MinnesotaSportsScene.com

Even the best diet pill in the world won’t be enough to keep the purple and gold at bay tonight in Green Bay; with the early season match-up, there really is no weather advantage for the Packers tonight.

So unless there’s a huge windstorm or rain or something, tonight will be a match-up of talent, pure and simple. While Green Bay may have an edge on linebackers and receivers, it’s hard to imagine the Vikings not having the edge at every other position, or close to it.

All X-factors being equal, I’d say tonight the Vikings will win, but it’ll be close. Look for it to be in the neighborhood of a 31-27 Vikings win.

I’m itching for the start of the Vikings-Packers game tonight and one of the biggest questions on my mind is whether Adrian Peterson can be great again this year. Certainly, despite missing four games last season, he has already established himself as possibly one of the best runners ever to wear the purple and gold.

The question is, can he avoid the sophomore slump? Can he improve on what he did last season? With the healing that’s gone on in his knee in the off-season, I’d venture to say it’s possible, even plausible. Only time will tell and kickoff’s in about 12 hours. No time left for those Caribbean cruises. It’s football time, baby!

Cancel the reservations for Las Vegas hotels, the party this Monday Night is on the gridiron! The Minnesota Vikings will open their season tonight against the Green Bay Packers, and for the first time in 16 seasons, the Pack will be without Brett Favre under center.

Since the Vikings have a refurbished pass rush threat with NFL sack leader Jared Allen on the same D-line as the Williams Wall, the purple certainly aren’t going to make the debut of Favre’s successor, Aaron Rodgers, an easy night.

Right now, Tavaris Jackson has more game experience and more wins on his belt that Rodgers as a pro, and with Adrian Peterson in the backfield for the Vikes, and Bernard Berrian competently catching passes, it’s our hope that tonight’s game will be a blow-out favoring the purple.

Of course, historically the series has usually been close; but we’re entering a new era, and on paper, the Vikes look solid for the win. Of course, the X-Factor in all of this is the Green Bay defense, which tried to end Adrian Peterson’s career last season and will likely be cheap-shot artists again tonight, which is why we chose our nickname for them: Murderer’s Row.

Somehow, though, I have a feeling the Green Bay Assassins will miss their target tonight.

Minnesota Vikings starting quarterback Tavaris Jackson suffered a sprained right knee against the Baltimore Ravens in pre-season action on Saturday. The injury is to the medial collateral ligament and is expected to keep the signal-called out of action for the remainder of the pre-season.

The Vikings are eying a return in time for the regular season debut against Green Bay on September 8. That takes golf balls! While the wound is not expected to be serious, you can bet opposing defenses will be looking to test Jackson’s knee throughout the season.

It’s only the first pre-season game - the kind that aren’t supposed to count for much except evaluating talent of those who are not obvious starters. Just the same, the Vikings lost to Seattle on Friday 17-34, and to add insult to injury, the team lost two players for the season, LB Heath Farwell and DE Jayme Mitchell.

Both injuries happened early in the game and so both are players who were likely to make the Vikings roster this fall; the Vikes have indicated that Farwell will be replaced from among those players already in camp, while Mitchell’s replacement may require the Vikes to go scouting the cut lists of other teams in the league as the preseason moves forward.

Although the Vikings traded for last year’s NFL sack leader, Jared Allen, in the offseason, depth behind him and on the other side of the D-line is questionable, so Mitchell’s injury status is particularly unwelcome news. Kind of like someone telling you that instead of a prime rib dinner, they’re serving you a round of diet pills.

I’m sorry, I know he’s a first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback, but the Minnesota Vikings is the last place I want to see Brett Favre suiting up in his condo hotel to come out of retirement. After sixteen years, Favre is too much “the enemy,” and I’d rather see the Vikes take their chances with a young, high-potential guy like T-Jack and bring in Favre for a season or two and really screw up the kid’s development.

It’s simply not worth it. Not in the least.

As it turns out, Brett Favre doesn’t want to retire after all; he just doesn’t want to be a Packer anymore. Rather than checking out his Medicare advantage, Favre wants to have at least one more go at it with a team that’s on QB away from a Super Bowl ring.

Some folks, down on T-Jack, say Minnesota is the team that best fits that description. But as a long-time Viking fan, I say no way. Minnesotans have spent too long hating Favre to ever welcome him to the purple and gold locker room. It’s just too much to ask.

Also, there’s the fact that Favre isn’t the 28-year-old world-beater he once was; he’s nearly out of his thirties and had a couple really bad years before bouncing back last season to have, well, a season that didn’t quite stink.

Even though the Pack was one drive away from a Super Bowl, it wasn’t because Favre had an awesome year, particularly. It’s that he had a year in which he wasn’t losing games for them, like he had the past couple years.

The odds of Favre being effective with a new team on a one-year contract are slim and none. And Slim, this is None saying keep Brett Favre out of Winter Park!

The huge trade that brought Kansas City DE Jared Allen to the Minnesota Vikings made losing that first and two third-round draft picks far less critical. If Allen can stay clean and model his Vikings career after Cris Carter, who also came to the team with substance abuse problems and turned his life and career around, then he could add that last missing element to Minnesota’s defense that makes the difference between 8-8 seasons and missing the playoffs, versus a playoff-bound team.

Fans of the Vikings will certainly now have a new weapon to enjoy when playing Madden 09 on their PS3; Allen led the NFL in sacks last season with 15.5, more than the Vikings’ entire defensive line accumulated last season.

I’ve been thinking about how some sports bloggers get invited to do local radio interviews and the like, and why I always seem to be left out of the fun. Granted, my blogs are relatively new - haven’t been around for a decade or more like some folks - but still, it’d be nice to be prepared if that day ever comes, y’know?

So, I recently had a chance to try out LogoYes.com and try my hand at creating some branding for myself. I kind of like the results. Using LogoYes.com’s logo design and business card creation tool, it was quick and simple to get the elements of my logo together and start fiddling around with them until I found a look I like. (I did the same thing recently over at ProWrestlingViews.com, with terrific results.

What I like about their tools is that there’s plenty of clip art, a decent amount of flexibility, and so the limits, really, are more about creativity than anything else. I was able to get a look I like put together in about 15 minutes or so, and I like that I was able to incorporate both Vikings purple and Gophers maroon into the gold card design that both teams share in common; gives the card a real “MinnesotaSportsScene” look, which is what branding is all about.

If I had had the money to invest, I would have ordered a set of 100 on the spot.

It appears the Minnesota Vikings may be close to securing a trade for Kansas City DE and NFL sack leader Jared Allen. Allen, who’s not happy in KC, is seeking a contract in excess of $70 million over six years.

For the Chiefs part, while they’d like to retain Allen, they’d be willing to give him up for a first-round and second-round pair of picks in this year’s NFL Draft, scheduled for next weekend. For their part, the Vikes are offering first and third round picks.

Allen would be a genuine upgrade to the defensive line, but he comes with baggage; he is one strike away from being banned for an entire season for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy, which makes him a huge risk; it also would add a player of questionable character to a team that has worked hard since Zygi Wilf bought the team and hired Brad Children as his heach coach enforcer, to steer clear of controversy.

I don’t mind giving up a first and third if Allen stays clean; but it would be a huge price to pay if he never even makes it to camp before screwing up. I’d favor a deal that has at least one of the picks be a conditional pick in next year’s draft. Say, perhaps, if Allen stays out of trouble, it becomes a second-round pick, but if he screws up and gets suspended within his first season as a Viking, the pick gets downgraded to a third-round pick.

Heck, toss in a Branson golf package either way for KC coach Herm Edwards and maybe we can get this deal done.

While the Vikings’ recent signing of DT Kendrick Allen, as a backup to the aging but effective Pat Williams, is a solid move, one might hope that their first defensive lineman of the 2008 free agent period might have beena potential starting end, not a backup tackle.

Of course, Allen’s not a condo hotel type of signing; he’s more of a Red Roof Inn sort of prospect. He’s a solid but not spectacular performer who will be good in relief of Williams and has the potential to develop further.

Starting only three of 31 career games, the big advantage Allen brings is that he’s not likely to be demanding a starting position that would break up the Willaims wall. That, in and of itself, makes him a decent fit for his role on next year’s Viking squad.

With no Vikings currently residing in drug treatment centers, it appears Zygi Wilf’s efforts to clean up the team’s image has been bearing fruit. Now that character is being managed, it’s time to consider the question of talent.

One potential weakness is at quarterback. Despite a decent record as a starter, QB Tavaris Jackson is still a question mark as a starter for the Vikings, carrying around an abyssmal passer rating, even though he improved during the team’s five-game winning stretch. The question is, can he improve enough to give an Adrian Peterson-fueled team the firepower it needs to win in the five-to-seven year window that Peterson’s career is likely to provide when it comes to going deep in the playoffs and make a Super Bowl.

Probably the most established name still out there is QB Byron Leftwich, formerly of the Jacksonville Jaguars, most recently of the Atlanta Falcons. Leftwich has shortcomings but is considerably more experienced and could be a proficient enough caretaker to make plays and keep the team from losing off his own mistakes; but Leftwich wants to be an immediate starter, not a number two, and is certain to demand a meaty contract that would be substantial enough to force the team to give up on T-Jack altogether.

Probably not a direction the Vikings are ready to go just yet; look for them to draft a project QB in the middle rounds, perhaps late on Day One.