Can the Vikings Succeed Without Brett Favre?

The backup QB combo of Jackson/Rosenfels won’t be striking fear in the hearts of any teams, unless Jackson manages a nice scramble. If either of them were thrust back into the starting role, you’d see the Princelets become one-dimensional as AP is forced to carry 70% of the plays.

AP is known for dropping the ball (and we’re known for making him pay for it) and Chester Taylor has moved on. If you can beat on AP, he won’t make a lot of yards.

The longer Favre does his little song and dance, the less likely it is that the queens can find a real solution to the QB situation, and if he was hurt or decided not to return, they’d be cursing his name.

Jared Allen is amazing, and a friggin hillbilly. Park a lifted truck on the sidelines and he might stop and admire it long enough to screw up a big play. I hate his ugly face and his stupid celebrations and I can’t hate his mullet anymore so I’ll hate his buzzcut. As a side note, there’s nothing wrong with hillbillies unless they’re Jared Allen or want to be Jared Allen. >.>

The queens receiving corp is decent, but Favre makes anyone look better, especially opposing players in huge, career-defining games that he can cry about for months afterward. Don’t expect them to look quite so stellar if Favre wasn’t to return.

winning record – probably not
beat us twice in a season without Favre – probably, and def. not beyond the realm of possibillity

I’m surprised they didn’t draft a QB.They had 2 quality guys there and they past them up????They can win without Farve…..It just won’t be the superbowl.

Just because I want to see if I can formulate a good enough argument to get a thread. I think that “T-Jax” or whatever they call him has improved, we saw that down the stretch of the 2008 season. He improved his completion percentage up to 60. And yes AP is a stud and I think he’s capable of carrying a team and even so he’s got Toby Gerhart now and with a year on the practice squad under his belt, I think that Ian Johnson could make an impact.
Sidney Rice is legit. He’s a great receiver and with Percy Harvin entering his second season he’s only going to get better. And they have Bernard Berrian, while he may not be a 1,000 yard guy, he’s more than good enough to be a great 2. Throw in Harvin’s ability as a return man and that is a team that can put up some points.
As for the defense, they are a force to be reckoned with. While Cedric Griffin is getting long in the tooth, he still is effective and they still have enough young guys on the roster to step up. Jared Allen is a one man wrecking crew and Ray Edwards on the other side with the Williamses Wall in the middle they’ll put pressure on any one. Even without the Williams the Vikes pass rush is one of the better in the league. Their linebacker corps is good and still in their prime. I think that even without Favre the Vikes can still be a dangerous team.

Without Favre the Vikings are a sub .500 team struggling to make the playoffs. Brad Childress knows this all to well. That’s why when Brett Favre was given an ultimatum to show up for training camp and ignored it, he was given the starting job anyway. Sure they have some young stars. Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin, Sidney Rice but without Favre slinging to them down field it closes up their offense. Tarvaris Jackson standing behind center, not the same team. The Vikings Defense is good but not great. They are too inconsistent to carry this team into the post season. So bottom line, no Favre, no trophies for the Vikings trophy case. It still remains empty.

I think without farve, they are a wild card team. Their secondary is not good and could get picked apart by a good passing offense, Pat Williams is getting long in the tooth and his best days are behind him, Kevin Williams success depends on Pat’s success, and Adrian Peterson can easily get shutdown if the passing game struggles. Like one poster said, childress knows this and Farve knows this too which is why he has so much lead way with that team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkI9axajmT8

As for the Vikings without Favre, I think they drop to a team that is maybe able to contend for a wild card – but definately not a top 1 or 2 seed in the NFC.

should the “old guy” finally stay home and chase momma around the house, pretty sure he’d take less of a beating, would assume anyway. I cant see them going as far as last year, possible wild card. Peterson is going to get his numbers cos’ he’s Peterson, be it Jackson or Rosenfels or a combo of both their back to having a QB who needs to “manage” the game and not lose it even though their two different QBs’. My interpretation of succeeding for the Vikings this season would have to mean “Lombardi in hand” after last season….so I’m saying no they wont. They certainly do have good “parts” and their going to win some ballgames, thinking consistency is going to be a big key. Defensively I dont think they stand up all season, adequate but not much more, getting to be to many pretty damn good QB’s in the North nowadays,a leaky secondary aint pretty as we all know. As the saying goes" Defense wins championships" , but ya gotta have the offense to get ya their. Plus the fact that Childress will do something bone headed I’m sure of it.

Let me start by saying, I’m by no means a Favre fan, but the guy is one of the best QB to ever play the game, if it wasn’t for him, the Viqueens, wouldn’t have won as many games last year, and probably wouldn’t of made the playoffs, I could easily argue that there are 3 to 4 games that they won last year because of Favre, take that away, and they are 8-8, and no playoffs. I’m more worried about Green Bay, but honestly I think the NFC North division is about to take over as the dominate division in the NFC.

-Their defense is good, but you can see that its aging. They’ll need to win shoot outs against elite opponents, and they won’t be able to do that without Favre.
-All their other QB options are terrible. That’s why Childress had to bend over backwards to bring Favre in and give him complete control of the offense.
-They don’t have a proven backup behind AP anymore, which could be bad if they have to rely on the running game more because Favre is gone.
-Their WRs are certainly good, but Favre made them look better than they are certainly. They’d be a lot more exposed without him throwing them the ball.
-And T-Jack sucks.

You’d like to think that, as professionals, they can put aside their personal aspirations but, especially in the case of QBs, they naturally have large egos. The other QBs go to training camp and bust their butts in the summer heat and are sent to the end of the bench when Brett deigns that he will grace the team with his presense. It’s just bad Juju and will backfire if Brett decides he’s had enough, or gets a serious injury (which is what I think will happen this season). They have enough talent to win their share of games but will not win the division or make the playoffs without him, or if he misses many games due to injury.

They won the NFC North in 2008 WITHOUT him!! Duh!
Plus T-Jack could have only gotten better watching and learning from Brett for a year.

I don’t like the Vikings AT ALL however this is a no brainer!!

Shouldn’t we use this image?

OR

The obvious answer is, the Vikings will likely be more successful with Favre under center than without. As long as age does not catch up with him. Even if he has a season less successful than last year (likely — it’d be pretty hard for a QB to have a season MORE impressive), he’s still likely their best option.

However, the Vikings certainly proved the year before last that they can succeed just fine without him as well — maybe just not quite as much. The only two impact players lost since then are Wade, Birk, and Taylor, and they have added many good new players, most notably Harvin.

Everything else in this article — the “Vikings don’t really have a lot to be proud of,” “they just haven’t really been significant in any way,” “Jared Allen is an idiot,” and so on, seem little more than juvenile taunts, and so aren’t worthy of response. It’s disappointing that a site manager has stooped to the low level of posting drivel like that. I don’t know if Dane fancies himself a bona fide sports writer, but he’s clearly not acting the part here. Even Florio is not this blatantly provocational.

Either way I see them battling it out for 1st with Green Bay and Chicago. Two years ago Jackson played well down the stretch, he’s a year older (and maybe wiser), and Rosenfells is a solid journeyman type QB that can get it done in an offense like the one in Minnesota

But it also depends on the Williams suspension as well as Jackson can step up. He should have been able to learn some more last season, so he should be better then he was pre-Favre, but either way, it will be tough to be as good as they were last season.

Can the guy get anymore childish?? I mean just read the guys posts, he sounds like he 12 in some of his responses. A lot of you Viking guys are alright but you should be embarrassed by the guy that runs your site. He has to be the worst adminstrator on SB nation. Get someone a little more mature, your site will be so much more enjoyable.

Especially in my talking with you, Bjorno. Don’t ask why this popped into my head, especially when I was off playing MW2, but it kinda has been floating around.

We were talking about T-Jack’s ability, and you mentioned T-Jack being a project QB even when he was drafted and thrust right into the starting role. You also brought up that you weren’t expecting much out of him, just the ‘05 Bears formula of strong D, a strong running game and enough of a passing game to get by. For some reason I got stuck thinking about Jason Campbell, don’t ask why or how, but somehow, this realization hit me.

If you have a project/3~4 year QB starting in his third or fourth year, you should be expecting more of him than 150~200 with a TD/just enough to get by.

I know that Aaron Rodgers is more the exception than the rule, and I know that talking to a Bears fan about quarterback play is a lot like asking the post-2002 Oakland Raiders about winning football. However, point being when you have a guy as a project, when his time does come to start, you better be more competent than “just enough to get by.” When do you draw the line between “project QB”, “game manager” and “not very good”?

It’s nice to know that your team doesn’t necessarily have to worry about the quarterback carrying any part of the team, but for T-Jack being your starting QB, (assuming Favre does not come back), do you really feel comfortable having T-Jack as your starting QB, or should we assume that when the 2011 draft rolls around the Vikings’ll be looking at a new QB? Further, if Adrian Peterson gets injured, if Toby Gerhart can’t shoulder the load, do you feel all right with T-Jack throwing more?

All I’m saying, for being your team’s pet project, I was expecting more of a ringing endorsement than “Just enough to get by.” Not that good a sign.