Craig: Vikings receive sack for early end-of-season awards

If you're in the holiday spirit as the Vikings wind down to Sunday's season finale, let's pass out some early awards, some observations and some things that might cause us to mute more of the Bitter Twitter crowd.

Here goes …

This is a tough one. Jarius Wright, Joe Berger, Rhett Ellison and Chase Ford come to mind. But the winner is … Tom Johnson, the 30-year-old defensive tackle whose offseason signing registered no public reaction.

Relative to his percentage of snaps (39.3), Johnson has been a force. In 410 snaps, he is second on the team in sacks with 6 ½. Everson Griffen has 5½ more sacks, but also 523 more snaps.

Cordarrelle Patterson.

The good news is his regression is not due to a bad attitude. His attitude is fine, but his ability to learn the nuances of the position and his maturity level with regard to understanding the need to improve his focus on learning have fallen short.

Benching him should shove him down a more learned path this offseason. Next year also will be the first time he's been in the same system in back-to-back seasons at the NFL or major college level.

In 20-some seasons of observing players who refuse to talk to the media, I've found they aren't worth pestering because they usually don't have anything intelligent, entertaining or valuable to say anyway.

Fortunately for the fans, there usually are enough players with professional attitudes to carry the voice of a locker room.

Wednesday, the local media will announce their Korey Stringer Good Guy award. I'm not allowed to reveal the winner early, but I can say I went through the roster and found seven guys I wanted to vote for: Jerome Felton, Chad Greenway, Captain Munnerlyn, Josh Robinson, Brian Robison, Harrison Smith and Jarius Wright. I also counted less than a handful of uncooperative players.

I voted for Felton. He's outspoken, intelligent and consistently accessible inside and outside the locker room. Also, the Adrian Peterson saga was the story line of the year. I thought Felton was the most thoughtful and courageous spokesman on a controversial subject.

No one knows how Teddy Bridgewater's career will unfold, so it doesn't make sense to argue about whether he's the next Drew Brees or Drew Stanton.

There are two reasons for heightened optimism for this team's future. No. 2 on the list is coach Mike Zimmer's defensive acumen. No. 1 is Bridgewater, which makes him my MVP in a rebuilding year.

He's talented, instinctive and calm under pressure. Any two of those without the third one is ultimately no better than having none of them.

Here's what should happen between now and April 15, when Peterson is eligible to return from his suspension:

Everyone — the Vikings, the league, Peterson, the public, the media, the sponsors, the governor, et al — needs to take a deep breath, cool off and find forgiveness.

Peterson made a mistake in judgment when he injured his 4-year-old son while disciplining him with a switch. But there are numerous examples of NFL players who created worse consequences, were dealt with and forgiven.

Peterson dealt with the law and is being punished by the league. His debt to everyone is scheduled to be paid in full on April 15.

On the flip side, Peterson needs to accept that next year's $15.4 million cap figure is unwieldy. Even under normal circumstances, that number likely would have been renegotiated.

He could garner some much-needed goodwill if he returned as a contrite superstar who also expressed a willingness to help his team's salary cap in return for a commitment to use the cap room on adding more talent.

Peterson has experienced just one playoff victory in his career. That could change in Minnesota if everyone decided that April 16 was the time to move forward together.