NFL Football

Sunday’s 38-7 drubbing at the hands of the almost-back-to-back-champion Seahawks made clear to most rational people what the cynics (like me) were already suspecting: The 2015 Vikings are probably not contenders. They are paper tigers. Purple pretenders. It’s not that they lost. It’s that they were completely outclassed. At every aspect of football. For a full 60 minutes. At home. In retrospect, after 12 games, it actually...

After a swarm of off-season drama, Adrian Peterson is expected to don a purple helmet when the Vikes begin their 2015 regular season just a few months from now. There is no doubt Peterson has been one of the best players in professional football since joining the Vikings in 2007. In fact, given his highly productive start over the first several years of his career, there has been plenty of discussion of AP going down as one of the greatest (if not the greatest) running backs of all-time. To date, Peterson has rushed for 10,190...

Last month, over 300 young, aspiring football players from all over the country made a pilgrimage to Indianapolis to be measured and tested in every conceivable way. The NFL Combine, held annually in February, features college football’s top players competing in a series of drills designed to help NFL talent scouts and coaches separate the contenders from the pretenders in preparation for the upcoming NFL Draft. While the week-long spectacle offers a potpourri of physical (and mental) tests and challenges — vertical leap, broad jump, bench press...

"Time heals all wounds," said a wise man once. With the sting of the Vikings Thursday night expedition to Wisconsin receding into the catastrophes gathering dust in Minnesota's collective memory, it is finally time to move on.

Things Worth Mentioning, but not Dissecting

• Christian Ponder, who played last week in Green Bay, did not have a good showing. Let's not beat up the guy for it. Maybe there is a team out there for him, maybe not. Let it go.
• The banged up and under-performing offensive line didn't look great against the Packers. Let's see a few more games before...

The warm weekend served Minnesota football well. The Vikings have more to give this season than a good spot in next year's draft it seems; but few could dismiss the fact that all is still not well in Purple Nation. First, here are the most savory statistics from the Vikings 41-28 deconstruction of the Atlanta Falcons:

• With 317 passing yards and 241 rushing yards, the Vikings are the only team in the NFL to have over 300 passing yards and 200 rushing yards in a game this season.
• Matt Asiata is the only player in the 2014 season to carry three rushing touchdowns...

If expectations had been higher, the past few weeks would go down as one of the most painful times in Minnesota Vikings history. Fortunately, even the brightest-eyed and bushiest-tailed fans (like myself) only predicted an 8-8 season before kickoff in St. Louis. Now we can just savor the fact that if our season is on its way to a dark, sad place (like it probably is) we'll get a decent draft pick and won't have to get the let down of just missing the playoffs. The New Orleans Saints executed a textbook two-man high-low tackle on our scrambling Matt Cassel to put yet another foot injury on a Vikings quarterback in recent...

In my semi-professional opinion, nobody in Viking-land wants to read about the 30-7 route of our beloved team this past Sunday. Other than the painful reminder of how underwhelming the men in purple are without their star running-back, the game helped to put optimism on hold (and the bandwagon keys back in the drawer).

Adrian Peterson Apologizes

In a statement to the...

Nobody predicted that our Vikings would be walking away from St. Louis with a blowout win. Before Rams quarterback Sam Bradford re-tore his ACL, the most common prediction among fans was an 0-3 start to our season; but with Bradford gone a victory seemed possible, if not slightly likely. Yet, the thought that the Vikes would score over 20 points through the Rams defense seemed laughable, even by me. But then they went ahead and won 34-6.

A Skolded Perspective

Purple-clad Minnesotans don't let each other get too high off of wins, especially...

Mankato is nearing half a century of hosting the Minnesota Vikings Training Camp (next year will be the 50th), but the legendary purple invasion will never get old. Each year the horned masses gather where the Minnesota River turns north to find a blank slate... and we're thankful for it. All of the most successful seasons for our beloved Vikings have ended with losses. The coming year always has the potential to be "the one," the greatest, the most memorable ever. In this statewide pilgrimage, in homage of our nation's most successful sport, any lingering fan knowledge from...