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Hey everyone! Remember me? It's Eric! I'm the guy that used to write for this site much more frequently until the season stopped and my wife started going on all sorts of work trips. I promise I haven't partially left Daily Norseman (unlike someone else that shall rename nameless...for another paragraph or two). I just haven't had much time to do anything but chase my fast-moving 10-month-old daughter around the house. Also, the Vikings haven't had any scandalous news in the past few weeks, which is nice. [KNOCKS FERVENTLY ON WOOD]
While this certainly hasn't been an incredibly busy time for the Vikings, we still have plenty to talk about. We're exactly one week away from free agency and inching closer to the NFL Draft in May.
Since the last time we brought you an Open Thread:
- CCNorseman went position by position and compiled consensus rankings for the upcoming NFL draft. It's a great read and even better cheat sheet for where players might be slotted to go in the draft.
- Most dedicated readers are aware of this by now, but yesterday Arif made it official: he'll be ramping down his work at Daily Norseman to put more time into his new endeavor, Vikings Territory. We hate to see Arif's great work get published elsewhere. But let's face it--the guy deserves to get paid for the incredible amount of research and writing he does about the Vikings. Sadly, Chris keeps the hundreds of thousands of dollars that SB Nation pays him all to himself so we couldn't retain Arif. (Or something like that.) If you ask me an NFL team should have hired Arif as a scout or analyst by now, but in the meantime click the link and wish him well in his new opportunity at Vikings Territory. Don't worry, we won't get upset if you read his stuff over on VT (as long as you come back here for the rest of our great content). The good news is that Arif won't completely disappear from this space. He'll still be doing his podcast along with covering the draft and Training Camp. I'm personally very excited about that because it means I still get to see him every once in a while to try and absorb some of his vast football knowledge.
- The Minnesota Golden Gophers held their pro day yesterday, and the Vikings coaching staff was out in full force.
- Chris Cook tweeted about his meeting with new Head Coach Mike Zimmer. If you read between the lines, it sounds like Cook will be testing the free agent waters next week.
- Vikings.com blogger Mike Wobschall did his Monday Morning Mailbag. He talked Clowney, quarterbacks, free agents, and pass defense among other topics.
And now it's beer light time. Enjoy your Tuesday Vikings fans!