Long and fun day at Winter Park taping TV show "Vikings Gameplan" and radio show "Vikings Live at Winter Park." One of my favorite professional days of the week.

Didn't achieve too much info, but BOSSBERG compensates me for my gut feelings, and here's how I left vibing a couple of things:

Not counting on PERCY HARVIN this weekend, but this completely is a gut-feel guess, and I hope I am wrong. He didn't practice again today, I didn't see him behind the closed doors and for some reason I am guessing he won't be in the mix this weekend.

I very much hope I am incorrect on this because I am excited to watch us spread out the defense for CHRISTIAN PONDER the way we did against Detroit. It permitted CP a better opportunity to differentiate between "man" and "zone" and he completed 75 percent of his passes. I expect the Bears veteran defense to guess run more than pass, and a big-time effort by Ponder helps us win this game.

Secondly, all the players and coaches believe JAY CUTLER will be under center for the adversary. Could be some subterfuge and  maybe they feel if they scheme for Jay and have to face JASON CAMPBELL they can deal with it, but to a man the Vikings think Jay Cutler will play.

Where this helps most in my estimation is on third down. Jay is more composed and of course better than Campbell, but putting Jason in key third-and-long scenarios plays heavily into our favor. There was a point late in the Lions' game Detroit was averaging a need of eight yards on third down to nab the first down, and that permitted ALAN WILLIAMS' defense to do so many positive things it was refreshing to see.

The Bears will try to run on us. We did very well against the run against the Lions and making them one-dimensional by grabbing an early lead was pivotal. The Bears will run (a) to make sure we are squared away there because remember over the month up to the Detroit game we were allowing like 165 RYPG, and (b) to protect that offensive line, which has been awful in pass protection all year.

This is going to be a terrific, tightly contested game and one the Vikings can win.