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By The Jazzy One on December 15th, 2009
 This week’s player of the game was an easy pick for me.
For 5 1/2 games the Vikings have been without starting cornerback Antoine Winfield, and I think the intensity of the defense was on a steady decline. Luckily for the Vikings, there were only 2 tough teams in that stretch, one being Green Bay who was the first full game without Winfield (who the Vikings played fine against), the other being week 13 against the Cardinals in a game that the defense looked lost and scared against.
Winfield showed in one game back how he is a leader on the defense.
It was obvious in his actions. Winfield led the team with 9 tackles, he forced a fumble, and he broke up several passing plays. My favorite thing about watching Winfield play is that even though he may be the smallest defender on the field, he makes the loudest hits. It seems like every time he makes a tackle you can hear the crack of the pads and helmets.
That intensity is contagious, too. The Vikings defense was a completely different squad out there for the week 14 game than they were during the week 13 game in Arizona.
Winfield is probably one of the best corners in the league, and he didn’t hesitate to prove it during Sunday’s game.
By The Jazzy One on December 1st, 2009
For the third time this year, I’m naming Percy Harvin as The Viking Ship Player of the game. Not bad for a rookie, eh?
Lots of Vikings had great games (again). Brett Favre could’ve easily been picked, as could Jared Allen for having yet another multiple sack game, but this week I really felt like Percy Harvin stood out as a playmaker.
For one, he got the first 100+ yard receiving game of his career, racking up a total of 101 yards on 6 catches, including a 31 yard catch and a touchdown.
Secondly, he had an impact in the running game as well, taking 1 run for 10 yards, and another for 35 yards for a total of 45 yards rushing.
If Harvin doesn’t win Rookie of the Year, it’s a crime.
What’s great is that since they’re young. we should be cheering for Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin, and Sidney Rice for quite some time as Vikings fans!
By The Jazzy One on November 24th, 2009
Okay, I know this is going to sound lazy, but I promise it’s not!
But after watching Sunday’s game… the first truly complete game played by the Vikings, I can’t pick a player of the game.
The Minnesota Vikings are a team that is incredibly stacked with talented football players, pretty much from top to bottom, but so far, they’ve had trouble putting 4 quarters of play together all in the same week. Obviously, with a 9-1 record, they’ve played well when it was necessary, but this is a team that trailed the Browns and the Lions at half time in the first two weeks of the season. It’s a team that needed a last second TD pass to put away San Francisco. It’s a team that gave up a ton of passing yards to a backup quarterback of a winless team when they played St Louis. It’s a team that led the Ravens big, but almost blew it and had to rely on a missed field goal by their kicker to leave with a victory. It’s a team that last week against the Lions, even though they won big, they looked sloppy doing it.
But this week all that changed. This week was a solid performance from top to bottom.
That’s why I have to give the Player(s) of the Game nod to the entire team.
Here are some reasons why.
-The team led a complete offensive attack, gaining 160 yards on the ground and 271 yards through the air
-The rushing attack was a team effort with 82 yards from Adrian Peterson and 73 yards from Chester Taylor
-Brett Favre completed 88% of his passes, and Tarvaris Jackson completed 75% of his.
-Both quarterbacks threw TD passes, Favre with 4 and Jackson with 1.
-4 different receivers caught touchdowns: Rice, Berrian, Shiancoe, and Harvin
-3 receivers had over 70 yards in receptions: Rice (89), Harvin (79), and Shiancoe (78)
-7 different receivers caught a pass
-4 receivers caught 4 or more passes: Peterson (4), Harvin (5), Rice (6), Shiancoe (8)
-The team was a perfect 3/3 from the red zone
-The team had no turnovers
-The team was 61% on 3rd downs
-The team had 28 first downs
-The offense held onto the ball for over 42 minutes
-Longwell went 5/5 kicking
-14 defenders made tackles
-8 defenders made multiple tackles
-The Vikings had 2 sacks from non-linemen: Henderson and Abdullah
-The defense held Seattle to 212 net yards
-The defense held Seattle to 4 rushing yards
-The defense held Seattle to 10 first downs
-The defense held Seattle to a 10% third down efficiency
-Seattle fumbled the ball 4 times against the defense (the Vikings recovered 1)
-Only 4 Seattle receivers were allowed catches.
This game was a pleasure to watch from start to finish. I’m always proud to be a Vikings fan, but this game reminded me why.
By The Jazzy One on November 17th, 2009
Even though the Vikings game was a little sloppier than we’ve gotten used to so far this year, there were still a lot of stand out performances by Minnesota players. As usual, I want to start out mentioning the guys that didn’t get picked as player of the week, but easily could have.
Ray Edwards played the best game I’ve ever seen him play. He was all over the field, getting two sacks, 5 tackles, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery, and according to Brad Childress he should’ve had another forced fumble and sack on the play that he got the helmet-to-helmet penalty. Great game by Edwards.
Adrian Peterson had a great game, too. 133 yards, plus 10 yards receiving. He had a couple monster runs. He had two touchdowns, and if it wasn’t for an untimely fumble (which coach Childress thinks should’ve been a horse collar tackle instead), he would’ve had 3.
Brett Favre also had a big day. 344 yards passing, 20 for 29, 1 TD, no interceptions, and a 120.5 QB rating.
But this week’s player of the game has to be…
The Week 10 Viking Ship Player of the Game: Sidney Rice
Sidney Rice has been incredible all year, but Sunday he was playing lights-out football. The man seemed to be open at all the right times, and he seemed to catch anything thrown within a 4 mile radius of him. He finished the game with 201 yards, which is just 10 yards shy of being holding the Vikings all time single game receiving record.
His performance on Sunday put him at #4 in receiving yards in the NFL, and #1 in the NFC.
He has really become the type of receiver that Favre knows he can always count on, so I assume we’ll be seeing more big games through out this year.
By The Jazzy One on November 3rd, 2009
Minnesota Vikings player of the game: Percy Harvin
It’s Tuesday, and the Vikings won their game, so it’s time again to pick a Player of the Game.
As usual, it was a tough pick. Brett Favre had a good game, throwing 4 touchdowns and no interceptions. Jared Allen had another great game with 3 sacks. Those two were the co-players-of-the-game last time the Vikings played the Packers, and they easily could’ve been again this time.
But I think this time I have to give the nod to Percy Harvin.
5 catches for 84 yards and a touchdown.
5 kickoff returns for an average of 35 yards.
This kid is a dynamic player, and he’s only a rookie. It’s just going to get better from here.
His speed on kick returns is amazing, and if he can ever learn to get through a return without stumbling at some point, he’ll be a threat to return one every game! I love watching him return kicks, because there’s no hesitation, and not much dancing around. He figures out where he wants to go, and he gets there as fast as he can. If he gets a clear path, there aren’t many guys in the league that stand a chance at catching him.
He’s already a receiving threat, too… just 8 games into his NFL career. His speed makes him a potential deep threat, but what makes him even more dangerous is his ability to run after the catch.
All of these talents were out in full force Sunday in Green Bay. He had a 51 yard touchdown catch where he went up for the ball in the middle of the field with 3 guys around him. When he realized that those three guys took out each other, he pressed the turbo button and hauled it into the endzone. He had a kickoff return of 77 yards that would’ve went into the endzone if he could’ve regained his balance after someone made an attempted tackle. The bright side is, when Percy Harvin stumbles up the field, he stumbles faster than a lot of guys can run, and he usually gets several more yards out of it than most guys would.
Percy Harvin has already become the kind of player that makes fans think “I can’t wait to see what he’ll do next”.
It’s amazing that we have a couple of those players already on the team!
By The Jazzy One on October 20th, 2009
Most of the time it’s been difficult for me to pick a player of the game. So far the team has really been playing well as a unit, and there hasn’t been guys that have really stood high above the rest. Even when someone has stuck out a little, it seems like more than one person did, and I had to try to choose between those people. One week it was so close, I couldn’t even choose… I had to have two players-of-the-game.
This week, assuming I wasn’t going to name Baltimore Kicker Steven Hauschka the player of the game (since his miss did win the game for the Vikings), my choice was much easier.
My Minnesota Vikings week 6 player of the game: Sidney Rice.
Sidney Rice has been a player I’ve expected to play well since the day he was drafted. He has the size, the hands, and the route running ability to be a very solid receiver in this league. Possibly even Pro-Bowl level some day.
In his first two years in the league, injuries and the lack of a good quarterback have held him down.
So far this year, he hasn’t faced any of those hurdles.
In Sunday’s game against Baltimore, Sidney Rice caught 6 passes for 176 yards. He didn’t have any touchdowns, but he had some huge catches, including a 63 yard catch that set up the game winning field goal. Despite the fact that Favre went to 7 different receivers in the game, Rice accounted for 63% of Favre’s passing yards, meaning he had more yards than the other 6 Minnesota pass catchers combined. Rice’s 176 yards actually led the NFL in week 6.
Sidney has really stepped up his game. I’m sure it helps that he’s one of Favre’s favorite targets, but the flip side of that is that I’m sure he’s one of Favre’s favorite targets because he’s really become a great receiver. He currently leads the team in catches with 23 (one above Berrian at 22), he leads the team in receiving yards with 409 (Harvin is 2nd with 243) he’s second on the team in yards-per-catch with 17.8 (the only person above him is Greg Lewis, who has only caught 1 pass for 32 yards), he currently has the longest catch of the year with a 63 yard catch, and he’s tied for 2nd in touchdown receptions with 2 (tied with Berrian and Harvin, Shiancoe leads with an amazing 5 touchdowns after 6 games).
Sidney Rice already has more yards after 6 games this year than he had in either of his first two seasons. In fact, Rice had more yards this past Sunday than he did all of last year. As soon as he gets another 128 yards this season, he’ll have more yards than his first two years combined. He had 8 career touchdowns coming into this season, with 4 in each year. If he catches 3 more over the course of the next 10 games, he’ll have a career high year in touchdown catches as well. If he catches 6 more over the next 10 games, he’ll have doubled his career touchdowns.
By The Jazzy One on October 13th, 2009
After watching the week 5 game when the Vikings crushed the St Louis Rams, I really left the game feeling like it was a team effort all around. I mean, Favre had a good solid game, with a good percentage, and good yards, but nothing unbelievable. Peterson averaged well over 4 yards a carry, but only carried 15 times for 69 yards. Sidney Rice, Percy Harvin, Bernard Berrian, Chester Taylor, Visanthe Shiancoe… they all contributed heavily in the passing game…. none really above the others.
In all honesty, it’s fun to watch one player dominate… it’s fun to watch Jared Allen get 4.5 sacks. It’s fun to watch Favre throw for over 300 yards, including a game winner with 2 seconds left. It’s fun to watch Adrian Peterson run for 180 yards, but if I had to choose between a stand out performance and an all around team effort, I’d probably pick the team effort every time. If a team can win 38-10 without anyone standing out too much, that means they’re probably a really good football team, and they’re going to win a lot of games.
Unfortunately for me, that makes it really hard to choose my player of the game, though.
But, alas, yon Vikings Fans, I have choseth.
This week’s player of the game is Jared Allen.
Yeah yeah, he was the co-player of the game last week, and yeah yeah, he’s following up a 4.5 sack game with a ZERO sack game…
…but the man showed that he’s a good all around football player, and he can make things happen.
He’s a defensive end who scored a 52 yard TD, for crying out loud!
He had 2 fumble recoveries.
Even though he didn’t get a sack, he was in the backfield harassing Boller.
“Jared Allen’s a beast, man. That guy’s good.”
Not only was he good on Sunday, he definitely had the quote of the day:
“We think we’re a good football team,” Allen said. “The worst we can finish now is 5-11.”
Jared Allen
By The Jazzy One on October 6th, 2009
It’s really been my goal ever since I started blogging to choose ONE player of the game every time the Vikings win. After the first three games I mentioned how it was tough to choose one, but each time I was still able to do so.
This week I can’t.
This week, we are going to have two.
But, as is the norm for these posts, before I talk about the player (uh… I mean players) of the game, I want to talk about some honorable mentions.
First of all, the whole offensive line needs to be mentioned. While it’s true that they didn’t really open many holes for Adrian Peterson (except on the short TD run… that hole was HUGE), they did a tremendous job at blocking for Favre. The same line that allowed Favre to be hit time and time again during the first 3 games didn’t allow a single sack this week. On one play, Favre even had 7.3 seconds to throw, which is an eternity… and he STILL didn’t get hit.
Then there’s Antoine Winfield. The guy had 9 tackles last night, plus an interception, plus he was a big part of stopping the run, particularly on the series that led to the safety.
And there’s Sidney Rice. 5 catches, 70 yards, a TD, and TWO very important recoveries of back to back onside kicks from the Packers.
 But the nod this week has to go to Brett Favre and Jared Allen.
First of all there’s Favre. 95% of the hype surrounding this game was because of Favre. He could’ve came out and disappointed. He could’ve came out and tried stupid things that led to turnovers. He could’ve just plain stunk.
Instead he came out and passed for a 77% completion percentage, 271 yards, 3 TDs (to three different receivers), and no interceptions. He answered a lot of questions that Vikings fans had about him, namely about his ability to carry the team if Adrian Peterson wasn’t producing. Favre kept the offense moving, and he made just about every kind of throw that you can ask your quarterback to make.
Then there’s Jared Allen. To quote Brett Favre, “Jared Allen is a beast.” Allen got the luxury of not playing against the Packers starting left tackle, and he took full advantage of it. He chalked up a career high 4.5 sacks, including one for a safety, and one where he caused a fumble. He had 6 tackles and 1 assisted tackle. He chased down Rogers all night long. He helped stop the run. He hit receivers after they caught the ball. He was all over the field. He was half a sack away from tying the Vikings all time single game sack record… and when you’re half a sack away, that means you got to the QB the same number of times. (It just so happens that Brian Robison is pretty darn good from the other end, and got to Rogers at the same time as Allen once).
Both of them played amazingly well, and I think both of them contributed very heavily to the Vikings win!
By The Jazzy One on September 29th, 2009
This week, The Viking Ship Player of the Game is probably pretty obvious. I mean, Percy Harvin was trying to get his 2nd nod in three weeks, but the final drive from Brett Favre has to take the cake.
Favre’s accuracy took a hit this week, completing 24 for 46, but his production went way up. In throwing for 301 yards, Brett became the first quarterback since Brad Childress took over to throw for 300 yards in a game.
In fact, the last time Minnesota had a quarterback throw for 300 yards was Week 3 of 2005 when Daunte Culpepper threw for exactly 300 against the New Orleans Saints. The last time a Viking threw for more yards than Brett did on Sunday was week 15 of 2004 when Culpepper threw for 404 yards in a 28-27 win over Detroit.
As for the last second heroics, it’s been a LONG time since the Vikings have seen anything like that happen FOR their team rather than TO them.
In the last couple of weeks, fans have criticized Brett for the low number of passing yards, saying either Tarvaris or Sage could’ve done that.
Neither Tarvaris or Sage would’ve successfully pulled off that last second win. The Vikings have looked pathetic while behind in final minutes for a long time. They’ve pulled off a few last second field goals here and there, but when in need of a touchdown, the team has fallen apart for a long time.
In fact, ever since Brad Childress has come aboard, it seems that there has been no preparation for the “2 minute drill” at all. Even veterans like Gus Frerotte and Brad Childress have looked clueless when called upon to mount a 2 minute scoring drive.
Even if Brett doesn’t put up monster numbers in Minnesota this year, it’s his ability to make the last minute comeback that fills in huge gaps in the Minnesota quiver.
He proved that Sunday, and that’s why he’s this week’s player of the game!
By The Jazzy One on September 22nd, 2009
Week 2 once again provided me with a tough choice as to who to pick as player of the game. Percy Harvin had another good game, showing that even though he looks small when he’s on the field next to guys like Favre, Peterson, Shiancoe, Loadholt, and McKinney, he plays like he’s one of the biggest ones.
I also could’ve given the nod to Bernard Berrian, who although didn’t make any of the long catches like he is known for, he did have six grabs during the game.
Or it could’ve went to Ray Edwards, who has really stepped up his game to match the level of his line-mates. Edwards had 7 tackles and a sack.
But I have to give the title of Player of the Game to Chad Greenway.
Greenway didn’t lead the team in tackles this game. In fact, he only had 3. But Greenway was all over the field disrupting plays. He had two interceptions, returned for a total of 49 yards. He also recovered a fumble. He was a constant presence for the defense all day long.
Greenway is turning into such a solid linebacker. If the rest of the NFL fans start to realize what Vikings fans already know, the Vikings should be sending TWO linebackers to their first Pro Bowl this year, and Chad Greenway showed on Sunday why he is one of those two guys.
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