SportsCenter featured the Vikings in their On the Clock segment. Let me first say…very laid-back atmosphere for On the Clock. Nice chairs. No Sean Salisbury is also a plus.
Now to the nitty-gritty…what the “experts” had to say about the Vikes. Jaworski pummeled them for their lack of explosive pass plays. Mortensen suggested that if the Vikes want to have a break-out season and take the division title away from the Favre-less Pack, they might want to consider getting a better QB than Tarvaris Jackson. For some reason he threw Donovan McNabb out there…I think [...]

The NFL has given the Vikings and Packers the honor of playing the first game of the now-customary season-opening Monday Night Football double-header this year.
The game will be played at Lambeau Field at 6 p.m. September 8.  It will mark the beginning of the Aaron Rodgers era in Green Bay…assuming Brett Favre hasn’t returned from retirement by then.
This will mark the second time the Vikes have been featured on MNF’s opening night double-header, the first being that game against the Redskins two years ago that the Vikes shocked everyone by winning.
By the way:  The Vikings are 3-2 all-time in season-opening [...]

The Vikings still have a pudge for Sage Rosenfels, the Houston Texans back-up QB, who may have become expendable after Houston acquired Quinn Grey via free agency.
The Vikes tried getting Rosenfels earlier this off-season, but the third-round pick they offered didn’t do it for Houston.  It’s believed trade talks between the two parties will pick up again when this week’s owners meetings begin in Palm Beach.
It’s been suggested that the Vikes could sweeten the pot for Rosenfels by offering a player…perhaps cornerback Marcus McCauley, who showed flashes of talent last year but also looked utterly clueless at times (he was [...]

It’s beginning to look like Daunte Culpepper will not have a job when training camp starts.
As ProFootballTalk pointed out today, the Raiders recently signed a pair of unknown quarterbacks, Erik Meyer and Jeff Otis, to go along with JaMarcus Russell and Andrew Walter.  Furthermore, Culpepper is still not listed on Raiders’ transaction page has having been re-signed for 2008.
These facts would tend to indicate that Daunte is not in the Raiders’ plans.  And if he’s not in the Raiders’ plans, he’s probably not in anyone’s plans.
And that includes the Vikings.  Brad Childress, when asked about the former Pro Bowler, shot [...]

Matt Birk has decided not to participate in the Vikings‘ voluntary off-season conditioning program.  This has set off rumblings that Birk is unhappy over the team’s reticence to negotiate an extension with him, despite their eager willingness to re-sign veterans like Kevin Williams, Pat Williams and Bryant McKinnie (I bet they sort of regret that last one though).
Birk’s contract is up after the coming season.  He will also be 32 after the coming season.   And he’s had umpteen surgeries for sports hernias, and he clearly wasn’t the same player last year that he was a few years ago.  So [...]

The Houston Texans are about to sign QB Quinn Gray to a one-year deal.  This will give them three fairly experienced quarterbacks, with Matt Schaub and Sage Rosenfels already in the mix.
The Vikings, as we know, pursued Rosenfels earlier in the off-season, but were unwilling to give the Texans the second-round pick they wanted in exchange.  The Gray signing, however, would seem to make Rosenfels more expendable than before.  So, presumably, Houston would be willing to now take a lower draft pick.  Unless of course there are several teams bidding for Sage’s services, in which case the price would likely [...]

The Vikings have signed former Houston Texans and Seattle Seahawks safety Michael Boulware.  This pretty much completes the transformation of the Vikings’ safety position:  since the end of the season, they’ve gotten rid of Tank Williams and Dwight Smith, and will probably not bring back Mike Doss; and they’ve signed Madieu Williams and now Boulware.  Eric Frampton is, for now, the other back-up.
Boulware has 11 career picks.  He’s occasionally been used as a linebacker in his career but there’s no indication the Vikings plan on continuing this trend.
In other signing news…the Vikings have also picked up DT Kendrick Allen, late [...]