Minnesota Vikings NFL Pro Football 2010 Regular Season Win Betting Odds Projection

Published on August 3, 2010 by admin · No Comments

The Minnesota Vikings 2009 regular season record was 12-4 as the team finished champions in the NFC North and earned the second seed during their playoffs.

The Vikings hosted the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Divisional round and pounded the visitors 34-3

A week later the team traveled to New Orleans in the NFC Championship and lost 31-28 in overtime in heartbreaking style.

Minnesota may have suffered a different fate had that NFC Championship game happened to be hosted at the Metrodome. Home field played a big part in the Saints win.

Minnesota should look no further than the final three road games of the regular season where they suffered a 30-17 loss at Arizona, 26-7 loss at Carolina and a 36-30 loss at Chicago that cost the team home field throughout the NFC playoffs.

The Vikings had a great season on offense as they ranked #5 in the league in total offense by averaging 379.6 yards per game. They were the second leading scoring offense in the league with 29.6 points per game.

Bret Favre had a tremendous season with 4202 yards passing with 33 touchdowns and 7 interceptions. Their running game was solid behind Adrian Peterson’s 1383 yards and 18 touchdowns. Peterson’s key fumbles last season did hurt the Vikings and something that is being worked on during the off season.

The club lost backup running back Chester Taylor in free agency and hope that second round pick Toby Gerhart can take his place.

Defensively the Vikings were #2 against the run allowing just 87.1 yards per game but their Achilles heel was against the pass where they allowed 218.4 yards per game finishing 19th.

Team’s had success going deep on the Vikings in 2009.

The Odds:

Bodog sportsbook has set the Minnesota Vikings 2010 regular season win total at 9 ½ games with over favored at -145 with the under returning +115.

Minnesota has been set by Bodog at 12-1 odds to win the Super Bowl in the upcoming season.

The club has been set at 6-1 odds to win the NFC Championship at Bodog and are the +150 second favorites to win the NFC North division.

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2010 Minnesota Vikings Regular Season Schedule:

The Vikings play in the NFC North division so they will lock up home and away to the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers.

The Vikings division this season will contest against every team from the NFC East and AFC East.

Their NFC East opponents will be home games against the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants with road games to the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles.

Minnesota will play from the AFC East division home games with the Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills with road games with the New York Jets and New England Patriots.

As the NFC North division champions in 2009 the Vikings will play the two other NFC division champions so that schedules a home game against the Arizona Cardinals and on the road to the New Orleans Saints.

The Minnesota Vikings will be featured in four prime time high profile games this upcoming season.

The Vikings will host the Chicago Bears on Monday night football.

They get a little unlucky with 3 road games in primetime at the New York Jets on Monday night, at the New Orleans Saints on Thursday night to open the season and a Sunday night game at the Green Bay Packers.

Offense:

Bret Favre proved that he needed very little time in training camp to lead the Vikings. They relied heavily on the run early and became a pass dominant team as the season progressed.

Favre is loaded with weapons in the passing game and has a premier back in Adrian Peterson to work with. Favre completed 68.4% of his passes in 2009 and still possesses a strong arm. He kept his interceptions down in 2009 with only 7 and possessed a solid passer rating of 107.2.

Adrian Peterson is the featured running back for the team and he is coming off a 2009 season where he rushed for 1383 yards on 314 carries with 18 touchdowns and 43 catches out of the backfield. His 4.4 yards per carry average was a ½ yard shy of his career 4.9 average. During the regular season from week 11-17 Peterson had just 1 game where he eclipsed 4 yards a carry and that came in a week 17 encounter with the New York Giants where he had 54 yards on only 9 carries.

Rookie Toby Gerhart was drafted in the second round out of Stanford as he will replace Chester Taylor. Gerhart is a bruising back who does not display quickness but has the strength to take on tacklers. In these days in the NFL with bigger and faster defensive lineman and linebackers the bruising running back has had issues remaining healthy during their playing careers with Mike Alstott a good example.

The Vikings are well stocked in their receiver position with Sidney Rice and Bernard Berrian lining up #1 and #2 with Percy Harvin and Jaymar Johnson the #3 and #4 option. Rice led the club with 83 receptions and 8 touchdowns with a super impressive 15.3 yards per reception average. Harvin is also valuable in the return game and contributed mightily in the receiver position in his rookie year with 60 catches for 790 yards and 6 touchdowns. Tight end Visanthe Shiancoe contributed with 56 catches and led the Vikings with 11 touchdown catches last season.

The offensive line shapes up for Minnesota with John Sullivan at center surrounded by guards Steve Hutchinson and Anthony Herrera. The tackles are Bryant McKinnie and Phil Loadholt. The line allowed 34 sacks last season but in the NFC Championship they did not do a good job protecting Bret Favre as he was simply pounded by the Saints and in their road losses in the regular season late in the year. This unit will need to block better for their run game as the team generated only a 4.1 yards per carry average in the ground game.

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Defense:

Minnesota Vikings run a 4-3 defense with Ray Edwards and Jared Allen at the end positions with Pat Williams and Kevin Williams lining up inside. The Vikings had 48 sacks in 2009 ranking 1st in the league. Allen led the line with 14 ½ sacks a season ago. For added depth on the line the Vikings drafted defensive end Everson Griffen in the fourth round out of USC.

The linebackers will shape up with E.J. Henderson in the middle with Ben Leber and Chad Greenway on the outside. Henderson returns from a broken leg suffered in week 13. He has practiced during the opening of training camp and is expected to be ready at full strength when the season begins. Henderson was second on the club with 8 ½ sacks last season.

In the secondary the team will line up with Antoine Winfield and Cedric Griffin at the corners with Tyrell Johnson and Madieu Williams at the safety position. The club was 19th in the league against the pass last season allowing 218.4 yards per game and is the weakest unit on this club. The 12 year veteran Winfield has been banged up the past three seasons missing 12 games due to injury during that span. The club drafted corner Chris Cook from Virginia in the second round to provide depth. Also added to the roster was veteran cornerback Lito Shepard signed in free agency.

And now to my Selection:

Minnesota has the pieces to make another deep run into the playoffs this season. They have the hunger following a disappointing loss in the NFC Championship game.

The key for this club is to have home field advantage throughout the playoffs to take advantage of their crowd noise making their excellent pass rushers even more effective as we saw in the playoff win against Dallas.

The schedule is extremely difficult and the division has improved with Detroit and Chicago getting better. The offensive line will protect Bret Favre enough allowing for the veteran to make big plays in the passing game.

With great balance on both sides of the ball and good special teams the Vikings get to at least 10 wins in 2010.

Selection: Play Under 9 ½ wins in 2010 Regular Season.