It will be interesting to see what value Bernard Berrian has for the Vikings next Sunday against the Bears in Chicago. This will be Berrian’s first game in Chicago since leaving the Bears as a free agent following four seasons as a Bear, and there could be more to his impact than how he performs.
As far as we know, Berrian didn’t sign any papers before leaving Chicago promising not to disclose information about the Bears. Sports Headliners asked Vikings’ quarterback Tarvaris Jackson about the value of the Berrian-Bears connection.
“For him personally, he’s got insights on different guys as far as weaknesses and stuff like that goes, and maybe certain plays they run on offense,” Jackson said. “He can help us out on more than just the offensive side of the football. He can help the guys on defense also.”
The Berrian impact, according to Jackson, can include useful information about schemes, and personnel strengths and weaknesses. Berrian will know what the Bears tried to use to their advantage against the Vikings in the past.
Has Jackson seen this sort of thing pay off in the past involving other players who have come to Vikingland from other places? “Yeah, definitely,” he answered. “I’ve seen it a couple times since I’ve been here. Guys that play with different teams, (they) know different insights on what they’re trying to do and what they try to get down (on) defense, offense. So it helps.”
Vikings’ place-kicker Ryan Longwell is playing in his ninth NFL season and he knows, too, that there is value to insider knowledge. “It could always help but I don’t know how much,” he said.
There’s a trap door aspect to the insider knowledge approach, though. “It’s all kind of we know what they know, but they know what we know so we gotta change what we know so that they don’t know what we know type of thing,” he said.
Sounds like in the work-ethic, analyze everything NFL, it’s easy to over think things including game preparation. “Oh, without question,” Longwell said. “There’s definitely a lot of that that goes on. Sometimes you guess right and sometimes obviously you out think and kind of hurt yourself. It’s a game that’s built on tendencies, and if you switch up your tendencies you can really throw a team off for awhile.”
It takes more than insight, knowledge and preparation before the game to make for a successful outcome, Longwell said. He emphasized the need for and importance to make changes during the game and at halftime. A challenge is that time is so limited during the game, including the short 15 minute halftime. But during the week the Vikings and Berrian himself can figure out what in his background can be helpful to him and his new teammates.
Berrian scored his second touchdown of the season yesterday on an 86-yard pass from quarterback Gus Frerotte in a 12-10 win over Detroit.