Brett Favre threw three interceptions Sunday afternoon against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field. Two of the three picks can be put on his receivers since they lost their footing.
Favre was required to force the football even more than normal because none of the top three starting receivers played the complete game for the Vikings. They are the antithesis of Favre-who would be in the line-up even if he was relegated to a wheel chair.
By Patrick Herbert
This is probably the reason that Brad Childress exchanged words (and almost came to blows with) Percy Harvin in practice over his MRI situation. There just has to be some intrinsic motivation and gamemanship if a player is going to start for a substantial part of an NFL season.
Star running back Adrian Peterson was held to only fifty yards rushing on seventeen carries for the Vikings. His touches were limited in the fourth quarter because of the deficit the team was facing. It’s amazing how much things can change in the league in only a week. Brett Favre was the FedEx Air Player of the Week after his career high in yardage against the Arizona Cardinals and punter Chris Kluwe was the special teams player of the week for his performance in that game.
Devin Hester was the “x” factor in Sunday’s game. He had a touchdown receiving, but his returns allowed the Bears to consistently start with quality field position. This didn’t permit the Vikings to take the bend but don’t break mentality against Jay Cutler and his minions.
Opportunity knocked for Cutler as he connected on five long passes to Johnny Knox for ninety yards. This eighteen yard average opened up some room for running backs Matt Forte and Chester Taylor to gain some yardage and keep the defense from focusing solely on the passing attack. The Bears had struggled on third down conversions before their game against the Vikings.
In Sunday’s contest they converted on nine of fifteen chances with many obtaining substantial chunks of real estate.
It is time to step back and take the required weekly look at Childress’ incompetence. It is starting to become apparent that he doesn’t even know the rules. He was busy motioning to decline the penalty when Jay Cutler threw a pass past the line of scrimmage. He obviously wasn’t aware that there is a yardage penalty and loss of down that accompany that infraction.
His strategy or lack of it is intriguing. When the offense was pinned back on the one yard line late in the fourth quarter and behind by multiple scores, Childress didn’t implement a no huddle offense right away. This brought back memories of Bob Stoops punting instead of going for it on a fourth down late in the fourth quarter of a game that he was going to lose.
Both men seemed to take this approach to limit the amount of points that they were going to lose by when they should have been going for broke with their offense.