From Bleed Purple Blog - Week 1: Vikings vs. Lions Preview

Turns out, the Vikings start play this weekend. Since we do hail from Minnesota, it'd probably be a good idea to post something previewing the first game. Even better, we'll have Andrew from Bleed Purple blog do it for us! Yay laziness!

Enjoy and check out Bleed Purple for more Vikings and NFL coverage - 

The Vikings travel to Detroit in week one and face the Detroit Lions in our NFC North Division. Has the roar been restored? The Common man sure thinks so! I might agree with the Common man on this, but not in week one. I think the Lions go from last in the division to competing for first this season. With the addition of Reggie Bush, makes this offense lethal. They won't meet again until week 17.

History

In Case You Missed It - Vikings: Ponder Must Become Elite, Nothing Else Matters

This was originally posted back in March after the signing of Matt Cassell, but all holds true today. With the NFL season just around the corner, we felt it could be revisited. Enjoy again if you read it back in March, or pretend like it's new material if you missed it -

Greg Jennings, Brian Urlacher, the departure of Percy Harvin, the miracle that is Adrian Peterson, the draft picks, the sophomore campaigns of the great rookie class, Leslie Frazier’s coaching ability, Jared Allen aging, Cassel signing and the Antoine Winfield cutting, none of it matters.  Truly, not one of those things matter unless Christian Ponder is going to turn the corner towards becoming an elite quarterback.

The Vikings can make every right decision from now until the first snap of the regular season and still not be a contender if Ponder is as below average as we’ve seen throughout the majority of his career.

Warning: Learn From History and Don't Date a Kardashian

Lamar Odom's life seems to be in a bit of a spiral lately. At best, he got a DUI this past week and his relationship with Khloe is on the rocks. At worst, he's been addicted to crack for the past two years, disappeared for two weeks, reappeared, got arrested for DUI this week and is done with Khloe. That's not quite where we he was headed when he wed Khloe after only a week back in 2009 as a then reigning NBA champ, with still another title and a 6th Man of the Year award ahead of him.

Thing is, Lamar isn't alone in having his life take a turn for the worse after getting involved with a Kardashian (for the sake of this story, even the Jenners: Kris and Kylie are included as Kardashians). I thought about writing this after I thought about it for all of five seconds and came up with a few dudes who weren't better off post Kardashian relationship. Then I started writing and now I fear for the next guy to fall for the Kardashian...charm.

Lets start with the patriarch of the Kardashian family and work our way down.

Rob Kardashian -

Vikings Preseason Matters

Going into the game tonight I was looking for 2 things. Could the starting team put together a sustaining drive, and could any of the Rookies show signs of good things to come?  Both of my questions were answered. Though Christian Ponder only had one drive to show what he has learned over the offseason, he ended up throwing an interception on his second play from scrimmage.  You may say it was Jerome Simpsons lack of hands that caused the turnover but I think it was Ponder misreading the coverage and not seeing a wide open Jarius Wright flaring across the middle.  Ponder came into the year hoping to improve on his unnecessary turnovers last year, he even mentioned that when Ben Leiber interviewed him on the sideline, but here we are again holding our breath during every Vikings play that AP doesn't get the  ball.

Enough of the negative, now for some positive. Rookie Patterson highly impressed me. From the opening kickoff return, to the 50 plus receiving yards, he looked great the entire first half.  I first noticed his size which the Vikes desperately need.  Then I noticed his ability to run precise routs and his speed. For a big guy, he has a galloping speed similar to Randy Moss.  Great things to look forward to this year!

My Life Changing Shabazz Muhammad Moment

Let's see if I remember how this works.

I ramble on and on about some topic (usually TPup related, never hockey) 2 real people read it (Hi Mom!) and 100 Google bots scan it giving the story hits that give me enough self esteem to do it all again. 

Sound about right? 

The real human other than my mom who reads this is probably wondering where I've been. After posting consistently (for the most part) for 2 straight years on STOB, all of the sudden I disappear without notice or warning. If you're one of the 4 other real people outside of...well even my mom doesn't follow me on Twitter...who follow me on Twitter (@BenMac_STOB) you would have noticed I kept blabbing away on there. 

So what was the deal?