At least somebody at Fox see's hope for the Packers:
(courtesy of jsonline)
Aikman eludes rush to pick Vikings in North
Posted: Sept. 7, 2005
SportsDay
Troy Aikman has no trouble saying what many others cannot bring themselves to say: that the Green Bay Packers are the team to beat in the NFC North.
Once again the Minnesota Vikings are the "fashionable pick," according to Aikman, but there are some unsettling aspects about the Vikings, one of which he thinks has not attracted wide attention.
Aikman is the lead game analyst for Fox Sports who for the first time since he joined the network in 2001 will work a two-man booth with partner Joe Buck. Every other season he had worked in a three-man booth.
"I just have a hard time going against a team like Green Bay," Aikman said Wednesday in a teleconference with reporters. "They are pretty seasoned in a lot of areas. And they have a quarterback. I guess I say this because I used to play the position, but I still believe it's a quarterback-driven league and I don't agree with anybody who says that we win because we just don't want our quarterback to lose games. I think when you go in with that approach, you are not going to win many. Certainly they are going to go as far as Brett Favre takes them. So I still believe they are the team to beat."
Aikman said he thought the onus was on the Vikings to prove they can go ahead and actually win the division while starting yet another season as a favorite.
"The Minnesota Vikings have been kind of the fashionable pick there in the North for the last couple of seasons," Aikman said. "They have started out for the most part fairly well at the beginning of the year and faded down the stretch.
"This year people think they have a chance to improve from where they were a year ago. But I think that's pretty much true for all 32 teams. I don't know anybody that would be going into this season and not feel that they upgraded their team from where they were.
"Everybody is quick to say Green Bay is probably not going to be where they were a year ago, that this is going to be the start of their decline. I don't know about that."
The departure of wide receiver Randy Moss has attracted huge attention, but the Vikings had to fill another void as well.
"One of the areas that I don't think has been given a lot of attention, the fact that they lost Scott Linehan, the offensive coordinator for them," Aikman said. "He went to Miami. I know for a fact that he was a real ally for Daunte Culpepper and Daunte gives him a lot of credit for his development. You wonder how much he is going to miss Scott Linehan. I know what it's like to lose a coordinator that you feel good about, like what he is doing from a scheme and allows you to play well."
Aikman was surprised the Packers let both their guards go, particularly Mike Wahle, who signed with Carolina. Marco Rivera went to Aikman's former team, the Dallas Cowboys.
"I don't think there is any question that they are going to miss losing those two guards," Aikman said. "It surprises me that they lost Mike Wahle because in talking with MikeSherman last year, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that they would probably have to lose one of them. They wanted to keep Mike Wahle because he was the younger guy and had a little more up side at this point in his career. Yet they lost him to Carolina."
With the exception of guard, Aikman sees pretty much the same team as last year, a team that won 10 games.
"They are not a whole lot different," Aikman said. "Brett is playing really great football. I would expect that to continue. I don't think he is going to just drop off the map after the year he had.
"Defensively, Jim Bates was in Dallas with me as a defensive line coach before he went to Miami as defensive coordinator. I thought at the time he was in Dallas he was a terrific defensive coach and felt that he would do exceptionally well as the defensive coordinator for Miami. And he did.
"He had some good players to work with. He doesn't have near that kind of talent in Green Bay on the defensive side of the ball. But I think he is going to get the absolute most out of that defense. I don't know exactly what that is right now, but I do believe it will be a lot better than what it's been."