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Around The NFC North - SB Nation Edition

By Brandon

I took a look at the NFC North games last Sunday but thought it would be better to see what the SB Nation writers of each team's blogs thought about their respective wins (Chicago, Detroit) and loss (Minnesota).

Over at Pride of Detroit, it didn't look good but a win is a win:

So, how could a team that appeared to be dominated come away with a win?  It's as simple as this: Detroit capitalized on all of Tampa Bay's mistakes and the Bucs just had too much trouble finishing out drives.  If you would've showed me the stats and told me Detroit actually won, I would call you crazy, but thanks to those key turnovers at key times, the Lions were victorious.

At Windy City Gridiron, Chicago's defense improved from "abysmal" to good, kept Philadelphia from getting any big plays, and were helped out by a bad game plan from Andy Reid:

Again, as I said before we didn't give up any big plays.  I felt that our line backers and secondary really stepped up and did a good job. Also, it was good to see the defense stop Brian Westbrook.  Although I will say I don't know how much of that was really them, and how much of that was Andy Ried's ineptitude. We held him to 79 yards rushing and 40 yards receiving, but he only got to run the ball 18 times. I know the defense on the whole gave up 123 yards, but I don't know how Andy Ried can have one of the best running backs in the NFC and not utilize him more. In any case, he didn't kill us, and after last week that is a welcome feat.

It didn't go as well for Minnesota, and over at Daily Norseman, the conversation begins and ends with QB Tavaris Jackson:

Believe me, nobody is pulling harder for this kid to be a success at the NFL level than I am.  The kid has talent. . .if he didn't, he wouldn't have been a second-round pick in the NFL Draft.  Unfortunately, with what we've seen in his first four starts this season, he is clearly not ready to be a starter at the NFL level.  He should be sitting on the bench and learning from a seasoned veteran, ready to take over the reins in 2008 or even beyond.

What's even more unfortunate is that the Vikings, thanks to Brad Childress' infinite stubbornness and inability to evaluate the progress of his players, don't currently HAVE anything better at the quarterback position to turn to.  There's absolutely no point in playing Kelly Holcomb right now.  Kelly Holcomb is not the future of the Minnesota Vikings.  Neither is Brooks Bollinger.  Whether Tarvaris Jackson is the future of the Minnesota Vikings or not is, at least in theory, still the subject of some debate.

But the signs have not been encouraging.  After playing an average game at Chicago (and I say that because he had a LOT of passes that bounced off of the hands of his receivers that made his numbers look much worse than he actually played), #7 absolutely stunk up the joint against Dallas yesterday afternoon.  On the first drive, he completed passes on consecutive plays to Adrian Peterson (for 12 yards) and Chester Taylor (3 yards).  He didn't complete another pass until the third quarter.

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