Peter King of SI mentioned this in his column today, under Ten Things I Think I Think:

3. I think you might be surprised at the NFL player who will be under the most pressure in September. Not Derek Anderson, the quarterback of the Browns, coming off such a lousy end to 2007. Not Steve Justice, the sixth-round rookie from Wake Forest, called on to open the season at center for Indianapolis. (Remember A Beautiful Mind, with Russell Crowe playing the genius who could crack every top-secret code? The Colts have two Crowes -- Manning and his alter-ego at center, Jeff Saturday, out for six weeks with a knee injury.) Not Matt Ryan or Brodie Croyle, handed the reins of bad teams with almost no chance of early success.

Here's my candidate: Artis Hicks. With the four-game suspension handed to left tackle Bryant McKinnie by the league last week, the Vikings turn to Hicks, and all he'll have to do in the next four weeks is protect the blind side of an inexperienced quarterback (Tarvaris Jackson) gimpy with a recovering knee. His blocking assignments: Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, Dwight Freeney, Julius Peppers and Kyle Vanden Bosch. Yikes.

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So how is Johnny Jolly's court date coming along anyway? Those who live in glass houses... ;)

Everyone in Minnesota was expecting McKinnie to be suspended, and they have been preparing for it. This didn't come as any big shock to anyone. I does help out the Vikings opponents, but probably not in the way you are thinking.

Bigbyfan - you seem to think that this will mean TJack will be under more pressure. However you seem to be forgetting that McKinnie SUCKED against fast ends. He has struggles his entire career with the speed rush. It turns out the McKinnie's true value lies in the RUNNING game, not is pass protection. With Hicks in, our pass protection will not suffer, but our running game will.

TJack won't get sacked any more that he would have with Mount McKinnie in there. But I expect AD to be running right or off guard a lot more than usually in these first four games. This will also make the play action that much more important.

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If the running game suffers, so shall the passing game.

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Since 2004 when I started to faithfully watch football we have only had 3 legal problems on our team(that I can remember). These were, in revers order, Jolly, Barnette, and Rodgers. And of the 3 Jolly was really the only one who might be in deep sh**. What is it with DT's and finding trouble?

The Vikings...well I just have two words: Party Boat.

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Yes Sir +1.

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You might be surprised to learn that football goes back farther than 2004. The Packers don't exactly have a pious past. Just Google "Chmura + Waukesha High School Prom" or "Fav-re + painkillers" if you want a couple examples.

Both the Packers and the Vikings have had some players with sordid histories. Right now the Packers have two players on their active roster who are facing or serving disciplinary action from the NFL. The Vikings have one. Again, people who live in glass houses...

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What's your deal man? When I walk around Minneapolis with my Packer gear on, I expect some static, and just laugh it off. Expect us to rip on McKinnie, Chilly, T-joke, and anyone else we want to. It is a Packer forum.

I certainly wouldn't go to a Viking forum and defend the actions of Chmura. McKinnie is a thug and with the Viking's new found "efforts" to clean up their act, they should have jettisoned him long ago. But like you say, he's important to their run game.

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Oh! Oh! I know the answer to this one!!!!!

"Better get dressed in the basement"????? :thumbleft:

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Well, my deal is that I come here to talk football and things related to football. Just because this is a Packer forum doesn't mean that we are restricted to blindly supporting all things green and gold and dismissing anything that isn't. In fact, I would think that this would be a pretty boring forum if that was... :)

As fro defending McKinnie, I think you will find that I am one of the last people who would do that. Go take a look at who started the threat about McKinnie first, in the General NFL Forum. 😉

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Yup. That is exactly what I was thinking of... 😉

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