I\’ve done my best over the past few weeks to ignore all the \”Favre un-retiring and going to the Vikings\” speculation. It is getting more difficult to do as the media is in full frenzy mode with the report that Coach Brad Childress was on his way to Memphis (where I would think he would be catching another flight to someplace like Mobile or N\’awlins; as the drive to Kiln from Memphis is 6 hours).
Will he… won\’t he? As the resident Simpleprop Vikings wonk I can tell you unequivocally: I don\’t care.
What I as a Vikings fan am looking for is a competent quarterback who can read defenses and make most throws. The team needs a QB who can win games on his own, but where it isn\’t an expectation every week. Someone who is around, but on the high side, of the median of QB performance. Looking at the 2008 season that would be someone with a QB rating between 85 and 90.
2008 QB Ratings:
Brett Favre – 81.0
It\’s worth noting that Favre was terrible down the stretch due to an injury and his QB rating was affected accordingly. If he is healthy, I think he\’d be a vast improvement over the Vikings current roster of QBs.
However…
2008 QB Ratings:
Jeff Garcia – 90.2
Garcia single handedly beat the Vikings in Week 11 last year. He is just as old as Favre but is exactly the type of QB this team needs. He can buy extra time in the pocket (since the offensive line is in transition), he can make throws on the run (after being forced to scramble by porous offensive line), he makes accurate throws (completion percentage of 65% in 2008, over 61% in his career), and he knows how to hand off the ball. But he signed with the Raiders in April for \”over the minimum\”, which roughly translated into \”peanuts\”… well, relatively speaking.
But I digress… the Vikings require a competent quarterback and the only one they have on their roster who has a chance of filling that role is a 31 year old career backup named Sage Rosenfels. In his defense he\’s never had much of a team to play with until this last year (and even then we are talking about the Texans). So he is unproven, but has more upside than the known quantity of Tavaris Jackson.
That is why I don\’t particularly care what the Vikings do. Go with an over the hill gunslinger or a mid-career backup who has the markings of \”caretaker QB\” all over him.
It\’s a sad toss up.
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