Sage Rosenfels Was Tickled By Josh Freeman’s Bad Monday Night Performance

Oct 21, 2013; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback Josh Freeman (12) looks on in the final minutes of his team

Most who witnessed Josh Freeman’s historically bad Monday Night Football performance experienced a range of emotions from bewilderment to disgust to outright horror. And then there was Sage Rosenfels who just seemed tickled pink by the whole thing.

Maybe I’m reading too much into Sage’s post-game tweet, but this seems an awful lot like gloating:

Perhaps Sage is just a really happy guy and that tweet has nothing to do with what happened to the Vikes? If you think that, you were obviously not on Twitter last night. Sage also tweeted a subtle shot at the Vikes before the game, but has since deleted the tweet (too bad because I really needed that tweet to give this post proper context; thanks a lot Sage you jerk).

To give what context we can to Sage’s post-game remark, we must consider Sage’s own history with the Minnesota Vikings. Sage was signed by the Vikes originally in 2009 to “push” Tarvaris Jackson in camp, but saw himself relegated to clipboard holder when they signed Brett Favre.

Sage was let go after 2009 only to return a couple years later as mentor to Christian Ponder. He was retained for 2012 presumably to compete with Joe Webb for the backup QB job, only to be released again so the Vikes could keep developmental QB McLeod Bethel-Thompson. All tolled Rosenfels ended up playing zero regular season snaps in his two stints with the Vikings, despite being promised a chance to compete on two separate occasions. But he did get credit for helping Brett Favre to a great season in 2009.

Point here is, Sage bears an obvious grudge against Rick Spielman and Vikings management particularly for the way he was dumped after the 2012 preseason. He clearly outperformed Joe Webb last year, but for whatever reason Spielman preferred Webb. Sage has never outright ripped Spielman but occasionally he has flirted with it as he did last night (again, he deleted the tweet, or I’d prove it).

Sage’s tweets were not, I repeat not, aimed at Josh Freeman or any other Vikings player. Those were shots over the bow of the front office for what in Sage’s mind has been dismal handling of the quarterback position. And I know he’s not alone in feeling that way. A lot of us have taken Spielman to task for not having a competent backup in 2012 when it turned out the Vikings would need one.

Sage clearly believes the Vikings are continuing to make mistakes regarding the most important position on the field. After Freeman’s Monday night performance, it’s getting harder to argue. But I think we should probably give Freeman a couple more games before we totally write him off. Rosenfels was happy last night, but Spielman may end up getting the last laugh.

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