So Much For That

Well, we saw the Gophers true colors today. Playing a glorified high school team in Northwestern in a game that on paper they should have won easily, the fighting Goofs found a way to find the loss column. Yes the same NW team, that was:

• without their starting QB,
• without their best offensive player - Tyrell Sutton (apparently they have no trust in their backup since the ball never left the QB's hands in the 4th quarter)
• only using about two offensive plays, QB option left and QB option right
• with about four defensive players that entered the game injured or were injured during the first half
• coming off a loss to the mighty IU Hoosiers.

This was not enough for the Gophers to find a way to win and keep alive at least one fans (me) Rose Bowl hopes.

I hate to question someone's heart and resolve but didn't you find it interesting that Eric Decker was still in the game at the end when he could barely walk and above that, Weber was still targeting him? It looked like a valient effort until he dropped the pass that turned into the winning interception. So much for the Arthur Ashe award.

When you take a step back though this isn't a huge shocker. The Gophers were 7-1 largely because they entered the game +16 in TO ratio and the score in this game was tied because of a pick six in the 1st half. It was only a matter of time before the law of averages was going to come back and bite them there. They also have absolutely no running game and as you saw at the end, they are incredibly overly-dependent on Eric Decker to move the chains (I know what else you are thinking, but I won't go there with the special teams).

Hopefully they can bounce back and win at least two of their next three and get to the Outback Bowl.

By the way, if you watched the end of the Wisconsin/Michigan St. game what was Bielema thinking calling TO when Michigan St. was scrambling to get their field goal unit on. Is he trying to get fired?

The Twin Cities Moves Into a Tie for 1st

There are 13 metropolitan areas (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Denver, Miami, New York, Philly, Phoenix, San Fran Bay Area, Twin Cities, and Washington D.C.) that have at least one team in the four major sports. After the Phillies win over the Rays last night to capture the World Series, the city of Philly's first title since 1983, the Twin Cities is now tied with D.C. as the metro area that has had the longest drought since their last championship - the Twins and Redskins in 1991.

It's ironic that a key part of the Phillies winning the World Series in five games was the bullpen work of former Twin J.C. (just call me John Wayne) Romero. He won Games 3 and 5 and even managed to do so without walking anyone, something he greatly struggled with as a Twin.

Anyway, I guess the question comes up, which MN team is going to step up and stop this depressing championship drought?

- Timberwolves: No chance

- Vikings: I can't see it until we get a different QB

- Twins: Decent chance if they can get a righthanded hitting third baseman and some bullpen help, however you have to think this year was a great opportunity with the Yankees being horrible and the Red Sox off their game a little bit. Both of those teams will reload and be in contention again and the Twins will have to overcome their ugly recent history against those two teams plus all the other contenders to get a championship.

- Wild: Also a decent chance. They have the ability to get to the postseason every year but their lack of explosive scorers and conservative style of play will probably hold them back from hoisting the Stanley Cup (how did you like that in depth hockey analysis - don't worry I won't mention anything about the sport again for a long time)

So there you have it. The four franchises that haven't won a championship since 1991. Sadly, only one of the four ever has. We'll give the Wild a pass since they have only been around since 2000 and the T'Wolves a pass since their first year was 1989 and their head personnel guy for the last 13.5 years has an IQ of 40.



The Vikes however don't get a pass. They have been around since 1961 so no excuse is going to hold its weight. Maybe we can turn the clock back to January 17, 1999 and replay the 4th quarter of the NFC Championship game......Please.





Sorry, but the picture correlates so well to the rest of the post

Here We Go Again

I almost forgot, and I will probably wish I forgot, but the T'Wolves open up their 20th season tomorrow. Let's hope the fans don't forget to show up and cheer them on. They definitely did last year. You can't blame them since they have excelled at the two b's for the last couple of years, bad and boring. They have that in common with the Pacers and about 25 other NBA teams for that matter.

Nevertheless, it was only a few short years ago when the T'Wolves were my favorite team and they almost made all my years of faithful support towards their futility pay off with an NBA Championship. Those days are a long way off as the expert moves by McHale have come to fruition. At least they will be more competitive this year than the 22-win debacle from last season. Some of the things I am looking forward to for this season (trust me, I say looking forward to with little enthusiasm).

• Randy Foye healthy for a full season and seeing if he can become an upper echelon NBA point guard. He played okay last year when he actually got in the lineup. If he would have been healthy for the entire season we might have won 25-26 games!
• McHale's prodigy, Kevin Love, playing against NBA competition. My gut instinct is it could be ugly but at least we got Mike Miller out of the deal and finally got rid of Marko Jaric (I am still at a loss for words to describe my thoughts towards McHale on that trade)
• The development of Al Jefferson into an all-star caliber player. Someone has to lead this team. I don't think Jefferson has the mentality to do it, but no NBA team goes anywhere without at least one superstar player.
• Mark Madsen cheer leading. What a team player!
• Watching the unlucky person that has to sit behind McHale crane their neck to see around him. My advice - their will be plenty of empty seats so just move. Go sit by Jesse the Body, at least he will make the game halfway entertaining.

Sadly, that's about all I could think of. I won't try to guess a win total since I have no idea to be quite honest, hopefully they can at least get back into the 30's.

The Williams Boys

The bye week has come and gone for the Vikes, and in what has become the norm, they emerge as a team in disarray. According to Jay Glazer from Fox, Pat and Kevin Williams tested positive for water pills which are on the NFL's banned substance list. Water pills are on the list since they can potentially mask steroid use. If you ever seen the Williams boys, you know that steroids aren't something they take, or if they do they don't take them properly. All indications are that they take the pills to help them lose excess water weight since they are a diuretic.

The thing I find amazing about this, even if they didn't have malicious intent, is why did they take them if they were on the banned substance list. Surely, someone from the league or the team circulates this to them.

We'll see how this plays out but it looks like a four-game suspension is likely since a player from the Saints already served a suspension for a similar offense. Without them in the lineup, the biggest strength of the team, the ability to stop the run, will be neutralized. The Vikings margin for error is small enough the way it is, this makes it even smaller. At a minimum, from a W/L perspective, this will cost them a game and probably eliminates any slim chance we had at a playoff berth.

I just hope the NFL waits until after the game against the Cheeseheads on Nov. 9 to start the suspensions so they can at least stop the five-game Brad Childress-led losing streak the Vikes have against them.