First off, before we get underway with this, just a heads-up in case you haven't been reminded of how great Adrian Peterson is in a while. NFL Network will be replaying the Vikings/Bears game from Week 6 in. . .oh. . .about an hour and a half or so (9 PM Central).
But since I've gotten some good, solid questions from you kind folks out there, allow me to take a moment to answer some of them here.
We'll start out with an e-mail from a fan that left no name. All I've got is an e-mail address, and I'm not going to put that out here. I only do that to people that are jerks. . .to this point, that only covers idiot fans of other teams. Anyway, his question is this. . .
I have been a Vikes fan for 33 years and finally get a chance to see them. I live in Montana and am making a trip to Minni to catch them against the Pack. Any suggestions on where to go and what to do while there for the game would be appreciated.
Well, sir, unfortunately I've only been to a game in Minneapolis one time in all my years of being a Viking fan. . .and I was 15 years old, so I didn't have a heck of a lot of say over what we did or where we went that weekend. I guess the obvious answers would be to see the Mall of America and make sure to dine at either Matty B's, Benchwarmer Bob's (which is spectacular), or Joe Senser's place. Outside of that, I'm not sure.
However, I'd like to call on all of you folks out there that HAVE been to the Cities to see the Beloved Purple on numerous occasions to offer up a few suggestions as to where our friend could go and some of the things around Minneapolis that you'd recommend. I'm sure that we can figure out a few things. Please use the comments section of this very post for that purpose.
Our next question comes from Walt.
Hey there,
I guess this is technically a "Vikings" question, but rather a "Daily Norseman" question...
Is there anyway I can get email notification of new posts in this blog?
Unfortunately, Walt, as of now there is not. When the site upgrades. . .which will hopefully occur shortly here. . .that might be an option, but I'm not 100% sure. That's something I'll have to ask the SBNation higher-ups about.
However, in lieu of e-mails, you can use what the kids today call an "aggregator" to let you know when this site or any of your favorite sites are updated. What an aggregator does is takes the feeds from various blogs (you can find the addresses for our feeds down at the very bottom of the right-hand column of the blog here), and when you check the aggregator, you can see when it's been updated.
A couple of examples of aggregator programs are BlogLines and Google Reader. Many of them will allow you to track as many sites as you want. In fact, I'm pretty sure that every Vikings site listed in our link section has feeds that you could plug into an aggregator program for ease of viewing.
Well, I took long enough to explain that, didn't I?
Let's move on to an actual football question from David.
Other than defensive end, what position do you anticipate being the greatest area of concern in the upcoming draft. My take is that after defensive end, contrary to popular demand for a QB or WR, we need to go after an offensive tackle. Ryan Cook is just not getting the job done and with Mount McKinnie's recent problems he may or may not be shown the exit. After those two we are dangerously shallow at one of the most critical positions on the team. As much as I would love to see them go after a QB or WR in the second round, I believe that a Chad Henne or Andre Woodson may be available in the third round. I also firmly believe that once you get past the first 45 picks, the ability to differentiate the WR's becomes much more difficult and we may be just as likely to draft talent in the 6th round as we would in the third. What are your thoughts going into the draft as to where the team should focus?
Good points, David. For the most part, I agree with you. The Bryant McKinnie situation makes offensive tackle the Vikings' obvious #2 priority in this draft, if not a #1a to the more obvious #1 need, which is defensive end.
As I've highlighted in previous posts here, the signing of Bernard Berrian and the maturation of Sidney Rice mean the Vikings don't have to spend an early pick on a wide receiver. Given this year's WR class, that's a good thing, because there might not be a receiver with a first-round grade in this entire group. The highest-rated receiver now MIGHT be Devin Thomas, and he's extremely raw. But there are a lot of second and third round caliber receivers out there, and with our extra third round pick, we could easily get a WR there.
I think that the first two picks will be a combination of a DE and an OT. Which one we get in which round depends on who's available at #17. If the top 3 DEs (Long, Gholston, and Harvey) are gone and the Vikings could get a Chris Williams or a Jeff Otah, they might opt to go that direction in Round 1 and get their DE in Round 2.
But, in an ideal world, I think the Vikings' first two picks will be a DE and an OT, and they'll spend their two #3's and their #4 on a WR, a TE, and a QB.
And with that, the mailbag will close for this time around. If you have any questions you'd like to answer with my Carnack-like abilities, just drop the line to DailyNorseman AT GMail DOT com.
Have a good rest of your Sunday, ladies and gentlemen.