MinnesotaSportsScene.com

On Monday night, I took in the Vikings-Packers game at Joe Senser’s Sports Pub in Bloomington, and the atmosphere was nearly perfect, except for a number of obnoxious Packers fans who couldn’t win gracefully. There were plenty of promotional products available for the game, and my only real complaint is the waitress who didn’t want to give us the Monday Night Football special at 6:30 PM, even though the game was already underway.

As for the game itself, it was nice to see the Viking keep it close on a road game, during the first game of the season, but there were several worrisome signs. Most importantly was the one-dimensional nature of the offense.

OK, we all know T-Jack is playing hobbled; but if he can’t throw at all right now, sit him down until he heals and let our backups do the job for a game or two. What I saw was a quarterback who was hurried (thanks to O-line deficiencies), and started throwing dumb passes.

Also, we went away from the running game too soon in the second half and, considering that it’s the only facet of our offense that works right now, that worries me. It’s a bit too early in the season to start calling for the heads of T-Jack and B-Chill on a platter, but this is a team that could easily start 0-2 now, and that would be a shot in the tender bits for the rest of the season.

Either T-Jack needs to find his rhythm and get on track, or he needs to sit until he’s healed enough to play well. And if Brad Childress finishes this season still winless against the Pack, you can bet MinnesotaSportsScene.com will be leading the call for a new head coach. Three seasons of pointlessness is more than enough - if that’s what this becomes.

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.

With won-loss results as reliable as mortgage quotes last season, after we won a close game against Northern Illinois last week, I wasn’t sure we’d see another Gophers win this season. However, the Gophers somehow remembered they play in the Big Ten Conference and posted a more convincing 25-point victory over Bowling Green this weekend.

Thank goodness.

Adam Weber proved he’s a legit starter by completing 21 of 25 passes for 233 yards and three scores; he was not intercepted. The game stands as one of the most accurate single-game performances in Gophers history.

Running back Duane Bennett had a great start in the game, gaining 92 yards on the ground and 142 all-purpose yards before being injured in the third quarter on Saturday. Scheduled for an MRI, Bennett’s knee injury could keep him out the rest of the year, which could damage the hopes of this team to keep from repeating last year’s dismal failure of a season.

However, Shady Salamon and DeLeon Eskridge stand ready to fill in, and personally I think Salamon stands the best chance to break through in relief of Bennett. Time will tell.

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.

Canadian guard Devoe Joseph, a young athlete just now leaving the pimple cream crowd, was cleared by the NCAA to enter the University of Minnesota and be eligible to play D1 basketball for Tubby Smith’s Gophers last week. While Smith put together a Top 15 recruiting class and all of them are important, it is Joseph who might make the difference between another 20-win season and NIT appearance, or a 20-plus-win season and an NCAA bid.

“Talking to Devoe, he’s going to be starting,” Smith told TwinCities.com. “But that’s the attitude I love about him. He’s got the kind of mentality.”

With sophomore guard Al Nolan Jr. at point and Joseph as the two-guard, Minnesota may now have a back-court that can enable its sizable front court to match up well and create more victories than the team achieve prior to Tubby Smith’s arrival.

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.

Rodney Williams Jr., who Tubby Smith’s Minnesota Gophers are in hot pursuit of for the 2009 recruiting class, has five other schools he’s interested in who are currently pursuing him, according to recent online reports. That list includes Kansas, Connecticut, Memphis, Miami (FL) and Santa Clara.

Williams Jr., who is a longtime pal of Gophers commit Royce White, is expected to keep Minnesota high on his list, but competition for his services could be tough with Kansas, UConn and Miami (FL) in the mix. The Robbinsdale Cooper shooting guard is a Top 40 recruit on most national lists, and if paired with White, could vault the Gophers recruiting class near the top nationally for 2009, coach Smith’s second class since taking over the Gophers program in the spring of 2007.

Both of Smith’s classes are thus far also good character recruits so far, which hadn’t always been the case for recent Gophers regimes. No academic issues so far, no off-the-court shenanigans. The men’s team is now nearly as sedate as the women’s team, whose biggest issue is keeping around a handy supply of Progesterone.

Former Gopher wrestler and WWE star Brock Lesnar finally gave up on being a Viking and has set his sights on the world of ultimate fighting. Although he lost his debut match last February against Frank Mir, Lesnar learned to never let up in UFC and won a decisive victory over Heath Herring in from of a home crowd at Target Center this past weekend.

Lesnar, a real gym rat who is familiar with weight machines and treadmills, saw his record improve to 1-1 following the victory.

Over 15,000 attended the Target Center show, which featured 10 matches, and was featured on pay-per-view as UFC 87: Seek and Destroy. The only sour note is a special 10-percent surtax charged to promoters by the city of Minneapolis; word has it UFC may look to Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul for their next event in Minnesota, due to the issue.

When it comes to pharmaceutical companies, most people think of big corporations who charge “too much” for medicines people need to survive, and that’s about it. One of the big surprises for some people when they review the new Johnson & Johnson Web site is that there’s a lot more to Johnson & Johnson than the roughly 40 medicines they produce.

Johnson & Johnson are also well-known for their home health products, from baby care products like lotions and shampoos, to skin care, oral health, women’s health and over-the-counter medications like Tylenol. Heck, they’re even the parent company behind Splenda, the most recent sugar substitute to hit the market.

When it comes to brand recognition, Johnson & Johnson is already top-notch, but the mind boggles when one starts browsing their new company site and you get a handle on just how many things we take for granted in our daily lives come directly from Johnson & Johnson.

When Kevin Garnett was still a Timberwolf, he usually made in a single season what it will take Ryan Gomes five years to earn under the terms of his new contract with Minnesota. Gomes, arguably the second-most-important cog in the Kevin Garnett trade last summer, was an unrestricted free agent this off-season.

Although coming off another poor year for the Wolves in terms of wins and losses, Gomes is the kind of young, high-potential, high-character talent Minnesota was hoping to build around in the wake of the Garnett trade. Only 25 and still improving his skills each year, Gomes averaged 12.6 ppg and 5.8 apg, but is considered a locker room asset for the largely young and less experienced Wolves team McHale has assembled thus far. Gomes may be past his acne years, but he’s still a young player by NBA standards.