Archive for September, 2009

Remember last week when we were speculating that Bobby Wade might be on his way out?  Then Bobby agreed to restructure his contract, reducing his 2009 salary from $3 million to $1.5 million, and everything seemed fine. Turns out everything wasn’t so fine.  Because on Thursday the Vikings released Wade, replacing him on the roster with wide-out Greg Lewis, who was just cut by the Patriots. Lewis’s stats don’t come close to Wade’s the last few years, which makes the move slightly puzzling except as a purely financial one.  But, then you realize that Lewis does have two favorable attributes:  [...]

Hockey doesn’t really float my boat, but it definitely floats the boats of a lot of Minnesota sports fans.  In fact, college pucks is probably the #2 most-obsessed-over sport in Minnesota behind Vikings football. If you are indeed one of the many Minnesota hockey nuts, you will be thrilled to know that the Fansided.com Sports Network has a new blog dedicated to your beloved sport:  The College Hockey Blog. That’s a self-explanatory title if ever there was one. Fetch, our Minnesota Twins blogger, is in charge of things over at TCHB.  Being a Minnesota guy, I’m sure he’ll have plenty [...]

NFL stars from Chad OchoCinco to Bernard Berrian have spoken out against the NFL’s anti-Twitter policies, with Ocho taking the radical step of deleting his account in protest. Originally, I was inclined to side with Ocho and Berrian, mostly because I think Twitter is a lot of fun, and I enjoy the antics of those athletes who have adopted the social networking platform.  However, given what Terrell Owens just tweeted, I think I’m beginning to see the NFL’s point. The tweet, which will become more controversial as the day goes on, concerned the on-going Derek Anderson/Brady Quinn QB drama…a situation [...]

It was a sad day in Cleveland when Art Modell packed up the beloved Browns and moved them to the greener pastures of Baltimore.  The team of Paul Brown, Jim Brown and other people actually not named Brown had broken the hearts of fans who, every Sunday, came out to the freezing cold stadium and waved around rubber dog bones in expression of their undying love. Cleveland would spend four years in NFL gulag before being awarded an expansion franchise.  Thankfully, Art Modell had left behind the team’s name and colors (why the hell would he want them?), guaranteeing continuity [...]

Finally, a statement about the Williams Wall case that is free of legal mumbo-jumbo, and makes sense to someone as simple as me.  From NFL Senior Vice President of Public Relations Greg Aiello: The suspensions will not be enforced for this weekend. So Pat and Kevin will be on the field when the Vikings kick it off against Cleveland.  Nothing about rulings, extensions, state vs. federal court, judges with Norwegian names and other stuff that would make even Perry Mason nod off.  Just big old K-Will and Fat Pat crushing suckers. Bring on Derek Anderson.  Or Brady Quinn.  Or Bernie [...]

The Jon Cooper Saga has a happy ending. As you know, undrafted free agent Cooper was a surprise addition to the 53-man roster after the cutdown deadline on Saturday.  Then, triumph turned to, um, tragedy for Mr. Cooper as he was released and replaced on the roster by some dude with a long name that reminds one both of a tiny European principality and the man who won an Oscar for his performance in Norman Jewison‘s In the Heat of the Night. Now the story has taken another, happier twist:  Cooper has been re-signed to the Vikings practice squad.  Unfortunately, [...]

FanSided has partnered with FanSection to host a Facebook Salary Cap style fantasy league for readers of The Viking Age. If you are unfamiliar with salary cap style football, there is no draft and you can alternate players on your team through out the season. The winner of this free league will get a $25 gift certificate to Team Fan Shop, and the player with the highest score across all FanSided sites will get a $300 AMEX gift certificate. Instructions: Step 1: If you are a member of Facebook just click the link below to install the Fantasy football application. If [...]

Jon Cooper was a surprise survivor on cutdown day.  Unfortunately, Cooper’s Vikings career would not be a long one.  On Sunday the Vikes bade farewell to Mr. Cooper, replacing him on the roster with center Kory Lichtensteiger, who was just waived by the Broncos. All I know about Lichtensteiger:  He went to Bowling Green.  He was drafted in the 4th round in 2008.  I really, really hope he doesn’t play, because I never want to have to type that name again. I thought “Houshmandzadeh” was a pain in the ass.

John David Booty was placed on waivers by the Vikings after losing out in the much-publicized preseason quarterback competition.  No team put in a claim on Booty however, freeing him to return to the Vikes as a member of their practice squad. Booty will be joined on the 8-man squad by several other players who were just waived, including RB Ian Johnson, OT Drew Radovich and TE Garrett Mills.  DB Colt Anderson, OT Chris Clark, DT Tremaine Johnson and WR Nick Moore round out the list. It was thought by some that Booty might get a look from another team [...]

Marcus McCauley didn’t have to wait long to find a new gig.  Less than a day after being waived by the Vikings, the former third-round draft pick has been picked up by the Detroit Lions. McCauley wasn’t good enough to crack a Minnesota cornerback rotation that includes penalty-prone Benny Sapp, newly-acquired Karl Paymah and rookie Asher Allen.  But he is considered a talented player who, in the right system, could excel. Unfortunately he is now with the Lions, where the words “defense” and “excel” seldom wind up in the same sentence.