The Vikes were touted as a Super Bowl team at the beginning of the year. And even though I think that any season that ends short of winning a championship is a failed season, I'm not too bummed about it. Still, the Vikes fans who were reluctant to buy tickets because they didn't want to shell out so much money to see them lose were fucking right, dude, and that gets at my craw.
Watching the game, I have to temper the belief that Tarvaris Jackson is the whole problem. He played a pretty good first half. I know for a fact that the Eagles blitzed him some in the first quarter and T-Jack did a good job finding open men. Then the Iggles didn't blitz him in the second quarter even once, and he was still making completions to move the ball, that dumbass interception returned by Asante Samuel notwithstanding. They resumed blitzing in the second half, and he fell apart, but that doesn't erase what he did earlier in the game or in the games in December that got the Vikings here. It's just that the Eagles made some adjustments, and with the stakes raised and the opponent bearing down, Jackson couldn't rise to the occasion. However, he ain't to blame for the defense failing to stop Brian Westbrook on that screen pass, or for Matt Birk not snapping so much as rolling that ball on the neck-breaking fumble. In close games between good, evenly matched teams, those moments cost games and end seasons as much as any one dud of a performance.
Some say Jackson's a failure. I won't say so ... yet. That he peed a little down his leg should be no different from the performance Offensive Rookie of the Year Matt Ryan turned in in the Falcons' loss to the Cardinals on Saturday. Besides, if you blow up the QB spot, who the hell are you going to get? And if you start with a rook, do you think he'll develop in time before the Williams Wall and Jared Allen and even Chester Taylor and Adrian Peterson have to be removed from this team? What makes y'all think we wouldn't be in the same position again if we got, say, Mark Sanchez? Is going through this shit again with a quarterback you haven't grown to hate yet good enough for you?
Oh, the questions. ...
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