The Minnesota Vikings have signed their 7th round draft pick, QB Tyler Thigpen, reports Vikings.com. Thigpen came out of I-AA Coastal Carolina where he was a consensus All-America choice and finished 7th in voting for the Walter Payton Award. He isn’t expected to crack the top three on the depth chart, since we’ve already got those solid performers Tarvaris Jackson, Brooks Bollinger and Drew Henson (slight sarcasm), but you never know.
Speaking of Tarvaris, looks like the QB is going to miss out on a trip to the Cayman Islands for the NFL’s Quarterback Challenge (this from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s Kevin Seifert). A passport issue is apparently to blame. Or maybe Tarvaris just hates lying around on the beach amidst hundreds of beautiful bethonged women.
And there’s more on Tarvaris Jackson: a piece by ESPN’s Len Pasquarelli profiling the young QB. Not much earth-shattering in it, except maybe Pasquarelli’s report that the Vikings, contrary to certain rumors, were never seriously in the market for Matt Shaub or David Carr.
You know those Coors Light ads featuring clips of coaches like Jim Mora and Bill Walsh at press conferences cut together with a bunch of dopey guys asking inane questions? Some goofs have made a parody of those (warning: bad language) featuring former Viking and Cardinals coach Denny Green’s famous post-Bears-game meltdown. Frankly, I think the Green clips are way funnier in their original context.
On the TV front – VikingUpdate.com reports that Twin Cities area stations KSTP, KMSP and Fox Sports Net North have signed new three-year deals to provide Viking-related programming. Of course, everyone knows that the best Viking coverage is on the net. I mean, that’s obvious, isn’t it?