FBO: Minny's likely January woes

Every Tuesday, Vince Verhei of Football Outsiders writes a piece called "Any Given Sunday." In it, he dissects one of the biggest upsets from the previous weekend in the NFL. For Week 15, he looks at the Carolina Panthers' crushing the Minnesota Vikings 26-7 and what it may mean for both teams going forward -- Minnesota to the playoffs this year and Carolina to next season. For a better understanding of the FBO metrics used to arrive at these conclusions, please click here.

Two weeks ago in "Any Given Sunday," I called the Arizona Cardinals "a team designed in a laboratory to knock Minnesota out of the postseason." After the Vikings' loss to the Panthers on Sunday night, it's clear that Minnesota is in a severe state of decline and that it will have trouble matching up not just with Arizona, but with any playoff team in the NFC.

OK, OK … conventional logic says that Favre is fading, just as he did with the Jets. Is that true? Not entirely. It's a much bigger, more depressing package than that, actually. To go deeper into the Vikings' woes, you must be an ESPN Insider.

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