Back in ’99, two other people from my flight and I went to Tunisia for three weeks to support an exercise we were doing with the Tunisian Air Force. We made sure we had all our equipment, and we packed a bunch of food and things like that. And, between the three of us, we managed to pack a grand total of one CD.

More Pure 80s.

We eventually found a store in town that sold a lot of bootleg/compilation CDs. . .but until that point, it was a week solid of In a Big Country, Love is a Battlefield, Walkin’ on Sunshine, and Rio (probably my all-time favorite 80s song. . .it’s on the short list, in any event), among others.

I’m really not sure. . .part of me says that he’s never going to take another meaningful snap for the Minnesota Vikings. Brad Childress hitched his wagon to the kid, and then handcuffed him with extremely conservative play calling that no quarterback could be expected to exceed with. Despite that, we had a chance to drive for the winning touchdown in the opener against Green Bay, and if Visanthe Shiancoe holds on to a perfectly thrown ball in the end zone, we beat Indianapolis and Jackson probably never gets benched in the first place.

On the other hand. . .I watch games like the three-game stretch that Frerotte put together recently where he threw 8 INTs (4 against Chicago, 1 against Houston, 3 against Green Bay) and say to myself. . .“You know, what does this guy bring us that Tarvaris Jackson couldn’t?”

In either case, nobody really knows for sure what we have in Tarvaris Jackson (and anybody that says that they DO know is a liar). At some point, we need to find out. Put the guy out there, give him the entire playbook, and see what he’s got. If he succeeds, our quarterback situation is settled. . .if he fails, then you cut your losses and go totally in another direction. But this halfway stuff isn’t the right way to go about it, in my opinion.

Right now he leads the NFL in rushing with 1,100 yards (he and Clinton Portis are the only two backs in the NFL that have already gone over 1,000). He’s averaging 4.9 yards a carry, which is off from the 5.4 he averaged last year, and he’s 241 yards shy of matching the yardage he rushed for in his injury-shortened rookie season. He’s also gone over the 100 yard mark in 6 of Minnesota’s 10 games, including 4 out of the last 5.

For my money. . .and I know I’m biased here. . .but with LaDainian Tomlinson finally showing some signs of slowing down, I think Peterson is clearly the best back in the NFL at this point.