As I was watching the Super Bowl yesterday, which was a great one by the way, I really took notice one one main point the Cardinals and Steelers kept making to me, and I had one thought that kept coming back to me:
I thought, “Wow, so that’s what a great quarterback and a great receiver can do for a team.”
Obviously, I hadn’t forgotten about Moss, Carter, Reed, and company, but seeing it on that main stage, where two great quarterbacks were chucking balls to receivers that ranged from competent to extraordinary really showed what the Vikings need to help them compete. The old adage of “running the ball” and “stopping the run” in the playoffs seems to have gone by the wayside, and you can’t really argue. In the Super Bowl, the teams combined for 91 yards rushing and passed for 633 yards. While both teams can say they stopped the run, those who watched know that neither team really committed to rushing the ball very much. Willie Parker had 19 attempts, and the Steelers as a whole had 26, but if you would have told me after the game that they rushed that much I would have said you were crazy. It did not seem like they ran that much. Arizona, as was expected, only attempted 12 rushes, so they were going to pass, and everyone knew it.
Despite that, the Cardinals walked through the playoffs, running the ball moreso than in the regular season, but still managed to make it to the Super Bowl in convincing fashion. It just makes me wonder what the Vikings would be like if we had a real, legitimate, superstar receiver like Fitzgerald and an accurate, intelligent quarterback to throw the ball around.
And let’s not count out Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes and his counterpart, Gentle Ben. The two of them, when the running game wasn’t working, simply went off. Holmes had the best game of his career, made a Cris Carter-like touchdown grab at the end of the game, and Ben tossed the ball in the exact spot where only he could get it. Unbelievable. Do you see Tarvaris Jackson making that pass? I sure don’t. Both teams had great QBs with great WRs. The Vikings, honestly, have a sub-par QB and an above average receiever in Bernard Berrian. Berrian is good, but he’s not the go-to 100% committed throw-it-up-and-he’ll-go-get-it type like Fitzgerald or Holmes, to a lesser degree. While I don’t think the Vikings need a seriously top flight wide out, they need a tall, fast guy who can go up and get it. Sidney Rice could be the tall guy, but he’s no burner.
Hopefully, the Vikings can address both of these issues. If they do, the NFL better watch out next year. As for now, we can only congratulate the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals for not only giving us an amazing game, but to show us exactly what our favorite team needs to really be a contender.














