First off, I'm new to your site, but very glad that I found it.  Second, it's natural for us Viking fans to hear "Viking" and "Police" and expect that one of our guys screwed up again.  It's refreshing to find out that Mr. Whitaker was not causing trouble.  Maybe we can have an incarceration free year with no distractions.  I love the mock draft predictions of Peterson and Gonzalez.  Those were my picks for the first two rounds also.  Go Vikes!

This relates unfortunately directly to what Dan Monson had to say recently about coaching in Minneapolis. His Gophers according to him were hounded just as much as the pros. I assume he meant the Vikings because very few Twins, Twolves, Wild and the rest are bothered by the police. I think it's a clear case of idenity awareness. The police don't even know who these other athletes are and it's not apparent when you meet them that they're any kind of an athlete. But when you meet someone 6'-5' to 6'-8" weighing in at over 300 and looking buff they immediately intimidate any police officer and if there's any trouble they immediately get help to deal with that person, even if he wasn't involved in the incident. And God forbid they should run into any cocky WR with an attitude. That eliminates all U of Mia players and half the state of Fla. "The" Ohio St players need not apply. Your arms are not stronger than our guns and we've been proving it since the days of Bud Grant. We gave his players a break but no more. The media has spoken!

I witnessed an incident when I was at Bobby and Steve's on Washington and 35W on the U of M's west bank. There was a minor disturbance that caused an argument and the police were called. The police asked that everyone evacuate the store and they started herding us out. Randall MacDaniel was one of the patrons leaving the store but he wasn't leaving fast enough for the police so they gave him a push in the back and told him to get moving. When he voiced his objection to being pushed, and that's all he did, they handcuffed him and arrested him for "resisting an officer." All charges were later dropped but the way the local media covered it made it seem like MacDaniel got by with something when in fact he was the victim.

I do believe the PD's in the twin cities area have an inferiority complex and feel they can improve their image by putting the big bad Vikings in their place. And right now the media cares only for baseball and hockey, football be damned. So don't expect any sympathetic or even fair press from the local media. They're bullies with a mob mentality. In the old west they'd be leading the lynch gangs. In the old south they'd be the KKK.

I read the internet sites of other NFL teams and I get jealous. They support their teams to the Nth degree, sometimes stupidly. But I think I'd rather have that cheerleader sportswriter on my local paper than the sportswriters that are bent on tearing down a program before it has a chance to grow roots. The only cheerleading we've heard about the Vikings for a very very long time is when they have an assisstant coach they want to promote as a head coach somewhere else. What the hell is that about? We ought to have a rule. No promoting our coaches until AFTER we win a Super Bowl! What do all the recent Super Bowl winners have in common? They have kept their coaching staffs intact until after they won a Super Bowl. What else? Most of them have someone on their staff that has spent some time with the Vikings. I can't wait to see what becomes of Mike Tomlin and even though he has no Viking ties I want to see Dan Monson do well just because he spoke up. Way to go, Dan!

The local media forgets that when they disparage the local team, and especially when they make it personal about a certain player and/or coach, those people are going to communicate those behaviors around the league. There's more than a seed of truth in what Monson said. He's just someone who was quoted. Remember the Chicago LB coach who the Vikings asked if he'd be interested in the DC job with the Vikings? His answer? He'd go unemployed before he took any kind of job in the twin cities? I know he was in line for Chicago's DC but you don't burn your bridges like that unless there's something there you seriously dislike. Like interferring, uneducated, inexperienced media types that have never played the game talking like they have. Why do you think we have so few FA's visiting Minn? It's not the coach. We've had the same problem since the days of Jerry Burns. He was the last coach who had the respect of the media and they drove him out at the end of his tenure.

The media operates under the misconception that they speak for the general population. They do not. If they did we should have a way to tell them to shut up. But we don't. We have two papers, only one of which we can buy in Mpls, both owned by the same company. If we stop buying the paper they won't even notice. I have written open letters to them and got no response. My message to the local media? Love the local team you are writing about. Love it or leave it for the team you came from. Go back home. And if this is your home and you just don't like football admit it and stick to the sport you love. But get someone who has played and knows football to report on football.