YOUR GUIDE TO THE TWIN CITIES
Before joining our Access Vikings team, Dan Wiederer covered Atlantic Coast Conference basketball for the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer and was named North Carolina's top sports columnist in 2010. His previous reporting experience includes covering the Chicago Bears. Follow him on Twitter @StribDW.
Mark Craig has covered football and the NFL the past 20 years, including the Browns from 1991-95 and the Vikings and the NFL since 2003. Since 2008, Craig has served as one of the 44 Pro Football Hall of Fame selectors. He can be followed on Twitter at @markcraignfl.
For new Hall of Famer Chris Doleman, now comes the chaos
Posted by: Dan Wiederer under Vikings, Super Bowl Updated: February 9, 2012 - 3:41 PM
By the time Chris Doleman had made it to Winter Park to address the local media this afternoon, he had forgotten what day it was. Recounting the last week has become quite a challenge for the former Vikings star. Check that -- make that the Vikings' newest Pro Football Hall of Famer.
Doleman still hasn't had a chance to let his newest and grandest honor fully sink in. Voted to the Hall of Fame last weekend by a 44-person selection committee, Doleman can speak in generalities about the rush he's felt and the appreciation he's had for joining such an elite fraternity. But he's also been dizzied by the frantic schedule and obligations of being a newly chosen Hall of Famer.
On Sunday, there was all sorts of fanfare to partake in at Super Bowl XLVI, including the pregame coin toss that he and the rest of the Class of 2012 -- Willie Roaf, Curtis Martin, Dermontti Dawson and Cortez Kennedy -- oversaw.
On Monday and Tuesday, there were meetings to attend. This Hall of Fame business is more complicated than it may seem.
On Wednesday, Doleman finally left Indianapolis and returned to Atlanta. For 14 hours.
Then it was back on a plane to Minneapolis to enjoy the spotlight in the city in which he spent 10 of his 15 NFL seasons. On top of that, it seems that every sports talk radio show in the country has called to chat.
"I've been talking so much to the point that I've lost my voice," Doleman said.
You'd think getting elected to the Hall would require little more than a blazer measurement and perhaps 10-15 minutes of posing for the honorary Canton bust.
Nope. Those "Welcome to the Club" orientation meetings on Monday and Tuesday in Indy took up about 10 hours in total.
"It's like planning a wedding," Doleman said. "You're looking at invitations, guest list, parties, food. The whole shootin' match. Speech. I mean the whole shootin' match. It takes a long time to go through it. They give you a book about an inch-and-a-half thick and they go through it page by page by page. How do you coordinate who's coming from where. It's a mess. I'll be honest with you."
Doleman also recounted the outpouring of congratulations he received Saturday evening when the announcement became official.
"You get a couple calls," Doleman said. "Then your phone just literally goes into some kind of convulsion. You've got phone calls, you've got texts and you've got e-mails all coming in at the same time. When you'd click on the text button, it was coming in in pages. Not one at a time. It was coming in pages. Literally. I've never seen that before in my life. It would clock 150 [texts]. And so you'd turn it off, you'd turn it back on and it would clock another 100. I mean it was unbelievable. So at that point in time, I knew that something big had happened. Because everybody I had ever met in my life was sending me some kind of communication."
Vikings sign offensive lineman Pat Brown to one-year extension
Posted by: Dan Wiederer under Vikings, E.J. Henderson, Tyrell Johnson, Visanthe Shiancoe Updated: February 8, 2012 - 1:56 PMThe Vikings have signed offensive lineman Pat Brown to a one-year contract extension. Brown was set to become an exclusive rights free agent next month. But that designation basically means that, due to Brown's two-year tenure in the NFL, the Vikings would have been the only team in the league able to sign him for 2012. Which they have now done.
Brown saw limited action last season, playing mostly on special teams. He was originally undrafted out of Central Florida in 2009.
The Vikings now have 17 players due to become free agents when the market opens on the afternoon of March 13. The most notable players on that list are linebackers E.J. Henderson and Erin Henderson, tight end Visanthe Shiancoe, safeties Husain Abdullah and Tyrell Johnson and receiver Devin Aromashodu.
Running back Lorenzo Booker and linebacker Kenny Onatulu are both set to become restricted free agents, which will give the Vikings an opportunity to match offers that come from other teams.
Vikings, not Rams, would seem to be likely trade partner
Posted by: Mark Craig under The draft, Vikings, NFC Updated: February 7, 2012 - 4:33 PMRams coach Jeff Fisher has been open about his willingness to trade down from the No. 2 draft pick. Ditto for Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman when it comes to the No. 3 pick.
Any team willing to pay the heavy price to move up that high probably is doing so for only one reason: They need a quarterback. Badly.
Since neither the Rams nor the Vikings are going to draft a quarterback, teams looking to pick Heisman Trophy-winning QB Robert Griffin III should be dealing with the Vikings instead of the Rams. After all, why overpay at one store when the one next door can undercut the price?
A look at the draft value chart -- the thing that Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson made famous when he was slapping the rest of the league silly in the 1990s -- shows there is a considerable difference in point value between the No. 2 and No. 3 pick.
The No. 2 pick is valued at 2,600 points. The No. 3 pick is valued at 2,200 points. To put that in perspective, that difference in point value -- 400 -- is equal to a second-round pick (50th overall).
Cleveland has the No. 4 pick and could be in the market -- again! -- for a quarterback. So QB-starved teams such as Miami, Washington and Seattle would seem safe in targeting the Vikings as a trade partner rather than paying the extra cost of jumping ahead of a Rams team that's not going to pick a quarterback.
Of course, resisting the urge to jump higher than everyone else just to be safe takes some patience that some QB-starved teams no longer have.
Based on the draft value chart, here are some realistic trades the Vikings could expect if they traded down and stayed inside the top 10:
--Trading down with the Redskins could net the Vikings the No. 6 pick (1,600), the 38th pick (520) and a fourth-round pick (92 points).
--Trading down just one spot with the Browns could net the Vikings the No. 4 pick (1,800) as well as picks in the third (250), fourth (100) and fifth (40) rounds.
--Trading down with the Dolphins could realistically net the Dolphins' first-round pick -- either eighth overall (1,400) or ninth overall (1,350) -- as well as picks in the second (about 500), third (about 230), fifth (about 38) and sixth (about 24) rounds. The Dolphins also could opt to trade a higher pick next season rather than give up four picks in the second through sixth rounds.
Vikings open at 75-1 odds to win Super Bowl XLVII
Posted by: Mark Craig under Vikings, NFC, Packers, Super Bowl Updated: February 6, 2012 - 11:55 AMLess than 24 hours after winning Super Bowl XLVI, the Giants have the ammunition to play the "no-respect" cliche card heading toward Super Bowl XLVII.
According to the sports gambling website run by Bovada, the Giants opened today with 15-1 odds to win next year's Super Bowl. That's eighth among all teams and fourth among NFC teams. The favored Packers are 6-1, while the Saints (8-1) and Eagles (12-1) round out the top three in the NFC.
The Patriots are second overall at 7-1.
The Vikings are 75-1 and tied with the Rams and Buccaneers. Only the Browns and Jaguars, who both opened at 100-1, are longer shots than the Vikings.
P.S.: Anyone placing bets on who will win next year's Super Bowl has a serious problem. Anyone doing it on Feb. 6 has a serious problem.
Roger Goodell vague on having a new NFL team in Los Angeles
Posted by: Dan Wiederer under Super Bowl Updated: February 5, 2012 - 3:49 PMNFL commissioner Roger Goodell held a 45-minute press conference earlier this week at Super Bowl XLVI and shared his candid thoughts on a number of key issues that he and the league are currently facing. Here are the most noteworthy questions and answers from that session.
Could you clarify your current view on the possible relocation of a team or teams versus expansion as the means to get a franchise to Los Angeles, if and when expansion is a possibility on what timetable would you see that and by how many teams would you possibly expand?
Goodell: “I will tell you that we have not talked about expansion in the league at all. It has not been on our agenda. It is not something that we focused on with our membership, and I don’t see that in the foreseeable future. We want to keep our teams where they are. We believe that it is healthier for the league in the long term. We’re working to get stadiums built – make sure to do whatever we can to be certain that those teams are successful in those communities. So we will continue our efforts on that front. We have been successful there and we will hopefully be able to continue that.”
You’ve long held that you won’t do a deal in Los Angeles until it is the right deal for the NFL and the right deal for the city. There are two deals out there, competing sites. Is Los Angeles asking too much right now?
Goodell: “I don’t look at it that way. I look at this as a partnership. We’ve got to find a way to make it work for both parties, as you stated correctly. That’s my position. I believe that there’s a way to make the partnership work. We’ve proven it throughout the country where you can get stadiums built. They are great for the communities, they are great for the team and they are great for the League overall. You are seeing it right here in Indianapolis. We have a terrific facility here. They are now hosting the Super Bowl, and they’ll be on the global stage this Sunday. There are great things that can come from working together, compromising and finding the right solutions. Maybe not everyone is going to be happy but, at the end of the day, you can be successful”
All arrows are pointing up for the League. You have a 10-year labor agreement. You just signed record TV deals. Absent any dramatic groundswell from fans in Los Angeles for a team, what is the urgency to return to Los Angeles? Is there any urgency, and why does the League want to be back there?
Goodell: “Well, you know I don’t characterize our efforts. I think it is important for us to make smart decisions. We would like to be back in Los Angeles if we can do it correctly. There are a lot of issues that have to be balanced there. We’ve had a priority to make sure we get that long-term labor agreement, that we get our long-term television agreements. I think that foundation can be very helpful to us in coming back to Los Angeles. We see that now we have a runway of 10 years. We know what our labor situation is. We know what our television situation is. That should give us the foundation to make smart decisions and try to find a good solution in Los Angeles.
The AP published a story [this week] in which former players depicted a culture of indifference on the part of the league and teams toward concussions and other injuries. As one former player put it, ‘They are just waiting until we die.’ Can you please respond to that?
Goodell: “I think our former players deserve the respect for helping us build this game. We have done a great deal in trying to address issues that are specific to our former players. We will always make sure player health and safety is the No. 1 priority in the NFL. In the recent collective bargaining agreement we committed over a billion dollars to our retired players, including over $600 million dollars just to the legacy fund for improvements in pensions. We will continue to address medical issues to make sure we can address the population of our retired players. We will not quit. We are not done yet. We are going to continue to do what we possibly can to help our retired players, the current players and future players by making the game safer. We will do that with rules. We will do that with improving the equipment and we will do it by making sure that we pioneer research that’s going to make sure we understand all there is about brain injuries and brain disease; and make sure that we are being responsible as leaders.”
How well did the league understand the danger of concussions prior to the changes that were made in the last couple of years?
Goodell: “Everything we have done on concussions going back to 1994 when we created the first concussion committee, we have published all of that information. We make that available for medical journals and the public to absorb, study and debate, quite frankly. One of the things we have here is that we don’t know a lot about brain injury and about the brain itself. We’re all learning, the medical world is learning, the scientific world is learning and the NFL is learning. What I’m proud of is that the NFL is leading the way. They are embracing this and bringing awareness to this issue. When I was in high school, I suffered a concussion playing baseball. The treatment was simply flashing a flashlight in my eye in the middle of the night. What we’ve done now is made this a significant issue and it’s a serious injury that needs to be treated seriously. That has been a cultural change we have made, not just in football, but across all sports and even beyond sports. I made this point last night that we are sharing our information, our data, and making changes even in the United States military, where they are treating concussions. That is a huge issue for our military. They are using a lot of the knowledge and information that we’ve pioneered to make changes in the military to better protect our troops.”
With so many states struggling with budget deficits, can you continue to count on taxpayer dollars to help build stadiums?
Goodell: “I think we all know the struggles, whether its state budgets, city budgets or people’s personal income. They are all challenges for the league going forward. That is one of the reasons we created our G4 program and incentives and our Collective Bargaining Agreement; to help build these stadiums. (The stadiums) are complex, they are expensive and we have to be creative. What I am proud of that the league has come up with are the new financing mechanisms like G4 to help bridge that gap, find ways to help communities build that private partnership so we can get those stadiums built, which are good for the communities, good for the teams and most of all great for the fans.”
Are you concerned at all that this league has become too pass heavy? We hear a lot of complaints from the defensive players about the rule changes that has put them at a disadvantage.
Goodell: “We had this discussion with several coaches just this week, actually. I think that what happens in this league is that you make changes in the game, and then there is an adjustment, and then the other side of the ball catches up. We may be in that situation where the defensive side will catch up to some of the changes we made on the offensive side of the ball recently. That’s something that’s happened throughout our history. It’s part of what we relentlessly have to do. How do we improve the game? How do we make those changes that will keep the game exciting? We like the idea, and I think fans like the idea of high-scoring football, but most importantly, they like competitive football, and that’s what we had this year. I don’t think anybody could tell you that the quality of the game wasn’t outstanding this year. Some people might like more defense. Some people might like more offense. But, the competitiveness of this league is at an incredibly important level and something that we’re going to continue to try to figure out how we keep the competitiveness of the league.
It seems that the NFL is getting more and more into social media with all the tweeting happening from the Pro Bowl and the social media command center here in Indy this week. How do you think that has affected the Super Bowl this week and the NFL in general?
Goodell: “Well, it's the way our world is going. The reality is we have tried to embrace technology and be more innovative. I think our players, obviously, have done that. Our teams have done that. We want to find new ways for our fans to engage with football, with the NFL, and clearly social media is a great way to do that. In addition, it's a great way for fans to engage with one another. We are finding that is a huge plus for us, and I think one of the reasons why our game continues to grow. Football brings people together. We are going to see that on Sunday. The world will be watching right here in Indianapolis, and people will be gathered around their television sets with their family and their friends enjoying football. If they do that on social media or other technologies or watch it on television, it's all okay by me as long as they do it.”
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recent posts
- For new Hall of Famer Chris Doleman, now comes the chaos
- Vikings sign offensive lineman Pat Brown to one-year extension
- Craig: Vikings, not Rams, would seem to be likely trade partner
- Vikings open at 75-1 odds to win Super Bowl XLVII
- Roger Goodell vague on having a new NFL team in Los Angeles
- Suggs beats out Jared Allen for NFL Defensive Player of the Year
- Doleman is chosen for Pro Football Hall of Fame
- Doleman elected to Hall of Fame; Carter denied again
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