Daily Norseman - All Posts

Is A Significant Change Coming For The NFL Calendar?

2013-05-21T04:12:31Z

Most NFL fans have the NFL's off-season schedule down pat. After the Super Bowl, we get the Scouting Combine in February, the start of free agency in March, the NFL Draft in late April, and then. . .a long, mostly dull period of OTAs and things of that nature until the start of Training Camp in July.

Well, according to a report from ESPN.com's Adam Schefter, the league appears to be on the verge of changing that. The NFL's Owners Meetings are taking place this week in Boston, and the first day appears to have produced what would be a pretty significant shifting of events.

The new proposal calls for, among other things, the NFL Draft to be moved to the month of May for the next three seasons. The report says that Commissioner Roger Goodell can move the date of the draft without having to get the go-ahead from the NFLPA, but he'd prefer that they be on board with the move. It sounds like the Players Association is close to giving their blessing on the matter.

Also on the table is the league moving the start of the league year to before the NFL Scouting Combine in 2015 and 2016. That means that free agency would kick off before the Combine as well, giving players more of an opportunity to find new teams.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this idea at this point. On one hand, I really enjoy the draft (as I know most of you do as well), and would hate to see it pushed back. On the other, it would cut down a bit on the dead period that I mentioned earlier in the piece here.

What do you think of the potential changes to the league schedule?

Henderson Becomes One Of Us (Well, Not Really)

2013-05-20T14:00:06Z

From now until the time the 2013 NFL season kicks off, the Minnesota Vikings will be looking to see if linebacker Erin Henderson can make the transition from the weak-side linebacker position he's manned for the past few years to the middle of their 4-3 defense. This past week, however, Henderson was testing out a potential transition to another position.

Henderson was part of a group of current and former players that took part in a broadcasting "boot camp" being held at Bowling Green University. They had a couple of different assignments to do. . .not all of which involved football.

As part of the program, Henderson and the pack of jackals, er, "journalists" conducted mock interviews with Bowling Green football coach Dave Clawson and Toledo Mud Hens General Manager Joe Napoli. They wrote a news story off their interview with Napoli and covered a Mud Hens home game. They had two hours to write a column on one of five topics they had to choose from. Then they had to condense the column into a two-minute opinion piece for radio.

Two hours? Two hours!? Man, I have to re-do my SB Nation contract.

(Okay, not really.)

The article also mentions Henderson re-starting a blog. . .I didn't realize he had one before. . .but when he does re-start it, we'll let you know where it's located.

Though the story from the Star-Tribune is primarily about Henderson's trip to this broadcasting seminar, Mark Craig did manage to sneak in a question about the middle linebacker situation in Minnesota. Henderson gave the answer you'd probably expect him to give.

Despite coach Leslie Frazier's hesitancy over discussing the possibility of Henderson moving from weakside linebacker to the gaping hole in the middle, Henderson said: "I'm going to be the starting middle linebacker. There's no question. That's where I belong."

If Henderson can't completely make the transition to the middle linebacker spot, it certainly won't be because he doesn't have the confidence. That's going to be one of the more intriguing stories of this year's Training Camp, in my opinion.

Vikings Prominent Among All-Time Great Tackle Duos

2013-05-20T13:00:11Z

Historically, one of the strengths of the Minnesota Vikings has been the defensive line. From the Purple People Eaters all the way up to the law firm of Williams, Williams, and Allen (and Edwards, I guess), it has been rare to see a Vikings team that hasn't been strong up front.

In light of Detroit Lions' defensive tackle Nick Fairley declaring himself and Ndamukong Suh to be the best pair of defensive tackles in the National Football League, Dan Pompei of the National Football Post decided to take a look at what he thought were the best defensive tackle pairings in the history of the league. The Vikings are featured not once, but twice among those duos. . .and neither of them are the famed "Williams Wall" of Pat Williams and Kevin Williams.

The first one should be pretty familiar to much of our older generation of Vikings fans. . .the tandem of Alan Page and Gary Larsen.

Between them, they made it to 11 Pro Bowls and four Super Bowls as members of the famed Purple People Eaters. Page was the play maker, while Larsen did the dirty work. This pair was enhanced by two great defensive ends in Carl Eller and Jim Marshall.

Alan Page might be the greatest overall player in Vikings history. And he might be the best defensive tackle in the history of the league (yes, even to this day). Larsen, on the other hand, was sort of the "lost man" among the Purple People Eaters. As Pompei said, Larsen did a lot of the dirty work and allowed Page, Marshall, and Eller to gain a great deal of prominence as a result.

The other pairing is one that a lot of Vikings fans should be familiar with, the early 90s duo of John Randle and Henry Thomas.

Both players were exceptionally quick and explosive. They made a lot of plays in the backfield, and when they weren't making plays themselves, Randle and Thomas were helping teammates make plays.

Randle is a Hall of Famer, and deservedly so. Nobody for one minute questions how great he was. Henry Thomas was no slouch himself, racking up 56 sacks in his eight years in a purple jersey from 1987 to 1994. Thomas and Randle played together in Minnesota for five seasons (Thomas already had three seasons under his belt when Randle arrived in Minnesota), and worked incredibly well together.

Who's your favorite pairing of Vikings' defensive tackles? Do you think the Williams Wall stacks up to the two duos named by Pompei in his article?

Minnesota Vikings News And Links, 5/20

2013-05-20T12:15:37Z

Another week kicks off today here in Viking Land, ladies and gentlemen. This is probably going to be a short work week for most of you, what with a holiday weekend coming up, but we hope to cram quite a bit in here this week for your reading pleasure.

Since the last time we brought you an Open Thread. . .

-We took a look at what might become the new source of funding for the state's portion of the new Minnesota Vikings stadium.

-We had some shots of rookie Cordarrelle Patterson at the NFLPA Rookie Premiere that took place this past weekend.

-The odometer moved past another traffic milestone for our humble little corner of the internet here.

-Cornerback Chris Cook expressed a great deal of confidence in Minnesota's secondary for this upcoming season.

Normally I'd throw some links to some other sites out here, but there will be a couple of stories coming shortly based on those links. We'll link to those stories then.

For our ambient music this week, since I'm feeling thoroughly not creative at the present time, I'm just going to continue with last week's theme of wrestling entrance music. Truth be told, I could probably do this until the regular season started, but next week I'll come up with something different. For today, a performer that some of our younger readers might not necessarily remember.

Cheesy? Yep. Welcome to wrestling in the 1980s.

The rules for the Open Thread are the same as they ever were, folks. . .no politics, no religion, and keep the bad language to a minimum. The beer light is on and the bar is open for Monday, everybody. Come on in, put your feet up, and enjoy the rest of your day.

Cook Expresses Confidence In Vikings Secondary

2013-05-20T00:32:27Z

Among the numerous personnel moves the Minnesota Vikings have made this off-season, one of the biggest might be the loss of cornerback Antoine Winfield. Though he was the oldest player on the Vikings' roster in 2012, he showed that he was still very effective as a slot cornerback, and the defense clearly suffered without him. The second half of the regular season finale against the Green Bay Packers showed as much.

However, one member of the Vikings' secondary doesn't feel that things are going to be that bad in 2013. That player is cornerback Chris Cook, who is now one of the leaders of the Minnesota secondary in the wake of Winfield's departure.

"I definitely don't see that being the case this year," Cook said. "We've got a lot of young, hungry guys. We put in a lot of extra time and we communicate very well and we spend a lot of time together bonding. ... I don't think we'll be what people think we'll be. I think we'll be probably, most definitely a top secondary this year."

If the Vikings are, in fact, going to be a top secondary in 2013, Cook is going to have to show that he can remain on the field. In two of his first three NFL seasons, Cook has missed more games than he's played. In 2010 he had issues with his knee that started in training camp, and in 2011 he had a well-publicized incident with his then-girlfriend that caused him to miss most of the year. In 2012 he played in 11 games (including the wild card playoff loss in Green Bay), but still missed six games with an arm injury. Overall, in his career, he has played in just 23 of 49 possible games. He's shown promise when he has played, but he needs to stay healthy for the secondary to reach the level he's talking about this coming season.

After Winfield's injury last season, the Vikings were down to using return specialist Marcus Sherels in the secondary, and he really got abused by Green Bay in the season finale. With Cook and the newly-drafted Xavier Rhodes on the outsides, and the continued development of players like Josh Robinson and A.J. Jefferson, the Vikings will have to gel quickly to show improvement against the passing offenses they'll see on their schedule in 2013.

12,000,000

2013-05-19T01:26:33Z

We've done it again, ladies and gentlemen. . .and with the issues and some other things we've all had going on in recent days, I didn't even notice it for about ten days or so.

Yes, we rolled past another million on the traffic calculator. Unless my math is off, we actually hit the 12,000,000 visit mark sometime back on May 8. I know that these might be getting a little repetitive and what not, but that's just because we've been hitting them so rapidly recently that they have been becoming more frequent.

As always, the most important part of this entire equation is you awesome readers out there. With the Open Threads that we've been doing recently, we have a lot of people hanging out and talking about various topics, and it seems like this is becoming more and more of a community than just a random group of guys and gals commenting on the Minnesota Vikings. That's been the goal all along.

We've also gotten to branch out even further, with Arif and Eric getting to be part of various interviews and things like that leading up to the draft and the stadium reveal. Hopefully we can just continue to get bigger and bigger and continue bringing you the kind of coverage that you've come to expect from us. We've been at this for nearly seven years now. . .I can't believe it, either. . .and yet this site (along with the rest of SB Nation) is still on a serious upward trajectory.

Also, I need to give myself credit for surrounding myself with such an amazing group of people over the time that this site has been online. Ted, Eric, Kyle, Skol Girl, Mark, and Arif each provide such awesome and unique stuff to this site on a regular basis and has played a big role into shaping this little corner of the internet into what it is today. The Daily Norseman wouldn't be what it is today without each and every one of them, as well as the contributors that have been here in the past and have moved on to other things.

Thanks again for your patronage, ladies and gentlemen, and we hope that you'll continue coming back for even more news and opinion about our favorite football team.

Cordarrelle Patterson At The NFLPA Rookie Premiere

2013-05-19T01:00:07Z

As we mentioned a couple of days ago, Minnesota Vikings rookie wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson is at the NFLPA Rookie Premiere this weekend. The event is taking place at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles, with 40 NFL rookies taking part in the festivities. Many of them are getting their pictures taken for trading cards and things of that nature during the event.

We have a couple of pictures of the new #84 at the event that we thought we'd share here with you. The first one appears to be of him posing for a picture for one of the cards I mentioned or something.

Picture comes courtesy of the Twitter account of Sports Cards Uncensored.

Someone tell me that these new uniforms are anything but awesome. Because you, sir or ma'am, are incorrect. They are outstanding.

Here's another one of Patterson posing for a picture. This one comes from the Twitter account of the folks at Topps.

The last one comes from our man on the scene in Los Angeles, Ryan van Bibber. It's Patterson apparently playing catch with someone and sporting a pretty nice pair of shades.

Though I will say that, with the sunglasses and the hair, it does give him a bit of a "Stevie Wonder" look, which may not be a good thing for a wide receiver.

Hopefully we'll have more from Patterson from the Rookie Premiere here in the next day or two.

So, About That Vikings Stadium Funding

2013-05-18T09:06:00Z

Alright, folks. . .it looks like the sites are officially back up and running with no issues. We apologize to all of our readers out there that have had difficulty getting to us for the past couple of days.

While we were having problems, it appears that the state of Minnesota might have solved their problem of coming up with sufficient funding for a new Minnesota Vikings' stadium. The solution is two-fold, and it was introduced by Governor Mark Dayton on Friday.

The first is an increase on cigarette taxes, which will bump the tax on a pack of smokes from $1.23 per pack to $2.83 per pack. I can't imagine this being too terribly popular with the smoking crowd. . .it would make the price of a carton go up by $16. . .and would give Minnesota one of the highest cigarette taxes in the nation. The other part of the equation would involve closing a corporate "tax avoidance" loophole.

According to the state's revenue commissioner, raising the cigarette tax by itself would generate $24.5 million a year in additional revenue, which would replenish the state's stadium fund and cover any shortfalls.

The legislature has to have the tax bill drafted by midnight on Monday, so at that point we'll see if the plan introduced by Governor Dayton has any real traction. According to the Fox Sports North article listed above, the deal was "accepted in principle" by the folks in charge of drafting that bill.

Yes, I realize that this is a political matter. It can't really be avoided. Feel free to discuss it as such. . .however, if the comments degenerate into "RAWR REPUBLICANS SUCK RAWR NO DEMOCRATS SUCK" or something of a similar nature, we're yanking the plug. If the issue can't be discussed in a normal, respectful manner, it won't be discussed at all.