Two Vikings have gone on record saying they’d like to see Plax in purple. Tuesday on ESPN’s SportsNation Adrian Peterson proclaimed he’d “love [Burress] to be a part of my team.” Peterson explained, “He’s a guy – before he left the game for two years – he was one of the top receivers in the league. You look at [Michael] Vick, when he came out of [prison], how explosive he was. I’m sure [Burress] is going to be on fire and he’ll be ready to contribute to whatever team picks him up.”

Now Percy Harvin has echoed Peterson’s sentiments. “I think he’s one of the best receivers to play the game,” Harvin said in a radio interview, “so I would love to have him and get the opportunity to learn from him as I did [Randy] Moss and some of the other veterans I’ve played with.”

As long as Plax doesn’t try to give Percy lessons in safe gun ownership…
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The rationale behind mentioning the Vikings in this conversation is simple: They could lose Sidney Rice, leaving them with a gaping hole at receiver. If Rice’s free agent status remains restricted after the whole labor mess gets sorted out, guaranteeing his return to the Vikings for 2011, those odds plummet.

There’s another factor to consider as regards Plaxico: The Vikings’ plan at quarterback. If the idea is to throw Christian Ponder into the fray as a rookie, I doubt Leslie Frazier would love the idea of signing a guy like Burress, who has more than a little baggage. But if the quarterback is a veteran like Kyle Orton? The Vikings might be more amenable to taking on Plax and all that goes with him.

In the end, I think it’s very doubtful the Vikings would sign Plax, regardless of how the Sidney Rice situation plays out. The team’s evident desire to move on from guys like Ray Edwards and Bernard Berrian (a plan that may not come to fruition if the lockout doesn’t end soon) signals a wish to upgrade in the character department. Needless to say, Plax would not help in this regard.

There’s also the fact that Plax has been mouldering in prison for almost two years. I know Michael Vick was able to get himself back into shape fairly quickly after his release, but let’s remember that Plax is three years older than Vick, and that there were questions about Plax’s work ethic even before he shot himself in the foot and went to jail. We have no idea how motivated Plax is to get himself back. Maybe he’s keen to prove himself like Vick was, but that’s a big maybe. Let a team with a more secure situation – the Eagles maybe, or the Jets or the Ravens – take the gamble.

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“I feel pretty comfortable with what we have here right now,” said Viking-killer Devin Hester. ”If we added Plaxico Burress, that’s only going to build confidence even more. Why wouldn’t he help us?”

Well Devin, for example, if he went and blew another hole in his own thigh with a heater he lacked a permit for…that would not help you.  But yeah, otherwise, adding Plaxico to a team with a pretty putrid receiver corps would be a good idea, especially when you have Jay Cutler the whiskey-swilling gunslinger on the team.  Not surrounding Cutler with good weapons sounds like a fantastic way of encouraging him to pull the same crap with the Bears that he pulled with Denver