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Four Downs with Dang & Doc
by Brian Davis and Paul Hopkins
30/1/2010
This week Dang and Doc chew the fat over the Vikings defeat to the Saints in the Superdome. Is Favre finally going to call it a day, and is Brad Childress what is holding the Vikings back? Elsewhere, theres no second Wembley game in Britain this coming season; has the International Series ran out of steam? Finally, they look at the ongoing mess around Urban Meyers on-off resignation/sabbatical and ask when will it end and what impact it is having in Gainesville.
 After losing to the Saints on Sunday Brett Favre will finally retire for good this off-season.
 DANG FICTION !, But he better make his mind up pretty damn quick though because I dont want to be seeing Favre watch every bloody day of the week, but then I just remembered, we wont because we got screwed with our TV coverage.
I see no way that he calls it quits after that game on Sunday. Hell want to go out on top, and as long as the Vikings dont blow it like they did last week then hes a fairly good chance of doing that.
Theres no way that his body can surely survive after the battering he took against the Saints though, The Vikings are going to have to look at what theyre doing on picking the Blitz up in 2010 to have any chance of getting Brett through the season, even with his games started record, the hits that the Saints landed on him were getting painful to watch by the end, he was a like a battered Boxer who the ref let go on for two rounds too many at the end.
He should never have quit the first and second time, he loves the game, he clearly can get the job done, despite his age, he still has a shot at a Super Bowl, so I believe he will be back. Football is a better place with Brett Favre, like it or not, likewise Kurt Warner, itll be a sad day in the NFL when these two legends hang up their cleats.
The one thing Ill ask Mr Favre would be, please do it before the draft so the Vikings at least know where they are going to be at going into it.
DOC FICTION ! No way he retires this off-season. Well, actually he probably will call it a day unless the Vikings give him time to decide. And even if they do, as he proved this season he doesnt really need to be a part of camp to make things work. His body will need time to recover, if pushed he would probably retire but really hell be coming back. I dont believe for one second, like after the 2007 season, he will want his career to end by throwing a pick in the NFC Championship game. Of course, he may never get the ending that will truly satisfy him, but his performances over the season have shown that he can still play. But at the same time, can the Vikings not make any kind of plans just in case he decides enough is enough, which he will have to do eventually? Their movements to move on Jackson and Rosenfels and bring in someone else (assuming they even do this) may well be more interesting than the traditional will-he, wont-he Favre summer watch.
 Following another defeat in the playoffs, Brad Childress is another coach who can get his team to the post-season but not to the Super bowl.
 DANG FICTION !. Lets give him at least more than one effort in a Championship game before we start comparing him to Norv or Marty. The game plan was going oh-so-well, until that last part of the last drive, which was littered with vanilla offense and an inexcusable 12 men on the field penalty which forced Favre to throw that pick on 3rd and long and put them out of Field Goal range, instead of having a 3rd and 9, with a chance to try and get a few yards closer with a safer play, even with a gammy ankle, if Favre had kept the ball himself he could have scrambled and slid another 3-4 yards forward instead of making the ridiculous pass that he did make, which was an inexcusable pass to make for a Hall of Famer, that would have given Longwell a real good chance to win them the game.
They almost went completely away with what had got them their previous 28 points on that last drive and it cost them, they outgained the Saints by over 200 yards, thats never been done in Playoff football before to a team thats still lost.
If Childress can get Favre back next year then he has another chance to right the wrongs of the Championship game. He also got absolutely no help from Adrian Peterson who for the touted Best Running Back in the league looks like he plays with butter on his hands, how can such a talented guy have such a basic flaw in his game? The window isnt that big for the Vikings, so Childress must get Brett back for 2010 and really go for it.
DOC FACT ! In the last 2:37 of this game we saw Brad Childress at his truest. It is at times like this we see the cream rise to the top, whilst others shy away, play safe, sometimes strike it lucky but equally sometimes end up being the reason their team loses. Childress has always had major question marks over him to me, but he has now confirmed it. Hell always be in the Norv Turner, Wade Phillips camp of good, but not good enough. Lets break down what he did Sunday night. Granted, his team should probably have been out of sight but kept on fumbling. But in the crunch Childress hurt his team. 2:37, an AP rush for no gain. No problem, but he then let the clock run down to the two-minute warning. Again, a basic running play was run for minimal gain before the Saints burned a timeout sniffing a chance at getting the ball back. Childress at this point took the shackles off, despite wasting the best part of a minute earlier, three plays later the Vikings found themselves at the Saints 33 with just over a minute left. Saints had no timeouts, the Vikings had two left. This should have been straight-forward. Inexplicably, Childress ran AP twice for no gain; puzzling but potentially safe to get another ten yards for Ryan Longwell, but at the same time let the clock run down to 19 seconds. He wasted 47 seconds to leave his kicker with a fifty yarder to win the conference. Farcical. Then came the 12 man penalty meaning Favre had to throw the ball and we all know what happened. In trying to play it safe Childress ended up forcing his QB to take a risk, when it could have easily been managed if he hadnt played ultra-conservative football and mis-managed the clock appallingly. Given that the Vikings were finding ways to move the ball down the field at relative ease, some of the choices Brad made were plain bizarre. This past Sunday, yes it was a pass that should never have been thrown by Brett Favre that cost the Vikings the win, but Brad Childress poor play-calling and bad clock management was what made Favre throw the ball.
 With the confirmation that there will be no second Wembley game this season and with a lockout looming in 2011, the future of the International Series has to be in grave doubt.
 DANG Ho hum. What a turn-around and come down from last weeks Four Downs where we shared such optimism of the second game to the news on Sunday nights live games. We had a 4 year deal; those 4 years end in 2010 after the 49ers Broncos game. The whole NFL could be up in the air in 2011 with the CBA, potential lockouts and owners forging a new deal and an uncapped year, I get why theres all the hoo-ha with worry about the future of the International Series, but the NFL wont give up on this after 4 years, let us not forget that it was only earlier this season that we were being talked about hosting up to four games over here.
The lack of a 2nd game was a bit of a slap in the face to fans in Europe and in particular Britain, but Im pretty sure the NFL will push this hard for the new CBA when its brokered and well see a return to our shores of the game, theres simply too much money in it for the teams travelling and we know that money speaks in the NFL.
There still seems to be other owners interested in sending games over so why would we not have hope of having games here.
My plea to the NFL though, if you also want to continue the growth of the game here, dont charge us so dammed much to be able to see the basics like Monday Night Football.
DOC FACT ! Ive come full circle on this in just over a week. Having sat and heard what can only be described as the utter nonsensical reason that the CBA means they dont want to focus on a second international game, I think its more a couple of points. Firstly, they dont want to upset any more owners (whilst trying to negotiate a CBA) by pushing them into going and playing overseas. This brings me onto the second, logical follow-on point. Namely that it seems we have now no longer got any more owners who are willing to come over. They have stadiums that produce more revenue for them, they dont want their team unsettled by coming over. And its now proving harder to negotiate with them to do so. Id be worried because if, as is being mooted widely, there is a lockout in 2011 then when the time comes for NFL football to begin, how easily will we pick up hosting games in the UK? Will owners go back to an attitude willing to see it happen? Will the Commissioner be in a strong enough position to drive forward his desire to expand the game internationally? The thing is, the whole landscape of the league will have changed and we here in the UK may find ourselves squeezed out.
 After admitting that he may not even take a leave of absence after all, the ongoing Urban Meyer saga is going to hurt Floridas programme.
 DANG FICTION !. This leave of absence of one day seems to be long forgotten about and itll be full steam ahead for him and the Gators now. Hes already back in the office, hired four new assistants, got a good recruiting class taking place.
He just needs to take a step back from time to time, take time out between signing day and spring camp, get himself a pre-labor day summer vacation and pick up the new season with some refreshed batteries.
By all accounts hes eating healthily again, working out and getting himself fit again, hes said previously that he wants to retire at 50. Hell be 46 this year, so well see him around for the foreseeable future and that can only be a good thing for Florida, SEC and College Football in general.
DOC FICTION ! Short-term yes, I think it probably is. Long-term I dont think having Urban Meyer as your head coach can be anything other than a good thing for the programme. I dont doubt that, given the news he was giving on Saturday about his health improving, adding weight as well as feeling much better than he allowed himself to get during this season, hes now just staying on rather than any of the other options. Granted he never confirmed either way, saying that he didnt really know his plans, though it is suspected there will be some time off after signing day. This probably gives a little bit more uncertainty than the programme would like but this is Urban Meyer we are talking about, so a bit of slack is fine. Its been a bit of a PR disaster along the way since this story shockingly broke on Boxing Day, which has increased uncertainty over the Gator programme when usually it is a bastion of stability, but has this hurt the programme? No, not at all. Guaranteed theyd still be top five all season.
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