MinnesotaSportsScene.com

The next six games will determine which team will advance to the playoffs and which two teams will be sitting at home in January, wishing. The Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears are all 5-5 after Sunday’s games, which saw the Packers disrupt the Bears, 37-3, while Minnesota lost a tough-fought game to Tampa Bay, 19-13.

Of the three teams in the hunt, Minnesota has the most challenging schedule ahead of them; their last six opponents combined for a 31-29 record, including a season finale against the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants, currently 9-1.

By contrast, Chicago’s last six opponents have a 24-36 record this season, and face Houston (3-7) in their final game, while Green Bay’s last six have a 25-35 record and the Pack will host Detroit (0-10) in their season-finale… at Lambeau Field.

Whichever of these three finish strongest will go on to the playoffs; it’s unlikely one of the wild card teams will come from a division with such mediocre records. So that’s the challenge for Purple Pride: win enough to take the division, or spend January at home.

Is that a strong enough pitch to land me some jobs in marketing? Probably not.

Whether Brad Childress, whose tenure with the Vikings is on a pulse oximeter, gets to finish out this season as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, or becomes the next coach to be fired mid-season, is a tale that may be told over the next three games. Currently a very disappointing 1-3, the Vikings face crucial opponents, starting tonight.

First, on Monday Night Football tonight, the Vikes will have a showdown with the New Orleans Saints, a game they ought to win. After that, there will be key division match-ups against NFC North foes Detroit and Chicago.

If Childress secures all three wins, he’ll survive the season, at least, leading the Vikings into their bye week with a 4-3 record. He’ll probably survive if he drops one of those games.

However, if Childress loses two of the next three games, or worse, loses all three, we may see a coaching change going into the bye week. And it will be long overdue.

If owner Zygi Wilf does decide to release Childress during the bye, look for assistant head coach and defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier to be named to the interim spot, with a strong chance to retain the job once the season’s over, if he can turn things around. If Frazier can’t turn things around, expect Wilf to clean house and start over fresh in January.

You heard it here first.

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.

Former Minnesota Vikings quarterback typed up his own retirement announcement and withdrew from his NFL career on Thursday, mere hours before the new season kicked off with a Thursday night game. As has been typical of his career since just before leaving Minnesota, Culpepper blamed everyone but himself.

“It seems that the stance I took in both Minnesota and Miami regarding my rights as a person and player has followed me into free agency,” Culpepper said. ” … Since I was not given a fair chance to come in and compete for a job, I would rather move on and win in other arenas of life.”

There were juicy backup jobs Culpepper could have had in either Green Bay or Pittsburgh, had he been willing to accept league minimum and a backup role; but because he chose to act as his own agent, he had no one to advise him to take the spot and rebuild his career.

Instead, Culpepper’s days in the NFL end at the age of 31, with him never really proving himself following the career split with the Vikings and Randy Moss. Time for the disposable diapers to be put in storage at NFLPA HQ.

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.

The Minnesota Vikings are still looking for help at defensive end. Almost a month into free agency, and one of the team’s top three glaring needs remains unaddressed. Although the weakness at wide receiver was strengthened with the signing of Bernard Berrian and the depth at safety was helped by the recent signing of Michael Boulware, as well as Madieu Williams earlier in free agency, the team still has not yet signed a defensive end.

In part, it was the team’s emphasis on these other positions that led to the oversight at DE. The top four or five free agent prospects signed before ever visiting Minnesota, primarily because Zygi Wilf’s private jet was too busy being a one-way ferry service for Williams and Berrian.

It appears that Vikings management may have to stock up on self defense products and hope that they can address their DE deficiency through the draft and post-draft roster cuts.

Green Bay Packers quarterback shocked some on Tuesday when he announced this retirement after an 18-year career that included 17 years with the Pack. While he set a lot of records during his tenure in Green Bay, and will almost certainly be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, I still insist that he’s overrated in some ways.

Hailed by many, in the wake of his retirement, as one of the best to ever play the game, Favre actually ranks nowhere near the top of my all-time list, for the simple reason of his Super Bowl record. Despite an 18-year career with a lot of solid Packer squads backing him up, Favre managed to travel to only two SuperBowls and only won one of those. While that puts Favre one SuperBowl win ahead of Dan Marino, it puts him one SuperBowl win (and several appearances) behind John Elway

The best two quarterbacks to ever play the game since the invention of the SuperBowl have been Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw. Both went to four SuperBowls each, and both were undefeated in the big game. Current Patriots QB Tom Brady ranks right up there, also, with four trips and a 3-1 record so far in the championship game.

Favre may have a lot of stats and definitely deserves plenty of accolades; but when it comes to what matters most - title wins - Favre’s name will forever be considerably further down the list. He may get luxury watches for retiring, but there are many other quarterbacks who have more SuperBowl rings that Favre.

Three of the 17 players who are finalists to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH, are former Minnesota Vikings. The most notable is wide receiver Cris Carter, who famously came to the Vikings after being cut by Eagles coach Buddy Ryan for “only knowing how to catch touchdowns.”

History has revealed that Ryan’s reason for uttering such a foolishness was to protect Carter’s career; Cris had allowed a drinking problem to get the better of him at that point, and when he was claimed off waivers for $1 by the Minnesota Vikings, a side-benefit was having access to Minnesota’s Hazelden treatment facility, one of the most nationally recognized addiction treatment facilities in the nation.

The rest is football history; Carter went on to set records for catches in a season and become one of the most recognizable receivers ever to don a Vikings uniform. While he never made it to a Super Bowl, he came close a couple times and was rarely a part of the reason the Vikings didn’t go deeper in the playoffs.

Offensive linemen Randall McDaniel and Gary Zimmerman are also finalists. There’s no multi-night stays in Las Vegas hotels that come with being selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but Carter does represent the best chance for a retired Viking player to be selected to Canton induction on a first-year ballot basis.

None of them will have to wait much longer to know if their time for acknowledgment has come round at last; final selections - usually consisting of five players or so - will be made on February 2.

Whether it’s the Wilfs’ private jet or something as simple as a foam mattress, the Vikings ownership claims they want to build the club into a first-class organization, and they at least have several Vikings players believing it’s possible.

This off-season, the club will be looking to fill gaping holes as defensive end, wide receiver, and safety, as well as shoring up one side of its offensive line and upgrading depth at quarterback. While Minnesota’s cold-weather city locale may be a negative, most Vikings players apparently believe the team’s 8-8 finish places the team as a club on the cusp of playoff contention, which should make the Vikings organization a hot spot in the free agent market.

“I think we’re going to be one of the most dangerous teams out there, and that’s no exaggeration,” Vikings linebacker Ben Leber told the St. Paul Pioneer Press recently. “You look at the way we climbed the charts at the end of the season, and what we have playmaker wise, on offense and defense, and I really think this team is a shoo-in for the playoffs.”

Provided the team can shore up its weaknesses in the off-season through free agency and the NFL draft. With offensive rookie of the year Adrian Peterson bolstering the team’s running game, the Vikings are not far from the promised land.

Coach Brad Childress saw his Minnesota Vikings drop the final two games of the season, robbing his team of a playoff turnaround to their season. After starting the season 2-5, the Vikings turned their season around more efficiently than a New York moving company, beginning with a big win against the New York Giants. After a loss to the Green Bay Packers, the Vikings when on a six-game winning streak to reach 8-6 and be within two wins of the playoffs.

But the Vikings choked against Joe Gibbs’ Washington Redskins, putting them behind the eight-ball, as they not only need to win their final game against Denver, but hope that a Dallas team resting their starters for the playoffs could still beat the Redskins. Neither happened.

Despite an emotional, two-touchdown, two two-point conversion comeback against Denver to tie it up and force overtime, T-Jack fumbled the game away almost immediately, robbing the Vikes of even an emotional, moral victory of going out on a win.

And even with all this, Coach Brad Childress will be invited back for the third year of his five-year contract; his only hope is to immediately improve the quality of the team’s receiving corps; even Tom Brady would look average throwing to these stooges and greenhorns. Of the lot of them, only Bobby Wade and Sidney Rice have proved they deserve to be back next season.

Bill Clinton won the presidency with a four word motto that helped him stay on message: It’s the economy, stupid.

Perhaps when addressing the problems that remain with the Vikings this off-season, Coach Brad Childress would do well to adopt a similar catch-phrase: It’s the receivers, stupid! When going out on the free agent market for body shop supplies, that’s what we need to stock up on most on offense, not a new quarterback.

That will change once the Vikings rid themselves of receiving cancer, former first-round draft pick WR Troy Williamson and sign a key receiver or two who can actually catch the ball. The problem is not so much in inexperienced QB Tavaris Jackson as it is a dearth of talent in the receiving corps.

Sidney Rice looks like a keeper, and Bobby Wade’s not bad; we just need one or two more decent receivers to back them up, since Robert Ferguson is not a long-term fix. Wade finished the season with 54 receptions, Ferguson and Rice with 32 and 21 respectively. Williamson had only 18. Time for him to go, especially after two yet drops that could have been difference-makers against Denver.

Not even heroic QB Tom Brady would be able to win with this year’s group of sad-sack receivers.