But I have faith that Leslie Frazier, the Vikings’ defensive coordinator, will be able to help his team overcome this somehow. After all, the Vikings have been playing without E.J. Henderson, their starting middle linebacker and destroyer of all things running back, since the Tennessee game back in Week 4, and the run defense hasn’t missed a beat.

The loss of Pat Williams will hurt the run defense a bit, to be certain. But I don’t think it’s going to cause the Vikings to turn into the Detroit Lions or Oakland Raiders against the run or anything like that. Our linebackers are very good in the run game, and should still be able to keep Michael Turner and Jerious Norwood contained.

I hope.

Our offensive and defensive strengths are, obviously, both tied to the running game. Going into this weekend’s game, the Vikings have the #3 rushing offense in the NFL at 147.6 yards/game (which is 1.1 yards/game behind the Falcons and the New York Football Giants, who are tied for first in that category), and the #1 rush defense in the NFL, allowing only 71.2 yards/game on the ground.

It surprised me a bit. . .on the Fox pre-game show this past week, one of their “Rapid Fire” questions was “who is the best RB combo in the NFL?” I heard Stewart/Williams from Carolina, I heard the Giants’ trio, I heard Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew, I heard Chris Johnson and LenDale White. . .not once did I hear “Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor.” And biased though I might be, I wouldn’t trade #28 and #29 for any of the aforementioned combos, or any other combo in the NFL. They’re the strength of this offense, along with the offensive line. The passing game appears to be developing a bit, but the running game is still where the proverbial bread is buttered for the Vikings.

I’m interested to see what adjustments Leslie Frazier is going to make to the run defense this week, the part of Minnesota’s defense that has been the Vikings’ strength all year. Because of the strength we generally have up the middle, you usually don’t see the Vikings sneaking an 8th man down into the “box” to deal with the running game, because the front 7 takes care of things all by themselves. I still hope that’s the case this Sunday as well, but you might see that extra man sneaking down more than usual if things start to get ugly.

The pass offense is still a question mark. Yes, Tarvaris Jackson had, unquestionably, the best game of his career against Arizona, but I don’t anticipate the Vikings kicking the Falcons around the same way they did the Cards. Hell, I didn’t anticipate them kicking the Cards around the way they did, either. But it appears that the time on the bench has done the young man some good. If he can play within himself. . .and if Brad Childress keeps the playbook open and doesn’t go ultra-conservative on us. . .he could put up another better than expected game.

So I didn’t have to. (-:

Brad Childress has already said that Jackson will be the starter this week, and so he should be. I was, personally, of the belief that Jackson never should have been benched. . .and hey, if Visanthe Shiancoe holds on to an easy TD pass against the Colts, I don’t think the benching ever happens. (Shiancoe has been MUCH better since that game, but he still really blew that catch.)

Gus Frerotte really didn’t give us anything that Tarvaris Jackson couldn’t have, in my opinion. The difference is that we know where Frerotte’s ceiling is. . .we don’t know that about Tarvaris Jackson, and we need to find out in order to know where this team stands going into 2009.

Yes, the Cardinals’ secondary is relatively horrible. . .they have given up more TD passes than any team in the league. . .but Jackson’s talent has never been in question. The guy obviously has tremendous physical ability, and can make every throw an NFL quarterback needs to make. The main thing was that, coming from a I-AA school (Alabama State), he probably needed a couple of seasons on the bench before he got thrown to the wolves. Unfortunately, thanks to a combination of Brad Childress’ stubbornness and Brad Johnson’s complete suckitude at the end of the 2006 season, the Vikings didn’t have that luxury.

To his credit, though, Jackson is 9-8 in his 17 career starts, and had a win in relief against Detroit a couple of weeks ago. And, like most quarterbacks, he’s gotten too much of the blame for the majority of the losses and not enough credit for his role in some of the wins.

Jackson has a lot of the same things in place that your own Matt Ryan. . .who I love, by the way. . .has in place in Atlanta. He’s got a strong running game, a good offensive line, and a good defense. Those are three things that can help any young quarterback. Now, do I think that Jackson is on Matt Ryan’s level? No, he’s not. Ryan has been outstanding all season, and has had the Offensive Rookie of the Year Award sewn up for months now.

Do I think that Jackson can get to that level? He certainly has the talent to do so. . .maybe the time he got on the bench this season is what he needed to make everything click for him. This weekend will be a good test for him.

I don’t think that any judge would risk his seat on the bench or any sort of future employment by showing favor to a couple of football players.

That’s just me, though. . .if you poll folks in, say, Green Bay or Chicago, I’m guessing that the reaction will be a bit different.

Before Daunte Culpepper ends up back in Minnesota, as long as Brad Childress remains the head coach. That bridge has long been burned to ash.

Unfortunately, I’m not up in the Great White North, so I don’t have a feel for the “man on the street” view on the Falcons up in Minnesota. Ironically, I’m much closer to Atlanta at the moment than I am to Minneapolis.

On a personal level, I don’t have a lot of feelings towards the Falcons. I don’t mean that as a slight on the Falcons, even if it comes off as such. Yeah, they handed us the loss back in 1998, but to be honest, it’s really hard to develop real, solid feelings towards a team that you generally only see once every 3 or 4 years. I don’t have any real, visceral hatred for any teams outside of Green Bay and Chicago. I respect the heck out of what the Falcons have done this year, though, I’ll say that much.

As far as the receivers go, obviously if you have a real #1 wide receiver, it makes things easier. I think that the Vikings have a guy like that now in Bernard Berrian, and another guy that could develop into that type of receiver in Sidney Rice. As Jackson gets more opportunities to get more playing time, he’ll develop more of a rapport with those receivers and be better able to take advantage of the opportunities that he’s presented. I wouldn’t object to the Vikings spending another pick on a receiver in the first couple of rounds of the draft or anything, though. I also, however, like what we have at the moment more so than most people do.

The Cardinals’ offense has been like that all season long. They just took it to an uber, ultra, mega extreme level against the Vikings. Ironically enough, they averaged about 6 yards/carry against the Vikings, but they only ran the ball seven times because they were scared to death of Pat and Kevin Williams. But if you look at the Cardinals’ offense, the only team in the NFL that has fewer rushing attempts than Arizona is Detroit. Also, Edgerring James is still Arizona’s leading rusher, and in the last 8 games, he’s gotten all of 14 carries.

As far as the pass rush potentially being overhyped, I could see where that impression could certainly be taken. Because of the prolific nature of their run defense, the Vikings faced the most pass attempts in the NFL in 2006 and 2007. In 2006, they faced a total of 629 pass attempts, and racked up 30 sacks. In 2007, Last year, they saw an amazing 684 pass attempts, and notched 38 sacks. This year, through 14 games, they’ve seen 517 pass attempts, and totaled 41 sacks with 2 games left to play. So the pass rush is markedly better than what it’s been over the past couple of seasons, and obviously the biggest reason for that has been the addition of Jared Allen.

I’ll address the Peterson question in my next answer here.

Then Brad Childress should, in the words of noted American philosopher Dr. Evil, be placed in a burlap sack and beaten with reeds.

Now, as far as Tarvaris vs. the Falcons, I think that he’s still going to be able to have some success against the Falcons’ defense, again largely because of the Vikings’ running game. Grayson asked the question of how teams should defend Adrian Peterson, and the obvious answer is to stuff more guys in the box to make Peterson work harder. There are a couple of problems with this philosophy. The first being that if Peterson slips that first tackle, your defense is in big, big trouble, because you probably don’t have anybody that’s going to be able to run him down.

The second is that if Peterson has one of “those games,” it might not make any difference how many guys you throw in there. We’ve seen teams throw a ton of guys at Peterson ever since he came into the league, and he’s still had some monstrous games (last year @ Chicago, last year vs. San Diego, this year vs. Green Bay).

As big a factor as Peterson is going to be in this game, however, it will ultimately (as you said) come to rest on Jackson. One of the big keys for the Vikings, I think, is for them to try to take advantage of those times when John Abraham is out of the game, which probably means more throwing on first and second down. If the running game gets going and the Falcons have to sneak extra guys up, I think that can happen. From a quick glance over the Falcons’ stats, I see Abraham’s monster sack total. . .and then I don’t see anybody else with more than 4. So, if Abraham is getting limited snaps, the Vikings could benefit greatly from throwing more when he’s not in the game. And when Abraham IS on the field, given the Falcons’ propensity for moving him around, Jackson needs to know where he is all the time.