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Kelvin Kuo-US PRESSWIRE

The time has come to suck it up and do a 2012 NFL Mock Draft. Remember, this mock draft is for entertainment purposes only. In no way should it be used as part of a plan to destroy earth and/or Shawn Zobel. If this mock doesn’t satisfy your draft jones, hit up the good folks at DC Pro Sports Report who maintain a comprehensive mock draft database. The preliminaries are now out of the way, so let’s start guessing I mean mocking…

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Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

The Vikings interviewed three former head coaches for their defensive coordinator position this month and whiffed on all three. Steve Spagnuolo was never a serious candidate in Minnesota and as far as we know was never offered a contract. Mel Tucker we know was offered a contract but elected to stay in Jacksonville under new head coach Mike Mularkey (Tucker finished out last season as Jaguars interim coach and therefore qualifies as a former head coach). Raheem Morris, former Tampa Bay head coach, was interviewed before either of those other guys and was momentarily thought of as a serious candidate for the Vikings job. So what happened with Morris? Turns out he was offered the job by the Vikings too…and turned them down to become defensive backs coach in Washington.

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John E. Sokolowski-US PRESSWIRE

I know two things about former CFL linebacker Solomon Elimimian. He’s from Nigeria and he hits hard. So ferocious is Elimimian’s reputation that last year he was voted the hardest hitter in all the CFL by a poll of players. And now he’s ours. And the Vikings didn’t have to give him a $75,000 bonus like they gave Manny Arceneaux last year. Not wasting 75 grand on a guy who may very well spend most of the year on the practice squad? Always a good thing.

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Zygi Wilf was called in to talk to governor Mark Dayton on Wednesday and came out of the meeting sounding optimistic and slightly stubborn. The optimistic part: Zygi told reporters the Vikings are “getting close” on a stadium deal. The slightly stubborn part: Despite all evidence to the contrary Zygi insists his Arden Hills dream stadium is not “out of the question.”

State Senator Julie Rosen played nice with Zygi by indicating the door is still slightly open on Arden Hills. “If they can come back to us with another proposal to keep this alive by the end of the week, then we’ll take another look at it,” Rosen said. “But at this point, it’s not doable as far as I’m concerned.”

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For the first 20 years of their history the Vikings were an outdoor football team, playing their games at the fabled Old Met in Bloomington. Outdoor football in January in Minnesota meant bitter cold and lashing wind. Aided by the bone-chilling conditions, the Vikings took four conference titles, though they failed to ever win the Super Bowl.

In 1982 everything changed. The team moved out of the chilly Met for the cozy confines of the Metrodome, giving up the decided homefield advantage imparted by the bad January weather. A team that had once been known for hard-nosed, grinding football slowly evolved into a typical indoor team built less on physicality and more on speed. The Purple People Eaters of Bud Grant became Dennis Green’s track stars. The Vikings got so used to their comfortable home that by 2000 they had garnered a reputation as softies who couldn’t win outdoors on grass, especially not late in the year when the weather turned bad. A stark turnaround for a franchise once fabled for its ability to grind out victory under the harshest of conditions.

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This went down Monday morning on one of those stupid mindless ESPN yap shows. Terrell Suggs got into a heated argument with Skip Bayless over the Ravens’ playoff loss and Suggs called Bayless a d-bag. Pretty much everyone in the world applauded Suggs’ show of honesty. And nobody clapped louder than Chris Kluwe who has himself been getting into it with Bayless on Twitter lately. Kluwe then tweeted his support of Mr. Suggs:

In the end of course the joke is on us. Bayless’ job is to foment controversies just like this and by paying attention we only feed the beast. In a perfect world we would all ignore shameless provocateurs like Bayless but…we just can’t help ourselves.

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NFL players don’t really play for us. They play for money and fame and glory and because they like hurting people. But it’s a nice sentiment even if it is insincere and the commercial is cute. Jared Allen steals the whole show with his solo performance and exuberant exclamation. Do I need to say it? Jared Allen’s comedy skills >>>>>>>>>>>Aaron Rodgers’ comedy skills. And Jared is a better Rambo too.

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As a back-up center on the 1998 Vikings, Matt Birk had a front-row seat for Gary Anderson’s infamous field goal miss in the NFC title game, a miss that denied the Vikings a chance to make the Super Bowl for the first time in a generation. Fast forward to today. Birk, now a member of the Baltimore Ravens, once again had to stand helpless and watch a kicker boot away a chance for his team to make the Super Bowl. In the waning seconds against New England, the Ravens’ Billy Cundiff missed a potential game-tying kick wide left, sending Tom Brady and the Patriots back to the Super Bowl and Birk probably into retirement.

That is one disappointing set of career bookends to say the least.

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Frazier upset with the team, nothing new.

Draft day is nearing, and what are the Vikings planning to do? The most obvious would be to draft USC’s big LT Matt Kalil. Another option could be to take Justin Blackmon, a WR from Oklahoma State…and then there’s Morris Claiborne. Claiborne is a shut-down corner from LSU, much like his former teammate, Patrick Peterson. Claiborne is considered a better cover corner then Peterson(Who was taken 5th overall last year by the Arizona Cardinals), although he is not considered to be as athletic, but that’s just because Peterson is a freak of nature when it comes to athletic ability.

Brad Childress may be coming back to the NFL. As a head coach. For the Indianapolis Colts. Take a moment and let that sink in. A year-and-a-half after the Vikings canned him, Chilly is a candidate for head coach with one of the proudest and most successful organizations in the league.

WTF?

Well let’s look more closely at this situation. There’s one thing to keep in mind: this proud and successful organization is currently operating without the man who, in most people’s eyes, was responsible for building that tradition of pride and success. Bill Polian is long-gone, and owner Jim Irsay is now running the show. Yes, the same Jim Irsay who regularly communicates with the masses via tweets of rock lyrics. The same Jim Irsay who recently got into a slight Twitter tiff with actor Rob Lowe. The same Jim Irsay who makes Sinead O’Connor look like a model of mental stability.

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