This is a series I am bringing to Redskins Hog Heaven for the rest of the season.  I've done extensive film analysis on at least a couple of games for each team in the NFC (exceptions: the dreadful Panthers and Cardinals), and figured while you need a lot more than a hundred or so total plays to be an "expert" on any one team, you also don't need to be an expert on any topic to provide some valuable insight.

Remember, I am no expert about teams that aren't the Redskins, and this series specifically steps outside my level of expertise.  If I can provide just a couple of nuggets of knowledge to readers in advance of the upcoming game, this endeveaor can be considered a success. 

The following is the Redskins Hog Heaven Scouting Report on the Minnesota Vikings.

Offensive Backfield

The strength of the Vikings here is obscured by their inability to provide great opportunities in either the passing game or the running game.  Adrian Peterson was never a complete, feature back prior this year, usually providing highlight reel runs when he got on the edge and only a moderate amount of ability to run between the tackles and move the chains prior to this season.  In addition to that, Peterson fumbled on more than 3% of his carries for the season.  This year, Peterson is a different, far more effective player who has had fewer highlight reel moments because the blocking hasn't allowed Peterson to get free much this year.  Peterson is second in the league behind only Chris Johnson in carries, and has done more with those carries than Johnson.  Peterson isn't in the elite class with Arian Foster and Jamaal Charles (and this year, BenJarvus Green-Ellis), but he is very much in the next tier below those guys as a runner.  His numbers this year compare favorably to Michael Turner, and Turner plays behind an offensive line full of maulers.

The Vikings are a much better team when they are running than when they are passing, in spite of a line than can neither block for Peterson, nor Brett Favre.  Their run-centric gameplans have tended to yield a competitive team, where their pass-centric gameplans have tended to led to struggles by Brett Favre.

Favre still plays at a high level in the pocket, avoiding sacks and pressures and helping the receivers learn the timing mechanisms in a complicated offense.  Favre's level of play is less effective downfield, in no small part because his injuries and declining arm strength are working in tandem to create a monster of sorts: Favre plays like a guy who can make all the throws.  Favre does not actually still have the ability to make all the throws.  He still throws up the seams really well, but he's not getting it outside the numbers with any sort of velocity.

Wide Receivers and Tight Ends

Too much of the Vikings offensive decline has come because this group has underachieved.  TE Visanthe Shiancoe is enemy number one in terms of "where have you gone" players from last seasons top passing offense.  More understandable is the loss of Sidney Rice to injury, and Randy Moss' temporary inability to fill those shoes.  This is a team that managed to play Bernard Berrian all season, and managed to actually target Bernard Berrian and Greg Lewis in a professional offense 61 times.

Percy Harvin might be the offenses best player, if it isn't Peterson.  He's the class of this receiving corps.  Sidney Rice is just coming back from hip surgery and is somewhat of an unknown quantity.  He could be a match-up nightmare for the Redskins given his rapport with his quarterback from last season, but he didn't exactly set the world on fire last week in his return: 3 catches on 10 targets.  A healthy Harvin and Rice may be an elite receiving duo for the Vikings many years into the future, but neither is 100% right now -- and Harvin may never truly be at 100% the rest of his career.

Greg Camarillo was a valuable pickup for Miami who is underutilized because the Brad Childress Vikings were trying to justify both Bernard Berrian's contract, and Greg Lewis being on the roster.

Offensive Line

While 'underachiving' is a word that fits Brett Favre's receivers, something like "bad" might best describe this group.  When C John Sullivan is playing and playing well, he gives the rest of the group a chance to be successful.  It's LG Steve Hutchinson who has declined the most from his all-world peak in the middle of the decade.  RG Anthony Herrera may be the group's most consistent performer, which isn't meant as a complement.  The tackle duo, Bryant McKinnie and Phil Loadholt, could be among the worst pass protecting duos in the league this year, and neither was drafted to get much push in the running game.

This is the group that continues to allow Favre to get hit and hurt, and the group that can't create rushing lanes for Peterson to gallop through.  They are a dead weight around the neck of the entire offense.

Defensive Front 

This unit has underachieved as badly as the pass catches have, because the Vikings' front is super talented.  DT Kevin Williams is having a good year, but is getting little help from the other starters: DT Pat Williams, DE Jared Allen, and DE Ray Edwards.  Allen, in particular, is having a dreadful pass rushing year, while Pat Williams might simply be too old to be a consistent performer.  Edwards has simply been disappointing, since many were expecting a breakout year.  Some of the best performers here have been backups, such as Brian Robison and LeRoy Guidon.

The linebacking corps have struggled through injury and underperformance as well.  E.J. Henderson has played the whole season with a metal rod in his reconstructed leg, with Ben Leber starting to show signs of age.  The third linebacker, Chad Greenway, has been fantastic for them against the run and the pass.  He's the strong side backer responsible for covering the tight end, and the Vikings have really done a number on opposing TEs this year.  This isn't much of a blitzing group under Leslie Frazier, so they've just taken the underperformance hit in terms of their pass rush rather than bringing LBs in order to generate pressure.

Defensive Backfield

It's a weakness.  Antoine Winfield level of play hasn't matched his own level of play from last season, which is a problem, but the rest of this secondary hasn't even matched Winfield's current level of play, which is the bigger problem.

Donovan McNabb should have a field day down field which should help to counter-act the fact that the Redskins are going to struggle to run the football against this unit. 

While things are looking fairly good for the Redskins' playoff hopes right now with six games to go, we can only wonder how much better they would be if the Redskins didn't have to fight their own poor personnel evaluations over the seasons' first ten weeks.

Today's anticipated release of veteran WR Joey Galloway is another chapter in a book of "what were they thinking" type moves from the Redskins this offseason that brought in Larry Johnson, Willie Parker, Artis Hicks, and Galloway.  Galloway may have been the worst signing of the bunch, if only because there was never any benefit to having him here, and the Redskins flatly handed him a spot on the 53 man roster without ever testing his skill set in the preseason to see if it could help.  Galloway played like a guy who didn't belong on an NFL roster, mostly because he has for the last three seasons been a guy who didn't belong on an NFL roster.

A lot of the Redskins' more controversial moves since Mike Shanahan and Bruce Allen took over have actually worked out pretty well for them.  For example: they've found a quality return man in Brandon Banks.  Their release of Devin Thomas has produced nothing yet for teams in need who have kicked his tires.  They were right to leave Trent Williams at left tackle, and teach right tackle to Jammal Brown.

But the less controversial moves, particularly the veteran signings and the McNabb deal, have really held back the team.  Galloway was the most obvious example of a player who the Redskins felt could handle a role in their offense that he clearly could not.  They were just able to admit their mistakes on Larry Johnson and Willie Parker earlier: Parker before the season began.  They appeared willing to admit their McNabb error before they concluded anything wrong with giving Joey Galloway so many snaps.  Getting Galloway out of there should help McNabb immensely.  They'll start Artis Hicks this week at right guard, and likely be forced to admit that mistake soon enough.  Reports are that Casey Rabach's run as the starting center might be over as well, another error admission that at least the Redskins appeared to be considering at the start of the season simply by keeping Will Montgomery on the 53-man roster.

I mean, that's a lot of "times we screwed up" admissions by the Redskins in the past, oh, eight months.  On the bright side, Vinny Cerrato would never have offered the critical self-evaluation necessary to admit he could have possibly done that much wrong in a single season, and he would have never corrected his own errors as the Redskins have slowly done.  On the downside, how many errors did Cerrato actually make in a season?  Certainly, he didn't make 6 or more personnel errors on the offensive side of the ball, right?  At least not unless you count Jim Zorn's terrible roster building decisions in that count.  By the way, don't get me started on the roster making decisions to give us this current OL group.

The main thing about Joey Galloway is that he really should never have been a Redskin for more than a month anyway, and its not easily excusable that he played 10 games, starting 4 for this team.  This is the right move: Terrence Austin will make better use of his 53-man roster spot than Galloway would.  But there just wasn't any reason to keep either Devin Thomas or Joey Galloway at the beginning of the season, and risk losing Austin to another team -- unless the coaches just didn't think Austin could play.  If that was the case then, adding Austin now with six games to play isn't going to save the season.

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Something has to give when Donovan McNabb meets Brett Favre.

The Washington Redskins have never beaten a team quarterbacked by Favre. The Minnesota Vikings have never beaten a team quarterbacked by McNabb.

McNabb is 5-0 against the Vikings since 2001. That streak included two playoff wins, including the 2007 meeting, a 26-14 win over the Tavaris Jackson led Minnesota squad.

Donovan McNabb holds a 4-2 record against teams quarterbacked by Favre. McNabb and the Philadelphia Eagles lost 6-3 to Favre's' Green Bay Packers in 2000, McNabb's first full year as starting quarterback.

McNabb led the Eagles to an 11-5 record and to the post-season that year. McNabb and the Eagles lost 16-13 to Favre and the Packers in their last meeting in 2007. Favre enjoyed his last storied season with the 13-3 Packers that year. The Eagles struggled to an 8-8 record.

Favre dithered on retirement in 2008, finally foisting himself on his old team who no longer wanted him. He made an injury-plagued sojourn through the New York Jets before his dream season with the Vikings in 2009.

McNabb led the 2009 Eagles to an 11-5 record. Two straight losses to the Dallas Cowboys, one to close the regular season and the other in the playoff game that followed, led the Eagles to the same conclusion about McNabb that the Packers made about Favre. It was time to move on, though the Eagles and McNabb were far more gracious about it than the Packers and Favre.

The thrill is gone for Favre

Favre's year in Minnesota is nothing like last season when he was the NFL's darling quarterback. The Vikings receiver corps is riddled with injuries. Sidney Rice, Percy Harvin and Bernard Berrian have had season-long ailments that have restricted practice and playing time. Randy Moss was on and off the team in a blink of an eye.

Favre leads the league in interceptions (17). Both Favre and McNabb have thrown 10 touchdown passes, but McNabb has thrown for 368 more yards and the Redskins have scored 30 more points on the season than the Vikings.

Vulnerable defenses

Quarterbacks don't face each other. They face defenses. The trick is for McNabb to do a better job against the Vikings' defense than Favre does against the Redskins' D.

Purple Jesus Diaries, the Bloguin site covering the Vikings, says that Minnesota's secondary is ripe for the picking with CB Antoine Winfield the only stalwart defensive back on the field. McNabb could have a field day for distance to place the 'Skins in scoring position.

After losses to the 4-6 St. Louis Rams and the 2-9 Detroit Lions, the Redskins cannot be smug about the 3-7 Vikings led by a quarterback they've never beaten.

The Rams opened scoring against the Redskins with a 42 yard Stephen Jackson run, something that Vikings interim head coach Leslie Frazier surely noticed. With Redskins safety LaRon Landry declared OUT for the game, running Minnesota's ace back Adrian Peterson through the middle of Washington's defense must tempt Frazier.

Oddly, Frazier and Mike Shanahan might have the same strategy to win the game.  Keep the ball out of Brett Favre's hands.

Point after: I just heard Mooch on The NFL Network say that Farve has never lost to the Redskins and McNabb has never lost to the Vikings. "Something's gotta give," he said. Shout out to me. 

  Redskins Hog Heaven lost a great friend, mentor and inspiration in Patrick Patterson, 38, who passed away Thanksgiving morning. Patrick was the founder of Thoughts From The Dark Side, covering the Oakland Raiders NFL team since 2005. That makes Patrick one of the pioneers in citizen writers on the medium of Internet blogging.

I never met Patrick personally. We did correspond and I frequently peeked at TFDS more to mine his ideas about managing a sports blog than for news about the Raiders. I'm sure many of my colleagues on Bloguin and on the old Most Valuable Network did the same.

Patrick is already sorely missed. I feel so badly for his friends and loved ones. 

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This Sunday's match-up of Vikings vs. Redskins featuring two evenly matched teams. The Vikes are struggling more than the 'Skins at the moment, but Washington never met a Brett Favre team they could beat. We go to our Bloguin colleagues Purple Jesus Diaries and talk some Favre, McNabb, Haynesworth and yellow pants.

Redskins Hog Heaven: Thank you, Vikings, for taking the spotlight off Donovan McNabb, Mike Shanahan and Albert Haynesworth. Leslie Frazier says Brett Favre will remain as starting quarterback. How does firing Brad Childress help Brett and the offense?

Purple Jesus Diaries: You're welcome, but to be fair, it does appear that the attention is on the Titans now as well, so we should probably both send them a nice holiday wreath to show our thanks. Brett Favre will remain the starting quarterback, but I'm not sure if this helps or doesn't help. Favre is having one of the worst seasons of his career, and Childress is just the fall guy for him. I think with Childress gone you'll see a lot more of how offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and Favre had always wanted to run this offense since last year, with more audibles at the line and probably more stupid Favre interceptions. Hopefully, Frazier steps in and says "Uh, we have Adrian Peterson. Stop throwing interceptions and just give him the ball on hand offs and check downs, dammit. I'm trying to get a head coaching job here."

RHH: If Favre is benched, what should concern us about Tavaris Jackson?

PJD: I would have zero concerns about TarVar. People like to think of him as a scrambling quarterback, as some guy with a big arm, but really, the only coach in the entire NFL who he had support from just walked out of the Viking facility doors. I think the TarVar era is going to end very quietly, largely because he now has no support, and because the team simply can't bench Favre. He's making too much money, he's still, somehow, too popular amongst the fan base, and I think it's one of those scenarios where you just go down with the burning ship, Favre at the helm for sure.

RHH: Mike Shanahan thinks that Childress' dismissal will fire up the Vikings? Do you see evidence of that with player comments?

PJD: I don't know if you see those in comments, necessarily, but it's not uncommon to think. I mean, the players feel bad that their crappy play got this guy canned, but it's not like there was a ton of support for Childress in the locker room anyway. No one is going out to "Win this one for Baldy!" or anything. I think you'll see more inspired play for Frazier more than anything, but probably only for about a full half before the Vikings revert to the norm for the 2010 season.

RHH: What concerns you about the Washington Redskins going into this game?

PJD: Everything? I don't know much about their defense, and I think both teams have a bit of Jekyll and Hyde syndrome. Who will show up? Will the offensive lines play well? Will Laron Landry trash talk one of OUR players early to guarantee a win? I think it will be an interesting game because there are so many unknowns.

RHH: How should the Redskins offense attack the Vikings offense?

PJD: You just got to pass on them. The defense is if nothing mediocre this year. Normally, you couldn't run on the team so you would HAVE to pass, but this year it's more that the Viking have Antoine Winfield in the backfield and that's pretty much it for safety and cornerback play. Greg Jennings just went off for 150 yards and three touchdowns. We all got to see Aaron Rodgers do his stupid hop-skip celebration several times last Sunday. I remember in more recent years past when McNabb was in Philly he came into the Metrodome both regular season and post-season and mopped the Vikings good. He's always done that. If he puts the ball in the air this weekend I don't see anything different about what will happen.

RHH: We have this neat defensive lineman available for trade. Would the Vikings give up a third and sixth round pick for Albert Haynesworth? If not, would you give up a fourth round pick and a ham sandwich?

PJD: 4th and a ham sandwich sounds swell as long as there is Swiss cheese on it too and if you pick a new franchise QB in the draft and give us McNabb as well. You don't really want him, right??

RHH: How will the Vikings-Redskins game play out and what is the final score?

PJD: The Vikings haven't won on the road in like a year and a half, so any Vikings fan picking them to win now would be an idiot. I think it'll be a pretty close game. The Vikings HAVE had some close games this year despite their embarrassing record, including opportunities for last minute winning drives against the Packers and the Jets on the road. I think the Redskins are playing all out of wack this season, too, so it's hard to tell what they'll bring on Sunday. Same with the Vikings, especially with a new coach and a weeks worth of questions and butt chewings. I anticipate a close one, but the Skins will win another low scorer in the end, something like 23-17.

Thank you, PJD, for your Vikings insights. We answered questions about the Redskins and this game for Purple Jesus Diaries. Find them at the link here. We'll be here when you get back.

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Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence. ~Erma Bombeck

Where ever you go, whomever you are with, we at Redskins Hog Heaven wish you the best in the spirit of Thanksgiving. 

With the offense converting it's third down opportunities and staying on the field against the Titans, it only made sense that this would be the game that the defense made a breakthrough in terms of getting off the field on third down.  Of course, the Redskins' problem against the Eagles wasn't third down defense, it was the inability to string two successful plays together to get to third down.  That was not much of an issue for the Redskins defense in this game.

The Redskins never really did slow down Titans all-world RB Chris Johnson.  On more than one occasion, a loose Johnson threatened to break this game wide open.  Johnson had his opportunities because of his own patience and explosiveness, and because of the Titans OL and their ability to dominate Kedric Golston (and to a lesser extent, Ma'ake Kemoeatu) at the point of attack.

When things go wrong for the Redskins run defense, the thing to do when analyzing the film is to immediately find London Fletcher and see why he didn't personally make the play.  Usually when Fletcher doesn't make the tackle, it's because someone (Landry or Orakpo) beat him to the line for a first opportunity play.  It's more complicated when things go bad.  Fletcher is the reason that the Redskins' run defense is better than it's pass defense.

Against an opponent like this, it's important to keep in mind that you can play a run near perfectly, make the tackle on the first contact, and Chris Johnson might still get six or seven yards out of a play with no real hole.  What you have to avoid doing is letting him get to the open field.  When Vince Young was the quarterback, the Titans got big plays through the passing game, and not through the running game.  After Rusty Smith relieved him at quarterback, the Titans got a single big play with the pass, but plenty of long runs.

Back to Fletcher: the Titans were able to neutralize him to a degree in this game with misdirection, if they weren't able to physically get a body on him.  HB Blades actually picked up a lot of the slack for this, making a number of long-run saving plays.  Johnson had a lot of trouble getting the edge on Orakpo on this game in the early phases, so he was able to create some long runs using draw plays that baited Orakpo to come towards the quarterback on pass.  Once he was outside Orakpo, both Fletcher and Blades faced an uphill battle to bring down Johnson before he hit the secondary.  A couple of other times, the Titans OL drove the Redskins DL back into Fletcher, forcing him to miss a tackle on Johnson, who hit up into the secondary.  This was mostly a factor late in the game.

Pass Defense and Randy Moss

I thought the pass defense was a little too Moss-centric for a guy who hadn't done anything this year (and didn't do anything today).  The Redskins oftentimes inverted their Moss side coverage with DeAngelo Hall responsible for staying over the top of Moss to take him away, and then using Kareem Moore underneath.  The other coverage they used was a more conventional cover two where the lack of pressure to Moss' side in the offensive scheme allowed Hall to get nosy and start aggressively jumping passes to Moss.  With the amount of time the Titans spent trying to throw to Moss, this was a useful counter-strategy by Jim Haslett.  Had the Titans been less enslaved to the idea of using Moss at the expense of guys like Chris Johnson and Bo Scaife, it might have come back to bite the Redskins in the form of touchdowns.

Scaife wasn't going to get great opportunities because Fletcher is a coverage stud, and so the Titans really missed 3rd year blocking TE Craig Stevens who would have either had a better coverage match-up or taken Fletcher in coverage to open up Scaife.  The other factor here is that Fletcher's dominance against tight ends this year emphasizes just how much the Redskins non-Landry safeties suck in coverage.  Usually, most defenses ask their safeties to handle tight ends.  In this defense, that worry is already handled, they just need to provide help on already covered receivers.  They don't.  Reed Doughty apparently wasn't going to play in deference to Anderson Russell, of all people, but was forced into action and he and Moore combined to give up 131 yards in 4 targets, 51 of those yards with something named Rusty Smith at quarterback.  That's obscenely bad.  Enter Macho Harris.

The Titans had just three third down conversions in this game: a 3rd and 6 in the second quarter, a 3rd and 3 on that same drive, and a 3rd and 2 in the 3rd quarter.  Lest you believe that the Redskins struggled in short yardage defense, the Titans failed to convert a 3rd and 3, a 3rd and 1, a 3rd and 4, and a 3rd and 3 in this one.

Phillip Buchanon had as much problem with the footing as anyone on the outside in this game, and allowed conversions, but he was not a major problem in this game.  He may have had a couple more passes defended if we played this one at FedEx Field instead.  His tackling was very good considering he was coming in late and out of control after slipping down.  Overall, he won his match-up on the outside with Nate Washington, even if Washington converted a third down or two on him.  Washington's longest catch of the day actually came vs. DHall on a play where Moss was on the Titans sidelines.  Hall lost his footing on that play, and it was a team-wide problem.  A lot of Redskins got hurt because of the playing surface.

Pass Rushing

With all the passing the Titans did, even with an undrafted rookie at quarterback, this could have been a nice opportunity to get healthy in terms of getting the passer on the ground.  They didn't do that, but the pressure on the passer was a significant factor in the outcome of the game.  Lorenzo Alexnader stripped Vince Young as he ran on the first dropback of the game, and that kind of pressure continued in this game.

The Redskins are using Brian Orakpo primarily as a weakside slot defender against singleback offensive looks, and their blitz packages do not emphasize Orakpo coming.  At maturity, I believe this defense will be able to do this.  This is a good blitzing team who was able to get pressure on Rusty Smith with some creative overloads in passing situations and could stay in their zones and bring extra guys.  That really put an emphasis on coverage for Orakpo, and he did it very well in this game.  Orakpo doesn't always sense screens when he's on an 'X' fire assignment, and I think Haslett was scared to death of being beaten by a screen to Chris Johnson.  While this defense was beaten on a screen to the fullback to Ahmad Hall, Johnson only got one screen attempt.  They did it on a 3rd down when they figured they could throw it over Orakpo.  Of course, there's that Fletcher guy who wasn't amused at this display of "creativity", and put the screen to rest by himself.

It's a problem that Orakpo can't get a lot of good rushing attempts in this defense considering he's the only pass rushing terror on the field, but with Alexander getting injured only two defensive snaps into the game, Carter and Orakpo have to split the rushing attempts.

It wasn't all bad.  Ma'ake Kemoeatu is a very good pass rusher, as far as nose tackles go.  He's the one responsible for hurting Vince Young's hand and he dominated Center Eugene Amano in this matchup.  We usually ask either Kedric Golston or Adam Carriker to turn into a contain end on the pass rush (usually, but not always, Carriker).  Daniels is good at this when he plays, but Carriker and Golston, the starters, are not edge rushers.  Vonnie Holliday continues his role dominance.  Haynesworth is just a great defensive player who needs as many opportunities as he can get.

Brian Orakpo did lead the team with three pressures on quarterback in this game, and he remains the team's best pass rusher.  But this was the second toughest three game stretch of the Redskins' schedule this year (first: Eagles-Packers-Colts), and Orakpo didn't get a sack in that three game stretch.  Being the best on a bad unit may not be enough.  We need him to be great in whatever role we ask of him.  He is the guy this defense is built around.

The big problem here is that our variation of the 3-4 (Pittsburgh) is not designed to line up in the base front and just rush four guys, because three of the four guys on the field are run-first players.  That's the case with the Redskins.  With so many run first players on the field, quick pass pressure is about overloading and getting a free rusher who is a sack-strip threat.  That's Landry, Carter, Orakpo, Haynesworth, Alexander, Wilson, or Doughty.  In the base defense, there is room to play just three of those guys at one time, and if we continue to rush four all the time, there's no benefit to playing this style of the 3-4 defense.

I think we need to get back to the roots of the defensive scheme, and that's pressure first.  I realize that we're merely playing it conservative right now, but here come the embattled Minnesota Vikings, with their terrible offensive line, and 41 year old quarterback.  I hope the defense brings the heat from every angle and hits Favre on every single drive and chooses to not just win this next game at home, but to win emphatically.