Notebook 11/17: Monday Observations
11/17/2008, updated 3:43 p.m.
Phil Mackey, KFAN.com

The Vikings went down to Tampa Bay on Sunday and lost to a better football team. Not necessarily an elite football team, and not necessarily an NFC contender, but a better football team at this stage than the Vikings.

At 5-5, the Vikings are still tied for the NFC North lead, and they still have a chance to make a playoff push, but there are still way too many issues this team needs to deal with before they can call themselves true contenders.

Issue number one would be finding a way to win important football games on the road. The Vikings are now 1-4 away from home this season (0-4 on grass), and 7-14 since Brad Childress took over.

“It’s tough to win on the road,” said Gus Frerotte. “The advantages of playing at home are huge. with your fans, with the crowd, with the other team not being able to hear the cadence, doing all those kind of things. You’re not traveling, you’re not flying on a plane, you’re not staying in a hotel. There are a lot of advantages of playing at home… I don’t know what the difference is, but it’s probably pretty great from home and away games.”

The difference is actually 31 wins. Road teams are 63-94-1 in the NFL this year. Teams with winning records, however, are 45-32-1 on the road. The correlation is no coincidence.

Here are some Monday Observations to chew on:

- Brad Childress was also a bit more chippy during his Monday press conference this week, which really comes as no surprise for a guy who is chest-deep into his third season of dealing with a mediocre football team. 

Or maybe it’s the players who are fed up having to deal with a mediocre… well… you get the point. 

We do know, however, that Childress is a bit fed up with the media. He pulled a fitting quote to help describe his feelings:

“’Editorialists and columnists are like men that come down from the mountains after the battle and shoot the wounded,’” Childress quoted. “I thought there’s a certain something to that. I didn’t just make that up. I didn’t just dream that up. I’m not that deep.”

OK, fair enough. But many of the “wounded” in this case are being paid seven figures to patch the bleeding, roll to their sides, and answer softball questions about the battle -- the head coach included.

If Minnesota media members shoot the wounded, imagine what New York and Chicago reporters do to them.

- If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Brad Childress was trying to justify and/or validate Ray Edwards’ viscous late hit on Jeff Garcia.

“My general thought on that is when you slow things down, you look at it on HDTV and you... Football is a full speed game and it happens at full speed and you’re trying to make snap judgments at full speed. I thought on that particular play, he had come back into the pocket and I actually felt like that was intentional grounding.

“If you look at exactly where it happened, it happened right dead between the hash marks and the ball was thrown out of the back of the end zone to try to avoid a sack. In my estimate, OK. Ray’s trying to make estimations, too, in terms of, ‘Is the guy going to run some more?’ I think then the flag went down and it was a personal foul. I think you get a different sensation when you look at it in regular speed and I look at it in my coach’s copy.”

I’d have to go watch the play again, but intentional grounding? That’s a new one. Sure, Garcia was still standing in the pocket, but he threw the football through the back of the end zone. As long as there are receivers roaming in the end zone, it’s perfectly acceptable for a quarterback to throw the ball into the 5th row.

Even if it was intentional grounding, Ray Edwards still obliterated Jeff Garcia well after the ball was airborne. Edwards surely faces a fine, and if this was a repeat offense, he would almost certainly face a suspension as well.

- Adrian Peterson played a minimal role in the Vikings offense for much of the second half, and he played absolutely no role for the offense in the fourth quarter. Childress was asked to shed some light on the subject, but his answer was a bit contradictory:

“We tried to get him involved with the kickoff return,” Childress said. “There is a limited amount of time and you’re playing a different kind of football generally in the two-and-a-half minutes that you’re playing at the end of the fourth quarter. Whether you’d be smart in handing him the football, there is only a limited number of ways you can get it to him throwing and they’re playing a defense that legislates against throwing a deep one. I think the biggest thing would have been to get it back and regain a little bit of rhythm, hold onto it and make some first downs.”

I agree with the part about getting the ball back and establishing a rhythm. That would have been nice. But the part about having “a limited number of ways to you can get it to him throwing,” and “they’re playing a defense that legislates against throwing a deep one,” doesn’t make sense. If Tampa is taking away the deep ball, wouldn’t that allow Peterson to catch passes underneath?

Either way, Peterson needs to touch the ball during crunch time. I think we established that premise against Green Bay last week.

- Jared Allen, Pat Williams and Kevin Williams are all scheduled to head to New York this week to talk about their various pending issues -- Allen, for destroying opposing quarterbacks, and the Williamses, for popping illegal pills.

The NFL normally doesn’t suspend players once the practice week has begun, which means all three players should be available for Sunday’s game at Jacksonville. There is a chance, however, that all three could be suspended starting the following week against Chicago.

That would be a disaster.

Speaking of Allen, his shoulder was reportedly extremely sore after yesterday’s game, but Childress said he was feeling better on Monday morning.

“He was just up in the office and obviously he feels much, much better today,” Childress said. “But for me to tell you he's going to be pain-free the rest of the year, he's not going to be pain free until the football season ends. That's just the way it is. That's the way it is with a number of guys on our football team.”

- The NFC playoff picture is extremely crowded right now, with 12 teams vying for six playoff spots. Let’s assume that the Giants (9-1) and Cardinals (7-3) will clinch their divisions. That leaves the Panthers (8-2), Bucs (7-3), Redskins (6-4), Cowboys (6-4), Falcons (6-4), Eagles (5-4-1), Saints (5-5), Bears (5-5), Packers (5-5), and Vikings (5-5) fighting for the remaining four slots.

The Cowboys, Eagles and Redskins are essentially fighting solely for Wild Card slots, barring an enormous collapse by the Giants, while the other seven teams have a chance to win their respective divisions as well.

For the Vikings, the best path to the playoffs goes through the NFC North. Battling for the Wild Card would involve surpassing three NFC East teams and two NFC South teams. Good luck with that.

You can contact Phil by emailing PMac@kfan.com, or you can visit his website, PhilMackey.com.