Sid's jottings

• Greg Jennings is the fourth former Packers players in recent times to sign with the Vikings. The first one was safety Darren Sharper in 2005, and the team went 9-7 in Sharper's first season with the Vikings. The second was kicker Ryan Longwell in 2006, and the team went 6-10 in his first season with them The third was Brett Favre in 2009, who led the team to a 12-4 record and into the NFC Championship Game.

• The Vikings' assistant coaching staff, all with one-year contracts, likely will not change much before the 2013 season except former assistant receivers coach Ryan Ficken will replace Chris White, who is joining the Iowa staff, and Jeff Howard, a former assistant at Texas Tech, will replace Cam Turner as the assistant to head coach Leslie Frazier.

• Gophers football coach Jerry Kill on players who could miss spring practice: "Right now we're in a situation where we're trying to heal up. [Tackle] Eddie Olson won't go through spring, he had ankle surgery during the offseason, which he is doing very well off that. [Offensive lineman] Zach Mottla is certainly still recovering [broken bone in leg] and won't go through spring. [Receiver] Andre McDonald won't go through spring, a personal situation, look forward to having him back maybe in May. Then we have [receiver] Marcus Jones and three or four other ones that have ACL situations, so they'll get some practice time."

• The Gophers football program hasn't had much luck recruiting outstanding players from Cretin-Derham Hall, but they might be in the running for outstanding sophomore defensive end Jashon Cornell, who has made some visits to the Minnesota campus and is a close personal friend of Minneapolis Washburn running back Jeff Jones, who already has committed to Minnesota.