Yes, ladies and gentlemen, MOAR HIGHLIGHTS!

This one is a very recent one, and is borne once again of disrespect for our favorite football team. The 2009 Minnesota Vikings, despite stumbling down the stretch, finished the regular season with a record of 12-4 and the #2 overall seed in the NFC Playoffs. After taking a week off, they prepared to face the Dallas Cowboys at the Metrodome.

The Cowboys, of course, were the team at that point of the season. They won the NFC East title by pitching consecutive shutouts in the last two weeks of the regular season, and then thumped their division rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. Naturally, the prevailing logic was that they were going to roll through Minnesota and move on to the NFC Championship Game.

Nope.

The tone was set early when Ray Edwards damn near killed Tony Romo, forcing a fumble that the Vikings recovered. From there, it was the Sidney Rice show, as he had six catches for 141 yards and three touchdowns, including one on a pass that Gerald Sensabaugh still hasn't located. Brett Favre only completed 15 passes on the afternoon, but that was all he needed as Minnesota thumped the Cowboys by a final score of 34-3.

And then the 2009 season abruptly ended and everybody lived happily ever after. As far as we know.

Enjoy, folks!

On Tuesday, a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought forth by a group of retired players concerning the benefits they received from the National Football League's new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The lawsuit, which had the name of former Minnesota Vikings' great Carl Eller on it as the lead plaintiff, stated that the National Football League and the NFLPA had no right to negotiate benefits for retired players, due to the fact that the NFLPA wasn't really a union last off-season.

According to the story from Yahoo! Sports,

Nelson wrote that she accepted the factual allegations by the Eller class as true but disagreed that the current players acted illegally. She ruled that since the active players were negotiating their own contract with the league, they had no obligation to take ''a smaller share of the pie for themselves'' in order to give the retirees a bigger slice.

The former players claimed the current players owed them a ''fiduciary duty,'' but Nelson denied the legal existence of such a relationship.

''And there can be no dispute that a better package of benefits was in fact obtained for the retired players in the 2011 CBA as compared to those in the former CBA. No jury could reasonably find that the active players did not do better by the retired players in the 2011 CBA,'' Nelson wrote.

Basically, retired players are entitled to the retirement benefits they negotiated when they were players, and anything beyond that should basically be considered a gift from the NFL and the NFLPA.

Michael Hausfield, the lead lawyer for the retired players, says that he does plan to appeal the lawsuit to the next higher level.

There are a few spots out there that have some tidbits from today's second day of Minnesota Vikings Organized Team Activities. Let's take a look at some of them.

-You know how you know it's been too long without football? When a video of footraces between Percy Harvin and Adrian Peterson is one of the cooler football-related things you've seen since January. Keep in mind that the guy that appears to be winning the majority of the races is the guy that had his knee reconstructed right after Christmas.

-Kevin Seifert from ESPN points out that the only veterans missing from this week's OTAs are linebacker Chad Greenway and defensive end Jared Allen. Allen generally doesn't attend OTAs anyway, and as long as he continues playing like. . .well, like Jared Allen. . .he can continue doing whatever the heck he wants, as far as I'm concerned. Greenway is apparently dealing with a family issue.

-Mike Wobschall of Vikings.com points out a sign of quarterback Christian Ponder making progress in his quarterbacking abilities.

One moment that illustrated Ponder's progression so far during OTAs came about midway through Wednesday's practice during 7-on-7 work. On the first play of the period, Ponder lofted a pass deep down the left sideline for WR Devin Aromashodu, but CB Chris Cook made an exceptional play on the ball and grabbed the INT. On the next play, Ponder dropped back and rifled a pass into the center of the field to hit WR Stephen Burton between two defenders. The pass was perfectly timed and was the proper read. As Ponder jogged back to the huddle, Vikings Offensive Coordinator Bill Musgrave barked "Way to bounce right back!"

Good sign from Ponder. . .and in the Vikings' wide receiver battle, maybe I'm underestimating Stephen Burton a little bit. Guy has size and a lot of physical talent, but didn't get to show much last year before landing on IR.

-Defensive tackle Kevin Williams has expressed that he would like to finish his career as a member of the Minnesota Vikings. Williams is in the last year of his contract, but the team has a two-year option that they can pick up on the big man at a cost of nearly $17 million. I love me some Kevin Williams, folks, and if his season this year looks like the end of his 2011 season (where he picked up five sacks in the last seven games after finally getting completely healthy), then the Vikings might pick that deal up. He's probably going to have to have that kind of season to justify the Vikings picking up an $8.5 million/year option on a 32-year old defensive tackle.

-Harvin is, indeed, planning on participating in OTAs over the next couple weeks if his shoulder will allow it, according to 1500 ESPN.

-1500 ESPN also reports that the Vikings have no plans on providing any competition for rookie kicker Blair Walsh. The job is his.

After last year's complete farce of a contest, there were rumors flying around that the National Football League could possibly do away with the Pro Bowl. Even moving the game from the week after the Super Bowl to the week between the Conference Championship games hasn't turned out to do much. . .there are just slightly bigger names out there going through the motions.

Well, it turns out that the NFL isn't convinced after all, and has announced that next year's Pro Bowl will, indeed, take place on January 27th in Honolulu, Hawai'i, the week before Super Bowl XLVII.

The league can point to the ratings for the Pro Bowl and how successful it is from that standpoint. . .it was the most viewed "All Star game" of the four major sports by a significant margin. . .but fans know that the game has sort of become a joke at this point. Defenses really can't do much, nobody's really going full speed. . .personally, I don't really spend any of my time watching it, but plenty of people do, and that counts for more than anything, it appears.

Apparently the NFL players fought for the game to continue. Maybe that means they'll actually try hard during the game itself. . .though I don't think I'd hold my breath about that, either.

With a few of the signings they made this off-season and a couple of big names returning, the Minnesota Vikings figured to have a bit of a competition at the cornerback spot going into the 2012 season. While it appears that the returning Antoine Winfield and Chris Cook will be the starters, all of the spots behind them on the depth chart appear to be wide open.

Asher Allen figured to be a part of that logjam. . .until he announced his retirement on Wednesday afternoon.

Allen, the Vikings' third-round pick (number 86 overall) in the 2009 NFL Draft out of the University of Georgia, had a very up-and-down three seasons in Minnesota. He had times where he showed flashes of brilliance, and many other times when he looked overmatched. He suffered a few concussions during his time with the Vikings as well, though it is not known whether or not that played a role in his decision to stop playing football.

According to KFAN-FM in Minneapolis, Allen had actually told Leslie Frazier that he wanted to retire last Thursday, but the word didn't make its way out until today. Also, KFAN says that the retirement is apparently not concussion-related, though I'm not sure how they know for sure, either.

Allen leaves Minnesota having appeared in 37 games for the Vikings, with 21 starts. He recorded 102 tackles and four interceptions in his three-year career, and walks away from the game at the age of 24.

We wish Asher Allen the best of luck in his future endeavors.

Yes, this is a video I know we've done before. . .if not this specific video, then a video from this specific game.

What follows is the single most dominating rushing performance in National Football League history. On November 4, 2007 at the Metrodome, the Minnesota Vikings hosted the San Diego Chargers. The Vikings came into the game with a record of 2-5, coming off of back-to-back losses to the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, and were getting ready to take on a Charger team that had gotten off to a 1-3 start, but came to Minneapolis having won three consecutive games by a combined margin of 104-27. They also came into the game allowing just 89 yards per game on the ground.

Things didn't go quite the way everybody expected them to.

Two things that are important to remember about this performance.

1) At halftime, Peterson had 43 yards. The 253 yards he put up in the second half alone would be enough to put him in a tie for the 9th-highest single-game rushing total in NFL history (and, at the time, it would have been the sixth-best).

2) A penalty denied Peterson the opportunity to put the record completely out of reach. At about the 12:00 mark of the video, on 1st-and-10 from the Minnesota 10-yard line, Peterson takes a handoff and goes for 35 yards, only to be dragged out of bounds by a horse-collar tackle by Chargers' safety Marlon McCree. That tackle happened at the Minnesota 45. . .with the kind of roll that Peterson was on, I'm not sure if anybody in front of him was going to take him down. That tackle almost certainly denied him the first 300-yard rushing performance in NFL history and, again, with the roll that Peterson was on, he could have added that last 55 yards and gotten a fourth touchdown to put the record completely off the charts.

But, the record is Peterson's as it stands right now, and it's going to take an amazing performance by somebody to take him off the top of the charts.

Or football-related activities, as it were.

As I mentioned earlier, today is the first day of Organized Team Activities for the Minnesota Vikings, and though the media was not officially allowed at today's practices, we do have a couple of pieces of information for you.

For starters, Percy Harvin was at today's festivities at Winter Park, but was not participating since he hasn't fully recovered from the shoulder surgery he had just prior to this year's NFL Draft. Harvin's surgery was on April 24, but it was just a "clean out" of the shoulder that he experienced pain in while lifting weights. He's still attending team meetings, and will hopefully be ready for some of the team's later OTAs.

Mike Wobschall, who runs the blog for the official Vikings' website, was the only media person in attendance, and has some good reports from what he saw on Day 1. One passage in particular makes me quite happy.

One of the first players to stand out in my eyes was CB Antoine Winfield. It was great to see him back on the field after he played in just 5 games last season. Winfield showed no signs of being slowed now, though, as he looked spry during individual drills and very sound during team offense vs. team defense. Winfield had a bounce in his step around the facility and before practice, and it's clear he still has explosion in his legs while on the field.

Considering that, after his injury this past season, we weren't sure if we would see #26 on the field as a Viking again, it's good to hear that he's not just back, but that he's healthy as well.

The Vikings' website also has some videos for your viewing pleasure from the first day of OTAs, including an interview with quarterback Christian Ponder.

It's not the regular season yet, but BAH GAWD it's football.

At least, not according to the folks at the mothership, in any event.

Our friends at the SB Nation NFL hub took a look at the eight teams that finished in fourth place in their division last season. Of the eight teams that had that distinction in 2011, only two were given less of a chance than the Minnesota Vikings of making the leap from last place to first place in their respective division.

Here's what they said about the Vikings' chances.

The Vikings, like the Bucs, very well could be a lot better in 2012. But, like the Bucs, they're in a tough spot with the talent in their own division. The Vikings are very unlikely to topple the Packers, and even the Lions and Bears are ahead of them at this point.

As long as they have a healthy Adrian Peterson, they'll be competitive, but winning the division is unlikely at this point considering arguably the best team in the NFL, the Packers, reside in the same division.

For starters, I do believe that the New York Football Giants would take at least a little bit of an issue with the Packers being called the best team in the NFL. You know, taking into consideration that the Giants hoisted that big silver trophy last year and thrashed the Packers in the process of doing so. (I mean, wasn't that the rule the year before? If you're the champion, you're obviously the best team?)

Other than that. . .I can't argue much with what they have to say. Yes, the Vikings could be a dramatically improved football team this year. . .I'm still expecting 8-8, which would be a dramatic improvement over last year's showing. . .but that doesn't mean they're making the leap to the top of the division. Not in 2012, anyway. It's entirely possible. . .maybe even likely. . .that they finish fourth again. But they won't be as bad as they were last year.

Of the other fourth-place teams, I think they got it right in selecting the Kansas City Chiefs as being the most obvious chance of going from worst-to-first. The Chiefs had a lot of injuries last year, and even with Peyton Manning ending up in Denver, they're not a lock or anything. The Vikings really could have been anywhere from second to sixth on that list, in my opinion.

What say you, ladies and gentlemen?

When we reported earlier this month that the Minnesota Vikings had turned down the opportunity to be on the HBO television program "Hard Knocks," many folks expressed that they liked the program, but they just didn't want the Vikings to be on it. For those of you that fall under that heading, you'll be happy to know that HBO has finally gotten their team.

Starting on August 7, it will be a Hard Knock(s) Life for the Miami Dolphins.

The announcement was made just a little while ago, and the Dolphins are an interesting choice. Their fans have been displeased. . .to put it mildly. . .with a lot of what their team has done this off-season, and it will be interesting to see how that translates over to the practice field.

When the show does start, you can bet that our friends over at The Phinsider will be all over the coverage of it.

So, fear not, Hard Knocks fans. . .you will, indeed, have something to watch this pre-season.

Today will mark the first of four different sessions that the Minnesota Vikings will get together prior to Training Camp opening in late July.

Organized team activities will start today at Winter Park, and will run through Thursday. There will also be three other sessions for OTAs. Those will take place from June 5-7, June 11-14, and June 19-21. What can take place in Organized Team Activities is spelled out in Article 21, Section 2, Sub-section b(iii) of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, defining what are known as "Phase Three" team activities. That section reads as follows:

Phase Three. Phase Three shall consist of the next four weeks of the Club's offseason workout program. Subject to the additional rules set forth in Subsec­tions 5(a) and 5(c) of this Article and Appendix G to this Agreement, during Phase Three each Club may conduct a total of ten days of organized team practice activity ("OTAs" or "OTA days"). The restrictions set forth in Subsection 5(b) of this Article shall not apply to OTA days.

The Club may conduct a maximum of three days of OTAs during each of the first two weeks of Phase Three. A maximum of four days of OTAs may be conducted during either the third week or the fourth week of Phase Three, with the Mandatory Veteran Minicamp (Article 22, Section 2) to be held during the other week. During weeks in which the Club conducts only three days of OTAs, the Club may also conduct a fourth day of non-OTA workouts, but such activities shall be subject to the rules governing Phase Two workouts, as set forth in Subsection 2(b)(ii) of this Ar­ticle.

During Phase Three, all coaches shall be allowed on the field. No live contact is permitted. No one-on-one offense vs. defense drills are permitted (i.e., no offensive linemen vs. defensive linemen pass rush or pass protection drills, no wide receivers vs. defensive backs bump-and-run drills, and no one-on-one special teams drills involving both offense and defense are permitted). Special teams drills (e.g., kicking team vs. return team) are permitted, provided no live contact occurs. Team offense vs. team defense drills, including all drills listed in Appendix G to this Agreement, are permitted, provided no live contact occurs. Clubs may require players to wear helmets; no shells are permit­ted during Phase Three of the Club's offseason workout program or any minicamp.

The session that will take place from June 19-21 is the "Mandatory Veteran Minicamp" that is described above.

No media access is being allowed at Winter Park today, so there isn't going to be anything floating around out there for us to jump on, but hopefully Wednesday and Thursday will have some coverage.

Since people do seem to enjoy them, I'm going to keep throwing these videos out there until either a) YouTube runs out of material or b) we actually have something more substantive to talk about. Thankfully, I'm guessing that "b" is going to happen sooner rather than later, with mini-camp starting tomorrow and all the coverage that entails.

But, for now, we're going to jump into the Wayback Machine and go back to January 9, 2005. To put it mildly, the Minnesota Vikings were a mess. In the span of a week, they had dropped a second consecutive 34-31 decision to the Green Bay Packers, one that handed Green Bay the NFC North division title, and lost a game in Washington, D.C. against the Redskins that saw Randy Moss walk off of the field with two seconds left and the Vikings attempting an onside kick.

Despite all of that, and despite going 3-7 over the course of their last ten games, the Vikings managed to stumble their way into the playoffs, earning another trip to Lambeau Field in a game that nobody. . .and I mean nobody. . .gave them a chance to win. After all, they had already lost to Green Bay twice, Moss wasn't fully recovered from a hamstring injury he suffered early in the year, Matt Birk was pissed at Moss for what happened in Washington, and despite finishing second in the MVP voting to Peyton Manning, nobody felt it necessary to give quarterback Daunte Culpepper even a little bit of respect. On ESPN's pre-game show earlier in the day, Steve Young called his selection of the Packers over the Vikings "the easiest pick I've made all year."

Yeah, you know what happened. . .but go ahead and watch it anyway. You'll like it.

In his latest column, Sid Hartman gives us a couple of interesting bits about the Vikings' new stadium. Let's look at these one at a time.

One person who might lose out when the Metrodome is torn down and the new Vikings stadium is opened is former Vikings GM Mike Lynn, who, as part of his contract, has been receiving $500,000-plus a year through profits on luxury suites. When the new stadium is built you wonder if Lynn might go to court and claim that his agreement continues with the new stadium.

Wait a minute here. . .the guy that foisted the trade on us for He Who Shall Not Be Named and who hasn't had an actual connection to the franchise for a very long time is still making half a million dollars a year off of this team? And Sid thinks he might take the team to court to get a piece of the new stadium?

To hell with that. . .Lynn should be charged with grand theft, because that's outright ridiculous.

There is a good chance that the architects who designed Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis will be hired to do the same job on the new Vikings stadium.

This one is interesting. I know that the buzz is that the Vikings want to model the new stadium after Lucas Oil, but I was of the impression that the contract for the new stadium would go to Populous, the company that had a hand in the design and construction of both Target Field (where the Minnesota Twins play) and TCF Bank Stadium (the home of Minnesota Golden Gophers football). The company behind Lucas Oil Stadium, among others, is a company called HKS. We'll have to see how that ends up going.

Once the Metrodome is torn down to make way for the new stadium, the word is that there is a market for the Dome's roof, which was replaced recently after the previous roof collapsed in a snow storm. It could be sold for around $20 million. The question is: Does the insurance company that paid for the roof share in the money?

Well, we know that there was a market for the old roof, but that was vintage, for lack of a better term. By the time the Dome gets torn down, the roof will only be about three years old. I don't know if there are any pieces of the old roof left, but I'd be much more interested in that than I would be in a piece of the new roof.

During the process that the new Minnesota Vikings' stadium went through, I would like to think that we did at least a little bit in order to get things moving along, keep them moving, and help them to their ultimate conclusion. However, there's at least one person out there that I'm more than willing to acknowledge did significantly more than we did.

Cory Merrifield started the Save the Vikes website three years ago, and I would be hard-pressed to name anybody that was more helpful in the stadium process than he was over that time period. Now that the quest to get the Minnesota Vikings a new home is complete, Merrifield has bigger goals, according to a release that his site put out not long after the final Minneapolis City Council vote.

"I would love to represent the fans in the planning and construction of the new stadium as a part of the sports authority," Merrifield adds. "I also plan to keep fans updated on SavetheVikes.org about stadium updates and construction."

Governor Mark Dayton and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak will be announcing the formation of the new sports authority in a few weeks here. If Mr. Dayton and Mr. Rybak are listening, if it helps. . .or even if it doesn't. . .we would like to throw our support behind Cory Merrifield to be a part of the new Minneapolis sports authority as the voice of the fan. The fans need to be represented in something like this, and few fans are better suited to the task than Mr. Merrifield is.

Today is the birthday of one of the Minnesota Vikings' best and most dynamic players, wide receiver Percy Harvin. The man that wears #12 turns all of 24 years old today.

Harvin was selected with the 22nd pick of the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft out of the University of Florida. He was the recipient of the 2009 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Award, and with good reason, as he caught 60 passes for 790 yards and six scores, and threw in two touchdowns on kickoff returns as well. He is also the first player in Vikings history to score a touchdown in each of his first three career games.

Harvin is the Vikings' leader for combined yardage in a season with his 2009 mark of 2,081 yards (790 receiving, 135 rushing, 1,156 in kick return yardage). It's hard to believe that the guy is only 24, but it's also possible that he hasn't reached his full potential yet, either.

Enjoy some of Percy Harvin's highlights from the past couple of seasons!

-C.W. Johnson

Today is a day of remembrance. No matter how you choose to mark this day, I ask that you keep that in mind. Thank you.

Well, folks seemed to enjoy the highlight video that we posted yesterday quite a bit, so let's have another one, shall we?

For tonight's video, we go a little further back into the archives, all the way to 27 December 1997, and the Minnesota Vikings' wild card playoff game at the Meadowlands against the New York Giants. It was the Giants' first playoff game since 1993, and they were thoroughly pummeling the Vikings in the early going, taking a 19-3 lead into the locker room at halftime behind the steady hand of quarterback. . .ummm, Danny Kanell. Yeesh.

However, early in the second half, the Vikings forced a Tiki Barber fumble and converted it into a Leroy Hoard touchdown run to cut the deficit to 19-10. The teams then exchanged field goals, and the score was 22-13. That score held up until there were just 90 seconds left in the game, when Randall Cunningham hit Jake Reed for a 30-yard touchdown to make the score 22-20. The Giants' Chris Calloway (heidi heidi heidi ho) then muffed the ensuing onside kick, which was recovered by Minnesota. That's where this video picks up, with ABC announcers Mike Patrick and Joe Theismann. 1:25 left in the game, and the Vikings in position to drive for the winning score.

Enjoy, folks!

This article from Grantland, the site that ESPN's Bill Simmons founded some time back, was linked over in the FanShots a couple of days ago, but it really needs to be brought to everyone's attention.

It was written by Steve Marsh, a Twin Cities-based writer. Full disclosure. . .prior to this, I had never heard of Steve Marsh, so I'm not sure if he's freelance or who he works for or anything like that. But the piece is quite well-written, and gets into a lot of the different aspects of the process that those of us that weren't sitting right there in St. Paul might not have been aware of.

My personal favorite quote is this little passage here, which came from Marsh talking to Larry Spooner, the man that basically became synonymous with the pro-stadium movement.

. . .In fact, most people have an emotional attachment to sports, usually very positive or very negative. But most people aren't in the position to vote on billion-dollar deals.

It all reminded me of something Spoons said about pronouns in the rotunda the first time I met him.

"You ever hear the Vikings referred to as - one word - WE? What time do we play? Did we win? GOTCHA. That's all I gotta say. If you ever in your life referred to them as we" - here he paused to point out that he knows it turns into they when they lose - "but if you ever refer to them as we, GOTCHA. Because we don't refer to the barbershop as we."

But, again, read the whole article. . .it's lengthy, but it's worth it.

For as much flak as Charlie Johnson has received over the course of the past year, he really seems to be taking it all in stride. Johnson was signed by the Vikings to help along the offensive line last season, but got pushed into the starting left tackle spot when the team released Bryant McKinnie for reporting to camp at approximately 700 pounds (or whatever the figure was. . .it might have been slightly less than that).

The Vikings' selection of offensive tackle Matt Kalil meant that something was going to happen with Johnson, and it appears that something is going to be a move to left guard. This didn't come as a surprise to the man from Oklahoma State that's entering his seventh NFL season. . .it's something that has been in the works for a while.

But it didn't take long for Davidson to begin recognizing that Johnson might be best suited to move inside to guard. He said he started talking with Johnson about a move back in Week 3 of last season.

"This was something that's kind of been ongoing," Davidson said. "I'm going to try and put it as nice as I can. I'm a no-nonsense guy. And essentially when I think that I see a guy and I know what he is capable of and what he would help us most at, I'm going to let him know that. Our postseason interviews that we had when I talked to Charlie, I said, 'You may be our left tackle. You may be our left guard. I don't know yet. We're going to be better at two positions if we get a left tackle in here."

This is something we've been saying for a while now. . .Charlie Johnson is a pretty good NFL offensive lineman. He just isn't a good NFL left tackle. The ability to kick him inside and fill the hole at left guard that opened up with the release of Steve Hutchinson will help the entire left side of the offensive line, and help the entire offense as a result. Johnson might not be at the level Hutchinson was in his prime. . .and, really, who is. . .but I think he can perform up to the level that Hutchinson performed at the past couple of seasons. Here's hoping that's the case for the sake of the Vikings' offense in 2012.

Going into the 2011 NFL Draft, Auburn's Nick Fairley had a reputation for dirty play, having picked up numerous unnecessary personal foul penalties in college. The Vikings had an opportunity to take him with the 12th overall selection, but passed on the big defensive tackle in favor of quarterback Christian Ponder.

Turns out that Fairley is having a bit of an issue keeping things clean off the field, too.

Troopers said Fairley passed an officer's car travelling 100 mph in a black Cadillac Escalade and initially failed to yield, but eventually stopped. The officer said he showed signs of impairment.

He was charged with DUI and attempting to elude police, but troopers also said Fairley was ticketed for reckless driving, no proof of insurance and having an open container.

This is the second time this off-season that Fairley has been arrested, having been arrested back in April for marijuana possession. The NFL has not said anything about it yet, obviously, but Fairley could be running afoul of the NFL's substance abuse and/or personal conduct policies, and could be looking at a possible suspension. Considering that the Vikings will meet the Lions in Week 4 of the 2012 NFL season, it's possible that they won't be seeing Nick Fairley on the other side of the football.

Me? I'm happy that we took a player with good character that has an high ceiling over a guy that has yet to show the ability to not be an idiot.

Continue reading this post »

Since there really isn't a whole lot else going on at the moment, I figure it's time to throw a highlight video from happier times up here for everyone's viewing pleasure.

The Minnesota Vikings' 2010 season certainly didn't have very many highlights, but the game against the Arizona Cardinals on November 7 of that year certainly qualifies. The team had released Randy Moss in the days leading up to this game, just weeks after acquiring him from the New England Patriots for a third-round draft choice. The game was incredibly ugly for the Vikings in the early going, as they went into the locker room trailing 14-10, and when Percy Harvin fumbled the second half kickoff, the Cardinals jumped on it and took it in for a score to make it 21-10.

The Cardinals tacked on another field goal to make the score 24-10, and that was the score when Greg Camarillo was tackled on a punt at the Arizona 40-yard line with 4:39 remaining in the game.

And then the Vikings went crazy. . .on both sides of the ball.

This video shows the highlights of that game from that point on. SPOILER: It ends up being a happy ending for our favorite football team.

There's an article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press today by Jeremy Fowler about former Vikings' offensive lineman Scott Kooistra. Kooistra was in contention to start last season before suffering an injury in a pre-season game against the Seattle Seahawks.

The account of the injury is a pretty scary one, and it turns out that Kooistra is lucky that things didn't end up being a whole lot worse. Not that they're necessarily rosy or anything now, but here's what happened.

A helmet-to-helmet collision with linebacker Aaron Curry on a running play had changed everything. Carla didn't even know he was hurt. Neither did the Vikings at first; Scott said he "stumbled" through three subsequent plays that ended the series before coming to the sideline in pain, unable to move his neck from side to side. Scott thought a trainer would just crack his back and he would return to the game. Instead, he was taken to a hospital.

Now, I understand that three plays is not a lot in the National Football League, but when you've got a neck injury the likes of which Kooistra has obviously suffered, even one play more would be too many.

You really do have to read the entire story. . .it details some of Kooistra's rehab process, and how he's trying to move on from the significantly life-altering events of last August.

One of the things that we're banking on as fans of the Minnesota Vikings is that quarterback Christian Ponder is going to be markedly better in 2012 than he was in 2011, and it really does make sense to think that he will be. He'll have a better protector on his blindside, he will still have the benefit of a pretty good rushing game (with or without Adrian Peterson, though obviously the former is better), and the team has upgraded the weapons around him.

But we've been saying that forever. . .now, somebody else is saying it, too. That somebody is K.C. Joyner, ESPN.com's Football Scientist. In his latest column, Joyner identifies some quarterbacks from what he deems to be "low-tier teams" that could be in line for a big leap in 2011, and #7 tops his list.

Joyner puts the blame for Ponder's lack of success in 2011 on the lack of a real downfield passing attack, which is something I'm pretty sure we all had figured out already. He points to players like wide receiver Devin Aromashodu, who was targeted on 56 "vertical" passes last season (passes that travel at least 11 yards in the air), and rewarded the team by posting the second-worst yards/attempt among receivers that were targeted on at least 50 such passes.

The two members of Ponder's new supporting cast that he identifies as being of the most help are wide receivers Jerome Simpson and Jarius Wright, both of whom should be able to help stretch the field for Minnesota. Simpson ranked quite highly last season in yards/attempt on passes that traveled between 11 and 19 yards in the air, according to Joyner, which will help Ponder a lot, but the surprise comes from Wright.

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As you may or may not have noticed, our video stream has sort of dried up since the NFL Draft finished, largely because. . .well, I don't have any good ideas for stuff to talk about in the video format at this point in time. However, I'm going to enlist you fine folks for assistance in changing that.

In the comments here, I would like you all to submit questions for a "video mailbag" that I'm going to effort to do for the next few weeks here. I'll put a post like this up for the next couple of weeks, and from the comments grab a couple of questions that I'll attempt to give my best answer to. It won't be a ton of questions or anything, just a few at a time. . .after all, anyone that's ever uploaded a video to YouTube knows how long that sort of thing takes (I believe it took our most recent video, which clocked in at just under three minutes, about an hour to go from my laptop to the YouTube servers).

So, if you have any Vikings-related questions you'd like me to take a stab at, go ahead and leave them in the comments here and I'll try to have our first video mailbag done by Tuesday or so. They can be about the current roster, historical questions, opinion questions, whatever you'd like to hear yours truly opine about for a few minutes relating to the Minnesota Vikings.

Thanks to all of you for helping out with this! Again, I'll attempt to do this every week until at least mid-July, when I'll be away from the camera for a couple of weeks as my wife and I journey back to the homeland.

So, the Sporting News. . .which I guess is still a thing. . .has put together their rankings of the NFL head coaches from top to bottom. To say that they're unkind to Minnesota Vikings' head coach Leslie Frazier is a bit of an understatement.

Of the NFL's 32 head coaches, Frazier is ranked at #27. Coaches 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32 are all making their NFL debuts, which means that Sporting News has Frazier ranked as the worst returning head coach in the league this season.

The site put together some incredibly insightful commentary on Coach Frazier as well.

If his second year doesn't go better than his first year, there probably won't be a third year.

With that being the case, I guess it's a good thing for Leslie Frazier that the Vikings will be better in 2012 than they were in 2011. The concern is whether or not they'll be better enough for Frazier to keep his job.

You saw a small portion of this in a FanShot that was posted here the other day, but now we have a little bit of an Extended Director's Cut, if you will.

At the NFLPA Rookie Premiere in Los Angeles, a lot of this year's rookies were in town to meet with the media and go through photo shoots, lots of public relations types of things. In this video, three rookies get together for a bit of a talk. The one we're interested in is, obviously, receiver Jarius Wright, and he's joined by Chicago Bears' rookie receiver Alshon Jeffery and, the man with the microphone, Redskins' quarterback Robert Griffin III.

I know some people have asked about it, so I want to clarify our post from last week about having the opportunity to interview Jarius Wright. The contest was not just DN readers competing against other DN readers for the right to do the interview, but it was among all of the SB Nation blogs that had representation at the Rookie Premiere for the right to interview their team's representative at the event. Jarius Wright just happened to be our team's representative, so I put it out there as an opportunity to interview him should you win the contest.

Hopefully that clarifies things a bit, and I apologize if they were a little foggy the first time.

I hope you enjoy the interview. . .I think it's pretty cool that we have the #2 overall pick in the NFL draft name-dropping SB Nation in interviews. Long way from where the company was when we hit the scene almost six years ago.

It didn't bring quite the level of celebration that we had here a little more than two weeks ago when the Minnesota Senate had their final vote on the bill, but the Minnesota Vikings' stadium has officially cleared its final hurdle. Today in Minneapolis, the City Council gave their support to the bill by the expected margin of 7-6, making it official that the funding mechanism for the city's portion of the stadium would be put in place.

The City Council had given their support to the bill months ago, and while this step was largely seen as a formality, there was a bit of trepidation. Ultimately, however, the last party that needed to be included in the stadium process, along with the Minnesota Vikings and the state of Minnesota, has given their blessing, and the Minnesota Vikings are now, officially, going to be getting a new stadium.

Now, let us never speak of stadium legislation or funding issues again and get back to talking about how awesome this new place is going to be for Vikings fans everywhere, shall we?

A couple of weeks ago, we gave you the lines that have already been established for the first 16 weeks of the 2012 NFL season. Now, the same casino has gone ahead and made public their win totals for all 32 NFL teams for the 2012 regular season.

The article puts the Vikings over/under for victory at six wins and, naturally, the article's author puts the Vikings at "under" that total.

It's possible that the Vikings come out of the gate strong with wins over Indianapolis and Jacksonville during the first two weeks of the season. But it's also conceivable that Minnesota turns in another 0-6 divisional record like they did in 2010, meaning the Vikings would need to go 7-3 outside of the NFC North to give us a loser. That's a tall order for Christian Ponder and an organization that didn't make a whole lot of upgrades this offseason.

Obviously, yours truly thinks that the Vikings are more than capable of getting to the "over" figure on that particular bet. Sure, it's "conceivable" that the Vikings go 0-6 against the NFC North again this season. . .but I don't think they're going to. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised by what the prospect of an actual off-season and having a left tackle that actually, you know, is capable of being an NFL left tackle will do for this team. Not to mention that the defense certainly can't be much worse than they were in 2011.

The "over" bet for the Vikings is at even at the moment, while the "under" bet is listed at -130. The latter means that you would have to wager $130 in order to win $100. Again, put me down for the "over". . .but I'm biased.

We had our big article yesterday about the Minnesota Vikings getting six of their ten draft picks signed to rookie contracts. Shortly after that post went up, the number moved up to seven as the Vikings signed their remaining fourth-round pick, USC tight end Rhett Ellison, to a four-year contract.

Ellison was the second of the Vikings' three fourth-round selections a month ago. He split his time at USC between the fullback and tight end positions, and will probably be asked to do a little bit of both for the Vikings as well. His pick was one that had a lot of fans confused at first, but appears to be making a bit more sense going forward.

With this signing, the Vikings' top three picks still remain unsigned. Deals have not yet been worked out for USC tackle Matt Kalil, Notre Dame safety Harrison Smith, and Central Florida cornerback Josh Robinson. I would suspect that we'll hear about Robinson's deal sooner rather than later. I'm not sure, however, how long it will take the two first-rounders to get their deals completed.

The Minnesota Vikings might have gotten into the draft pick signing game a bit late compared to their NFC North rivals. . .they did have a couple of other things going on, after all. . .but now that they've gotten started, they've wasted no time getting their 2012 Draft Class under contract.

The Vikings have signed six of their ten draft picks, according to the folks at the Minnesota Vikings' official website. The team has inked the following players:

-Arkansas wide receiver Jarius Wright (4th round)
-Arkansas wide receiver Greg Childs (4th round)
-Notre Dame defensive back Robert Blanton (5th round)
-Georgia kicker Blair Walsh (6th round)
-North Carolina State linebacker Audie Cole (7th round)
-California defensive lineman Trevor Guyton (7th round)

The signings of Guyton and Cole, which were announced earlier in the day, were four-year signings, and it's believed that the other four signings from today are also four-year deals.

That means the Vikings still have four picks remaining to get under contract. Both of their first round picks, USC offensive tackle Matt Kalil and Notre Dame safety Harrison Smith, need to be signed. The Vikings also need to agree to deals with Central Florida cornerback Josh Robinson, their third-round pick, and another of their fourth-round picks, USC tight end Rhett Ellison.