Some initial Week 3 reactions

Hey Guys -

Another week, another last place finish for TREE. Wow, I'm rolling this year. On the complete other side of the spectrum, Mr. Roe. With a Dallas cover tonight he will have won all 3 of the FOOTBALL CHALLENGE weeks thus far. MK and MR are tied at 9 wins right now, but a Dallas cover tonight will put Roe into double digit wins for the 2nd time this year. Nice start Mike.

Some thoughts:
- KAN-USF was a fun game to watch, best of the year thus far.
- USC is good. Todd Boeckman is not, and T.Pryor will be/should be the Buckeye QB by the end of the year. Great line on ESPN today, "should the Buckeyes now be AN Ohio State University rather than THE Ohio State University?" Gotta kick them when they are down.
- which BCS team is worse? Virginia, Syracuse, or Washington State?
- Next time I have 2 LOCKS OF THE CENTURY, please talk me out of it. Arizona and Cal both pooped the bed and looked awful against bad teams this week.
- Speaking of the USC + 9, ASU, UCLA, CAL, AZ all looked bad this week and OREGON barely squeaked by the mighty Boilers...Pac-10 race is over already. Only 2 teams left without a loss, and we're only through 3 weeks!!
- Over/Under on AF passing yards last week...1..it was under. Zero passing yards in a game, is this 1942?
- Hawaii is really bad.
- If you ever see an SEC line over 7 points, take the Dog - ALWAYS!
- Ferentz had the Clones and the points, so he called to take a safety for the ultimate back door cover in the battle for the Cy-Hawk. I think we saw what the Iowa offense is all about in this game, and I like it.
- Michigan...fucking embarassing. The only highlight from this game invovles Chuck Weis and a knee brace.

So I went 22-22 overall on NCAA picks last week, but 3-7 on my picks. Not sure what needs to change, but I am re-assessing everything this week and 2nd guessing myself on every pick. I need to work the kinks out before Vegas, or I'm not making any of my own bets. I'll just flip a f*cking coin and try my luck that way.

GOPHERS RECAP
Snoozer of a game. Gophers came out flat and played very vanilla offense. Lots of looks for the young guys, which was good, but at least one other WR needs to become an option besides Heisman Decker. Running game will be okay, I think there's enough depth there to stay strong. My bet is that they come out this week, with a huge batch of Recruits in town, and open the offense up and try to get some style points and major confidence going into Columbus the following week. Early line on that one...BUCKS -20. FAU is 1-2, with their only win coming over a horrible UAB squad. We turned the ball over 7 times last year on the road and almost beat this squad. Our defense has improved, we'll be at home, we won't have 7 turnovers, we'll win handily. Only -6.5 right now...I'm jumping all over it - but I'm batting about .200 this year, so don't take my word for it! Somebody loves the Gophers though, we actually received 4 Votes for the Top25 this week! I'm a diehard, but I'm not on crack...this is not a Top25 football team. Polls are a joke.

NFL RECAP
NFL might be a little too broad, this will be a Vikings bitch session...are you ready. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this team has some major issues at the top that need to change before they can go anywhere. I know we're only 0-2 against 2 teams that are likely going to be pretty good, but I am almost ready to throw in the towel on the season if something drastic doesn't happen. Right now, I have us as a 5 win team...1-6 into the bye. I've thought a lot about this after watching the meltdown on Sunday, so here's my solution. Chilly is not the guy. I believed when he came to town, I thought he was organized and had a plan and things were going to work out. I have officially gotten on the Fire Brad Childress bandwagon. Most are blaming TJack, and he's been bad, but the "kick-ass offense" system is garbage. If Adrian doesn't break a big TD run, we don't score points. Dominating the game on defense and kicking 5 FG's is not how to win in the NFL...especially against good teams like INDY. The offense needs to open up, throw in running situations, run in passing situations, take a chance with the guy under center rather than protecting him to the point that he can't even make a play at all without thinking about it and looking lost. He's a mechanical nightmare, and his play reeks of over-thinking. Even 3 years in, he still doesn't get it...but that's on Chilly. Chilly put his entire Vikes career on the line with this guy, and he clearly can't do the job. But if they can figure out the playcalling, and not try to win every game 9-6, they might be okay. You have to take chances to win in the NFL, this isn't high school football - you can't just run the ball and dominate everyone every week. In the NFL, the separation between the god-awful Rams and the undefeated Packers isn't that big. It is not possible to dominate week in and week out with a plan like this - you must take chances and stop being predictable. Go into the game thinking you need to score on every possession...score TD's, not FG's! When we got the ball back on our 1 and just needed a 1st down to send it to OT, I pretty much called the entire series before it happened. Run AD twice for nothing and then a roll out attempt and a 3 yard pass. If you can't trust your QB to throw the ball to give you a chance to win the game, then you are not going to win many game. The schedule actually doesn't get much easier, Carolina is better than us, TEN is better, at NO on Monday = underdog, DET is bad and we own them, then at CHI before the bye. Find a win in this list besides DET...= 1-6. If we go in 1-6 at the bye, Somebody else is coaching in Week 9 when we host HOUSTON.

There, I feel better now. It's going to take a lot to get me off of this statement, I'm thoroughly convinced that this team is going nowhere fast, and Chilly needs to go.

College lines are out - I will post all College lines tomorrow and NFL lines on WED.

Let me know your thoughts guys - shaping up to be a slow week at work, so I need some good banter and discussion to get me through.

Later.