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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 Chad Greenway

Kalil named to first Pro Bowl

Posted by: Mark Craig Updated: January 25, 2013 - 3:46 PM

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If the Pro Bowl is held any later than Sunday, the Vikings might have to overnight their entire team to Hawaii.
 
Rookie left tackle Matt Kalil became the seventh Vikings player named to the Pro Bowl when Washington's Trent Williams was scratched due to injury. Kalil also is the third Viking added as an injury replacement, joining linebacker Chad Greenway and tight end Kyle Rudolph.
 
Kalil, the fourth overall draft pick, joined Hall of Famer Gary Zimmerman (1986) and Todd Steussie as the only tackles to start all 16 games as a rookie. In doing so, Kalil was there every step of the way as running back Adrian Peterson ran for 2,097 yards, the second-highest rushing total in NFL history.
 
Kalil also is the fourth Vikings rookie to make the Pro Bowl since 2007. The others are Peterson (2007), receiver Percy Harvin (2009) and kicker Blair Walsh, also a rookie this year.
 
Peterson, Walsh, fullback Jerome Felton and defensive end Jared Allen were the Vikings' original selections to the  Pro Bowl.
 

Rudolph named to Pro Bowl team

Posted by: Chris Miller Updated: January 22, 2013 - 5:45 PM

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Kyle Rudolph, the Vikings' second-year tight end, will be in the Pro Bowl.

Rudolph was named an injury replacement today because Tony Gonzalez of the Falcons pulled out because of an injury.

Rudolph is the 17th replacement player named to the NFC team.

Other Vikings in the Pro Bowl are Jared Allen, Jerome Felton, Chad Greenway, Adrian Peterson and Blair Walsh.

Rudolph had 53 receptions, nine touchdowns and 493 receiving yards this season.

Vikings 2013 look ahead: Linebackers

Posted by: Mark Craig Updated: January 18, 2013 - 4:34 PM

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The Vikings coaching staff and front office are in the process of fully evaluating their roster as they plan for the opening of free agency in March as well as April’s NFL Draft. As General Manager Rick Spielman, head coach Leslie Frazier and their respective staffs put their heads together, the Access Vikings team is doing the same. We are in the middle of delivering snapshot evaluations of every position group. Today, we look at the linebackers.
 
LINEBACKERS
Get excited: Outside linebacker Chad Greenway turned 30 last Saturday. But don’t worry. His career is still very much on the upswing heading into its eighth season. He has led the Vikings in tackles in each of the past five years and shows no signs of letting go of the top spot after finishing with 191 stops and reaching his second Pro Bowl this season.
 
It’s easy to see why Adrian Peterson sought Greenway’s advice during his knee rehab last offseason. People forget that Greenway’s career once was in jeopardy, too. A first-round pick in 2006, he tore an ACL in his first preseason game at the Metrodome. But Greenway not only came back, he’s been a better player in each of his next six seasons. And although the big 3-0 has arrived, Greenway still has a lot of juice left in his legs. Meanwhile, he’s a smarter player, a better leader and is more comfortable than ever in what’s essentially been the same defensive system throughout his NFL career.
 
The Vikings should consider moving Greenway to the deep middle backer position in the nickel, a key spot on the field in passing situations. He has the range and intelligence to play it. He also has the experience because he plays that spot in the dime. Of course, moving Greenway to the middle in the nickel would require finding someone to play Greenway’s current position in that defense. Not easy.   
 
Keep an eye on: You need at least three eyes for this one. The Vikings have seven linebackers. Three of them – Erin Henderson, Jasper Brinkley and Marvin Mitchell -- are unrestricted free agents. Henderson and Brinkley are starters. Mitchell is the most experienced backup. So, yeah, things could look dramatically different when the team meets up in Mankato in seven months.
 
The Vikings say they have interest in all three linebackers. But this is the time of year when they say they have interest in all their free agents. Truth is, they do have interest in them, but they’ll also have wandering eyes. Both Henderson and Brinkley are solid players well shy of their 30th birthdays. They played well on a team that won 10 games and made the playoffs. So they’re comfortable options, assuming they even want to return.
 
That might not be the case with Henderson. He wasn’t happy when he didn’t get a long-term deal last offseason, so he’s more likely to take comparable money from another team. Brinkley, meanwhile, is more likely to want to return if he feels comfortable that the team is comfortable with him as the long-term answer at middle linebacker.
With the contract of two starters up, the Vikings might want to take the opportunity to upgrade the position and further the youth movement. Georgia outside linebacker Jarvis Jones will be long gone by the time the Vikings pick 23rd overall. But what about Notre Dame inside linebacker Manti Te’o? (Name rings a bell, eh?).
 
ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. still has Te’o going eighth overall to the Bills. But who knows where Te’o will end up once he’s been put through the pre-draft torture chamber, which is sure to be amped up even more for him. Who knows how the bizarre girlfriend hoax story will affect his draft stock. Personally, the feeling here is the multiple missed tackles and all those poor angles in the national championship game will affect his stock more than the phony girlfriend story.
 
Other possibilities at No. 23 if the Vikings don’t go receiver are inside linebackers Alec Ogletree of Georgia and Kevin Minter of LSU. Ogletree presumably would have to fall since Kiper now has him going No. 13 to Tampa Bay. (Of course, if there’s one thing that can be learned over 20-some years of watching this stuff unfold, it’s this: Players don’t always go where we sports media folks say they will. And when they don’t, we regroup and say the team picking the player either “reached” or got a “steal.” Then it takes about three years for reality to unfold. And by then, no one remembers anything.)  
 
Reason for worry: Besides 2/3rds of the current crop of starting LBers being without a contract, let’s see …
Depth also is a concern, especially with Mitchell also not under contract. Mitchell isn’t a standout player, but he did start in place of a concussed Henderson when the Vikings pulled that Week 3 stunner against the 49ers. Don’t know if you noticed, but the 49ers are a pretty physical, hard-running group. And Mitchell held his own.
 
Meanwhile, Larry Dean is Greenway’s backup. You have to love Dean’s story: The undersized D-II kid who made it to the NFL. Larry is an outstanding special teams player, but the defense most likely would be in big trouble if he were forced to step in for Greenway.
 
At middle linebacker, the backup is Audie Cole, who made the team basically because he returned two interceptions for touchdowns seconds apart in a preseason rout of the Bills. Cole has the height, speed and range you’d like to see in a middle linebacker in a Tampa 2-based scheme. But who knows how raw he really is. He was active for only five games and didn’t post a stat of any kind.
 
Listed third at middle linebacker is Tyrone McKenzie. He led the team in special teams tackles (20) before a shoulder injury kept him out of the playoff loss at Green Bay. At 26, he could be a special teams leader for a few more years.
But, overall, the only untouchable on the roster at linebacker is Greenway. Any other spot is open to turnover.

Peterson, Walsh earn AP first-team All-Pro honors

Posted by: Mark Craig Updated: January 12, 2013 - 11:05 AM

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First, Adrian Peterson runs for 2,097 yards a year after having major knee surgery. Then he does something almost as amazing: Getting 50 reporters from theNFL media world to agree on something.

All 50 members of the Associated Press' All-Pro selection committee, including myself, picked Peterson for their All-Pro team. The only other unanimous All-Pro selection was Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, an NFL Defensive Player of the Year candidate with 20.5 sacks and 16 pass deflections. Lions receiver Calvin Johnson, who had 122 catches for an NFL-record 1,964 yards, fell one vote short of a unanimous selection.

Meanwhile, Vikings rookie kicker Blair Walsh was named to the first team with 42 votes. Vikings fullback Jerome Felton and outside linebacker Chad Greenway were named to the second team.

Felton got 12 votes and finished behind Ravens fullback Vonta Leach, who received 26. Greenway received only two votes, which was enough to earn second team behind first-teamers Von Viller of Denver (48 votes) and Aldon Smith of San Francisco (47). The other second-team outside linebackers -- Green Bay's Clay Matthews, Dallas' DeMarcus Ware and San Francisco's Ahmad Brooks -- each received one vote.

At quarterback, Peyton Manning earned first team with 43 votes. Aaron Rodgers made second team with only four votes. Tom Brady received only three votes.

Vikings center John Sullivan was thought to have a shot at one of the top two teams, but fell short. Seattle's Max Unger made first team with 16 votes, while Pittsburgh's Maurkice Pouncey was second team with 10 votes.

Sullivan received seven votes, which tied him for third. Here's the breakdown of votes by position.

Chad Greenway gets Pro Bowl nod after all

Posted by: Dan Wiederer Updated: January 10, 2013 - 4:46 PM

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Chad Greenway is Pro Bowl bound after all. For the second year in a row, Greenway will head to Hawaii as an alternate, given the nod this afternoon after Cowboys outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware pulled out of the game.

Greenway delivered a terrific 2012 campaign. The Vikings credited him with a team-best 191 tackles plus seven for loss and three sacks. It was a season worthy of serious Pro Bowl consideration. But Greenway didn’t make the NFC roster after fan and player voting was completed, handicapped in big part by logistics that group traditional linebackers together with defensive-end types that play outside linebacker in 3-4 systems.

San Francisco’s Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman earned the two NFC roster spots at inside linebacker.

The outside linebacker selections were Ware, Green Bay’s Clay Matthews and San Francisco’s Aldon Smith. Now, with Ware pulling out of the all-star contest, Greenway gets the call. He’ll be one of five Vikings to play in the Pro Bowl joining Adrian Peterson, Jared Allen, Blair Walsh and Jerome Felton.

Greenway becomes the first Vikings linebacker to attend back-to-back Pro Bowls since Scott Studwell went in 1987 and 1988.

 

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