Must....resign....Erin....Henderson

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HuntSmashDestroy

I have been doing some rummaging through the internet dumpsters and ran across a Viking's related post. The folks over at profootballfocus sure do their homework.(tips cap) and they think Erin Henderson is pretty good. My thoughts after the jump.

Ok, I'm going to work this from back to front. No, this isn't a stupid rap video. What I mean is that we're going to work with what we know first and clear that up, then we'll get into the gray area. Still don't know what I'm talking about? Positions...needs...Free Agency....and where Erin Henderson fits in.

Ok, so we suck in the secondary. Really....we do...(rim shot). OK, done laughing yet? So we need to draft or acquire secondary free agents. See? I should be a GM. That was easy.

Our Offensive line is, well, offensive and it makes Ponder's butt hurt. That's not a nice way to treat a rookie QB. In fact, it's down right rude. We should be nicer to Christian. New offensive line? Lana: "YUP!" Add them to the list.

I guess you could say the WRs suck too, but that's not fair to Percy. We need offensive speed especially if it takes some time before Peterson is back to his usual, explosive self. Speed has killed defenses since like forever unless your defense has SSSSSEEEECCCC speed, which is the fastest of the fastest. Maybe even faster than Fast5. Scientologists haven't found a way to quantify it yet.

So we've got Secondary, OLine, and WRs as the major concerns. Nothing new there. This is where it gets a little tricky. We won three games last year so collectively we have somes issues with depth being a large concern. The aforementioned positions don't tell the whole story.

The questionable positions would start at the DLine. We know we have some skills there. We have some young talent(Ballard). We have some veteran leadership(KWill). We have a single-season sack record holder(damn you Favre) All-world Mullet(sans mullet). What we don't have is a really big fat guy. We could use a really big fat guy. He doesn't have to come with a sandwich or anything, but he has to be fat, big, and really.

MLB isn't exactly a "set" position. EJ can play, but how long? how effective? It's a legit concern. The rumor is that trying to play middle linebacker in the national football league is difficult with a metal rod in your leg. I don't like to speculate much, but that is the rumor. Some people would put this position as more of a pressing need, but I don't see it that way. I'm not Daniel Tosh, who is not a doctor or anything, but I think we could live with his production for another year. We need to find someone to take over in 2013 though. Maybe a mid-round pick to develope unless we have a top-round talent fall to our laps. We could always look at FA next year too.

We will have to see what happens with Shiancoe. Personally, I think we can do without. It all depends on what his price is. Rudy is our best TE already, IMO and I don't see any reason why someone like Allen Reisner couldn't come in and fill that position. With the People's Champ leaving, it IS a position of need, but not something we need to spend a lot of resources on. It's not that I don't want to see Shiancoe on our team because I think he's got plenty of skill to help this team, but it's the "business" side of things. I don't think he can accept a 2nd year player(Rudy) getting more snaps than him and being more productive. I think he has an ego our Salary Cap can't cash....er...whatever the phrase is.

Kickers....Punters....who gives a shit. I mean, really. Our punter has a potty-mouth and I love it. Our kicker is solid, not great....but solid. Doubt we'd use a draft pick to address either of these positions. Again, if someone falls in our lap or we see something great in a FA or UDFA, then pull the trigger. Its my belief that these two positions should be addressed by the salaries. We can't overpay, even for a kicker. Sure, they decide a lot of games with FGs, but when Hester and Cobb are in our division, kicking the ball past the end zone is very important as well. But again, only make a change if we see something special out there or if we can get similar results while saving some cap space.

Running back....uh...we're good. When we're searching for a 3rd string RB, we're good....unless we're the Saints.

We are set at QB. There, I said it. Keep Sage because I'm sure he'll get his chance some day he's a veteran and is not going anywhere else to start. I don't know if he's the most knowledgable QB, but he's been around a while and can offer some semblance of leadership to our two young QBs. The coaches like Ponder to start going foward. You invest a #12 overall pick on a QB, he damn well better be starting. I love me some Webb too and in the offseason, since they'll have some much needed practice time, they should be able to expand his role in the offense. Time will tell on those two, but I think we can all agree the line must improve first before we can fully critique.

Let's take a look back as the reason I posted this to begin with. I probably didn't need to go through all of those positions, but I kind of wanted to get some of my philosophization(is it a word?) out there about how the Vikings should approach this Free Agency and Draft periods. The position I haven't discussed yet is OLB. Greenway is good and sewn up already. The man I started with is a FA. Erin Henderson should be kept on this team not so much for passing the eye test because I'll be honest, it only seemed like a handful of times where he really stood out. If you already looked at the link above, some people who look much further into individual player success think Erin is a gem. The Vikings are fairly weak up the middle on defense right now so we have more pressing needs. Erin fits the bill at OLB and is young enough so he can stick around for a while. I fully expect him to sign a new contract and get locked in for 4-5 years.