Ricky's Reality

Dear Ricky,

Listen, we are all behind you.  We all trust you.  Because when you trust yourself you play beautiful basketball and make everyone and the team better.  The problem is, you don't trust yourself right now. 

Your minutes are down from an average of 34.2 minutes/game last year to 22.7 minutes/game this year.  Given that, if you look at your numbers below, they are strikingly similar to the numbers you put up last year.
                                                  2011-2012                                       2012-2013                      
                             Per Game                Per Minute             Per Game                Per Minute
Assists                        8.2                           .23                          5.1                           .22
Turnovers                  3.2                           .09                          2.6                           .11
Steals                          2.2                           .06                          1.4                           .06
Rebounds                   4.2                           .12                          2.0                           .08
Points                         10.6                         .31                           4.2                           .18
         
Except for your scoring.  Your scoring per game and per minute is way down this year because your FG% is down.  Last year you shot .357% from the field.  That has dropped to .231% this year.  Your 3-pt% is down from .231% last year to .000% this year.

Given your low minutes and the consistency of all your other numbers, your problem isn't the same as Kevin Love's was when he returned from a hand injury.  Love was out of shape, lethargic and generally slow when during his brief return.  He talked over and over again about how he needed to work his way back into game shape.  Unfortunately he went down with another hand injury before that happened. 

To your credit you came back and we immediately saw your energy and spark.  You've flashed your brilliance on occasion.  However, we've also seen something new and troubling in your return.  You look frustrated and unsure any time you shoot or should shoot.  I hate to do this but you have to watch this shot again Ricky.

Professional NBA players don't air ball wide open layups.  Yes, you could have jumped higher.  Maybe dunked it.  Doesn't matter.  What matters is that you looked scared to shoot it, short armed the shot and missed everything from mere inches away.  That has nothing to do with your reconstructed knee and everything to do with your head. 

No one expects you to shoot lights out.  No one expects you to lead the team in scoring, that's not your game.  A summer of shooting repetition will do you wonders.  You can learn to speed up your shot, get a little more arc on it and learn to catch and shoot without having to load first.

But for now, for the rest of this year, if you are sick of losing, sick of not playing up to your expectations, sick of getting benched for players with more scoring propensity like J.J. Barea, then you have to play more like this:

We don't expect you to have a career year like Adrian Peterson.  He is a freak of nature and played better in his return from an ACL injury than anyone ever has.  But you can take a page from his book and play aggressive.  You have medical clearance.  Now trust yourself.  When the shot is there shoot it.  Shoot it like you want to shoot it, like you love to shoot it, like you love to play.  Play like Ricky and great things will happen again for you and the team.

Packers v. Vikings Part III

The Vikings have some injury concerns, mainly the availability of their best cornerback Antoine Winfield who left last week's season finale when the pain in his broken hand became too much to bear.  Once Winfield left, Aaron Rodger's began playing like Aaron Rodgers and shredded the Vikings' defense of four touchdowns.  Winfield will try to go but its likely he will exit early if/when his pain surges again.   

The Packers on the other hand are finally healthy.  Jennings, Cobb, Nelson and Jones will be healthy and active.  With a lack of depth and talent in the secondary, is Minnesota doomed?

Maybe not.  For starters, the last time the Packers main contributors were all healthy (Jennings, Cobb, Nelson, Woodson, Matthews), the Packers were 2-2 and would lose the next game to Indianapolis without only Jennings to drop them to 2-3.

Further, this is week 18 of the NFL season.  Even those players who are active aren't necessarily healthy.  Often times games like this where two quality teams are playing each other for the 3rd time in a season in a win-or-done playoff match for after closely splitting the two previous contests are not decided by which team is  healthiest.  Instead, the winner is usually the team with the best game plan, that makes the best adjustments before and during the game, the team that executes the best and the team with momentum coming in.

Given last week's victory the Vikings showed they made the better pre-game adjustments, they executed as well or better than the Packer's which gave them the win and the momentum.  The Packers in game decision to target and burn Winfield's replacement, Marcus Scherels, was the in-game adjustment that kept the Packers in the game.   

Thus, regardless of injuries on either side (aside from an early injury to Rodger's or Peterson which could be catastrophic to their respective teams), Saturday's winner will be the team that executes the best.   This is particularly true because the Vikings are involved.  The Vikings are 10-0 this year when they win or tie the turnover battle.  They are 0-6 when they lose it.

The odds have to favor the experienced, playoff savy Packers.  But as recent history has shown you can not count out a group of youngsters playing their best football at the right time like the Vikings are.  One thing is for sure, it will be fun to watch!

Manning and Peterson Both Deserve 2012 Hardware

Adrian Peterson and Peyton Manning are vying for the same hardware this year.  While both are strong candidates for each award, is clear that Manning is the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year (CPOY) and Peterson is the Most Valuable Player (MVP).

Manning sat out an entire year after he had two vertebrae in his neck fused together.  His nerves were damaged and no one, not even doctors, knew if he would ever regain the arm strength to make NFL throws, much less to be Peyton Manning again. 

Peterson on the other hand tore his ACL and MCL, which is a severe injury, but he technically only missed one game and no  one questioned whether he would be back.  The speed of Peterson’s recovery astonished experts, but it isn’t unprecedented. Wes Welker had a similar injury in Week 17 of the 2009 season and started in Week 1 of the following year. Welker went the Pro Bowl that year, but did not win CPOY.

Manning, on the other hand, was in an abyss of uncertainty.   Like former CPOY winners Chad Pennington and Willis McGehee, Manning who had multiple surgeries, multiple setbacks, entire seasons lost and moments where retirement seemed inevitable. 

The fact that Manning made it back on the field at all is a feat that could garner him CPOY consideration.  In true Manning form he not only came back but he came back and  played at an MVP level which solidifies him as the 2012 CPOY.  

Ignoring the back stories however, Peterson was more valuable to his team’s success this year and thus is the rightful 2012 MVP.  Manning joined a team that lost in the second round of the playoffs last year with Tim Tebow at the helm.  There was a strong sentiment before the season that Manning, if recovered, was the missing component to an already-talented team.  When the Broncos earned the AFC's 1 seed last week that proved to be true (at least for regular season MVP considerations).

The improved play from talented youngsters like Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker evidences Manning's large role in the Broncos' ascent.  But as far as the 2012 Broncos are concerned, it is easy to point out all the areas where the team is strong and all the things that went right.  

The opposite is true of the 2012 Vikings.  The 2012 Vikings became contenders and shattered expectations by adopting Peterson's legendary drive, refusal to quit and confidence.

Consider that the 2011 Vikings were 3-13.  Most thought the Vikings needed to rebuild. The 2012 Vikings have largely the same personnel from 2011 but have managed a 10-6 record and a playoff birth.  That happened despite many things going wrong on the field for them.  

The investment in Jerome Simpson brought no returns; Kyle Rudolph disappears for multiple games at a time; Percy Harvin missed the last seven games of the season; and Christian Ponder, the quarterback in a quarterback driven league, got worse (and sometimes way worse) before he got better.

The Harvin and Ponder situations in particular should have created insurmountable problems for fragile 3-win team.  Harvin was having a monster season and proving to be one of the most electric players on Earth before an awkward tackle ended his season in week 9. He went down and the Vikings became one-dimensional and could have folded (which it appeared Ponder did for a while). 

Ponder had three games this year where he threw for less than 100 yards.  Against Arizona, he threw for only 58 yards, whereas Peterson had five games where he exceeded that total on the ground—on one play! Professional starting quarterbacks not named Tim Tebow don't have one game with less than 100 yards let alone three.  Even Tebow never had less than 60 total yards in a game as a starter.

At a minimum, Ponder had problems and frequently hurt his team rather than helped. His averages of 6.08 yards per attempt and 183 yards per game both ranked him 31st and ahead of only Blaine Gabbert, who’s Jaguars finished 2-14. His total yards ranked 25th, touchdowns ranked 23rd. 

 

His 62.1 % completion percentage ranked him fairly high at 13th, but completing a decent percentage of six-yard passes doesn’t do much to sustain drives, put points on the board and help a team win. In fact, due to Ponder, the Vikings had the highest percentage of three-and-outs of all playoff teams expect the Bengals. And yet, the one-dimensional 2012 Vikings won continuously against strong competition

 

Peterson simply didn't let the team succumb to its seemingly per-ordained mediocrity.  Peterson has always been great, but with Harvin physically unable to perform and Ponder performing awfully, he morphed into something even bigger.  The Vikings went 5-2 after Harvin went down, including must-win games against the Bears, the Texans (the AFC’s two-seed), and the Packers (the NFC’s three-seed).  During that stretch Peterson ran for 1,140 yards and averaged 6.8 yards per carry while Ponder threw for only 1,129 yards and averaged 5.8 yards per attempt in those games. 

The 2012 Vikings, fueled by Peterson's absurd second half of the season performance and leadership, refused to let Harvin's injury, Ponder's growing pains, an inept passing game, 9-man fronts or a brutal end of the season schedule stop them.   Even when put up average numbers, like the 86 yards he gained on 25 carries against Houston in week 16, the Vikings still convincingly won that must-win game on the road.  The Vikings followed that suprise performance by getting over the post-Farve Packer hump and found themselves in the playoffs.   

Peterson is this years MVP because he had one of the greatest rushing years in the history of the NFL, he did so in a pass happy league on a one-dimensional running team AND he also transformed the personality and will of his team so that it became a contender.  With all due respect to Manning and the other worthy quarterbacks out there, Peterson made a position (rb) and a team (the Vikings) relevant at a time when both were at their weakest.  That can't be said for anyone else in the MVP discussion and that makes Peterson the rightful winner.