We're over halfway home when it comes to filling up our Super Bowl Squares board, ladies and gentlemen. As it stands right now, we have filled 57 of the 100 available spots, meaning that there are only 43 more spots up for grabs. (Yes, the site says there are 44 available, but one of our folks actually sent in money for five squares when they thought they were only sending money in for four and, after further discussion, he is going to choose another one whenever he gets around to it.)

Of those 56 squares, 50 are currently all paid for. If I have you down for selecting squares and have not received a PayPal payment from you, I have contacted you via e-mail.

Again, the PayPal address for the payments is DailyNorseman at GMail dot com (again substituting the proper symbols in the proper places). Also, once again, when you send the payments in this direction, make sure to put "Other" as your reason for payment, or else a fee will get charged between the time it leaves your wallet and the time it enters the PayPal account.

Once again, this is the information you need in order to get into the game for your chance to win a couple hundred of dollars, and help us in our goal to donate $1,000 to Jared Allen's Homes for Wounded Warriors.

The board is located at the following web address:

http://www.superbowlsquares.org/5hqbe/

The username you will want to access the board with is dnh4ww, and the password is skol. Both of those are in all lower case, just like you see there. Remember, the cost is $20 per square.

Super Bowl XLVI is a week from Sunday, ladies and gentlemen. Squares are going fast, so if you want to get into the pool, you need to get there fast!

Today, former Minnesota Vikings' head coach Brad Childress was named the offensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns. Childress took a year off from the National Football League after he was fired as the Vikings' coach during the 2010 season, working as an analyst in the meantime.

The one thing that makes this somewhat important from a Vikings' perspective is that the Wilfs are off the hook for some of Childress' salary. Granted, the Vikings will have to make up the difference between what his salary would have been with the Vikings and the money he's making to be Cleveland's offensive coordinator, but it still knocks some of Childress' salary off of the Minnesota books.

One has to wonder what this might mean for the Browns' draft prospects, namely their pursuit of Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III. After all, Childress does fancy himself as some sort of quarterback genius, despite the fact that every quarterback that he had (save for 2009 Brett Favre) was average or worse. Maybe he'll be under the impression that he can work some more of his "magic" with a later prospect and not have any interest in the Heisman Trophy winner. Then again, I'm guessing he's not going to have the same say over personnel that he did in Minnesota, either. . .there isn't a Triangle of Authority in Cleveland, after all.

But, yes, Chilllyball is alive and well in the NFL again. Celebrate this how you will.

While the hot button issue with the Vikings these past couple of weeks has been the stadium issue--and rightly so--I can only take so much politics mixed in with my football. So for just a while, let's quit gnashing our teeth at incompetent "leaders" and focus on why we really follow the Vikings--the players on the field.

And just like the stadium, the future for many Vikings players remains cloudy. One such player is the next subject of our Project 2012 series: safety Husain Abdullah. When he was on the field in 2011, his fourth season in the NFL, Abdullah was a very serviceable member of an otherwise atrocious Minnesota secondary. He started nine games, recording 49 tackles, an interception, and a sack. Abdullah didn't have a Pro Bowl season by any means, but he been one of the most reliable players in the Vikings' defensive backfield for the past couple of years.

But the concern with Abdullah "Oblongata" (sorry, I had to throw in one of my favorite nicknames at least once) hasn't been his time on the field--it's why he's spent so much time off of it.

He has suffered four documented concussions within the past year and a half, which is equal parts frustrating and frightening. Abdullah missed nearly half of the past season due to concussion-related symptoms, leaving many to wonder if his career would be cut short. Thankfully, doctors recently cleared him to keep playing football. But since he's a free agent this offseason, should he keep playing football for the Vikings?

I think he should. Abdullah has shown that he's an effective NFL safety the past couple of seasons. He seems to be around the ball at every opportunity. There's no doubt he's dedicated--the guy has endured fasting for Ramadan during training camp in the past. By all accounts he's a great person--not just anybody gets invited to the White House by the President himself.

I realize that being a hard worker and a good person doesn't get you very far if you're not producing on the field. The concussion situation is incredibly harrowing. But with the rest of the secondary outside of Antoine Winfield in need of a major overhaul, I think the stability that Abdullah can provide would be important. I doubt he'll demand a king's ransom in free agency, so I think it would be wise for the Vikings to bring him back.

But that's just what I think. Here's what the rest of the DN writers had to say about Abdullah's future:

Continue reading this post »

Most of you probably looked at the title and said, "Yeah, we knew that already." But, in this case, I'm not talking about issues of the ego or the complex that makes them feel like a stadium can't possibly be built anywhere outside of the greater Minneapolis area.

No, in this case, I'm talking about issues that could actually derail the plan to use the Metrodome site to build a new stadium. In this case, it's not just one issue. . .it's two issues. And the combination of those issues explains why the Wilfs have continued to maintain that the site at Arden Hills is the only logical place to build a new Minnesota Vikings' stadium.

Continue reading this post »

In case you had noticed, and you probably did because DN readers are a pretty sharp bunch, there's been a longer than usual delay between when songs were submitted for the Ultimate Misery Mix 2011 Track 11 challenge and the results. I can explain.

Sometimes in life we're happy because good things happen to us, but sometimes we're happy because disappointing or irritating things happen to people who annoy us. Sure, it's petty, and wrong to feel that way, but it happens. It could be when you see a person who cut you off stopped by the Highway Patrol further up the road getting a ticket. It could be when somebody who made fun of you in high school goes bald. It could be when a person who snores ridiculously loudly has to share a room with another person who snores ridiculously loudly. Well, here's when it happened for me.

You don't need to shame me, I know it's not nice. But there I was feeling mellow and at peace with the world, and I found it difficult to dive into the list of 36 song submissions for the Track 11 challenge, a song for fans of the 3-13 Minnesota Vikings to drown their sorrows in. If ever a fan base deserved a good drinking song, it's the Vikings fans, those hardcore fans who have stuck with this ill-fated team for the last two seasons. And yet, I just felt too good to listen to sad or angry drinking songs.

Join me after the jump for how I refocused on drinking songs and the Track 11 winners.

Continue reading this post »

Since I was unable to bump yesterday's story for a couple of reasons, I'll just go ahead and do up a new post here for the status of our Super Bowl Squares game to benefit Jared Allen's Homes for Wounded Warriors.

Thus far, 27 of the 100 squares have been purchased, which means that we're over a quarter of the way to filling up the board. To this point, all of the squares that have been claimed are bought and paid for, which is pretty sweet. I know that it's that time of the month where folks might be waiting for pay day, and that's fine. . .we just want to have the board filled up before kickoff on Sunday, February 5.

If you need the information about the board again, here it is. The board is located at

http://www.superbowlsquares.org/5hqbe

The username for the board is dnh4ww, and the password is skol. All in lower case just like you see there. When you are ready to send the payment in, the proper PayPal address is DailyNorseman AT Gmail DOT com (substituting the proper symbols in the obvious places there). Remember, when you PayPal the money, please use "Other" as your reason for payment, or else PayPal will charge a fee in between the time it goes from your bank account to the PayPal account.

So there you have it. . .we're more than a quarter of the way to raising $1,000 for Jared Allen's Homes for Wounded Warriors. If you want to get in on the action, you still can!

The folks at Bloomberg Businessweek have released their 2012 Power 100, a listing of the people that they feel are the most powerful athletes in sports. . .not just in terms of on-field performance, but their value off of the field as well. The Minnesota Vikings managed to put two players onto the list. . .and, yes, they're exactly the players that you would expect them to be.

First up, at number 27, is running back Adrian Peterson. He was number 33 on the list last year, so he moved up a few notches despite things being pretty rough for him in 2011. The slideshow here. . .and, yes, slideshows are awful, which is why I just linked straight to AP's page here. . .expresses doubt about his ability to stay on the list after his recent injury. Here's hoping that he can prove them (and everybody else) wrong and move up the list again next season.

The other Viking, coming in at number 61 after not being on the list at all last season, is Jared Allen. Again, we've gone over Allen's superb season a lot on the site here already, so there's not really a lot more that can be said. Granted, if he manages to win the Defensive Player of the Year award, we'll find something.

Overall, of the 100 players on the list, the NFL accounts for 26 spots, including all of the top three. Just goes to show what a force the league is in the American sports scene.