Vikes better hope Saints get beat

[Big Dave2]

I wouldn't write the Vikes off just yet. The Saints are plenty good for sure but so are the Vikes.

New England is not the team they once were. They now have 4 losses and 1 of those losses were to a now 6 loss jets.

I'll wait and see what happens myself.

[BlueLundFishrman]

There are teams with a better record than the Patriots that I would rather see my team go up against instead of New England.

[fishersofmen]

The fact is the Saints just destroyed a very good football team. Purple looks very good right now as well but I must say I am a little nervous after watching that. Our pass defense still hasn't proved a whole lot and the Saints can air it out big time. New England came into this game with the #1 pass defense in the entire league and was shelled for 370 yards and 5 td's. Very impressive game for the Saints......just showed me they are the team to beat in the NFL this year.

[paceman]

Yes the saints are the team to beat. They destroyed the pats and they were missing reggie bush and most of thier starting secondary. Brady was not on his game and moss looked like he wasn't in the mood either. Brees was in a zone. The vikes have a few tough games coming up. Hoepfully we will show up sunday night and pound the cards. Lots of season left. Anything can and will happen.

[Jim Uran]

The Saints area a tough looking team, but I've been watching a tough looking team all year!!!!

We are better than the Patriots, if anyone can give the Saints a run for the money it's the Purple!!!!

[Scott K]

After last nights game, I am a little less confident in my Vikes team. The Saints sure looked unbeatable last night. If they play like that the rest of the year, they will be the SB champs!

[Cooter]

I love this football smack stuff!

[Jim Uran]

Looks like they have some division games to close out the season, let's hope they get beat a couple of times. I wouldn't like to see the Vikes going down to NO to play... Yikes what a crowd.

[nolte]

I think the Vikes have a very good team with a lot of good players with good chemistry. They are certainly on a roll. But let's look at this a little bit, they currently have the second easiest SOS (strength of schedule) in the NFL. Only the bears are worse and the Pack is only two spots above them.

Now I know you have to play who's on your schedule and all that, but the Vikes have only faced 3 teams with winning records. Their record is 3-1 in those games with two wins vs Pack and one agains the Ravens which came down to the wire. Likewise the Pack has only played 3 teams and their record is 1-3, with the only win against the Cowboys.

Both teams have some tough games coming up and it will be intersesting to see how they fare when they play some tougher quality oponents with more playoff implications. It should make for an intersting December.

The Saints have the 8th toughest SOS in the NFL and they dominated the Pats last night. They didn't squeak out a win, they simply took it to them in all facets besides place kicking. I was VERY impressed with their team and would NOT want my team to face them in that Dome.

[zamboni]

I gotta be honest, strength of schedule means squat in the NFL. Bad teams beat good teams every sunday, so if we are playing such bad teams, we should have gotten caught up in more than one loss this far. The Vikings are a complete team, from the kiciking game to special teams to the lines and on down. The Saints are as well, we beat them last year, and I am pretty sure we can do it again. If it weren't for Bush's returns last year, we actually beat them handily.

[TR21]

I agree Zamboni, strength of schedule means very little. More important is how teams match up against each other. One teams strengths vs. another teams weaknesses. Also important is when you play a team - who is out, is a team traveling west coast to east coast, did you catch them on a short week, home field advantage? These are more important factors when teams end up playing each other.

[nolte]

I gotta be honest, strength of schedule means squat in the NFL. Bad teams beat good teams every sunday,

[JBMasterAngler]

In the past 10 years a few different teams that played very weak schedules made it to the super bowl...cardinals last year, seahawks a few years ago, and the rams have done it twice. So yeah, strength of schedule is meaningless in the NFL.

[so haaad]

All the smack talk that's going on reminded me of the 2004-05 season. Let's hope that history doesn't repeat itself and the Vikes end up playing the Pack in the playoffs.

2004 Regular Season:

at GB 34 MIN 31

GB 34 at MIN 31

2004-05 NFC Wildcard game:

MIN 31 at GB 17

[Driftless]

vikes will have a bye because of second best record in NFC.

Packer might make wild card...but will be one and done.

[ANYFISH2]

I have to say N.O. is a great team, but so are the Vikings this year. I wouldn't place bets on either team in a match-up (boy, I sure hope there is one). Being a Viking fan I will say that there is no other team in the NFL that has steadily gotten better as the season has progressed, the vikings may just now be peaking. The Saints played much better earlier in the season than they have been lately (monday excluded). The match-up is closer than one may think.

[gopher_nation]

All the smack talk that's going on reminded me of the 2004-05 season. Let's hope that history doesn't repeat itself and the Vikes end up playing the Pack in the playoffs.

2004 Regular Season:

at GB 34 MIN 31

GB 34 at MIN 31

2004-05 NFC Wildcard game:

MIN 31 at GB 17

I don't think that is an issue this year. Those teams were evenly matched. This year we have quite an advantage, unless they get their o-line taken care of. I definitely want to face the Pack in the playoffs then head down to the Bayou!

[zamboni]

the Vikes secondary isn't all that bad, Cutler had a tough time throwing against them, as have other teams. It will be much improved after Winfield comes back. Sapps turning into a decent player as well. Don't remember Rodgers (or anyone this season) throwing at will against them, until the end of the games when they have been out of hand. When a team HAS to throw 50+ times a game because their running game gets 30 yards the whole game, occasionally a deep throw gets through

[Nick Kuhn]

The Patriots brought about a C game last night. If you bring a C game and the other team brings an A game in the NFL you are going to lose.

It's hard to say whose A game is better between the Vikings and Saints. The Vikings defense is dominant when it's fresh (ask the Bears who had 2 total yards in the 2nd half). Aside from the Ravens game and the Packers game where the Vikings defense really just fell asleep after being up big, the Vikings have otherwise held teams to 17 points or less (there are quite a few defensive and special teams scores against them). The offense hasn't scored less than 17 points (and they should have had more when they only scored 17).

I haven't seen the Saints enough to know much about them but they are a good team. But they certainly aren't unbeatable, especially when they run into a team playing as well as the Vikings are now.

[traveler]

very true. theres NO such thing as an unbeatable team...just ask the 16-0 patriots from a couple years back! We'll see how good the saints are when the time comes:)

[Scott M]

The Saints are good, but someone will bring a game to them. I don't think the 72 Dolphins are too worried yet. Indy has had to come from behind a lot lately.

The Vikings are improving from week to week. It's easy to point to last night's game and say nobody has a chance to beat the Saints, but at the start of the season, people were talking about the Patriots being a team that could set two records: most points scored (besting their own mark from two years ago) and most points given up. The fact that their offense didn't keep them in the game made them very one dimensional.

I still like the AD matchup and think we have a better defense...The Saints hit more home run plays with their defense, but I think the Vikings have the more solid "any given play" defense. The way Favre is playing this year, anything is possible. Between now and a potential NFC championship matchup, the Vikings need to get Winfield healthy and make sure the rest of the secondary is battle tested. I'm not worried about Pierre Thomas or Mike Bell against the Williams Wall, but stop the pass and I like the Vikings grind it out style...lots of people are calling the Saints a team the Vikings don't match up well with but if you want to slow a team down like that, you run the ball, control the clock, and play tough defense, especially against the pass.

I guess we won't know until the game is played, if we get there and neither team has a significant injury between then and now. While I'd pull for the Vikings, either team would be fun to watch in the S.B.

[greebs]

saints and vikes are teams that in my opinion need home field advantage to beat the other one and in all honesty I could see the home team regardless of who it is winning by 2 touchdowns . as is the case with every nfl season, the key is staying healthy. if these two teams stay healthy, I see them playing in the nfc championship hands down. vikes really need to wrestle the top seed from them not only to get home field if they play but also to avoid playing the cowboys in the nfc semi round. not that the cowboys should scare anybody but think after saints, vikes and them there is a significant drop off in talent in the nfc

[fishersofmen]

I agree with the home field advantage. If the Saints end up with home field throughout and we had to play them there they would obviously be the favorite to win and rightfully so. I just hope they get beat in the playoffs before we play them, I would rather play any other team in the nfc.

[LMITOUT]

the Vikes secondary isn't all that bad, Cutler had a tough time throwing against them, as have other teams.

You're kidding, right?

Look at the teams/QB's they've played this year. Junk. The only respectable QB they've played against so far was Rodgers and he lit them up.

The Saints got hosed in that game last year against the Vikes and some very favorable calls went the Vike's way. Regardless of that obvious detail, this is a new season and both teams are quite a bit different than last year so there is no reason to attempt to draw comparisons and legitimize the Vike's chances against the Saints based on what happened a year ago.

[HarleyK50]

You're kidding, right?

Look at the teams/QB's they've played this year. Junk. The only respectable QB they've played against so far was Rodgers and he lit them up.

Flacco and Big Ben don't really fall into the junk category. Granted we lost to the Steelers but it had nothing to do with big ben "lighting up" our secondary.