Bryant McKinnie Dominating When Healthy

I mentioned a lot of this in the kill-a-tree edition, but it's worth mentioning again. Hats off to LT Bryant McKinnie. Many of us have beat on him since last December when Julius Peppers turned him into a revolving door en route to Favre.

McKinnie had the toughest of all line assignments with Kyle Vanden Bosch. Vanden Bosch was having a great start to the season. Two weeks ago, he had 11 tackles against the Bears. It was such an impressive performance that Lions defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham was brought to tears while describing Vanden Bosch as the best football player he's coached in 30 years.

Well, against McKinnie, Vanden Bosch had one tackle. I haven't watched a replay and studied it yet, but I also don't remember Vanden Bosch giving Favre much pressure.

"I did my job," McKinnie said. "When I'm healthy, I do my job."

The latter comment was a reference to the Peppers game last December. McKinnie said after the season that he was playing with a foot injury, which is why he had trouble with Peppers and why he skipped out on the Pro Bowl practices.

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(startribune.com)