Courtesy of Bear Goggles On, a fan publication for Chicago Bears fans.
For those not following the NFL playoff picture, Chicago needs help from Green Bay — in the form of a win over the Vikings — to qualify for the last NFC wildcard spot.
December 29, 2012
December 10, 2012
Vikings keep slim playoff hopes alive in win at home over Chicago
It certainly wasn’t a pretty game, but Minnesota’s defence covered well for the deficient offensive passing attack with an interception returned for a touchdown and another interception that left the Vikings within a few yards of the Bears’ goal line. The Vikings also caught a lucky break in that the Bears placeckicker, Robbie Gould, hurt his leg during pre-game warm-ups so Chicago had to use their punter for kick-off duty. It also meant that the Bears had to pass up chances for long- to medium-range field goals.
Adrian Peterson was his usual amazing self, posting his seventh consecutive 100-yard rushing game (he’s also only the 12th player in NFL history with multiple 1,600-yard rushing seasons). Brandon Marshall was also his usually effective receiving threat for the Bears: the Vikings had him triple-covered and he’d still haul in the catches.
Tom Pelissero and Judd Zulgad wrap up after the game in a super-heated press box at the Metrodome:
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November 26, 2012
Chicago is a tough place to play football
This game was so out-of-hand by halftime that Fox cut away to the Atlanta-Tampa Bay game. What I did see was not encouraging, as both teams showed lots of errors but Chicago was able to capitalize on Minnesota’s errors to a much greater extent than the Vikings could with Bears mistakes.
With Percy Harvin still recovering from his ankle injury, the other wide receivers failed to step up. Jarius Wright saw more action and wasn’t bad, but Jerome Simpson gave more than enough evidence for why Cincinnati was willing to let him walk after last season — ball drops are bad at any time, but when combined with a lack of effort they’ll shorten your playing career as a receiver. Daily Norseman probably spoke for a lot of Vikings fans with this tweet:
Would cutting Jerome Simpson before the Vikings got on the plane back to Minneapolis be too harsh?
— The Daily Norseman (@DailyNorseman) November 25, 2012
Among the few Vikings who played at a high level was Adrian Peterson, who tied a team record (held by Robert Smith) with his fifth consecutive 100-yard rushing performance. On the downside … two fumbles on the day (although one of them will go against Christian Ponder’s record instead). Ponder didn’t have a good outing, but his receiving corps made it even tougher:
So what is the drop count at for the Vikings today? Simpson 3, Carlson 2, Burton 1 …. Hard to rip Ponder when guys can’t catch.
— Judd Zulgad (@1500ESPNJudd) November 25, 2012
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October 15, 2012
A “violence tax” that would only fall on the non-violent
Steve Chapman on a recent proposal that will penalize the non-violent for violence in their community:
For urban politicians, gun control is like the bar in Cheers — a place of refuge they can seek out whenever things aren’t going well. Things aren’t going well on the crime front in Chicago, with homicides up 25 percent this year. So what else can our elected leaders do but promise action against guns?
Action against the possession and use of guns by violent felons would be a good idea, but the proposal offered by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is something else: a penalty on nonviolent citizens who bear no blame for the carnage.
Preckwinkle suggested a tax on sales of firearms and ammunition, with the goal of defraying the costs that gunshots create for the county hospital and jail. Her spokesperson couldn’t say what the tax rate would be or how much revenue it would yield but said the fee would be “consistent with our commitment to pursuing violence reduction in the city and in the county.”
[. . .]
The levy was dubbed a “violence tax,” which is exactly what it isn’t. It would not target criminals who have malice in mind, but would fall entirely on the law-abiding.
Anyone convicted of a felony, after all, is ineligible for an Illinois Firearm Owner’s Card, which is legally required to buy guns or bullets. Under federal law, felons are barred from owning guns. So ex-con gang members would not pay the tax, because they make all their purchases in the illegal market. It would hit only those gun owners who have used their firearms responsibly.
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July 2, 2012
Alex Tabarrok on the slow rail and infrastructure bottleneck
Writing at Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok wonders “Why haven’t the $500 bills been picked up?”:
High speed rail, especially California’s project, looks to me to be monorail economics, a costly boondoggle whose appeal lies not in rational calculation [...] but in the desire of some politicians (and voters) to feel visionary and sexy. In theory, CA HSR might work but the inevitable reviews, delays, lawsuits and special interest payoffs make the prospects of a beneficial project look dim, demosclerosis kills.
Slow speed rail, however, i.e. freight transport, isn’t sexy but Warren Buffett is investing in rail and maybe we should as well. In particular, there are basic infrastructure projects with potentially high payoffs. Congestion in Chicago, for example, is so bad that freight passing through Chicago often slows down to less than the pace of an electric wheel chair. Improvements are sometimes as simple as replacing 19th century technology with 20th century (not even 21st century!) technology. Even today, for example:
…engineers at some points have to get out of their cabins, walk the length of the train back to the switch — a mile or more — operate the switch, and then trudge back to their place at the head of the train before setting out again.
In a useful article Phillip Longman points out that there are choke points on the Eastern Seaboard which severely reduce the potential for rail:
…railroads can capture only 2 percent of the container traffic traveling up and down the eastern seaboard because of obscure choke points, such as the Howard Street Tunnel in downtown Baltimore. The tunnel is too small to allow double-stack container trains through, and so antiquated it’s been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973. When it shut down in 2001 due to a fire, trains had to divert as far as Cincinnati to get around it. Owner CSX has big plans for capturing more truck traffic from I-95, and for creating room for more passenger trains as well, but can’t do any of this until it finds the financing to fix or bypass this tunnel and make other infrastructure improvements down the line.
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May 27, 2012
Looking back at the start of the Christian Ponder era
I know it’s still very much the off-season, but I thought this analysis of last season’s week 6 game between the Vikings and the Chicago Bears was very interesting. It starts off with the end of the Donovan McNabb experiment:
We all suspected that McNabb was done after he flatlined in Washington with the Redskins, but how little he had left in the tank was, frankly, shocking. By this time it was like watching an extraordinarily slow train wreck.
In the first five games, he averaged 169 yards a game. In his first game he threw for 39 yards. I actually had to go back and double check the stats on that game to make sure I had that right.
[. . .]
Even early on, McNabb was inconsistent and off. The Bears came in with absolutely zero respect for him, choosing instead to focus on shutting down Adrian Peterson.
The Bears’ Defense stacks the line vs an obvious run, with one safety deep just in case (footage courtesy NBC)
You can see in the attached screen caps that safety Major Wright isn’t even pretending to back into coverage — very clearly he’s coming for Peterson.
Eventually, after three quarters of futility, McNabb is pulled from the game and rookie Christian Ponder is sent in to replace him:
So you’re a rookie, being thrown into the fire against one of the better defenses in the league (and playing like it for once) with minimal snaps because you were a backup.
Christian Ponder, welcome to the NFL.
In one quarter, Ponder amassed more than half the yards McNabb threw for in three.
[. . .]
This allowed Ponder to do one thing McNabb was definitely not capable of anymore — scramble. Ponder broke off several good runs, one a bootleg and one a collapsed pocket.
Then he started completing passes and the defense started backing off the run and stacking the line. They fell into more of a basic base set, dropping players into coverage and rushing four or five guys most of the time.
Unlike McNabb, Ponder was able to find some open seams and complete some passes.
While people hack on Ponder for some of his accuracy issues, he actually did a fair job on short notice, of getting the ball where it needed to be for his receivers.
While it’s become cliché, the Vikings are tied to Ponder’s development for the 2012 season and beyond. Now that they’ve drafted Matt Kalil as their left tackle for the next ten years, and restaffed the receiving corps, they have to hope that Ponder will continue to improve from the brief flashes he was able to show in the catastrophe that was the Vikings’ 2011 season.
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May 7, 2012
Chicago and the everlasting rail bottleneck
Chicago is where rail traffic goes to get delayed:
When it comes to rail traffic, Chicago is America’s speed bump.
Shippers complain that a load of freight can make its way from Los Angeles to Chicago in 48 hours, then take 30 hours to travel across the city. A recent trainload of sulfur took some 27 hours to pass through Chicago — an average speed of 1.13 miles per hour, or about a quarter the pace of many electric wheelchairs.
With freight volume in the United States expected to grow by more than 80 percent in the next 20 years, delays are projected to only get worse.
The underlying reasons for this sprawling traffic jam are complex, involving history, economics and a nation’s disinclination to improve its roads, bridges, and rails.
Six of the nation’s seven biggest railroads pass through the city, a testament to Chicago’s economic might when the rail lines were laid from the 1800s on. Today, a quarter of all rail traffic in the nation touches Chicago. Nearly half of what is known as intermodal rail traffic, the big steel boxes that can be carried aboard ships, trains or trucks, roll by, or through, this city.
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October 17, 2011
Vikings stink up Soldier Field, losing 39-10 to the Bears
The difference between this loss and the earlier losses is that the Vikings were never in this game. Chicago jumped out to an early lead, and never looked back. The normally great first-half defence didn’t show up tonight, and the offence was its usual anaemic self.
The Vikings had done well to avoid injuries so far this season, but lost several players to injury over the course of the game, including safety Jamarca Sandford, offensive tackle Phil Loadholt, and centre John Sullivan. With two offensive line starters out, Donovan McNabb was running for his life back there.
On the good side of the ledger, after a quiet start, Jared Allen got a sack and stripped the ball from Jay Cutler. The Vikings turned that into 6 points on an Adrian Peterson run. Late in the game, Christian Ponder took over at quarterback for Donovan McNabb, and showed some nice situational awareness (avoiding the pass rush) and good accuracy and distance downfield. Other than that, there wasn’t much for Vikings fans to cheer.
After the game, coach Leslie Frazier was careful not to commit himself about who will start next Sunday’s game, but Andrew Kulha at Bleacher Reports is sure that we’ve seen the start of a new quarterback era:
It may be time for former Philadelphia Eagles star, former Washington Redskins mistake and current Minnesota Vikings quarterback Donovan McNabb to take his curtain call.
It’s been a great run for McNabb, but it’s probably best to stop digging while he still has a chance to get out of the hole that is the latter stages of his career.
Christopher Gates at the Daily Norseman agrees:
Statistically, if you look at Donovan McNabb’s line from Sunday night, it doesn’t look like he played all that badly. . .he only threw five incompletions on the evening, and put up 177 passing yards. However, as the fourth quarter started at Soldier Field on Sunday evening, Minnesota Vikings’ head coach Leslie Frazier decided that the time had finally come.
And, with that, the Christian Ponder era got underway in Minnesota.
Sure, by the time that Ponder got into the game, the Vikings only had five healthy offensive lineman. . .Phil Loadholt was out of the game with an (as of now) undisclosed injury, and John Sullivan suffered a concussion early in the second half. As the Vikings only had seven offensive linemen dressed on the evening, another injury probably would have seen Jim Kleinsasser lining up at tackle or guard. However, despite that, and despite spending most of the evening running for his life, Ponder was not sacked once in 18 pass attempts, and completed 10 of his passes for 99 yards in his quarter of work.
Update: Tom Pelissero sums up the brief (about a quarter) appearance of Christian Ponder:
Ponder made his NFL debut with 14 minutes, 43 seconds remaining in Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears, who led 39-10 and sacked starter Donovan McNabb five times.
“I don’t see it ending like this, as you say,” McNabb said. “But it’s tough. You’re one-and-five at this particular point. I felt like we did a lot of great things (Sunday). But I guess we’ll sit down to talk, but I still expect to be in there next week.”
Ponder was 9-of-17 passing for 99 yards (52.9%) and a 70.5 rating over two drives, both ending with fourth-down passes caught short of the first-down marker. But the rookie first-round picks’s skills were on display as he repeatedly escaped pressure and made several rhythm throws into tight windows.
He scrambled for 8 yards and a first down on his second snap. His first throw was a swing pass to Adrian Peterson for no gain and his second a touch pass to Percy Harvin for 20.
“I thought he did a good job under the circumstances,” Frazier said. “We’ll go back and look at the tape and fully evaluate it. But it seems like he moved around pretty good.”
Ponder was 5-of-10 passing for 58 yards on his first drive, which went 69 yards in 12 plays before a fourth-and-10 throw to Visanthe Shiancoe gained only 9, stalling the Vikings at the Chicago 12-yard line. The Vikings’ next drive went 40 yards in eight plays before stalling at the Chicago 30.
“I was very grateful for the opportunity that Coach let me go in,” Ponder said. “I thought I made some plays, thought I missed some plays, missed a couple throws. But I definitely had fun. It’s always hard to have fun when you’re losing that bad, but I was grateful and I definitely had fun.”
Update, the second: In his column at the Pioneer Press, Tom Powers suggests it’s time for a fire sale:
Vikings for sale! Vikings for sale! Cheap!
Not the team, but individual players. Hey, all you NFL general managers out there, get your very own Minnesota Vikings player. Take him home to play with your kids. Let him tend to the petunias in the garden. Have him wash the car. All we ask for is a seventh-round draft pick in return. And, of course, you take over paying his salary.
The NFL trade deadline almost always passes unnoticed. It’s not a big deal the way it is in other sports where there is a flurry of last-minute activity. The Vikings desperately need to change all that.
The 2011 deadline is Tuesday. It should be a very big deal. There ought to be balloons, parades and free hot dogs at Winter Park if Rick Spielman, the Vikings’ Invisible Man, can partially salvage a lost season by dumping veterans for draft picks. Even very low draft picks would be swell. So would a bag of Doritos.
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June 11, 2011
Redefining “high speed” as 45 mph
This is very amusing, unless you’re a taxpayer:
The latest in lunacy in high-speed rail lunacy: at Joel Kotkin’s newgeography.com Wendell Cox reports that the U.S. Transportation Department is dangling money before the government of Iowa seeking matching funds from the state for a high-speed rail line from Iowa City to Chicago. The “high-speed” trains would average 45 miles per hour and take five hours to reach Chicago from Iowa City. One might wonder how big the market for this service is, since Iowa City and Johnson County have only 130,882 people; add in adjoining Linn County (Cedar Rapids) and you’re only up to 342,108 — not really enough, one would think, to supply enough riders to cover operating costs much less construction costs.
The federal government must be getting desperate to find some state willing to take this deal . . .
December 21, 2010
Bears beat Vikings to claim NFC North division title
The last time the Vikings gave up this many points was a previous game against the Bears, but at least that one was close (48-41 in 2008). This game wasn’t close at all:
Vikings executives spent last week working diligently to make sure Monday night’s game was played in front of their home fans in part because it was meant to serve as a celebration of the franchise’s 50th season in Minnesota.
That was their first mistake.
Given the team’s performance in its 40-14, five-turnover loss to Chicago at TCF Bank Stadium, those execs might have done their fans a greater service by having shifted this game as far away from snowy Minnesota as possible. That way, many in the announced crowd of 40,504 wouldn’t have had to witness a second consecutive listless performance from a team that might have played in the elements but mentally appeared to be in Maui.
The game was supposed to be rookie Joe Webb’s first NFL start, but mirabile dictu the status for Brett Favre was upgraded from “out” to “questionable”, and he somehow managed to get healthy enough to start. It didn’t last too long, though:
Favre’s NFL record consecutive-starts streak had ended at 321 the previous Monday against the Giants because of an injury to his throwing arm and at that point it appeared his career might be finished. But Favre, who has said numerous times this will be his final season, wanted to give playing another shot.
It proved to be a poor idea.
Favre was left lying motionless on the field after taking a crushing hit from defensive end Corey Wootton in the second quarter. He suffered a concussion and was replaced by rookie Joe Webb, who had been scheduled to start in the first place.
Photo from Viking Update.Webb completed 15 of 26 passes for 129 yards with two interceptions and a 38.8 passer rating and also scrambled six times for 38 yards, including a 13-yard touchdown. But it mattered little against a team that completed a season sweep of the Vikings.
Jim Souhan sent a couple of Twitter updates during the fourth quarter saying that fans were pelting the Vikings bench with snowballs. The quarterbacks were throwing them back, but the Bears players kept intercepting them.
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December 17, 2010
Like everyone else, the Two Scotts go for Chicago to win
They’re both so positive, I don’t think they’d change their minds even if Scarlett Johansson was playing quarterback:
Chicago (minus 3) at Minnesota, Monday night
Reid: After 297 consecutive starts, Brett Favre stood on the sideline last week for the first time since 1992. Tarvaris Jackson, a bit more modestly, will see his most recent streak end at exactly…one game. He’ll be back on the sideline for the first time since December 5th. Who will start? Creaky old Favre? Third string quarterback Joe Webb (of Dragnet fame) would be an interesting choice. He’s played a total of one series in the NFL but, on the upside, he is able to operate his body. Did we mention this game will be played outside at the University of Minnesota? Pick: Chicago.
Feschuk: Quite a debut for Tarvaris Jackson last week. I really admired how he would drop back in the pocket, look left, look right, look terrified and then scamper about the backfield in manic slapstick desperation. Had the Giants been dressed as British bobbies, Jackson would have been immediately sued for copyright infringement by the estate of Benny Hill. Pick: Chicago.
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December 15, 2010
This should help cure nostalgia for Metropolitan Stadium
The Minnesota Vikings won’t be able to play their last home game at the Metrodome, so the game will be hosted at TCF Bank Stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota:
Unlike yesterday’s trek to Detroit for an indoor contest against the New York Giants, this game will not only be outdoors but also at a facility that has roughly 13,000 fewer seats than the Metrodome. Both facts will provide unique challenges.
This is the first outdoor home game for the Vikings in 29 years. And TCF Bank Stadium has been completely shut down and “winterized” for the season, prompting one University of Minnesota official to describe the upcoming preparation of the stadium as a “monumental task.”
In addition, some of the aforementioned ticket holders to this game against the Bears will not be able to attend because of the shortage of seats.
On a positive note — and perhaps the biggest reason the game is committed to being played locally — is so the Minnesota Vikings organization can celebrate 50 seasons of Vikings football on a special celebratory evening.
Today’s Vikings fans are probably not as hardy as their parents and grandparents . . . unless the weather is particularly mild next Monday, expect a big uptick of support for a new domed stadium to replace the Metrodome.
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November 15, 2010
Vikings’ playoff hopes all but gone
Yesterday’s game against the Chicago Bears was a must-win . . . and they put in a terrible performance:
BRETT FAVRE: The battered quarterback had a depleted receiving corps to which he threw for a paltry 170 yards, with three interceptions and a fumble — giving Favre an eye-popping 21 turnovers this season.
SPECIAL TEAMS: Allowed dashing returner Devin Hester to break tackles and wreak havoc on the coverage units, producing returns of 68 and 42 yards. After converting nine consecutive field goals, Ryan Longwell missed for the first time this season, clanking a 39-yard attempt off the left upright in the second quarter that would have given Minnesota a six-point lead.
RUN DEFENSE: The once-vaunted unit that went 36 games without yielding 100 yards rushing has allowed four teams to crack the century mark, including Chicago, which ran up 130 yards on the ground.
Not appearing in this game were Sidney Rice and Bernard Berrian. Injured during the game was Percy Harvin, meaning the top three receivers were off the field during the last portion of the game.
Next week’s game against the Green Bay Packers may not matter, even if the Vikings can manage to win . . . they’ll need to win all of their remaining games to even hope for a wildcard spot.
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November 13, 2010
Sidney Rice to play tomorrow against Chicago Bears
According to Bleacher Report, Vikings wide receiver Sidney Rice will play in tomorrow’s game against Chicago:
Sidney declined hip surgery this offseason, despite several doctors strongly recommending he undergo the procedure. As it turns out, this was a foolish decision on Rice’s part.
Had he undergone the surgery in April, Rice would have been fully healthy when Week 1 rolled around against the New Orleans Saints.
With that said, the past cannot be changed, but it’s a wonder as to how much better the Vikings would be if they had Favre’s favorite target on the field.
Had Rice been playing on a weekly basis, Minnesota would’ve never made the acquisition to bring Randy Moss back to the team who drafted him in 1998.
Minnesota also would still have their third-round-pick in 2011.
While I can’t blame him for not wanting to undergo a surgical procedure if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, the decision certainly had deep repercussions for his team. It’s not Rice’s fault that all this happened — there’s no guarantee that the team’s record would have been any better if he’d been on the field from the start — but it’s indisputable that him not being available had a domino effect.
Update, 14 November: No, the Vikings didn’t place Rice on their active roster, so he won’t play in today’s game.
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