Tuesday Thoughts

I watched the 30-minute short cut of the Vikings/Giants last night.  I could only get through it once, since that was all the daughter was willing to put up with, but that was enough for a few observations:

Jackson really is the young McNabb.  He's just as streaky as mentioned, runs well, and plays as an identify/fire QB, rather than anticipating the action.  He looked terrible early, but then got into a nice groove where he was drilling lasers into guys' chests.  

Beyond the general stuff, he has two pretty clear weaknesses.  He never seems to put much air on the ball, preferring instead to gun it as hard and as flat as he can.  That works when guys are open, but there are times it makes much more sense to throw it over -- rather than through -- the defense.  

His second issue is that he's fool-able.  At various times he misread coverages, most prominently on an end zone interception where he never saw the safety, who read him all the way and came in to pick off the post route.  

He handled the pressure pretty well, however.  And if the guy is open and he's in rhythm, he's going to throw some nice balls.  He looks a lot better than even at the beginning of the season.

The Vikings punt coverage unit is as bad as advertised.  This was mentioned in a previous post by a couple commenters, but it really stood out last night in the game as well.  When punts were coming down, there was nary a coverage man to be seen downfield -- repeatedly. 

Note that FO extends this to the Vikings' entire ST unit.  They're the worst group in the league, although the punt coverage is by far their biggest issue.

The Giants ran right at Jared Allen.  New York's edge blocker are (much) better than the Eagles' edge blockers, but Allen got manhandled out there.  It got so bad, the Vikings had to flop the (non-injured Williams) from LDT over to RDT to stop the bleeding.  That seemed to shore things up.

The cornerbacks don't look that great.  Winfield looks like a purple Lito (the good one, before last year), Griffin seemed ok, and the nickel man Sapp was not impressive at all.  To be fair, it was one game against a running team, so I didn't get that many chances to see him.  I think there's a good chance we could see some more of that DeSean in the slot stuff we were seeing last week, however.  I'm not sure there's anyone in the league who can cover him in there.  Seriously.

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Terrell Owens continues to amaze me.  The guy is clearly the problem, no matter where he goes.  And yet somehow he's never the one guys get angry at.  Check out the remarks of Terrence Newman:

“It is like the problem when you had the anonymous player saying all that stuff,” he said. “They are a coward, you know, and that kind of stuff ruined this season.”

Let that sink in: A bigtime Cowboy called another bigtime Cowboy, and Witten specifically -- if locker room rumblings about the identity of “the snitch” are to be believed -- a coward.

Welcome to what happens when you have a Cupcake for a coach.

It's not Owens, who's the clear instigator of all this stuff and is the walking definition of a locker room cancer.  No no, it's the guy who bitched about Owens who's the problem. 

Here's more from that article:

What has been built at Valley Ranch under Coach Cupcake is an unmitigated disaster. We have a mess far bigger than first imagined, and one not easily resolved either.

This is not solved by finding another QB, or dumping T.O., or drafting a safety. This is a cracked foundation, as evidenced by problems that obviously remain between T.O., Romo, Witten and Jason Garrett.

And how do you clean up that level of deeply fractured?

Is it really that complicated?  Really?  I mean, yeah, the Cowboys have some issues.  No one respects the coach and the quarterback is now a certified big-game choker.  Those are problems.  But the answers are pretty simple:

1. Ditch Owens.
2. Ditch Phillips.
3. Bring in Marty or Bill.

Really not that hard.

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Yeah, I didn't want to look up "Schottenheimer."