FRANTIC & DESPERATE
Those were the words that were often used to characterize the Vikings pursuit of Brett Favre by sending Ryan Longwell, Steve Hutchinson, and Jared Allen to deliver him unto Winter Park.
Those may be accurate depictions but if it works, who bloody cares?
This is Minnesota. These are the Vikings. We need a Super Bowl trophy.
You might even say we’re frantic and desperate for one.
NO RESPECT
What did Brett Favre do to get Tedy Bruschi so worked up? Bruschi was going positively ballistic over the notion that the Vikings captains would take a trip to Hattiesburg to try and convince Favre to return for another season. Begging, he called it. I thought his head was going to explode. [Watch It.]
NFL Network’s Rod Woodson and Bruschi must be sharing the same Kool-Aid.
Woodson asked why the Vikings had to “stoop so far…to win a Super Bowl” by sending the Captains Contingent out to escort Favre back to Minnesota.
“I’ve lost respect for Brett, what he’s done in the last five years and I’ve lost some respect to where an organization has to go to win a Super Bowl. I’m thinking that this is the only way to do it. So again. Here we go again. It’s win a Super Bowl or not for the Minnesota Vikings,” he said. [Watch It.]
Um….well…ye-ah.
POLITE
It was nice of Favre to delay the press conference until after the first game of the Twins/White Sox series so as to not stomp on the Twins headlines.
THOME & ME
It’s nice to know I”m not the only one who was always convinced beyond a doubt that Favre would return this year. Minnesota Twins DH Jim Thome was too. Thome told the Twins broadcast crew he never doubted Favre would be back. Thome was filmed sporting a purple number 4 jersey in the dugout during last night’s broadcast.
TODAY’S PRESSER
Will be at 1:30 p.m. Watch it live at Vikings.com.
WHO TO SHOWCASE?
Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels? As I’ve said, I think Brad Childress wants to hold onto both Jackson and Joe Webb. My guess is Rosenfels will sit and that the majority of the snaps will be taken by Favre and Jackson. Rosenfels has already done a nice job of showcasing his talents; why risk a bad game wrecking his market value?
CALL THE GEEK SQUAD
The social media-est Viking of them all, tight end Visanthe Shiancoe, announced on Twitter that he and Sidney Rice would chat on Shiancoe’s Ustream channel at 5:30 yesterday. After about 20 minutes of the stream being down and/or a video stream of Shiancoe and Rice staring at the screen and tinkering with the computer, trying to find a way to enable the sound, one chatster suggested they call Ustreamer extraordinaire, Chad Ochocinco.
The stunning thing was about 200 fools stuck around to watch fumble through the non-broadcast, this fool amongst them.
I’m guessing this one is not going on the reel for their post-playing television careers.
DIPLOMAT, PLEEEEASE
The life of a NFL team blogger has got to be a difficult one. You’ve got to gain the trust of the fans by being honest yet you can’t be brutally honest about the players you’re covering. Such is the role of The Official Vikings Blogger, Mike Wobschall.
Yesterday’s post demonstrates the diplomatic semantics he must parse. In notes at the end of the post regarding some of the position battles, Wobschall wrote: “DE Brian Robison put effective outside-in moves on Patrick Brown over consecutive plays. DT Jimmy Kennedy had the most-sudden pass rush move as he bull-rushed Battles. Rookie DE Everson Griffen ended the drill by rushing past Brown on consecutive plays.”
Out on the field with my touch football buddies, we would have said that Robison abused Brown, that Kennedy blew up Battles and that Griffen blew by Brown.
WALLY HILGENBERG FEATURED
Check out WCCO TV at 1o p.m. on Thursday for a segment on Wally Hilgenberg featuring Rosie and Mary Hilgenberg on Wally’s contribution to ALS research. The segment is the work of WCCO’s talented producer, Gregg Litmann.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Happy Birthday to Defensive Tackle Mike Montgomery (27).
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