• Saints at Vikings (-3.5)Never bet against spite. And Adrian Peterson will have plenty of spite going for him on Monday night when he returns home to Minnesota to play against the only other team he's played for during his illustrious NFL career. The Vikings have a stout defense but Peterson is otherworldly when angry and he will run for 200 yards against Minnesota in a winning effort for New Orleans.
  Pick: Saints +3.5
  

For the past 8 to 10 years our defense has had a couple guys out there that were the field generals of our defense,  now with the retirement of Greenway and the apparent replacement of BRob by Hunter,  who is going to be that guy to get the huddle to settle down and focus on their execution when things start to unravel a bit?  As i was thinking about the preseason it seemed that the D would be fine once their emotions got settled,  but they just seemed over hyped and lost focus early.  In the past there were a couple vets to handle that on the field,  hopefully we see Griff, Linval, Harry and/or Rhodes step up and become that voice of experience early and often.  its not a matter of scheme,  its not a matter of coaching or talent,  IMO its a matter of discipline and leadership on the field that separates the good teams from the great ones.  ( and a franchise QB doesnt hurt either

at what point do we hand them a check and tell them its their last one?  this shit infuriated me in LA and other gulf states and this one is no different.  Yes I have empathy for the people that are suffering,  but for the love of Christ lets not pay them to stay in harms way.  Let put stipulations on these repayments to make sure that they rebuild in areas that dont need to be covered by flood insurance.  Move them the hell out of harms ways once and forever.  Make the land a national park or something else that can not have houses on it.  (obviously this does not apply to all those affected by this hurricane,   but there are so many that are affected many times a decade that it really needs to stop.)  

up in fargo,   the govt went in,  bought the houses and said no more housing in the flood plane,  (not sure why its allowed in the first place but...)  anyway,  its time to stop this shit.  same for some of the other stupid things like building in the desert... there is no water there,  an essential element for life,  we are not supposed to live there.  or scraping down mountain sides for development and then acting shocked that they slide when the rains come... just plain arrogance and stupidity. 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/de...ar-AAr5Hrf

I say the same thing for any type of govt run programs,  if there are repeat payouts,  its time to change the game so that the payouts dont have to be made the next time for the same damn issue.  

farmers are farming acres that should have never been farmed and then when the low ground floods  or the arid ground gets killed by drought... Crop Insurance!  bull shit,  quit draining sloughs and quit breaking grass lands.

we keep giving subsidies to giant corporations in the interest of developing new technologies...why?  so the rich can get richer?  who is benefiting from the subsidies to wind power?  certainly not the public that see their power rates get hiked annually.  

no more please.  

sorry... rant over.  (for now)

How is everyone feeling with Shurmur's system now that he's had a full offseason to put in what he wanted? I haven't seen anything different
in preseason from what we saw last year. Clearly we struggled to score points with our Number 1 offense which has been consistent since Zimmer
took over. Has Shurmur been holding back on us and will unleash his creative genius on Monday night, or are we in for another disappointing offensive season that dooms this team to a sub 500 finish? 

Share your thoughts for some stimulating conversation. 

Velspár 2017
Welcome to the 2017 season of Velspár!  And welcome to those of you that are playing Velspár for the first time!  Glad to have you join!!  
Velspár, in old norse, means prophesying well or rightly.  And that’s just what we all are trying to do, each week during the Minnesota Vikings season.  Each week a set of questions will be posted at http://scottsabarber.wixsite.com/velspar (Hopefully by Wednesday)  The results will also be posted there.  Correctly predicting the questions will result in points awarded (based on the degree of difficulty) The person with the most points is that weeks winner.  There are no weekly prizes (yet) but the points earned each week will be added up weekly and there will be a prize for the person with the most points at the end of the season.  A beautiful hand crafted Velspar Champion Mug.  So put on your thinking horns and join in on Velspár!!

WEEK 1, THE SWITCH

I don’t know about you, but I’m not as optimistic about the 2017 season.  The Vikings run of 3-8 after starting out 5-0, probably has a lot to do with it.  Maybe it’s the end of the run of Training Camp in Mankato, end of the run of some tailgaiting.  The face of the franchise for the past 10 years, adrian Peterson switched teams.  I’m usually the most optimistic person in the room, but after those things and watching the pre-season performance and the fact that No team has won a Superbowl in their own stadium really doesn’t get my hopes up.  I will stir up some optimism  though and say maybe this 2017 version of the Adrian Petersonless Vikings can flip the switch and light it up on both sides of the ball.  I guess we will all find out on Monday night.  
It’s time to cook all those old ways and we are gonna roll with what we got.

Find Velspár week 1 here

Lol...What some teams will do


Major League Baseball has reportedly determined the Boston Red Sox used electronic devices to steal signs from the New York Yankees and other clubs over the past several weeks. 
Citing sources on Tuesday, the New York Times' Michael S. Schmidt reported the Red Sox "executed a scheme to illicitly steal hand signals from opponents' catchers in games against the second-place Yankees and other teams."
Specifically, Schmidt reported MLB opened an investigation into Boston's illicit activity after Yankees general manager Brian Cashman submitted a video to the league office that purportedly "showed a member of the Red Sox training staff looking at his Apple Watch in the dugout and then relaying a message to players, who may have then been able to use the information to know the type of pitch that was going to be thrown when they were hitting."
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/27316...ce=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial

Every time Adrian Peterson’s name is mentioned to a Minnesota Vikings defender, the answer is basically the same: Can’t wait to tackle him.
Vikings No. 1 cornerback Xavier Rhodes had the same sentiment on Tuesday, saying that he and the future Hall of Fame running back had something of a rivalry even when they were on the same team.

“There’s definitely a lot of pride,” Rhodes said. “I have to come down with the tackle. He knows when he was here we had a couple conversations and I told him that I’m not going to back down from him. He told me, ‘We’re gonna see how that ends,’ so we’re definitely going to see how that ends Monday night.”
http://www.1500espn.com/vikings-2/2017/0...challenge/

Vikings, Brock confident NFL won’t suspend cornerback for domestic abuse chargeVikings cornerback Tramaine Brock and coach Mike Zimmer said Tuesday they are confident the NFL will not punish the new defensive back after California prosecutors last month dismissed domestic violence charges against him.
On Saturday, Minnesota traded a seventh-round draft pick to the Seattle Seahawks for Brock, presumably for him to compete with second-year nickel corner Mackensie Alexander, who struggled to nail down the job in the preseason.
http://www.twincities.com/2017/09/05/2887032/

Mike Zimmer isn’t sure when Tramaine Brock will get up to speed, both mentally and physically, but he says he’s sure the 29-year-old cornerback could help the Vikings in the slot if necessary.
“He’s played nickel a lot,” Zimmer said Tuesday. “Played nickel in Seattle the whole time he was there and he played [outside] corner in San Francisco.”
The Vikings sent a seventh-round pick to Seattle last week for Brock, who did get a chance in 2015 to defend the slot for the 49ers when starter Jimmie Ward went down. Brock is currently nursing a groin injury, according to Zimmer, preventing any immediate impact.
“I thought that his cover skills were good in the things that he had done in the last year,” Zimmer said, “and his ability to do the things that we do defensively.”
http://www.startribune.com/tramaine-broc...442821893/