MVN: Most Valuable Network

If you are of a certain age you have undoubtedly experienced one. Perhaps it was your first car, or maybe it was the family car when you were growing up. You know the car, the one that spent nearly as much time in the repair shop as on the road.

 

Just when the muffler got replaced, the radiator went out. When the radiator was fixed, the starter went out, when the starter was replaced, the air conditioner broke down, and so on and so on. The classic lemon.

 

The 2008 version of the Minnesota Vikings are very much like that car. In this past Sunday's 48-41 loss to the Chicago Bears, just when the Viking offense finally breaks out with a season high 28 first downs and five touchdowns, the 48 points they gave up, are the most points yielded to a Bear team in 22 years.

 

Fittingly, now that Visanthe Shiancoe is catching everything in sight, and looking like the productive tight end the Vikings thought they had acquired last season, Gus Frerotte throws a season high four interceptions.

 

Not surprisingly, on the day that Adrian Peterson has his breakout game of sorts, 121 yards on 22 carries, and two touchdowns (including one of his signature 54-yard scampers), the defensive secondary makes journeyman Kyle Orton look like Joe Montana in his prime.

 

Finally, on a day in which the kickoff coverage team actually hustles down and consistently tackles the returner inside the 20 yard line (that is when they finally decided to try conventional kickoffs), the special teams yield two, "I-cannot-believe-what-I-just-saw-touchdowns."

With the Vikings, the list of leaks that open up just as quickly as they get closed, goes on and on. With a lemon, at some point - no matter how promising the appearence may have been in the showroom - the realization that a change must be made eventually arrives. The question is, when will that realization arrive at the Minnesota Vikings Front Office?