A day after Vikings “backup” quarterback Tarvaris Jackson became the first Minnesota ball-thrower to throw the ball for four touchdown passes since the days of Daunte Culpepper, we’re told that Jackson will start Sunday’s key home game against the Falcons.
And though we didn’t write this blurb for the sole purpose of teasing our Ten-Pack at SportingNews.com (again), we’ve got a theory as to how coach Brad Childress will handle the apparent emergence of Jackson and the inevitable return to health of Gus Frerotte, whom Childress dubbed in September as the starter for the balance of the season.
Here it is, if you’re interested. (It’s OK to read it, Vikings fans. I don’t say anything bad about Jared Allen in it.)
TARVARIS TO GET ANOTHER START
Posted by Mike Florio on December 15, 2008, 8:03 PM EST
30 Responses to “TARVARIS TO GET ANOTHER START”
Ooh.
“And though we didn’t write this blurb for the sole purpose of teasing our Ten-Pack at SportingNews.com”
You a D*mn lie!
I think that Cards game was a fluke. They were all drunk from celebrating.
Good point about Pennington deserving MVP consideration. This of course presumes MVP voters watch games and don’t just look at stat sheets. I guarantee most PFT voters looked at that section and said “WHAT?”
By the way, the AFC East is still not a three-way tie. The Jets are still in first place, while the Patriots’ defeat of the Raiders equalized the conference record between the Dolphins and Patriots, thus resulting in a two-way tie for second place.
Sparky Anderson once said, after benching a player whose status as the starting 3B was “etched in stone,” that all of his moves were now “etched in jello.” Considering that jello is what fills Childress’s skull cavity, this rule would seem to apply to the Viking QB job, too.
Childress is an idiot if he doesn’t give the job back to Jackson. Ferrotte hasn’t been that good at all. Actually he’s been below average. Check his stats. They suck.
Jackson had a solid preseason and got hurt. He should have sat out the Greenbay game on Monday night in Greenbay. He actually had a decent game. Not great but decent.
His receivers flat out tanked on him. Shiancoe couldn’t catch a football if you mailed it to him.
The kid got crushed cause the line was banged up and then he gets benched cause of horrible play calling. Childress was horrible – my 16 years old daughter (15 at the time) guessed some of his plays.
He comes off the bench and has played 6 solid quarters for 2 wins.
Okay the Lions game was sucky but Jackson still looked good.
He was close to perfect on Sunday and threw 3 passes that were lasers.
His stats would have been even higher if it wasn’t for 4 dropped balls.
He has his confidence back, he’s hot now – very hot and you’re going into the playoffs. You can’t bench him.
Ferrotte is not the future of this team.
Childress don’t screw this kid up twice in one year.
Let him play – it will save your job
Okay, bench him.
What was I thinking?
Go Vikings! All Day! All Weapons! All the Way! Just Win the Super Bowl!
Too bad, he is a loser.
Here we go again
Sitting in the living room of his ’72 mobile home
(nearly paid for mind you!), drinking a cold
brewski…….. dean2512 says: “Too bad he’s
a loser”. Belching soon after, he grins like a
school boy over the smart observation he’s
made.
You go Deano………..
The definition of insanity is…
steve2e:
Have you seen the stats? TJ only has throw 6 touchdowns on the season mind you 4 came on Sunday. His only win came on this past Sunday (I don’t count a Lions loss as a win its automatic…)
Frerotte on the other hand has put up some nice numbers and some nice wins and in fact got them to this point.
Including a win against eventual NFC championship runner-up Carolina panthers.
Nice number reality check:
Ferotte: 12 TD/15 INT; 7.2 yard avg; 73 Rating (in 11 games)
TJ (last 2 games): 5 TD/0 INT; 10.05 yard avg; 139 rating
The Vikes have won despite Ferottee average at best QB
play. Gus is a great guy and a nice backup, but he’s not
a starter. He was constantly under throwing, over throwing,
and standing like a statue in the pocket.
Tarvaris will get sacked twice this Sunday by Falcon DE John Abraham. THERE IS NO ESCAPE.
frerotte 7-3
tjackoff 2-2
all ya need ta know
WorldChampionBears2008 -
You don’t even watch the games, man. Go back and watch them.. T-Jacks past failures are due to Chilly’s ‘awesome’ playcalling. Gus barely won some of those games.. and I don’t give Gus those wins anymore than I give last years wins to T-Jack.
steve2e & Sundance -
Cooooorrrrrect.
I couldn’t say it better myself. I just want to see more consistency with T-Jack the next two games before making my choice for QB for the playoffs.
The Vikes really need to find out what they have. The rest of the team is playing well. Jackson looked good against Arizona. If he looks good against Atlanta, and looks good against the Giants (assuming the Giants need the win), then TJack is the man. If not you throw Gus back in, and hopefully the Vikes pick up a Cassel, or McNabb for next year.
didn’t watch majority of the game. cardinals looked like shit straight out of the gate.
the question is/should be ” can the vikings win in the playoffs while only passing 17-20 times?”
and if the answer is NO then “can the vikings win with traverlious jackson throwing the ball more than that?”
11-17 and 4tds looks good, but even a piece of shit covered in gold spray paint will shine for a while. bbut the paint will prolly wear off…
Tenolein:
I unfortunately had to watch some of those games. But, correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t “chilly” still calling plays?
Gus beat our *ss more so than TJ ever had
Gus barely won them but he won them.
Let’s go back and analyze this amazing game TJ had, huh?
The Viking points came either off of turnovers or AP. T.J had one good pass and that was that 41 yarder to BB (b*tch boy).
All those scoring drives started in Arizona territory off of their turnovers.
The second to last scoring drive TJ completed only one pass and it was the touchdown pass to Taylor.
The last scoring drive he only had two passes one being the TD pass.
All in all, you shutdown AP and its over for TJ. Frerotte had options he was a more consistent passer when AP had problems.
TJ only had 163 yards passing. with the touchdown passes adding up to 117 of them. So the rest of the passes he only averaged 6 yards a pass.
You had better see consistency with T-Jack in the next two games otherwise you won’t need to be making a choice for the playoffs it’ll b for next year.
I always thought Jackson has potential… his shortcomings are due to being thrown into the game too early and shitty play calling.
T-Jack may yet be a good QB though one solid game isn’t enough. Give him some time, he’ll prove me right.
Seriously all you Tjack Lovers.. get a grip. He played VERY well on Sunday. No doubt about it. Best of his career. But don’t get carried away. That was the FIRST time he showed ANY capability of hitting a pass over 10 yards. Have you completely lost your minds and forgotten about his abysmal attempts at long passes? My heavens people. He has thrown low, high, 50 yards too long, behind, to far in front and just plain UP FOR GRABS. He has played some TRULY inept, ugly, stinky, terrible, “what were you thinking” kinds of games. And you can’t hang it all on Childress. Despite the mediocre numbers (and let’s not forget how many passes of Gus’s that receivers have dropped too) Ferotte has won 7 out of 10 games. I’ll take that for the length of the season. Chances are if he had started the first two games, the division would already have been locked up. Not saying he is Joe Montana, just that he is reliable enough to get the job done.
empty13 says:
December 15th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
“frerotte 7-3
tjackoff 2-2
all ya need ta know”
If you are going to go with their records, then do it right.
Frerotte: 37-46-1 = 44% winning record
Jackson: 9-8 = 53% winning record
Annnnnd, you lose.
Fluke.
I’m sure Col Klink has a couple of jump pass play calls for T Jackoff. The fact that the Viking fans are projecting forward from a single game just goes to show you how easily they are hoodwinked.
The only thing better about Col Klink keeping his job next year is Col Klink keeping his job with T Jackoff at QB.
One fact people overlook with Tavaris is that his numbers last year and first two games this year didn’t reflect the way he played due to a lot of drops by receivers.
Don’t get me wrong, he made bad throws/decisions as well as good ones each game, it’s just a lot of the good throws didn’t result in catches. That impacted Tavaris’ statistics, confidence, and teammates/coaches/fans perception of his ability as QB.
Troy Williamson consistently beat defenders on the deep ball, but only caught one deep pass while dropping several sure TDs. Had he held on to another three of four of those, that would forced defenses to pull the safety deep, opening underneath routes. With Bernard Berrian, hopefully more of the deep throws will result in TDs (like the one against the Cards), and adjustments by opposing defenses.
And Visanthe Shaincoe didn’t really become a realiable receiver until midway through this season. He dropped 3-4 passes in the end zone from Jackson last year. Between Williamson and Shiancoe, that was around 400-500 yards and 6-7 TDs that Jackson should have had, which statistacally would have given Jackson solid QB numbers.
And Shiancoe dropped a sure TD against the Colts in Game 2 this year. Had he held on, the Vikes most likely win that game and Tavaris doesn’t get benched for failing to throw a TD pass in a loss.
Okay, all your Frerotte lovers are probably Bears fans who are afraid of Jackson leading the team to just one more victory. Or you are Vikings fans who aren’t paying attention to Frerotte. Yes, he’s 8-3. Because he played more than 2 games. Throw Frerotte in against the Pack, oh wait we already did and he nearly gave them the game with 3 picks. And he had 4 against the Bears the first game. And 2 against the Lions the second game. Seriously, he’s not that great.
Jackson was throwing the ball so his recievers could catch it on Sunday. Only his recievers. I’m not saying he’s suddenly Tom Brady, but I think he’s shown he can be a helluva lot better than Gus on a good day, probably even on a bad day.
T-Jack’s performance was good, but lets not get carried away here. The TD passes to Berrian and Wade were very well-thrown — passes he missed earlier in the year. However, if you watched the whole game, and each pass play, you will note a few pretty obvious things: (1) the long passes seemed pre-called, and not the result of defensive reads; (2) he stared down the receivers on each of the TD pass plays to Berrian, Rice and Wade; (3) the other passes were a collection of screens and outs — how many passes did you see over the middle of the field into more complicated coverage?; (4) to say he was aided by a strong running game is an understatement; (5) when his first reads were taken away with coverage, he got happy feet; and (6) the offense was really helped by the strong D (field position). Maybe he’s better than Gus, but I’ll have to see a lot more before I bitch for him to play more than the next couple games. He ain’t the answer next year folks.
As to “Klink” being around next year, it seems that the man with the porn star mustache has done a pretty good job of holding the team together (albeit with a QB problem of his own making), while we get to sit back and watch McCarthy not only get fatter every week, but spout off the same post-game crap as his team progressively gets worse, continues to make stupid coaching decisions, and the players start infighting. While the cheeser collapse has already been a great stocking stuffer, the only other thing us Vikes fans want for Christmas out of Wisconsin this year is for the Pack to keep TT, McCarthy and Sanders. Well, that and maybe a Detroit victory at Lambeau.
jyernberg says:
December 15th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
“but even a piece of shit covered in gold spray paint will shine for a while. bbut the paint will prolly wear off…”
Wow Sven – are you talking about the gold paint wearing off of your Packers?
****
@ Sundance – well said
@ steve2e – it’s Frerotte (or Frerotten), not Ferrotte – and you missed a key point – because Jackson is much more mobile than Grandpa Gus, he presents another threat to the defense. Both Jackson and Frerotte are equally capable of throwing passes at the feet of their targets and in the arms of the defenders, so mobility is the main reason you start Jackson
TJackson has looked good….off and on. He needs to show a little more consistency before I will be convinced.
Arizona…is not Atlanta.
Atlanta has a better running game, and defense.
I am hopeful that Minnesota can play well at home this Sunday. Time will tell. They can’t and should not count on others to lose….they need to get it done.
WorldChampionBears2008 says:
December 15th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
“Tenolein:
I unfortunately had to watch some of those games. But, correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t “chilly” still calling plays?
Gus beat our *ss more so than TJ ever had
Gus barely won them but he won them.
Let’s go back and analyze this amazing game TJ had, huh?
The Viking points came either off of turnovers or AP. T.J had one good pass and that was that 41 yarder to BB (b*tch boy).
All those scoring drives started in Arizona territory off of their turnovers.
The second to last scoring drive TJ completed only one pass and it was the touchdown pass to Taylor.
The last scoring drive he only had two passes one being the TD pass.
All in all, you shutdown AP and its over for TJ. Frerotte had options he was a more consistent passer when AP had problems.
TJ only had 163 yards passing. with the touchdown passes adding up to 117 of them. So the rest of the passes he only averaged 6 yards a pass.
You had better see consistency with T-Jack in the next two games otherwise you won’t need to be making a choice for the playoffs it’ll b for next year. ”
Whether or not Chilly is still calling plays is irrevelant. It’s obvious the calling has gotten better throughout the year.
I’m not saying T-Jack is the answer. I am saying his no worse than Frerotte. As long as T-Jack is efficient the next two games, I stay with him for the playoffs.
Before we get too hard on the Jackson bandwagon, let’s remember that he has had good preseasons before. He has had good games before. Nothing he has done consistently in practice or games would indicate to you that he is a particularly good QB.
With that said, I do think he is a better option than Gus. Just don’t expect him to post 100+ passer ratings every week, even if they only let him throw 20 times.