right”. Like somehow he has struggled against defensive secondaries and now, with starting corners Marshon Lattimore and Trey Amos are on IR, he can have a big game.
Yeah, Jefferson has been the problem with the passing game, and now he needs to get back on track.
Not sure how they mean “get right.”
To me it’s more like he is a superstar and the best WR in the league. Yet, for a lot of reasons, he is not putting up superstar numbers. And they just gave him a wad of money to put up big numbers.
So, they is a huge opportunity to get back on track and have a big game.
How about we set some solid goals over the next 5 games… huh?
He could achieve that if he caught the catchable balls that came his way.
Admittedly those are few and far between but there are enough of them.
Define catchable balls… because honestly, he isn’t getting a lot of those IMO. He has a few drops yes. The Vikings only have 15 dropped balls this season though, on 367 passing attempts. That’s about 4%. That’s very much middle of the pack in the NFL, with 16 teams having more drops than the Vikings. They have 146 incompletions. So 131 incompletions are either great defense, or bad throws. 73 of those incompletions belong to McCarthy BTW out of his 159 attempts in 6 starts.
‘Define catchable balls’
Easy, balls that can be caught.
People define balls in the same zip code as balls that can be caught.
Yup but the opposite is true.
“People’, myself included, would not have defined that 4th and 18 that JJ (WR) caught in Buffalo as catchable but yet he caught it.
So fortunately, people who measure things like catchable balls for the NFL do not view the spectacular as a viable factor for their data collection.
Well he did catch it so by definition it was ‘catchable’.
How about if it hits you on the hands without having to leave your feet? He has dropped a few of those this year.
Just seeing an offense with a pulse would be nice.
JJ needs to play better. Line needs to block better. 201 yards receiving is two decent games for Jefferson. He has 5 games.
Should be ez. if you have to, just keep running WR screens or short slants.
i would absolutely love to have a drive where the ball is thrown or handed off to Justin Jefferson on EVERY SINGLE PLAY. just wr screen left, wr screen right, bomb, hand off, wildcat, deep crosser, intermediate etc etc etc and just give the ball to the crybaby non stop
and then have koc be like ARE YOU HAPPY NOW
How about points scored and points allowed.
Given our offensive problems, how about total yards of offense per game.
Let the individual stats come from that.
So yeah… the offense needs to go into every game thinking we’re scoring 4 TD’s and racking up over 350 yards.
That would work very nicely.
‘the offense needs to go into every game thinking we’re scoring 4 TD’s and racking up over 350 yards’
‘Thinking it’ is nice, I guess, but actually ‘doing it’ would be much, much better IMHO.
It’s interesting to read that CC has a strong dislike of Buddy Ryan. I swear at one point he credited Ryan with helping him recognize rock bottom and battle back to sobriety.
I didn’t know that…
Not sure that when someone ‘helped’ you reach rock bottom, even if you recovered and learned from the experience, would be someone that you appreciate.
I don’t appreciate my Ex wife, for example, although I learned and grew from all the things she put me though.
All the bad stuff my wife’s ex put her through made her draw hard lines as to what she would and would not accept from others, she’s gonna tell you how it is and you either accept it or gtfo. People either like her or they don’t and she frankly does not care one whit if people think she should act or dress a certain way because she’s married to someone in a white collar job. I admire that about her. Also, she appreciates that I don’t drink, party, that I come home from work on time, that I help out with chores, etc. She doesn’t like that I don’t cook, so it’s not like our relationship is perfect, but I thank her ex for making our relationship very strong.
Exactly.
The Teachers Ex was a truck driver who often gone, drank heavily, was passive aggressive, a drama queen, could never be counted on, cheated on her, lied, deflected blame, etc, etc.
I say often that ‘she was down so long that I looked like up to her’. She has had enough and won’t put up with that BS again.
In case anyone is interested, the first round of the Masters starts in 125 days.
nah….lets get through March Madness first.
I have for several years appreciated college Basketball more than the pro’s. Since that George Floyd/Black Lives Matter BS the NBA turns my stomach even though I grew up playing and loving basketball.
I find that I am going thru the same thing with football currently. College football is more interesting than the NFL. The bias/virtue signaling/woke BS/scripting/etc is driving me away from it.
It is nice to have options.
I do not watch any basketball until the playoffs, and the college tourney is so much better than the pro game.
Fell and felt exactly the same way. All the BS with NBA and now the NFL.
Hmmm looks some Redskins are quitting…
Is that about equatable as Thielen asking to be released?
A little. Savage started out with the Jaguars this year, but in training camp he lost his job as the starter. In September, the Jags decided to let him go. During his eight games in Washington, he’s handled a defensive snap share of just 33%. He’s struggled in coverage, allowing three touchdowns as the nearest defender. So, less than stellar for a former first round pick. He’s 28, so it will be interesting to see if he lines up any suitors for the stretch run.
So Washington is giving up 8.7 yards per pass attempt, which is the worst in the NFL. One would expect KOC’s background and experience in building a passing scheme, would be able to succeed against that level of defensive incompetence.
Talking to fans up there from my recent visits, they are hugely disappointed with the team’s performance.
Mariotta has played well, but the D has been bad.
Yep… a significant step back from last year.
KOC:
KOC will bend to the “We don’t run it enough” crowd and go heavy on the ground game.
Good roast…
https://x.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1996353796474130779?s=20
Things civilians are never told, or ever learn about…
Thanks for sharing. That’s one heck of a story and brave soldier.
I was working in USSOCOM when this event occurred. My personal time as a special operator in the field was long past, but we were all well aware that this attack was dangerously close to being completely successful. It was truly one man charging dozens. It gave the rest of the members there a few seconds to grab their weapons and join the fight.
From the actual medal of honor award citation, even more impressive…
Great citation there… all Americans should see this.
brad, reading your words up top about Cris Carter, reminded me of a story my dad told me. He was at some big business gathering and the guest speaker was CC, and he did his speech thing and business ra-ra and someone asked him how he was able to balance sports with family and my dad said the camera panned in on CC and he was silent for a solid 15 seconds and he thought of how to answer that question, and he had tears in his eyes when he admitted he failed at that and wishes he could do it again, but didn’t balance his sports with his family well at all….
so i think that speaks to you suggesting he is an honest interviewer. Rarely would an athlete OR ANYONE admit to having failed at something, especially as important as that.
Made me respect CC a bit.
My wife once said this to me when I was working a little ( a lot) too much. ‘You know when you get to heaven St Peter won’t be asking you if you worked hard enough. But he probably will ask if you were a good husband and father,’
Have never forgotten that.
Yes, for sure. The corollary – When you are on your deathbed you are never going to look and back and say “Gee, I wish I had spent more time at the office”.
My response will be; I worked hard to be a good husband and father.
The whole St. Peter (I am a non believer, but let’s say it were true) argument of work-life balance is to me a false dichotomy. The point of it all is to say that family is much more important than employment. Take that to the extreme and you could be a stay at home parent. Of course we can all recall a time that we took on a project or stayed a little late and in retrospect could have just said screw that and gone home. Yet when you are at that moment in time you can’t predict the future.
There are several key decisions/crossroads in my life that shaped how my life played out…I’ve discussed them before. In basic chronological order they were my dad getting an unexpected 4 year European posting right after I finished first grade, skipping a grade, getting a call from med lab sci asking if I wanted to transfer from premed, not getting into med school/not getting a job in western Canada/getting recruited to the US, asking my wife on a date, asking my wife to marry me, applying to med school.
I don’t discuss it much but medical training was a slog. Our lives revolved around it. To successfully get through it you have to view it as a marathon with strict discipline and milestones. For example, I remember being told on a rotation the afternoon would be light, could expect to go home early, and calling my wife who was making a nice meal, looking forward to spending the evening together. Last minute emergency surgery, I made a quick call and said I would be a “little” late, didn’t get home until 2 am. Not a happy time. In the grand scheme of things if I had said to the attending, nope I’m going home since I promised my wife you’ll have to find someone else to assist…would that have been as important a crossroads as the ones I mentioned above – probably not – but at the time you just don’t know.
Comparing my daily schedule to that of say a busy neurosurgeon is like comparing vacation to digging a well, yet I still get the occasional you work hard enough, you could spend more time with me and the dog. It’s a false dichotomy, I bring home the bacon and there are expectations of my employment that if I broke those expectations I could not predict at the present how that would play out for my future. I am good at my job, get accolades for it, I know that it is just a job but spending years and years and years learning to do it I’m not willing to throw it away now. Wife and I have set my retirement date in six years, I’m not going to start slacking off now based on the St. Peter argument. I don’t think Peter had a family or broke rocks for a living to put food on the table.
In the Army you don’t get much say in your daily schedule for the most part. When I worked extra hours was when I was alone post divorce. When I had a young family I was home as much as I could be.
When I worked at the Prison after my brother passed and I was helping his widow with their 4 kids I had to make painful choices about work/family time. Our 4 month academy took time plus all the mandatory overtime took a toll. But when I could balance work time I made sure it interfered with that family as little as possible.
Those choices helped make me financially secure which allowed me to help my brothers family as well, cancer treatments, collage expenses, etc. Everything is a balance, hindsight is not always helpful.
MT, I am with you on this. Even though I could never attend that much school. I got my first programming gig and would spend evenings(after the kids were in bed) and time on weekends learning new tech and keeping updated. That has kept me employable. My first few jobs were for software companies, and the aggressive release schedules required 60-70 hour work weeks for a few months each year as the norm.
I did and still do spend too much time on work things, and my wife still gets angry when I do things like work on the weekends. However, it all makes me better at my job, and less likely to be outsourced during the next H1-B invasion.
Nice story – I’ll spare you most of the details of mine.
My wife knew we had an expensive life style too and she and the kids fully always expected that life style
But she also knew working 80 hour weeks would kill me and wasn’t doing much for me at home. In short, I learned 65 was good enough and I could have a better home life too. And, I actually believe I became a better executive and senior leader.
Nobody believes in hard work more than me and I could care little about work life balance. But, at times being great at running a large company, and being a great husband and father can be demanding and requires rebalancing. I’m lucky I had my wife to help.
St Peter was merely her use of a story to get my attention.
Not me man, I work 45 hours in a week and I get pretty cranky…I have always been a bit more on the “family” side of the family work balance. I had opportunities to make more money at the expense of family time that I turned down, but to each their own…I have but one kid, I rarely missed a school or sporting event while he was growing up…..would not trade that for more money.
Yeah, the guy who talked to him, asked him a couple questions expecting a certain answer, and Carter surprised him with his honest answers. It was really cool. He does NOT like Buddy Ryan.
Good morning, SKOL!
FTP!
Happy Thorsday!
SKOLOHOLICS PICK EM AND SURVIVAL LEAGUE UPDATE #13
Week 13 will be known as the Thanksgiving Bloodbath. Everyone got all four games wrong. This actually did not hurt me much because I had low confidence points on all of those games. It is almost like I knew what I was doing…
As a result, I was the top scorer this week. Unfortunately, it didn’t help me much. Not much separation happened this week. Most everyone got the same games right and the same games wrong and the confidence points averaged out.
PA, Let’s Fish and Surly all tied for second, only one point behind me. ManlyPurple got third, only two points behind me.
Overall, not much changed. I did move up one spot, but 4-9 are all pretty close. Only 24 points separate the top from the bottom. 4-9 would be PA, Let’s Fish, Lasallegrouse, DE, me and Kirko.
We just won’t talk about 10-13 right now because we are nice people…
NoDak and Surly are pretty close in the two and three spots. Only 10 points separate them. ManlyPurple is still at the top and increased his lead by one point over last week.
Everyone got the Lions, Chiefs, Ravens, Eagles and Rams wrong. Everyone got the 49ers, Dolphins, Seahawks, Bills, Chargers, Broncos and Patriot games correct.
Two Iconoclast Awards: DE is the only one to take Tennessee over Jax and JacksonVike was the only one to take the Cardinals over the Bucs. We will had about Genius Picks for two games. JacksonVike and DE are geniuses for getting Houston over Indy right. JacksonVike, DE and Little Fishin’ are geniuses for getting the Jets over the Falcons right.
In my defense, I did not realize Kirk Cousins was playing for the Falcons. That would have changed my pick.
Everyone was traitors this week for picking the Seahawks over the Vikes. I don’t think the term “traitor” is correct though. Rather everyone wisely decided not to be a “moron.”
The Vikings actually did a bit better than I thought. The D kept the Seahawks out of the endzone and made them settle for FGs, so the Seahawks did not break 40, which I expected.
Survival League finally claimed another victim: the Eagles betrayed DE. He is out. ManlyPurple and PA are the only ones left. Neither one has a strike yet. But they are getting to the point where they may have to pick bad teams…like the Vikings!
GET YOUR PICKS IN BEFORE TONIGHT’S GAME! I AM OFF TO DO THAT NOW!
I’m pretty sure we all know that.
I drop one joke all day and no one cares.
Sorry, since I am not involved in any of those leagues I tend to just scroll past the discussion. A lot like I do with golf, soccer, and hockey threads.
I cannot make up any ground on Manly and its pissing me off.
I moved up from 8 to 5th this week. Building my momentum.
GM!
FTP!
SKOL!
Rooting for the Lions tonight. Two easy reasons.
I would much rather the Lions win the division than the Packers, even with Lions fans getting a bit cocky these days. They have lightyears to go to reach Packer fandom.
First. Loading car to drive to MN. Likely will miss Sundays game, grrrr.
I blame relatives in Wisconsin. FTP
Rec for first and FTP!
Hope the trip goes safely.
FTP Auto Rec.