Minnesota Vikings 2007: A Team Already in Turmoil

For your average National Football League team, mid-season crises aren't supposed to happen until, oh, mid-season.

But for the 2007 version of the Minnesota Vikings, the crisis has arrived just four games into a campaign so dismal that it has all the potential to rival some of the worst the once-proud franchise has ever had.

At 1-3 the Vikings quickly have found themselves entering their bye week three games behind the resurgent Green Bay Packers, who stopped the Vikings on Sunday in the Metrodome, 23-16, in yet another game the guys in purple could have won.

Future Hall of Famer Brett Favre torched the Vikings defense for 344 yards on his way to breaking Dan Marino's record for career touchdowns. The Packers didn't even need their normally anemic running game - Packers backs gained just 46 yards - as the Minnesota defense picked up where it left off in 2006. Teams know they don't need to even try running on the Vikings with the aerial game coming so easily.

Still, the Vikings defense is good enough that it will keep the team in most games this season. But the offense is so horrid, so pathetically inept and devoid of imagination that teams that score double figures against the Vikings will be almost guaranteed a victory.

For the 2007 version of the Purple Gang, there are five serious issues that, left unresolved, will continue the Vikings on a journey that could well end with a record bad enough to generate a top five draft pick next spring.

1. Quarterback, or lack thereof.

Tarvaris Jackson, too hesitant to make plays with his legs and too raw to deftly command an NFL offense, was largely ineffective in the team's first two games, a 24-3 win over the Atlanta Falcons in a game where the defense scored two touchdowns, and a heartbreaking 20-17 overtime loss to division rival Detroit Lions.

Hurt near the end of the Detroit game, Jackson has watched as journeyman Kelly Holcomb has been equally ineffective and at times downright pathetic in two subsequent losses to Kansas City and Green Bay. The Vikings, in fact, are two grossly overthrown Holcomb balls to wide open receivers from a potential 3-1 record.