Last night it was announced that, among other players, Vikings defensive tackles Kevin Williams and Pat Williams are being suspended by the NFL behind a violation of the league’s anti-doping policy. This presents an enormous problem for Minnesota. True, they could promote backups Ellis Wyms and Letroy Guion, but unfortunately, there is no way that Brad Childress didn’t just make those guys up out of thin air and take their names from the aristocratic villains from all of those Victorian-era grocery store romance novels he’s always reading.

So all of a sudden, the Vikings are in desperate need for two guys to wear a helmet and try to penetrate an imaginary line, and the rest of the NFL gets to re-draw its game plans around an opposing nine-man defense. Here are a few possible offensive schemes:

The walk-and-shoot offense. The offense just walks the ball through the hole in the defense. This only works if your players have legs. Sorry, Lions!

The mercenary offense. Clearly, since the Vikings’ defensive line will only be made up of two men, the opposing offense won’t really need their left and right guards at the line. These two guys will serve as the “get-s***-done” players who wander around the field and fix whatever needs fixing. Sometimes it’s the cornerback’s knee, sometimes it’s the referee’s jaw. You just never know. It’s a nice option to have.

The concentric mass offense. All eleven men on the offense lock arms and legs to form an enormous sphere and roll down the field. The only reason we don’t see this all the time in football is that the offense and defense normally have the same number of players, so attempting to brute-force the ball down the field would get them nowhere. It really is a sight to behold. Think of a cross between Madden and Katamari Damacy.