Busy day for the NFC North

As a "final 8" team in this new uncapped year, the Vikings don't look to be too active in free agency this offseason. But the other teams in the division aren't as restricted, as was evidenced by today's flurry of activity by two of the Vikings' divisional rivals.

Well, by one of our divisional rivals and the Lions.

Here's my opinions, in order of increasing importance, of the five free-agent moves made today by the Bears and the Lions.

5) Lions sign WR Nate Burleson. Apparently learning nothing from the Seahawks, who got nine more catches and 31 fewer yards in four years of Burleson than the Vikings got from him in three, the Lions handed Burleson a five-year, $25 million contract. He did have a respectable 63 catches and 812 yards for the Seahawks last year but also missed three games, following a one-game 2008 season. And the Lions continue to show why they're in last place, year after year.

4) Bears sign RB Chester Taylor. If you're surprised I rank this transaction so low, consider this: The Bears already have a decent third-down back in Matt Forte (120 receptions in two seasons), Taylor will turn 31 just after the start of the season, and he's averaged 4.0 and 3.6 yards per carry his last two years with the Vikings. If the Bears plan to make him their featured back, consider that Taylor managed just 4.0 yards per carry his one year as a featured back (2006), which was vastly inflated by his 95-yard run against the Seahawks; he managed just 3.7 yards per carry on his other runs that year. I'm really appreciative of what Taylor did in his four years with the Vikes, but his age, Adrian Peterson's new-found receiving skills, and the presence of Albert Young and Ian Johnson to take over the backup role made him eminently expendable.

(Strange note: In my copy of Madden NFL 2009 that I played four seasons of last year, Taylor signed with the Bears during the 09-10 offseason. Now, if Tarvaris Jackson can just lead us to the Super Bowl, my game will be uncannily accurate...)

3) Lions sign DE Kyle Vanden Bosch. Two years ago, Vanden Bosch was coming off three seasons of 12.5, 6.5, and 12.0 sacks. Since then, he's managed just 7.5 sacks, and the Titans' scoring defense sank to 28th in the league last year. Granted, he instantly improves the Lions' defense -- not a difficult task -- but he's not the playmaker he used to be.

2) Bears sign TE Brandon Manumaleuna. Chester Taylor won't do much to improve the Bears' running game, but Manumaleuna might. He's not much of a pass-catcher, but he's blocked for the likes of LaDanian Tomlinson and Marshall Faulk during some of their biggest years. On the bright side, this means that Greg Olson's career as a Bear is almost virtually done, as he'll likely be traded for a draft pick, so, in the short term, one wonders if the "trade" is a wash.

1) Bears sign DE Julius Peppers. All of the other transactions involve so-so players or don't provide significant upgrades to their teams. This one's the biggie, though, and I, for one, am not looking forward to Peppers making our QBs run for their lives twice a year. My only consolation is that Peppers turned 30 in January (by comparison, Jared Allen is two years younger), but as was evident in the Panthers' game against the Vikings in December, he can still give any offensive coordinator nightmares.

Still, in general, I think that most of these moves -- Peppers excepting -- aren't the kind of big-impact deals that can completely change a team. The only team I'm really worried about in our division going into next year is the Packers, who, in winning seven of their last eight regular-season games last year, might not need much in the free agency market to give the Vikings a run for their money in 2010.

NFC Championship Game Facts

This year's NFC representative in the Super Bowl will be either a team that hasn't been to the big game in 33 years or a team that has never been there. Either way, that's kinda cool.

The most points ever scored in an NFC Championship Game is 66, when the 49ers beat the Cowboys 38-28 in January 1995. There's a reasonable chance that will be exceeded on Sunday.

Only the Cowboys (14), 49ers (12), and Rams (9) have been in more NFC Championship Games than the Vikings (8). The 49ers and Cowboys have squared off five times in the game.

Road teams are 13-26 in the NFC Championship Game.

The last time Brett Favre was in an NFC Championship Game (1998), Drew Brees was a sophomore at Purdue and Percy Harvin was nine years old.

Chester Taylor had more combined rush-receive yards (727) in 2009 than Reggie Bush (725).

I am officially tired of typing "NFC Championship Game."

And then there were four

Well, you can forget about talks of "hot" teams and streaks and all that nonsense and how much impact it has on the playoffs. Teams on 11- and four-game winning streaks (San Diego and Dallas) lost, while the four teams that won this weekend were a combined 4-8 in their last three games of the regular season. Among them were the Vikings, who put a 34-3 throttling on the Dallas Cowboys to go to their first NFC Championship game since the 2000 season.

At this point, I don't even care that the Vikings are a pass-first team and are almost completely impotent at running the football. You'll still hear the usual tripe about how the Saints "must stop Adrian Peterson," but he's currently playing like, at best, the third-best player on the offense, behind Brett Favre and Sidney Rice. Even Chester Taylor looked better the few times he touched the ball on Sunday.

On the bright side, the Vikings will play a team next Sunday that was 22nd against the run in total yardage and 26th in yards per carry, and gave up a 70-yard run on the first play from scrimmage on yesterday's game. The Saints, in fact, were 18th in scoring defense and 25th in total yards allowed (the Vikings were ninth in both categories), and, for all their offensive firepower, scored just 40 points more than the Vikings, or less than a field goal per game. And while it is a road game, playing in a dome suits the Vikings just fine. This has all the potential makings of a high-scoring, but close game.

But that's the future. For now, I'm just basking in the heady glow of knowing that the Vikings are just 60 minutes away from their first Super Bowl in 33 years. And despite my better judgment, I'm actually believing it can happen.

When Canadians attack

One of the silliest paragraphs I've read in a while, from the keyboard of Yahoo! Sports' Jon Krawczynski:

Even with Brett Favre at quarterback, [Adrian] Peterson is the key to the Vikings offence. He draws so much attention from opposing defences who stack eight or nine men near the line of scrimmage that he opens things up for the passing game.

First, yay Canada? "Offence" and "defences"?

Second, there's nothing about our passing game so far this year that resembles anything has "opened up." And the Vikings' running game has really opened up the passing game since AP arrived, hasn't it? I mean, our guys are throwing for 5,000 yards and 40 TDs every year!

And third....well, there's this:

The Vikings' leading tackler practised on a limited with pads on, but defensive co-ordinator Leslie Frazier said he believes Henderson will be fine.

"Practised." Like, take off, eh? And he practised on a limited...what? A limited-time offer? A limited partnership? The Limited?

But you gotta love those "co-ordinators."

Can Brett help Adrian?

One of the persistent reasons I've heard for bringing Brett Favre -- or any quality quarterback -- to the Vikings is that the threat of an improved passing game will open up more holes for Adrian Peterson (and Chester Taylor) to run through, thus improving the running game as well as the passing game. With teams forced to respect the pass more, Peterson will face fewer eight-man fronts and be poised for a spectacular year.

Putting aside the question of whether Brett Favre will improve the Vikings' passing game, I've always found this type of reasoning questionable. Certainly, on the surface, it makes sense, and you hear this logic frequently espoused by commentators and even coaches. But does a better passing game actually improve the running game? And here's another thought: Adrian Peterson has averaged 101.3 yards per game and 5.2 yards per carry during his professional career. Is it really realistic to expect that any improvement to the team will push him much over a 1,600-yard season on a consistent basis?

When you think about it, in terms of raw numbers, an improved passing game should probably decrease overall rushing numbers. After all, if your passing game is good, you should be using it a fair amount, and that's going to take carries away from your running back. The 2008 Vikings threw the ball 452 times (with 43 sacks) and an unknown number of QB scrambles, for about 500 total pass dropbacks. If they'd dropped back to pass 600 times, that would have been 100 or so fewer possibilities for Peterson and Taylor to carry the ball. That'll subtract from your rushing yards, no doubt.

I took a few stabs at this concept last year, and my admittedly amateurish results showed that a good passing game does not help the running game (or vice versa). Brian Burke over at Advanced NFL Stats has talked about a similar topic a few times, and uses what I like to call "The Princess Bride Paradox":

* Your team is very good at rushing. Thus, it should rush the ball.
* The defense knows you're good at rushing. Thus, they'll play a stout run defense.
* You know that the defense knows you're good at rushing. Thus, you'll surprise them by passing!
* The defense knows that you know that they know that you're going to try and stop the run. So you'll outsmart them by playing the pass!
* You know....

Y'know?

Brian's follow-up post used the 2007 Vikings as a specific example by asking what their optimal run-pass mix was, given their talent. His conclusion was that talent on one side of the offense (running or passing) shouldn't affect play-calling on the other side, though he did acknowledge that the passing game improved slightly when Peterson was added in 2007.

But all this still doesn't answer the basic question: Would an improved passing game help Adrian Peterson? Since he ran for 1,760 yards last year at a 4.8 yards-per-carry clip, there doesn't seem to be much that could help him. So I got to wondering, in the best seasons ever by running backs, did those backs have a strong passing game to "open up lanes" for them?

The answer: not so much. I took the top 27 single-season rushing performances -- that's every season of 1,700 or more yards -- and checked out their passing games. Here are the results:

Year	Running Back	Rush Yds	Pass Att	Pass Yds	Rating
1984	Eric Dickerson	2,105	358	2,382	65.9
2003	Jamal Lewis	2,066	415	2,517	64.7
1997	Barry Sanders	2,053	540	3,605	75.4
1998	Terrell Davis	2,008	491	3,808	93.5
1973	OJ Simpson	2,003	213	1,236	42.7
1980	Earl Campbell	1,934	463	3,271	70.4
1994	Barry Sanders	1,883	459	3,085	80.2
2003	Ahman Green	1,883	473	3,377	90.5
2005	Shaun Alexander	1,880	474	3,632	96.8
1963	Jim Brown	1,863	322	2,449	78.3
2005	Tiki Barber	1,860	558	3,762	75.7
2002	Ricky Williams	1,853	455	3,069	79.3
1977	Walter Payton	1,852	305	2,070	61.8
1998	Jamal Anderson	1,846	424	3,744	92.7
1986	Eric Dickerson	1,821	403	2,380	63.7
1975	OJ Simpson	1,817	354	2,661	80.2
2006	LaDainian Tomlinson	1,815	466	3,412	93.0
1983	Eric Dickerson	1,808	489	3,411	76.0
2006	Larry Johnson	1,789	450	3,243	84.7
1995	Emmitt Smith	1,773	494	3,741	91.7
2008	Adrian Peterson	1,760	452	3,217	81.5
1985	Marcus Allen	1,759	506	3,481	68.5
1997	Terrell Davis	1,750	513	3,704	87.4
2005	Larry Johnson	1,750	507	4,014	90.1
1985	Gerald Riggs	1,719	462	3,025	66.5
1992	Emmitt Smith	1,713	491	3,597	88.8
2000	Edgerrin James	1,709	571	4,413	94.7
1993	Average	1,855	448	3,197	80.5

The five running backs with 2,000-yard seasons had Jeff Kemp, Kyle Boller, Scott Mitchell, John Elway, and Joe Ferguson as their primary quarterbacks. Apart from Elway (who missed four games with injury and was replaced by Bubby Brister), that's a pretty sorry group.

Only eight of the 27 seasons featured quarterbacks with passer ratings of 90 or higher and the overall weighted average is 80.5 and the better entries seem to be clumped down near the bottom, with the lower rushing totals. That's not real impressive, and only four of these 27 seasons occurred before the changes to open up the passing game in 1979.

Of course, what I should really be looking at is overall rushing totals for an entire team (minus quarterback rushing numbers), but that would require more effort than I'm willing to put in :P Still, consider the following additional two seasons:

Year	Running Back	Rush Yds	Pass Att	Pass Yds	Rating
2007	C. P.	1,756	432	2,938	74.2
2008	C. P.	1,727	452	3,217	81.5

Those are a couple more excellent 1700+ yard seasons that would be added to the list above if "C. P." were a real person. He's actually the combined rushing numbers of Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor ("Chester Peterson"), multiplied by 80% to give a reasonable number of carries (316 and 372 for 2007 and 2008, respectively) and represent that C. P. probably wouldn't be actually able to carry the ball 859 times over consecutive seasons. Again, the quarterbacking for C. P.'s team has been mediocre to poor for two seasons, yet he's put up spectacular numbers. How would adding a better quarterback improve them?

Without question, better quarterback play would improve the Minnesota Vikings as a team, though whether it would improve the running game is, I think, questionable. Even if we could somehow acquire the in-their-prime versions of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and plant them on the '09 Vikings, Adrian Peterson would be hard-pressed to improve on his stats from the previous two years. There are just only so many plays to go around, and if the passing game is that much more improved, we should use it more.

Pacifist Viking does raise a good point, though. It might be that an improved passing game will make Peterson more consistent on a per-play basis. I brought up Barry Sanders in the discussion, as a perfect example of a player who very rarely had a good passing game to support him and could be maddeningly inconsistent on a carry-by-carry basis. Without access to play-by-play data, it'll be tough to prove/disprove this, but it's a decent enough assumption. Personally, I think consistency is overrated, but that's a topic for another post.

Based on the evidence from NFL history, though, it's hard for me to believe that an outstanding rushing season is the result of good passing from the same team. Some of this might be because, with limited resources (i.e., cap room), teams can't invest in as much. So you have a great running back and so-so QB and receivers (and a line that's better at run blocking than pass protection); all that might result in some of the disparity we see here. But when it comes to improving your running game, the most important factor, I feel, is the talent of your running back and his blockers -- not your quarterback and receivers.

The question I never thought I'd ask

...while Brad Childress was the head coach of the Vikings, but...

Is Adrian Peterson getting too many carries?

Hard to believe, isn't it? Just a few weeks ago, we were all concerned that Coach Chilly wasn't using his star running back enough, but following his 30-carry day against the Packers, AP's carry total in each game this season looks like this:

19, 29, 17, 18, 21, 25, 22, 25, 30

Nice to see that Chilly's decided to give him more carries as the season goes on, but this kind of pace can't be good long-term. Peterson has accumulated 206 carries through nine games. That's an average of just under 23 carries a game and puts him on pace for 366 carries on the season. Only a few backs (Larry Johnson, 417 in 2006, Shaun Alexander, 370 in 2005, Curtis Martin, 371 in 2004) have shouldered that kind of workload in the last five years and most would probably pick Peterson as the most fragile of the group.

On the bright side, Peterson is also very young, just 23 years old, and even if he does have a heavy-carry season, he's young enough to bounce back and still enjoy a productive career. And, after practically ignoring him for the season's first few games, the coaching staff has made heavier use of Chester Taylor the last few games, giving him 10, 7, and 10 carries to spell Peterson. Finally, two other backs -- Michael Turner and Clinton Portis -- have also topped the 200-carry mark so far this season, so maybe Peterson's high carry total is just a symptom of the Vikings playing well the last few weeks and controlling the clock and he'll actually finish with something in the low 300s. In any case, he seems a near-lock to join Chester Taylor as the only 300-carry back in Vikings history.

And yes, I know that it was at about this time last year that I finally caved in and expressed my man-love for Adrian Peterson and admitted that his strong performances were more than a fluke or just rookie luck. In the next game, the Packers wiped out the Vikings 34-0 and Peterson got hurt, so, even though he leads the league with 1,015 rushing yards and his 4.9 yards per carry is third only to Portis and Brandon Jacobs, I'm cautious about projecting his stats too far ahead.

Still, with the playoffs still potentially on the table and AP facing a potential 400+ carries if his team makes the playoffs, Coach Childress should look for any opportunity he can to give his best player a rest. Hey, at least we still have the Lions on the schedule. That game should be a blowout, right? Right?

Defense as expected...

...offense, not so much.

Last night's 12-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers was a mixed bag of both good and bad. The defense held the first-unit Steelers to just six points on two field goals through two+ quarters. Kevin Williams and Ray Edwards each had a sack and starting running back Willie Parker was held to just 18 yards on 10 carries, while backup Rashard Mendenhall lost a fumble and Ben Roethlisberger managed just 65 yards on 17 pass attempts. Even the backups played surprisingly well against a seemingly rejuvenated Byron Leftwich, before bending just enough to allow the game-winning drive and field goal.

Then there was the offense. Which, led by Gus Frerotte, looked decent in the passing game (one horrible interception notwithstanding), with Aundrae Allison looking very good -- though Bernard Berrian being a nonfactor for the second straight game is troubling. Overall, though, if this team performs that well with the backup quarterback in the game against (for most of the game) one of the league's better defenses, it might be enough to win the division, and then some.

That is, if the running game can get on track. Again, I know it's preseason, but at some point, you have to look at least like you're remotely playing at full speed, and the running game thus far hasn't done that. The two-headed monster of Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor has yet to manifest itself, and while it's true that they're playing against some pretty good first-team defenses (Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Seattle all ranked in the top half of the league in rushing defense in 2007), you'd hope that there might be an occasional burst or flash of greatness, even if the overall numbers aren't very good.

Last night's nationally televised game was the first one I saw in full this preseason, and the running game was bottled up completely by the Steeler defense. In total, the Vikings carried 22 times for 32 yards, an abysmal 1.45 yards per carry, and here are the yards per carry averages for the Vikings top four running backs this preseason:

Peterson: 2.55
Taylor: 2.5
Hicks: 2.75
Young: 2.29

I don't know if it's the offensive line coming back down to earth -- because last year's 5.3 yards per carry is almost unsustainable -- or if the backs are not as good as we thought they were, but if the Vikings don't come out with a strong rushing performance against Dallas in the final preseason game -- whether it's by backups or starters -- I think it should officially be labeled a cause for concern.

Then again, it's tough to establish any flow to your rushing game when you're being penalized on every other play. The Vikings' first drive, which saw them backed up deep in their own territory by an inexcusable three false-start penalties, set the tone for the evening. I can recall at least one more such penalty by the Vikings during the game, and maybe there was another. Both teams were undisciplined, with the Vikings "beating" the Steelers with 10 penalties to 8. (The Steelers would have had 9 if the Vikings hadn't refused an illegal substitution call on an unsuccessful fourth-down try.) A friend I was watching the game with hinted that there was going to be some yelling in both teams' meetings on Monday. I countered by saying that the Vikings didn't need to show their offensive linemen any game film; they just needed to drill them on how to count.

Again, considering the team had a backup quarterback and was facing probably one of the better teams in the league, the overall effort wasn't too awful. But there are still some serious issues to be addressed, and they involve some of what the Vikings thought would be their strong points entering 2008: the offensive line and the running game. They've got one more week to get things straightened out because right now the most effective and reliable facet of our offense appears to be the play of Tarvaris Jackson. And that's a little frightening.

Which came first: the Bernard or the Adrian?

Even before Bernard Berrian inked his huge deal with the Vikings, people were already picking Adrian Peterson to have a 2008 to put his rookie year to shame. The excitement reached a fever pitch after Berrian was signed, as people believed he would open a passing game that was largely ineffective in Peterson's rookie year. With Berrian and an improved passing game in 2008, Peterson won't face eight defenders in the box and will run wild through opposing defenses all year long; 2,000 yards is a distinct possibility. If you play fantasy football and wind up with the fourth pick or lower -- or in some drafts, the second pick -- you likely won't even sniff Peterson.

But here's the thing: If Peterson is going to have such a phenomenal year because of the improved passing game, how will the passing game actually be improved if Peterson is rushing for 2,000 yards? An offense can only run so many plays, and if the bulk of them are going to Peterson (and maybe Chester Taylor), that won't leave much for Bernard Berrian and company. Going back again to fantasy drafts, I've heard two reasons why a player, especially a running back, might be poised for a breakout year:

Situation A: The team has a good passing game.
"That'll open up lots of holes for him! He'll have a huge year!"

Situation B: The team has a poor passing game.
"He's all they've got! He'll get tons of carries and have a huge year!"

Well, they can't both be true, can they? So, which is it? How does having a good passing game impact the running game (and vice versa)?

On the surface, it seems to make sense. But if you think about it, does one beget the other? Consider these questions:

Q: How do you have a good running game?
A: Have a good passing game to open holes for the running back.

Q: How do you have a good passing game?
A: Have a good running game so your receivers are single covered.

Er...OK. Chicken, meet egg.

Nobody would dispute that it's easier to run against seven in the box than it is against eight (or, in some cases against the Vikings last year, nine). But if the defense is stacking up to stop the run, shouldn't that mean the pass is wide open? But why are they stacking up to stop the run? Probably because the running game is very good, clearly better than the passing game. And if you're an offensive coordinator, shouldn't you be using what works? Do good running teams abandon or minimize the run just because the defense tries really hard to stop it. Of course not.

But when the offense does pass (or run against a team defending primarily against the pass), they should meet with some success, better than would be normally expected, right? They'll probably still pass fairly infrequently, but the results should be pretty good.

So maybe that's the key. A team that accumulates a lot of rushing yards should pass relatively infrequently but should be rather successful when they do pass. And a team that racks up the passing yardage runs infrequently but should be successful when they do run. In other words, high accumulation (raw yardage) in one stat should lead to a high rate (yards per carry or pass) in the other.

That's the theory, at least. This post is long enough, so I'll run the numbers and see what I come up with sometime this weekend. For now, just think about it and realize that if Bernard Berrian does somehow rack up 1,160 yards, it'll be more likely to come on 60 catches than on 80.