Vikings related thought: the much-ballihooed story of this offseason (and the preceding postseason) has been the depth and ferocity of the Giants' defensive-line. They're big, fast, and fierce; and there are a lot of them. Synchronously with that story—at least the off-season portion—the Vikings' trade for Jared Allen has knotted many a sportswriter's knickers. Jared Allen, Pat Williams, Kevin Williams, and Ray Edwards have dominated the spring and summer months as the Four Norsemen of the Apocalypse. They're the best line in the NFL, the homers (myself included) have shouted. Not so fast, folks.
The Vikes' D-line got run-over by Julius Jones, Maurice Morris, and Ray Rice these past weeks. (God help them when facing any other running backs with alliterative appellations this season.) Pat Williams has shown his age. Backups Jayme Mitchell and Brian Robison are out-for-the-season and dinged-up, respectively.
On the other hand, the reigning champs, the New York Football Giants, still have the best defensive-line in football. Even without first-ballot-Hall-of-Famer Michael Strahan, they have absolutely dominated a very good Browns offensive front-five tonight.
Excuse me, Purple faithful, while I interject a bit of skepticism into the assertion that we have the best defensive-line in the NFL.
One reason that Big Blue dominates in the trenches has been its depth, its fresh legs. The Purple, as of now, a whole two weeks into the already injury-riddled preseason, shows a ton of drop-off between Jared Allen and Otis Grigsby. Any more injuries, and we could be in neck-deep in, well... that won't be good.
...
I don't even want to think about Tarvaris Jackson's injury anymore. Maybe later.
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