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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.


Posts about Vikings players

Ex-Packers linebacker Bishop will visit Vikings

Posted by: Chris Miller Updated: June 17, 2013 - 4:38 PM

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The Vikings are still considering their options at middle linebacker, and will get a visit Tuesday from a familiar face.

The Green Bay Packers released inside linebacker Desmond Bishop on Monday, and he told ESPN Wisconsin he would visit the Vikings Tuesday.

Bishop, 28, missed last season because of a ruptured hamstring suffered in preseason.

The Vikings have given indications that Erin Henderson will move to middle linebacker this season after last year's starter, Jasper Brinkley, went to the Arizona Cardinals in free agency.

Bishop, who was taken in the sixth round out of Cal by the Packers in 2007, is now an unrestricted free agent.

He did not participate in the Packers' organized team activities or mini-camp this spring, but told ESPN Wisconsin that he was healthy.

The NFL.com story on Bishop is here.

The Vikings have a three-day mini-camp beginning Tuesday, so Bishop will get a good look at the team in action.

With contract issues on hold, Jared Allen aiming to have big 2013

Posted by: Dan Wiederer Updated: May 23, 2013 - 11:06 AM

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As 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.”
 

Vikings sign three more draft choices; only first-rounders left

Posted by: Chris Miller Updated: May 15, 2013 - 8:35 PM

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The Vikings signed three more draft picks Wednesday.

 
Agreeing to four-year, rookie deals are punter Jeff Locke, a fifth-round pick from UCLA; and offensive linemen Travis Bond, a seventh rounder from North Carolina, and Jeff Baca, a sixth rounder from UCLA.
 
Only the team’s first round picks -- Sharrif Floyd, Xavier Rhodes and Cordarrelle Patterson --haven’t reached agreements.
 
On Tuesday, the Vikings signed linebackers Gerald Hodges (fourth round) and Michael Mauti (seventh round), and defensive tackle Everett Dawkins (seventh round).
 
 

 

Vikings sign three draft picks; Chuck Muncie dies; Urlacher "rumored" to Vikings ...

Posted by: Chris Miller Updated: May 14, 2013 - 2:27 PM

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The Vikings signed three draft picks -- linebackers Gerald Hodges and Michael Mauti, and defensive tackle Everett Dawkins -- today.

Hodges was a fourth-round selection (120th overall), while Mauti (213th) and Dawkins (229th) were seventh rounders. Hodges and Mauti are from Penn State, while Dawkins played at Florida State.

The signings were announced by the team. Hodges posted his signing on Twitter. He called it the happiest moment of his life.

A video review of the Vikings picks, if you have a little time to watch, is here. Sid also broke down the Penn State linebackers here. (Just wanted to use "Sid broke down" in the context of Sid breaking down film.  Not sure that line worked.)

Other Vikings notes:

  • Chuck Muncie, who played briefly for the Vikings at the end of a career plagued by substance abuse, has died at age 60. News reports say Muncie, a star with San Diego, had a heart attack.
  • And former Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and the Vikings have been mentioned in the same sentence by a Chicago Sun Times "gossip" columnist.

Michael Sneed, who apparently is quite comfortable referring to herself in the third person, wrote: Sneed hears that former Chicago Bear Brian Urlacher, whose stellar, longtime career with the Bears began with a growl and ended with a whimper, is getting close to finding a new pigskin playground. Sneed is told that Urlacher, whose decision to leave the Bears followed their offer of a $1.6 million renewal contract, has been talking to the Minnesota Vikings and the Denver Broncos. “It’s getting close to happening, but Brian is leaning toward heading to Minnesota and is talking a one to two year contract,” said a source close to Urlacher.

As they used to say on Hee Haw, we don't like to repeat rumors ... so you better listen closely the first time.

 

Vikings sign ex-Colts guard

Posted by: Chris Miller Updated: March 19, 2013 - 4:24 PM

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The Vikings signed guard Seth Olsen, who played the past two seasons for Indianapolis.

Olsen (@SethOlsen) tweeted the news this afternoon and the team later confirmed it in a release.

Olsen, drafted by Denver in the fourth round in 2009 out of Iowa, was cut by the Broncos after one season. He was on the Vikings practice squad in 2010. The Colts claimed him off waivers at the start of the 2011 regular season.

Olsen, 6-5 and 305 pounds, was born in Willmar, but played high school football in Omaha. The 27-year-old started five games over the past two seasons with the Colts, but was hampered by a knee injury.

 

 

 

 

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