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Smash Articles
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8118! In our local rag that they call a newspaper they stated that the Viking receivers were nothing to fear. I wonder what they are thinking now. The Alley In other words, what appears to be a strength (defending the alley) is actually its weakness. For the offense, the side line can be a very bad idea. The sideline rewards the defender with an additional defender in the form of the sideline itself. A 2 for 1 deal that does not exist in the alley. Maybe Lombardi continuously stressed this concept for a reason. At the sideline, due to 2 for 1 deal, the defender gets to fly at the carrier at full speed, which exposes the carrier to an unwarranted risk. In the alley, the defender has no choice but to bleed energy unless the runner is stacked and held upward for the cheap shot. AD's first big gash run versus the Raven's was not achieved from a sideline run but was the result of a between the tackles run. Brett Favre has demonstrated the effective exploitation of the seams and the center (slants), however to run effectively with the greatest risk-reward maybe the targets need to be shifted to either between the tackles or to exploit the alleys, forgoing the sideline scamper. If I had a
choice between taking-on AD either on at the sideline or in the alley the answer
becomes quite obvious. There just not enough money to make that a
reality. Could Brett Favre be the dominant Saturn, like Moss in the Monday night contest up in Greenbay back in 98. Too many will be waiting on the cusp hoping to witness the demise of Brett's unblemished record. Time will tell. In a way, this reminds me of the 1998 missing rings episode with John Randle's stirring quote, which explained the provisions of the blue print to the Vikings demise. In 98, the Vikings were undefeated going into Tampa Bay where they were to face Tony Dungy's squad. For John and his defensive mates, it was like playing themselves, as Tony built the Viking's defense where he knew their strengths and weaknesses. The Viking defense was built for turf & speed, which was particularly vulnerable to an offense that could physically pound that rock. Dungy exploited our weakness, which ultimately provided the blue print for the 98 Falcons. Today,
we are in a similar situation, only from an opposite spectrum. Mike Tomlin
did not build this defense ... he only coordinated it for 1 year. Few
might remember that under Tomlin although that defense was #1 versus the run,
that Viking defense was also dead last versus the pass that season. Maybe
John Randle might have some words of wisdom in regard to this upcoming match
versus our former defensive coordinator but one might expect that in confronting
Mike Tomlin ... you'll need to confront yourself. In other words, this
defense can only be made to beat itself ... not to be beaten. In short,
the only thing we need to fear is fear itself. Tomlin is going to know and
exploit some of the strengths and weaknesses of each individual player however
in the scheme of things it can be made to be irrelevant. What is certain
is that he's not going to know the heart of the 85 Bears and its
interchange. There's a new sheriff in town. The Viking Ghost
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