Football!

I should probably put down some thoughts on the season, what with the opening game tonight.

I didn't have high hopes for the Vikings this year but I'm a bit more optimistic now than I was. Basically I've moved from thinking they're a five win team to thinking that they could be good for nine or ten wins. Why?

• The coaching changes. Childress never impressed. The players never seemed to respect him. He never sparkled in game planning. Frazier has a much better relationship with the team and he has a pretty good reputation for football smarts.
• Offensive line coaching. For the past few years they've relied on something called 'zone blocking'. Now they're going back to a more traditional approach. Adrian Peterson has seen holes to run through in the preseason. This is new and unusual. It might turn things around.
• Lots of youth on defense. This can be a double edged sword of course. With youth you get mistakes. But you also get speed. And the secondary in particular has tons of room for improvement.
• McNabb. He looks like he has something left in the tank. It won't take much to improve over Favre's play last year and I think he can easily do it.
  
• It's a new year. I will submit that the only team to have a more cursed year than the 2010 Vikings was the post Katrina Saints. Short of a meteor strike, they can't have more bad luck this year.

Of course I could be very wrong. The depth on the offensive line is thin. The injury bug could hit them hard again. Lightning could hit the team plane. And the rest of the division could have gotten better than they did.
Anyway, Sunday afternoon will give us some answers!