Hartman: Vikings' Spielman patient with youth movement

Over the past two seasons the Vikings have posted the worst combined record in the NFC North, going 12-19-1, a half-game worse than the Bears' 13-19. The Lions have gone 18-14 and the Packers, winners of the division the past four seasons, have gone 20-11-1.

Still, Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman believes the team's long-term plan of creating a core group of young stars has really started to take shape, and that those players should be able to compete for division titles soon.

"Our team got older when we went through our Super Bowl run when we had Brett Favre, and I knew we had to get younger," Spielman said about the Vikings' long-term thinking following the 2009 season. "That takes some time, and we've been able to accomplish that over the last couple of years with the number of draft picks that we had. Now you're hoping that those guys would develop and some of those guys are developing into pretty good football players for us. That cycle will be, hopefully, the guys that we extend and keep around for a while."

While Spielman wasn't satisfied with the way that last season turned out, he believes the combination of coach Mike Zimmer, quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and a number of other promising young players should give fans real hope.

"No one is satisfied with the 7-9 record, but there's a lot of optimism," Spielman said. "I think we have the right head coach in place. He did a great job this year.

"That was one of the big things, and I think you know a lot of our young guys are starting to come together and our coaching staff did a great job. We've seen the emergence of Harrison Smith and Xavier Rhodes, Sharrif Floyd, Everson Griffen, all of these young guys are finally getting their opportunity and starting to develop.

"I'm very excited about the progress of Teddy and how strongly he came along the second part of the year and what Norv and Scott Turner have done with him. You've seen Teddy grow, too, and get familiar with the scheme, see the ball come out of his hands quicker, get familiar with the rhythm of the game. Those are all encouraging signs heading into next year."

"[Zimmer] never made an excuse," Spielman said. "We lost the tight end [Kyle Rudolph], we lost three offensive linemen [Brandon Fusco, Phil Loadholt and John Sullivan], we went through the situation with Adrian Peterson, and when you look back, those are some hard things and adversity to go through.

"But I really think we grew as a team having to go through all that adversity. Even Teddy Bridgewater, where I think not having a lot of those pieces around him that we initially had planned to have in place, weren't there, and he went through his struggled but that forced him to take that next step, which you saw him take the second half of the year."

In Bridgewater, Spielman believes the team might have finally found a long-term solution at quarterback.

"He still has to learn, still has a ways to go, but all the signs you see and all the progress you see him making indicates — in not only his ability to play on the field, but his approach off the field and his maturity level and you see how our locker room and all those vet players gravitate to him," Spielman said. "Those are the signs you're seeing that he does have the opportunity to be a franchise-type quarterback if he continues on this same path."

Twins President Dave St. Peter was asked about the interest in the team right now with TwinsFest going on at Target Field this weekend.

"I think we'll land somewhere between 14-15,000 full season equivalents. That's certainly down from last year, but relative to Major League Baseball it's still probably an upper-echelon team. Our fans have been great. I think a lot of fans are going to take a wait-and-see approach, and rightfully so. I'd ask folks to give us a chance. We think Paul Molitor and this coaching staff are going to set the right tone and we're going to return to not only being competitive but contention in the American League Central sooner versus later."

St. Peter added that overall ticket sales are around 1 million and the hope is to reach or surpass 2 million.

"Our fans have been great," he said. "Our attendance has been pretty darn good considering the on-field product [the last four years]."

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