Saturday May 25, 2013
Dan Wiederer began covering the Vikings in 2011, enthusiastically delivering insight on the team across the Star Tribune's print and digital products. Prior to joining the Access Vikings team, he spent seven seasons covering ACC basketball at The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer. He also covered the Chicago Bears in 2003 and 2004. 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.
Adrian Peterson delivers ear-catching remark on gay marriage
Posted by: Dan Wiederer Updated: May 23, 2013 - 9:35 PM
We here at Access Vikings have made a vow to not become overly obsessed with Adrian Peterson’s yardage goals. Back in January, when Peterson was cleaning out his Winter Park locker after the 2012 season finished, he made his early declaration to chase the 2,500-yard mark in 2013, hoping to smash the single-season NFL rushing record.
We documented that then, have analyzed it since. And at some point in the past four months, everyone who covers football has discussed Peterson’s proposed pursuit of 2,500 yards.
But that’s it. We’re going no further with the discussion. And so we’re not touching Peterson’s pursuit of 3,000 yards – a milestone that SiriusXM NFL Radio hosts Bruce Murray and Amani Toomer jokingly suggested Thursday when interviewing Peterson.
The quick exchange:
Murray: “We were wondering why stop at 2,500 yards? Why not 3,000, Adrian?”
Peterson: (laughs) “Why not 3,000, huh? I like that. Now that you say that, that sounds pretty good. But, you know, even when I said 2,500, trust me, I’m shooting to get more. I was trying to put it at something right now that I can look at and that seems more realistic to me. But in my head I’m still telling myself, ‘Hey, you can surpass 2,500 as well.’ But I’m just setting that bar right there for now and then, you know, here in the future I can go ahead and put up thirty-five [hundred], how ‘bout that?”
Good answer. Worth a chuckle. Get it out of your system. But please don't take the preposterous 3,000-yard goal seriously. In fact, we’re proposing a penalty to anyone in the media who takes that in-jest back-and-forth and sensationalizes it into some out-of-context headline and blog post about Peterson's aspirations.
Besides, in the interview with Murray and Toomer, Peterson had far more ear-catching comments. Specifically, when asked about the Vikings’ release of punter Chris Kluwe earlier this month, Peterson didn’t steer around the obligatory request for comment on Kluwe’s activism in favor of gay rights and marriage equality.
Said the reigning league MVP: “To each his own. I’m not with it. But I have relatives that are gay. I’m not biased towards them. I still treat them the same. I love them. But again, I’m not with that. That’s not something I believe in. But to each his own.
“I’m sure the Vikings organization did not release him based on that. They know Kluwe. They’ve been knowing him for a long time. And they know he’s outspoken. But it hurt me to see him leave. He was a good friend of mine and a really cool guy, man. Probably one of the smartest guys I’ve ever been around, man. Different.”
Is it outrageous for Peterson to speak candidly on the gay marriage topic? No. Is it a bit dangerous, potentially stirring up an unwanted storm? Absolutely.
When the league MVP takes a controversial stance on a hot-button issue (especially in this day-and-age), we have to wonder what the reaction will be and how quickly his comments will spread.
We’d again encourage you to listen to Peterson’s entire SiriusXM NFL Radio interview. But don't be surprised if his seemingly small comment becomes a big deal pretty quickly.
The topic of acceptance and tolerance of gay athletes has been on the front burner recently, particularly after NBA big man Jason Collins came out last month, becoming the first pro athlete in any of the four major sports to reveal his homosexuality while still active.
Collins' announcement generated an impressive wave of support. But the question still looms as to just how ready a men's professional sports locker room is for an openly gay player. If and when the first NFL player follows Collins' lead and reveals his homosexuality, how will that be accepted?
Peterson's remarks hint at some of the hurdles that remain.
Yes, Peterson remains one of the NFL's true good guys, a likeable superstar, who was also the Vikings Community Man of the Year in 2012. He is at once down to earth and giving of his time. And in his interview with Murray and Toomer, he made clear his intentions to deliver financial aid and a personal helping hand to the tornado ravaged parts of Oklahoma, where he went to college.
And no, Peterson's answer to the Kluwe question doesn't register as malicious or overtly intolerant. But it will almost certainly become a source of debate.
With contract issues on hold, Jared Allen aiming to have big 2013
Posted by: Dan Wiederer under Vikings defense, Vikings players Updated: May 23, 2013 - 11:06 AMAs you well know, Jared Allen has reached an unfamiliar point as he enters his 10th NFL season. He’s suddenly in a contract year, playing out the final season of the deal he signed in 2008 and due to make $14,280,612 in base salary this season with a cap number north of $17 million.
Given Allen’s age (31), his battles with shoulder and knee injuries in 2012 and the expensive price tag he’ll certainly command until his playing days are over, it’s very possible his time as a Viking could be nearing an end.
We’ll dive deeper into that possibility with a column that will run in Friday’s Star Tribune. So stay tuned for that. But in a candid one-on-one interview recently, Allen shared also his thoughts on a number of other topics including his contribution to the team’s courtship of Greg Jennings in free agency; what the Vikings’ 2012 wild card run means for 2013; and, yes, his confirmation that he was never approached about a possible contract restructuring.
Oh, and you also should know that when Allen went to get his haircut a few weeks back, he decided to go back to his trademarked mullet.
“I’m going to rock it, man. Let’s bring it back,” Allen said. “I figured why not end my contract the way I started it.”
Here’s more of what Allen shared in our interview last week with additional candid thoughts coming in Friday’s column.
On whether the Vikings came to him about restructuring his current contract over the offseason …
“You use the word restructure and that to me makes it feel like they’d want me to take a pay cut. And if anybody asked me to take a pay cut, I’d be through the first door out of there. So no. We haven’t talked one iota. It is what it is. And we’re going to go about our business and play good ball and try to win a Super Bowl. And like I said the business stuff? We take care of that in the offseason. I have people to do that. That’s why I don’t get into it. You’re not going to hear it from me. I won’t complain. I go about my business.”
On what he wanted to convey to Jennings during the team’s free agency dinner with him …
“When you compete against someone for many years, you develop a healthy respect. And I’ve gotten to know Greg a little bit off the field too. He’s a good human being. And that was my thing to him, that we need guys like him. We have a quality team. [Owner] Zygi [Wilf] brings in quality people. And I was telling him, ‘You would fit into this team.’ We have quality people in this locker room. And what Greg was going to bring to our team is that expectation of winning. Here’s a guy who has won a Super Bowl. And he knows that making it to the playoffs isn’t enough. And I’m going to tell it like it is and he knows that. I was like, ‘If you come here, you’re going to be the guy. You won’t be one of five. You’re going to be the guy. We’ve got to get you the ball.’ He and Adrian [Peterson] are going to work great together as far as if you’re going to put eight in the box, nine in the box, go ahead. We’ve got ways to attack that. The way Greg has toasted us over the years, I just wanted to get him on our side.”
On which Vikings helped his transition to the team when he came over via a trade with Kansas City in 2008 …
“I know when I came here to talk to Pat [Williams] and Kevin [Williams] it made a difference to me. Coaches put on a sales pitch a lot of times. Players can relate through other players, especially if you have a relationship. Greg knew I wasn’t going to b.s. him and I’d tell it like it is. Hopefully he respected that. Well, he signed. So ... I’m excited to have him. He gives us an ability at the receiver position, especially after losing Percy [Harvin], that he’ll fill an obvious void for us. … Sometimes you hear the sales pitch but you really just want to know what it’s like with a team. Especially because I’ve been successful in this organization and when a player comes here, especially when they’ve been successful somewhere else, they want to make sure they can continue their success. That’s the best way to put it. And that’s how I tried to relate to Greg. Again, talking to Kevin and Pat when I came in it was like, ‘OK I can work with these guys. This is the truth coming here.’ This is how it’s going to play out and you go forward.”
On his lasting feelings following last year’s 10-6 march into the NFC playoffs …
“I want to win a Super Bowl. And I feel like I’ve invested and put a lot of work into the Minnesota organization and becoming a leader and becoming a core guy and unifying with the vets like Adrian and [Chad] Greenway. And making the playoffs isn’t good enough. Not for us. We expect to make the playoffs and we want to go far in the playoffs. So I feel like last year I got cheated out of an opportunity from going deeper in the playoffs. We made a heck of a run and then we blew it in the first round. I’ve got that bad taste in my mouth and I want to get the Vikings to the Super Bowl.”
On whether he found encouragement in the Vikings’ surprising turnaround in 2012 after a dismal 3-13 campaign in 2011 …
“Yeah. But the thing with football is go back and look throughout the league. How often do teams repeat the exact same season they had? No one would have thought that 3-13 was going to go to 10-6, ya know. No one would have thought that the Giants were going to go from the Super Bowl champs to all of a sudden not in the playoffs. Or the Saints [and their 2012 decline]. So for me, each year stands on its own merits. You don’t know who’s going to get hurt. We play such a violent sport that injuries become a big part of the game. I guess that’s why I say I got cheated out of an opportunity [last season]. We were in the playoffs. And we got beat, bottom line. I say we were cheated because you won four games to get there and it kind of starts to build and there’s momentum and it’s like, ‘Hey, this is the kind of run that Super Bowl teams go on.’ So you start gearing up for a run in the playoffs and then bam! It’s over. So you have that dirty taste in your mouth.
“But I mean yeah, it’s encouraging to have the same players back now. If they put the same work ethic into this offseason as they did last and we come to training camp and we see the same type of growth, we can be pretty good. And we’ll see ourselves with a 100 percent Adrian all year who’s going to be even better. So yeah we have expectations. And our expectations are to win the division. Our expectations are to make it to the playoffs. Our expectations are to go deep into the playoffs. And our expectations are to hopefully get to the Super Bowl. But it’s hard to sit here and feel too good. You can look back and say, ‘Yeah great, we built some great things last year.’ But you also see we don’t have Antoine [Winfield] now. That’s a huge loss in our secondary the way he played. So someone has to fill that role. There’s a lot of that. It’s the NFL. So it’s tough to say what you can do and who you can be until you get into the season. Do we expect to win? Absolutely. Are we encouraged about rattling off four wins in a row to close the season to make into the playoffs? Absolutely. But that was last year. This year you never know what’s going to happen.”
Brian Urlacher retires, assuring he won't be Vikings middle linebacker
Posted by: Dan Wiederer Updated: May 22, 2013 - 11:30 AMClose the books. It's over. It's official. After 13 seasons, Brian Urlacher has retired. Called it quits. Hung it up. He did so this morning, releasing a statement through his Twitter account. Here it is:
And so that's that, folks. There will be no Brian Urlacher sightings at Winter Park. He will not wear purple.
Urlacher never made much sense as the Vikings' 2013 option at middle linebacker. Sure, there were rumors early on in free agency that the Vikings were keeping a pulse on Urlacher's situation. Yet when the star linebacker's negotiations with Chicago, where he was a standout starter since 2000, fell through, the Vikings didn't exactly hold a party to pool funds together in a hurried effort to sign him.
We tried to tell you the reasons why. Urlacher will turn 35 this coming Saturday. He missed the final four games of 2012 with a hamstring problem. His burst and explosion isn't what it once was. And, at best, he would have been a one-season Band-Aid on the position for the Vikings, who are far more determined these days to seek out long-term answers, looking to identify and develop quality players as opposed to pulling old ones off the free agency scrap heap.
So, yeah. Even with the Vikings' holes at the position, we never took the Urlacher chatter very seriously.
Still, that didn't stop the "Urlacher could soon be a Viking" rumors from swirling off and on for more than two months.
And last week, when a Chicago Sun-Times gossip columnist cited an anonymous source close to Urlacher saying that the linebacker might soon be a Viking, reckless bloggers ran wild with the unsubstantiated rumor. (Why wouldn't they? In today's world of journalism -- especially in the NFL -- sexy headlines and Web clicks have begun to take on far greater value than, well, ya know, actual truth.)
Not long after last week's Urlacher chatter escalated, Vikings coach Leslie Frazier appeared on the NFL Network and said his team wasn't considering the longtime Bears star as an option at middle linebacker, instead intending to give Erin Henderson a look there -- maybe Audie Cole and Tyrone McKenzie too -- while also figuring out the potential roles for rookies Gerald Hodges and Michael Mauti.
Yet even with Frazier's assertions, too many folks clung to the fact that Frazier said Urlacher wasn't an option "at this point," three words that allowed folks to run wild with their imaginations and created another rush for stories across the internet.
Even today, with Urlacher announcing his retirement in no uncertain terms, the conspiracy theorists are already forecasting an Favre-esque return to pro football from Urlacher later this summer. Go wild with that theory if you want. Us? We're burying the story.
Repeat it with us five times: Urlacher is retired and won't be a Viking. Urlacher is retired and won't be a Viking. Urlacher is retired and won't be a Viking. Urlacher is retired and won't be a Viking. Urlacher is retired and won't be a Viking.
That felt good didn't it?
NFL calendar change could push draft into May, combine into March
Posted by: Dan Wiederer under The draft, Super Bowl Updated: May 20, 2013 - 3:41 PMSince February there has been talk that the NFL was fully engaged in brainstorming to alter its annual calendar. The primary league goal, it seemed, was to slot a major event into every month of the year if possible.
Ya know, to create 24-7-365 buzz. More so than already exists.
Initially, the chatter centered around pushing several major events back a month – moving the scouting combine to March, the opening of free agency into April and the draft into May. And while two of those three moves may still happen, a report this afternoon from ESPN’s Adam Schefter indicates that the opening of free agency may ultimately leapfrog the combine on the league calendar.
According to Schefter, the league and the NFL Players Association are hammering out the details on the schedule change with the union “close to signing off” on a proposal that would move the draft into May for at least the next three years.
Media-wise, that would provide another month or so to spin in circles with endless pre-draft analysis and 11 or 12 versions of every expert’s mock drafts. And who doesn’t want more of that?
More significantly, however, would be the flip-flopping of the combine and free agency, an interesting move that would change the dynamics between teams and agents in the offseason -- if it happens.
At present, agents are allowed to connect with team representatives at the combine in Indianapolis, legally able to discuss upcoming unrestricted free agents still under contract with that specific team. If the new change is adopted, free agency will already have opened by the time those combine meetings take place.
Which would then heighten the significance of the 3.5-day courting window that the league installed this March as a sort of cocktail hour ice-breaking period before free agency begins.
So essentially we could be looking at a situation as early as 2015 where the Super Bowl will end in early February, the start of free agency and the new league year will come in either late February or early March, the combine will be in March and the draft will be in May.
The obvious question that still needs answering: What in the world would anyone do in April?
Perhaps even more importantly for teams, opening free agency before organizations have the opportunity to watch, analyze and fully engage with prospects at the combine may change the way decisions are made to upgrade the roster. With less opportunity to become more comfortable with college prospects, we could be headed down a road where teams find themselves giving veteran free agents a longer look in free agency than they might otherwise have.
UPDATE: According to a new Tweet from Schefter, the draft moving to May would happen next year with the combine-free agency flip-flop.
Proposed new league year would start before combine in 2015 and 2016. Change of draft to May effective in 2014.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 20, 2013
An NFL spokesman has told the Star Tribune that there has been no official decision on moving the draft into May but that the need to change the date of next year's draft surfaced due to a scheduling conflict at Radio City Music Hall. There will be no change in the start of free agency or the combine in 2014. But the league is exploring things beyond that.
At present, the re-scheduling of the 2014 draft may be slated for May 7-9.
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recent posts
- Adrian Peterson delivers ear-catching remark on gay marriage
- With contract issues on hold, Jared Allen aiming to have big 2013
- Brian Urlacher retires, assuring he won't be Vikings middle linebacker
- NFL calendar change could push draft into May, combine into March
- Vikings' Chris Kluwe to sign with Oakland Raiders
- Vikings sign three more draft choices; only first-rounders left
- Hold off on buying that Urlacher jersey ...
- Vikings sign three draft picks; Chuck Muncie dies; Urlacher "rumored" to Vikings ...
- Access Vikings blog: ESPN's Bayless, Smith debate whether Ponder was as responsible for playoff run as Peterson (really)
- Bar to be higher for Ponder, lower for Peterson in 2013
- Dayton, PTI hosts question Vikings over Kluwe cut
- Vikings sign Mankato receiver Adam Thielen, tackle Brandon Keith
- Vikings make it official: Punter Chris Kluwe has been cut
- Vikings searching for best development plan for Cordarrelle Patterson
- Rookie Locke could have punter's job locked up by Monday
- Erin Henderson stepping into new role with 'more lead in my pencil'
- Ponder talks: Cassel, Harvin and a scary visit to the emergency room
- Vikings announce signings of 16 undrafted free agents
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