Will a knee ruin Minnesota’s season?
Pretty doomed, if the thoughts of Mike Zimmer are any indication. In the hours after the team’s young QB blew out of his knee, the reference he went to was the death of his wife six years ago. That is depressing on several levels.
The Vikings entered training camp as the defending division champions and with an eye on getting to the Super Bowl. Those sort of goals are a big ask for the average 23-year old quarterback, but Bridgewater had shown signs he could become one of the NFL’s best at the position.
Perhaps because he was the final pick of the first-round in 2014, long after Blake Bortles and Johnny Manziel were taken, and just before Derek Carr was selected by the higher-profile Raiders, Bridgewater’s first two years with the Vikings were largely overlooked. But he’s clearly been the best of those taken in the first-round – Manziel is famously out of football and out on the town while Bortles has yet to distinguish himself – and Bridgewater’s numbers compare favorably to Carr’s so far, too. He’s also the only regular starting quarterback drafted into the NFL since 2013 to have made the playoffs and he would have a playoff game-winning, fourth quarter drive under his belt if not for a shanked chip-shot field goal last January. At least Blair Walsh can now say his miss is not the worst thing to happen to the Vikings in 2016.
Bridgewater’s breakthrough into the mainstream was supposed to come this year, but not with the news of his knee breaking. Perhaps because the Vikings felt so set with a true franchise QB, there is no good option behind him. Shaun Hill is a 36-year old journeyman who has only had one season with a significant number of snaps since 2011 and is someone who most definitely can’t do this.
The free agent options are equally grim, including never-weres and punchlines like Tarvaris Jackson, Rex Grossman, Matt Flynn and Charlie Whitehurst: the list goes on and on until the remaining names are all smudged from Viking fan tears. Another option is swinging a trade. It would definitely be memorable for the team to open its new stadium with Colin Kaepernick sitting for the national anthem.
Are the Bears going to start showing any improvement?
Preseason football supposedly means nothing. If true, that is fortunate for the Bears because they were absolutely dreadful in August, failing to score more than seven points in two of their first three games – all losses – and seeing several key players get hurt. For a team like the Patriots or Seahawks or Steelers, preseason struggles aren’t a huge cause for concern. But the Bears are not the Patriots, Seahawks or Steelers. They are not a consistent contender, unless they’re looking to contend for the No1 overall pick. The Bears won just 11 games over the last two years, finishing dead-last in a division that has sent a team to the Super Bowl just four times in 30 years. So the preseason is alarming because it’s looked exactly like most every Bears full season.
The 2016 season will be John Fox’s second at the helm in Chicago. Year Two is when fans might expect tangible improvement over the Marc Trestman Era Bears on the way to becoming legit contenders in the second half of Fox’s four-year deal. Yet it’s hard to see where the Bears will be significantly better than last year’s 6-10 team.
Jay Cutler remains the starting quarterback, for good or ill. The good is that Cutler had maybe the best season of his career in 2015 under offensive coordinator Adam Gase. The ill is that he’s still Jay Cutler, his 2015 season wasn’t all that amazing, and Gase is now the head coach of the Dolphins. The offense should be aided by the addition of a healthy Kevin White, the 2015 first-round receiver who missed all of his rookie year due to injury. The defense – always the backbone of Fox’s best teams – will look to improve with this year’s No1 pick, linebacker Leonard Floyd, and free agent Danny Trevathan. Nice additions, but no one is yet comparing this defense to any Fox had in Carolina or Denver.
Chicago’s best offseason acquisition probably came the day the team got its schedule. The NFC North is gifted with games against the AFC South and NFC East, with Chicago also getting Tampa Bay and the 49ers. Maybe those match-ups alone will see them exceed six wins, but any meaningful improvement may not come until 2017. If it comes at all.
What is Eddie Lacy’s current shape?
The latest reports are good news for Green Bay: he is in shape and not a circular shape. When the Packers drafted Lacy in 2013 out of Alabama, they no doubt hoped he would generate more headlines for chewing up yardage than delicious pastries. But Lacy’s three solid but unspectacular seasons thus far as Green Bay’s feature back have been clouded by constant questions about his weight and fitness. So this offseason he hit the P90-X hard – yes, the workout your co-worker did to try to look good for his beach vacation – and is down 15lbs to 20lbs and has added muscle.
In Lacy’s defense – and defense is a thing consistently lacking in Green Bay in recent years – the running back may have looked at the struggles the Packers offensive line had last year in protecting Aaron Rodgers and thought: “Maybe I should become a guard so I can help block for Aaron.” The newly-svelte back is in the final year of his rookie contract and will be looking to produce a breakout season to earn a big, new deal (so he can continue to afford that expensive P90-X subscription, no doubt). If the Packers can get a career year from Lacy to go along with a healthy Jordy Nelson and a return to the usual excellence by Rodgers, their offense alone should be enough to win a division in which the defending champion is facing a season with Shaun Hill.
Is Jim Caldwell still employed as a head coach of a football team?
He sure is, meaning one of the most improbable stories in the sport rolls along. Or it rolls along at least for the first few weeks of a season in which the Lions will be underdogs in two of their first three games.
Caldwell, the man with a 26-63 record as a college head coach and a 20-28 career mark in the NFL with teams not quarterbacked by Peyton Manning, has had success as an assistant. Remember when Joe Flacco reached peak eliteness in 2012-2013? Caldwell was his position coach then and the offensive coordinator in the playoffs. But he has yet to carry that kind of success over to a head job. The Lions surprisingly earned a wildcard spot his first season in Detroit in 2014, but slipped to 7-9 last year, following the pattern of Caldwell teams always seeming to get worse the longer he’s around. Not really a great resume slug.
The task of improving is even harder with Detroit facing its latest era in which the franchise must deal with the early retirement of a superstar. As Calvin Johnson dances with the stars this fall, Matthew Stafford will hope Golden Tate and Marvin Jones can bring down the same passes Johnson used to. If they can’t, and if the losses pile up, Caldwell could be replaced by talented defensive coordinator Teryl Austin. If not Austin, offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter is another contender. Just try to make the case that the NFL is the No Fun League when a man named Jim Bob Cooter is a head coach. You will fail.
How loud is the Vikings new stadium?
So loud you’re probably never going to stop hearing about it. The Vikings open their new 66,143-seat stadium this year and early reviews say it could be louder than the Metrodome and possibly the loudest stadium in the entire NFL. In fact, the Vikings plan to offer ear plugs to their fans at Guest Services. Considering the team is now facing at least an entire season without their quarterback, perhaps they should hand out blindfolds, as well. But as hopeless as Vikings fans feel now, Bridgewater will return healthy one day and there will be plenty of opportunities for the home fans to seriously damage their ears. That’s a sacrifice most Vikings fans would happily make to see – if not hear – their team win its first Super Bowl.
Predicted standings
Packers: 11-5
Vikings: 9-7
Lions: 7-9
Bears: 6-10
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