Monday Open Thread: March 8, 2021

Merry Monday, everyone!

We’re kicking off another fabulous work week in this NFL off-season. Speaking of the NFL off-season, we all know that we’ve been enduring one of the most painful and slow-moving periods of the off-season, BUT it is going to become less slow very soon. Here are some upcoming key dates that will almost certainly generate some NFL news, and eventually will bring about some inter-team transactions. Here is a short list of important dates which are upcoming within the next week or so:

1. March 9: You may recall that teams were allowed to designate players as franchise or transition players beginning on February 23rd, and that they had two weeks to do so. Well, that 2 weeks will end tomorrow, March 9, at 3:00 pm, Central Time. I don’t believe the Vikings will be in a position where they will use either designation, so this is unlikely to affect them.
2. March 15-17: @We are all aware that no teams will talk to upcoming free agents prior to this period of time.@ I don’t see the Vikings making any big splashes in free agency this year, so this one is unlikely to directly affect the purple and gold in a major way this year. March 15-17 is the 3-day-ish period when teams are allowed to contact and enter into contract negotiations with agents of players who will become unrestricted free agents on March 17, which brings us to our next key date.......
3. March 17: At 3:00 pm Central time, the new league year begins, and players who were pending free agents will become free agents, and teams may officially sign those free-agents to contracts, and trades between teams can become official.

There you go, folks. We’re still in the stagnant period of the off-season, but the water is going to start churning a little bit very soon, and hey, we also have baseball to watch and talk about. Go Braves!

Around the DN since our last open thread:

Finding it difficult to wade through the endless mock drafts? Chris has his latest summary of all of the major mock drafts for you with 2021 Minnesota Vikings Mock Draft Database, v3.0.

Wludford highlights Four Draft Picks that Could Replace Vikings’ Starters.

Chris shared a report that said the Vikings are looking to rework Riley Reiff’s contract. Players seem to have gotten a bit more averse to reworking their contracts. Honestly, I don’t blame them most of the time, it’s not their fault that the front office got themselves into a bind by signing dumb contracts.

Other Vikings/NFL news and random oddities and annoyances:

At Vikings.com, Eric Smith opens the Monday Morning Mailbag, and catch Tom Pelissero as he weighs in on Cousins’ future with the Vikings after 2021.

VividSeats speculates on when the NFL schedule will be released. They’re probably correct, sometime around mid-May seems to be the general consensus among the sports media outlets I’ve looked at.

Sports Illustrated believes that the Vikings could benefit from the number of offensive guards who are to be avaialble once the new league year begins.

We come to today’s media selection:

Here’s a great song by a great singer. This is Jimmy Buffett with Come Monday. Enjoy!

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

-No discussion of politics or religion
-No feeding of the trolls
-Take the gender hatred elsewhere, it won’t be tolerated
-Keep the bad language to a minimum (using the spoiler tags, if you must)
-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 & tie one on, don’t forget to tip the cows and settle in, this part of the season gets long and boring.