The WGOM

The Minnesota Vikings have announced that they will switch leagues to the Arena Football League. Owner Ziggy announced the move, saying that he was excited to move the Vikings into a league more commensurate with the Vikings tradition. After years of playing inside an arena and a couple of years playing at the Arena level of talent, the Vikings made the move official. Ziggy is hoping to meet Jon Bon Jovi and maybe even John Elway.

Brad Childress declined comment.

The Vikings situation is so bad right now, that Top Jimmy writes a column suggesting that the Gophers have a chance to overtake the Vikings as the most popular football team in town. You know the Gophers -- that team that just fired its coach after the biggest collapse in a bowl game ever.

I believe TJ is exaggerating just a little for effect, but make no mistake, these are bad days at Winter Park.

I've written a few times about how the NFL is really unfair in how it treats player "contracts". By not guaranteeing the contracts the players are bound but the team is not. Here's another Christmas moment courtesy of your Minnesota Vikings. Fred Smoot will not be paid for the last game of the season because of his recent car accident

ESPN.COM:

Jackson [Mississippi] Police Cmdr. Lee Vance said Wednesday that the crash occurred early Saturday morning on Interstate 55. He said Smoot was in the back seat of a 2007 Rolls-Royce when the 26-year-old driver, Percy Donalson, lost control and struck a guardrail. The car was towed from the scene.

Smoot's agent, Bus Cook, said his client was out of the hospital and should be ready to resume football activities after recovery time of at least one month. According to Cook, Donalson lost control while trying to avoid another vehicle that had swerved in front of them.

So let's get this straight. Smoot was riding in a car being driven by someone else. Someone who may have been hired (although we don't know that). The driver swerves to miss an oncoming car and crashes into a guard rail. Smoot has his jaw broken. From what I can tell, Smoot has done nothing wrong here. You might remember that Smoot's brother was killed in a car crash about a month or two ago. So, I would imagine that in the aftermath of that tragedy and this incident, he's got to be pretty shook up.

Say what you want about Smoot, but this is a tough deal for him. The Vikings respond with their usual charity.

[Smoot] was placed on the non-football injury reserve list, which means the Vikings (6-9) won't pay him for the final week.

How much are the Vikings stiffing Smoot? Well, his base salary is $800,000, so it looks like they are saving a measly $50,000 by not paying him this week.

THE VIKINGS SUCK.

Brad Childress has named Tarvaris Jackson the starter for Thursday's game. Two weeks too late. Now that the Vikings are all but completely out of the playoffs (a totally predictable outcome two weeks ago) someone tell me what good it did to beat the Lions last week? Or more accurately, what good did it do to play Brad Johnson in that game? Tarvaris probably could have beat them too.

This is the right move. The Vikings need to learn about this kid. Nothing against Brad Johnson. He seems like a good guy. But, the Vikings should have gone out and gotten a quality quarterback in the off season. Some guy named Drew Brees was available. Johnson could have been a good backup.

No matter, we're going to find out about Jackson.

The Vikings have not only pretty played their way out of playoff contention in a ridiculously weak NFC, but they've committed the cardinal sin of being boring. This was entirely predictable, because they went into the season with a backup quarterback at the helm. I hate to say I told you so. Well, actually I don't hate to say it.

Last year, on November 25, 2005, I wrote the following in response to a Bob Sansevere column in which BS shoveled the crap that the Vikings were better off with Brad Johnson:

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with the play of Culpepper this year. He’s struggled, just as the whole team has struggled. Further, I don’t mean to disparage Johnson. He’s a good backup quarterback — someone who can go in and keep the team from completely falling apart. But, he’s not a better answer for the Vikings. Anyone who thinks so isn’t looking closely enough.

To start, Johnson has beaten two awful teams and was the beneficiary of a miracle. The three games that the Vikings have won since Culpepper got hurt are a combined 13-18. And that includes seven wins that the Giants, the victim of the Miracle at the Meadowlands, have. To suggest that Culpepper couldn’t have won the games against Detroit and Green Bay is assinine. To suggest that Johnson had anything to do with the win over the Giants is disingenuous.

The five games that the Vikings have lost were against teams that are a combined 35-16. How many of these games would Johnson have won had he been the quarterback? Zero. We saw his performance against Carolina. When the game was on the line, he did nothing. We saw his performance in the first half against the Giants. Six total yards. The Giants fumbled the opening kickoff and the Vikings recovered at the Giants 27. Zero points. Sharper intercepts and puts the Vikings on the Giants’ 17 yard line. Zero points.

BS continues:

[Vikings players] know no matter how poorly the offense has played earlier in a game, they still have a chance to win in the final moments [with Johnson].

Do you think Johnson beats Cincy? The Bengals scored on their opening drive. The Vikings fumbled and the Bengals scored again. The Bengals scored and scored and scored. 27-0 at halftime. Let’s see Johnson win that game in the final moments. He certainly didn’t win against Carolina in the final moments either. Let’s see how efficient and how much confidence he instills in his team when he’s down four touchdowns.

This weekend, a 4-6 Cleveland team comes to town. This is a team that Daunte beats, too. The Vikings should win this game. I suppose that we’ll hear more about Johnson if they do. The Vikings play three more crappy teams: St. Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit. If the Vikings win these games, they’ll be 9-7 (the other games are Pittsburgh and Chicago, both at home). At 9-7, there’s very little doubt in my mind that a large number of people will be saying that the Vikings should give up on Daunte. I happen to think that the jury is out, but only because of the severity of his injury. Despite his struggles, I believe he’s still an elite quarterback in this league, or at least he was, prior to his devastating injury.

Here’s my take. The BS column has a sniff of racism. He implies that Johnson has got a cooler head and that he gets less flustered than Daunte. He states that Johnson reads defenses better. He admits that Culpepper is a better athlete, but the Vikings are better with Johnson, who can’t generate half the offense that Culpepper can because… [whisper] Daunte’s black. [/whisper]

If you think that’s ridiculous, well it’s no more ridiculous than his suggestion that the Vikings are better off with Johnson.

On December 18, 2005, I wrote:

In eight quarters as a starter, the Brad Johnson-led Vikings have scored a grand total of six points against the two good teams that they’ve played. This time, the defense and the special teams didn’t provide 21 points and the Vikings got crushed. The thing that just puts the lie to the whole “we’re better off with Brad” meme is that Johnson threw two interceptions in the red zone. The Vikings made four trips inside the 20, and were inside the five with a first down twice — and scored 3 points. The three points came on a four play drive that netted one yard. And just like that, the least impressive six game winning streak in NFL history ended with a thud.

The Vikings won a fluke game against the Giants and won five games against teams that are now a combined 20-48 (pending the outcome of Green Bay’s game). Against a good team like the Steelers, the Vikings didn’t have a chance because they have an offense that can’t score against good teams, and that includes a quarterback that, as a starter, makes a heckuva backup.
Daunte Culpepper’s involvement in the Love Boat scandal is a huge embarassment for the franchise. It’s unclear to me whether he’ll ever play for the Vikings again, given that situation and the severity of his injury. But, his conduct on the boat aside, there’s no way that the Vikings are better off with Brad Johnson as opposed to a healthy Daunte Culpepper.

And to think that the mainstream media in this town before the season were saying that Johnson should be given a raise. I'm just a doofus with Internet access and even I knew better.