Minnesota Vikings News and Links: January 22, 2019

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Well, the team filled one of the final remaining vacancies on its coaching staff. There will be a link below with more details, but the word on the road (I like being out in the sticks, so in my world, it’s the word on the road, not the word on the street) is that the team hired Marwan Maalouf as their Special Teams Coach. Maalouf has been the special teams assistant in Miami since 2013, where he worked under Darren Rizzi. I honestly know very little about the new Vikings coach, but hopefully he can rid the team of the curse or whatever it is that has infected their kickers since...........a really long time ago. I’m in too good of mood to rehash our string of kicker woes, you all know what I’m talking about. A hearty welcome to our new Special Teams Coach, climb aboard and grab an oar!

Around the DN since our last open thread:

Ted has an awesome piece on a little thing called Paytonfreude. You should read this.

Wludford set out his blueprint for a Vikings Super Bowl.

Chris shared the announcement of the hiring of Marwan Maalouf, the new Vikings Special Teams Coach.

Chris also shared the news (wonderful news, in my opinion) that there will be no overseas games for the Vikings in 2019. The literate in me wonders if the Gulf of Mexico would be considered “seas”. If so, depending on the jet stream, and where the team was flying from and where they were flying to, I wonder if they’d fly over the Gulf of Mexico to get to a game in Florida. If so, they’d technically have an overseas game, and Chris would have to amend his story if he cared about being literal, which he probably doesn’t, so he probably wouldn’t, but he could if he was. Ah crap, they don’t have any Florida games in 2019, anyway. I’ll have to tuck this little tidbit away for use in a year when we do have one. Don’t worry, I won’t forget about something as important as this.

Vikings news from other sources and news from around the rest of the NFL:

From Vikings.com, 103 players have been granted special eligibility for the 2019 NFL Draft. I hope a bunch of them are very large, highly skilled offensive linemen who refuse to play for any team other than the Vikings.

From Reuters, the NFL is considering making pass interference a reviewable play. If done correctly, this could work, but it won’t be done correctly, so it won’t. In a perfect world, it could eliminate about 60% of Green Bay’s passing attack.

From SI.com, there is a story behind Sunday’s exchange between Marcus Peters and Sean Payton. You may remember seeing it during that wonderfully beautiful NFC Championship game, I’m still smiling about that ending.

We come to today’s media selection:

JUST in case you haven’t seen it, here is a recap of Sunday’s NFC Championship game, and its most wonderfully excellent result.

Again, we all know the rules, but in case someone is new:

• No discussion of politics or religion
• No feeding of the trolls
• This isn’t a male version of The View, so leave the gender hatred at the door
• Keep the bad language to a minimum (using the spoiler tags, if you must)
• Speaking of which, if discussing a newer show or movie, please use spoiler tags
• No pictures that could get someone fired or in serious trouble with their employer
• If you can’t disagree in a civil manner, feel free to go away
• While navigating the open thread, just assume it’s sarcasm

With that, the beer light is on and the bar is open. Belly up and tie one on. Don’t forget to tip your waitress, and try the whine, it’s been shipped in fresh from the Gulf Coast.