Long drawn-out political drama like the (literally) decade-long campaign for a new stadium can bring out the very worst in politicians, as Christian Peterson reports:

My first observation is that, apparently, being well-educated about an issue is not a prerequisite for being elected and, ultimately, casting a legislative vote. That may be harsh, but I was struck by the sheer idiocy of many of the arguments, both for and against, the proposed stadium. I understand that much of the posturing and the bringing forth of ludicrous proposed amendments is a political tactic employed by legislators on both sides of the issue, but some of it most certainly isn’t. It’s both frightening and shocking to see how ill-informed some of the legislators were on the issue at hand.

For example, here are just a few of the absurdities that occurred during the initial debates in the House and Senate on Tuesday and Wednesday:

• One congresswoman stood up and declared her desire to add an amendment that would require that every Vikings game be carried on television for free for every citizen of Minnesota. The NFL’s blackout rules and the television networks be damned, by law we were going to force every game to be on free T.V. for everyone! During her argument, she made vague reference to “rumors” about the NFL starting their own network. Hate to break it to you, ma’am, but the NFL Network debuted in 2003.
• A legislator made reference to “Zygi Wolf.”
• Another railed against the expansion of gambling one minute, only to subsequently propose an amendment that would have created an online lottery.
• There was an attempt to make the Vikings a publicly-owned entity, like the Green Bay Packers. NFL rules no longer permit public ownership of their franchises – it’s been disallowed since the 1980s.
• Late on Wednesday night, a legislator stood up and confused the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs with Saks 5th Avenue.
• Within a span of a few hours, the Senate added a requirement for a Minneapolis referendum to approve the stadium plan, only to revoke it, then they passed an amendment that would have dramatically increased the amount of user fees in the bill, only to have the same amendment voted down on a re-vote only moments after it had been approved.
• One of the main proponents of the bill held up a sign saying “Help!” as one of his colleagues proposed yet another hare-brained amendment. In a refreshingly candid revelation, a representative stood up late in the House debates on Tuesday and said, “People are watching, and see how stupid we look.” Amen, brother.

And that’s just a tiny fraction of the shenanigans that occurred during the combined 20-plus hours of debate on the stadium bill in both houses of the Minnesota legislature. Eventually, it got to the point where it wouldn’t have been a surprise if someone had raised an amendment proposing that the Vikings be allowed to play with 15 players on the field, or another forcing the Packers to trade Aaron Rodgers to the Vikings. Many of these legislators evidently believe they can do just about anything they want.

To be fair, there were more than a few very intelligent and well-spoken people arguing on both sides of the debate. But generally speaking, it’s nothing short of astonishing that these are the people who are making decisions on not only the stadium, but on far more important issues. I can only hope that they are less ignorant when it comes to things like health care and education.

This was Spielman’s first draft as the Vikings’ unquestioned personnel boss, and we can divide it into two phases:

• He seemed to do well with his first four picks.
• He, like everybody else who does his job, was playing Lotto after that.

Spielman landed the best offensive lineman in the draft (Kalil) after trading down a spot to pick up three extra draft choices. He traded into the first round to land the second-best safety in the draft in Notre Dame’s Harrison Smith, who by default instantly became the Vikings’ best safety since Darren Sharper arrived in 2005.

He took speedy cornerback Josh Robinson in the third round, and flashy-if-small Arkansas receiver Julius Wright with his first fourth-round pick.

So with his first four choices, Spielman appeared to draft for both quality and need. After that, he was either displaying a keen appreciation for hidden talent, or he was throwing bent darts at a moving bull’s-eye.

As I said after the first day’s selections, Spielman made the right decisions as far as covering the positions at which the Vikings were glaringly poor last season. After that, though, my guesses weren’t as close as I’d thought they’d be. My thoughts were that a tall, speedy wide receiver was the next most urgent requirement, and they did select a receiver, but Julius Wright seems more like another Percy Harvin — not that there’d be anything wrong with cloning Harvin, but slot receiver was not a notable requirement.

I’d mentioned drafting another running back for depth would be a sensible move, and with the news today that Caleb King has been arrested on an assault charge, that need was probably greater than I’d thought. With Adrian Peterson still rehabbing from his ACL injury in December, Toby Gerhart will need someone behind him for change-of-pace and the odd breathing spell.

Here are the players drafted:

1. (4) Matt Kalil, LT, Southern California
1. (29) Harrison Smith, S, Notre Dame
3. (66) Josh Robinson, CB, Central Florida
4. (118) Jarius Wright, WR, Arkansas
4. (128) Rhett Ellison, TE, Southern California
4. (134) Greg Childs, WR, Arkansas
5. (139) Robert Blanton Jr., CB, Notre Dame
6. (175) Blair Walsh, K, Georgia
7. (210) Audie Cole, LB, North Carolina State
7. (219) Trevor Guyton, DE, California

Once the draft was over, the team signed 15 undrafted free agents. The first time all the rookies will be on the training field together will be this coming Friday at the Vikings’ rookie mini-camp.

Here are two exhausted ESPN 1500 guys, Tom Pelissero and Judd Zulgad, discussing the Vikings’ draft picks on the last day:

Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman expressed about a dozen reasons why he picked Central Florida cornerback Josh Robinson with the Vikings lone pick on Day 2 of the NFL draft. But two words probably sum it up best:

“He’s fast,” Spielman said of the team’s third-round pick and the draft’s 66th overall selection.

Make that really fast.

Officially, Robinson ran the fastest 40-yard dash at the scouting combine in February. The listed time was 4.33, but some scouts reportedly clocked the 5-10, 199-pounder at 4.29.

So, coming up on the third day of the NFL draft for 2012, the Vikings have a top-notch offensive tackle, a potential starting safety, and another cornerback. With their remaining nine picks, the team has to address several positions: wide receiver (probably the most urgent need), middle linebacker, defensive line, and another running back (for change-of-pace and 3rd down situations).

The Vikings came into the first round of the NFL 2012 draft with ten picks over the three day draft. At the end of the evening, having selected the top prospect at left guard tackle and a safety, they still have ten picks in the subsequent rounds. New boss Rick Spielman got great value from trading the #3 pick to Cleveland for the #4 pick plus extra picks in the 4th, 5th, and 7th rounds (that’d be #118 overall, #139 overall, and #211 overall). A nifty bit of trading.

Spielman followed up that trade by selecting Matt Kalil from USC (who was the overwhelming favourite pick of both the Minnesota sports media and the fan blogs). Toward the end of the first round, Spielman then swapped Minnesota’s 2nd and 3rd round picks with Baltimore for their 1st round pick (#29 overall), using that pick to select Harrison Smith of Notre Dame.

Here’s Christopher Gates of the Daily Norseman to summarize the first day of the draft from the Vikings’ point of view:

Minnesota selected USC offensive tackle Matt Kalil, a guy that said that he could really envision himself being in Minnesota after the time he spent with the Vikings. When he met with the team a few weeks ago, he told them that if the Vikings took him, they wouldn’t have to worry about a left offensive tackle for the next decade, and apparently the Vikings agreed. His acquisition will officially put Charlie Johnson into the left guard spot vacated with Steve Hutchinson’s release. . .something you knew if you listened to Eric’s audio from Rick Spielman’s press conferenceafter the pick. . .and solidify two spots on a Minnesota offensive line that was overmatched for the majority of last season. I said for weeks that Matt Kalil was really the “duh” pick for the Vikings, and I’m happy that the team not only made the correct decision, but did so while acquiring three more selections.

The trade gave the Vikings thirteen total picks, and they used some of that ammunition to move back into the first round at number 29 overall. In order to make that jump, they sent the Baltimore Ravens the #35 and #98 overall selections. The Vikings took Notre Dame safety Harrison Smith with that selection, as they try to solidify another unit that was disastrous in 2011, the defensive secondary. Smith projects as more of an “in the box” type of safety at this point, as he’s willing to come up in run support and in generally a very sure tackler. However, he has shown enough athleticism to be able to be solid in coverage as well. The pick was a bit of a surprise. . .I thought the Vikings would go with a receiver like Stephen Hill after they jumped back into the first round. . .but Smith is a pretty solid pick and should be able to immediately contribute.

Tom Pelissero has a Q&A with Matt Kalil:

Matt Kalil had a hunch he was going to end up with the Minnesota Vikings.

Well, more than a hunch.

Not only did Kalil believe the Vikings would select him in the first round of the NFL Draft, the left tackle out of Southern California said on Thursday night he was “really relieved” when he saw a Minnesota number on his cell phone while they were on the clock after trading back to No. 4.

“I think that I had an idea that’s where I might end up,” Kalil said. “But the way the draft works, and especially right now, all these trades going down and everything, I was trying to keep open-minded.”

He was scheduled to arrive in the Twin Cities early Friday and meet with reporters at 1:30 p.m., along with fellow first-round pick Harrison Smith.

Mark Craig (from whom I stole the “Trader Rick” nickname for my headline) has a brief entry on Harrison Smith:

Smith, a 6-2, 213-pounder, had been considered a second-rounder who might climb into the bottom of the first round, which he did. He also fills a huge need for a Vikings team that had only three safeties on the roster, including Eric Frampton, who’s strictly a special teams guy.

Smith will likely start immediately alongside Mistral Raymond. Considering the lack of depth at the position, don’t rule out possibly re-signing Husain Abdullah. The Vikings had an offer on the table for Abdullah.

In a nutshell, the Vikings have been playing at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis for 30 years. Their lease on the building expired at the end of the 2011 season and they’ve been trying to get political support for a new stadium for the last ten years. The stadium debate has gone over the same ground repeatedly, but even when the site is agreed upon and the team and the city appear to be happy with the compromise, it still required the state to provide additional funding … lots of additional funding.

That’s where what appeared to be a done deal went off the rails earlier this week. The state legislature voted down the state’s share of the funding for the stadium, which appears to have been a rude surprise to both Minneapolis and the team.

The NFL is now warning Minnesota that the Vikings could move out of state (Los Angeles has been hoping for a team for years now, although given California’s dire financial straits, it’s hard to imagine them putting up any more money than Minnesota might be willing to offer).

As I wrote back in November,

The Vikings are hoping to get a new stadium built, and the state legislature has been doing what they can to kick the issue down the road every time it’s come up. I don’t have a say in the matter, as I’m not located in Minnesota and I’d probably still cheer for the team even if it moved elsewhere (though it would be a sad thing to see it move after half a century in Minnesota).

In general, I don’t think governments should build stadiums for professional sports teams, as it’s using tax money to subsidize private profits. If a new stadium is going to generate a profit, the team’s ownership should bear the costs themselves. The fact that they generally don’t — mostly because politicians don’t want to deal with angry sports fans after the team leaves town — doesn’t make it right.

It is quite noteworthy that the question has never actually been asked of the voters — the folks whose taxes will have to subsidize the team’s new stadium — if they are willing to pay. I have to assume that this is because they have indicated in other ways that they are not willing. If that’s the case (and I can’t blame them in the slightest if that’s true), then the Vikings should either pony up enough money to build a stadium without taxpayer assistance, or go looking for a city or a state foolish enough to pour more money into the pockets of the team’s ownership. Here once again are Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch on why public funding for professional sports facilities are a bad idea:

Erin Henderson has heard enough from fans questioning why he hasn’t re-signed with the Minnesota Vikings.

On Friday, Henderson fired back on Twitter.

“In a nutshell…market value and franchise value aren’t always going to match,” Henderson wrote on his Twitter page (@50ErinHenderson). “If someone can play 3 positions … their value has to go up.

“I’ve watched every single 1 of my games from last (year) 10 (times) over. I know what I’m worth. Not to mention they (have not) even give me an offer. I don’t come to (your) job and tell (you) what you (should and shouldn’t) make. So how can (you) say what I’m worth?”

Henderson, 25, took over as the Vikings’ starting weakside linebacker last season, his fourth in the NFL. He recorded 91 tackles (56 solo), eight tackles for loss, 1½ sacks and two forced fumbles in 15 games, playing 53.8% of the defensive snaps.

I’m quite surprised that the Vikings haven’t been able to come up with an offer: linebacker is one of the positions that they’ll need to reinforce, as Erin’s older brother E.J. Henderson is also a free agent and may not be back with the team. You don’t want to be in the position of having to replace 2/3rds of your starting linebackers in the same season. With all the other pressing personnel needs the Vikings face, you’d imagine that re-signing Erin Henderson would be an obvious move.

Of course, the Minnesota fan base blames the Vikings’ win over Washington at the end of the 2011 season for allowing the Rams to benefit from this trade (if Washington had won that game, the Vikings would have the second overall pick and likely have been the beneficiaries of the trade).

Christopher Gates would like to disillusion everyone about that meme:

Yes, the Minnesota Vikings’ victory over the Redskins on Christmas Eve “cost” the Vikings the opportunity to hold the #2 overall pick and get that potential haul from Washington or some other team. While I was bopping around the internet this morning, I found that there are a decent number of folks that are still not entirely happy that the Vikings didn’t try harder to lose that game in order to make that happen. If you should happen to be one of those people, I have something I’d like to say to you. . .

Stop it. Just. . .freaking. . .stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself.

We’ve been over this a couple of times, but it bears repeating in this case. . .you are not going to get a team full of professional athletes to “tank” in order to gain draft position. Why? Because the guys that are currently on the team don’t give a damn whether the Vikings are drafting at #2 or #3 or #10 or #29 or wherever else in the first round of the NFL Draft. Or, at the very least, they shouldn’t.

The Minnesota Vikings have 18. . .that’s eighteen. . .players that could potentially hit the free agent market when things open up in about 48 hours. Do you suppose those guys give a damn about draft position? No, they don’t. . .I’m guessing they’re much more interested in being employed when Training Camp starts in late July, and they’re not going to get employment from teams watching game film of them and seeing that they quit when things got rough late in the year.

Update: John Merkle at The Viking Age points out that the player Washington (probably) traded up for wasn’t even being consistently mentioned as a top-five draft pick as recently as December:

Robert Griffin III wasn’t even deemed the 2nd overall pick on that Christmas Eve. If anyone cares to google mock drafts from late 2011 you’ll notice that Robert Griffin III was slated to go anywhere from 5 to 15. There were mostly two major campaigns going on for two top shelf prospects — Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck’s “Suck For Luck” and USC tackle Matt Kalil’s “Fall Flat For Matt”. There was not one mention of “Whiffin For Griffin”. Yes, RG3 had already won the Heisman Trophy, but he hadn’t lead his Baylor Bears to 67 points in a video game style Alamo Bowl nor had he blown members of the NFL away at the combine (including running a 4.41 40-yard dash and interviewing like someone who should be running for political office). His draft stock was indeed solid in December, but hadn’t soared until the past couple of months.

So go ahead you guys. Whine all you want about winning a football game that costs us plethora of draft picks and be glass half empty sort of folks. Go invent a crystal ball that can see into the future. You’ll be rich. Maybe with a little hope in the next several days we’ll see a few more glass is half full personas amongst our fanbase. If anything we should be grateful for the ascension of RG3 allowing us to be in perfect position to take Kalil. A franchise left tackle is tremendous building block for any team, let alone one that has young quarterback who has to account for Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers four Sundays a year. 13 losses turned out to be enough falling flat for Matt.

The Vikings-Saints NFC title game two years ago may have been where the Saints’ deliberate rule-breaking was worst. Immediately after that game, I wrote, “Saints players came after [Brett] Favre so hard — four times slamming him in ways that invited late-hit or roughing penalties, only two of which were called — Williams [seems to have] told his charges something along the lines of, ‘Pound Favre every time you can; we will take a couple of roughing flags in return for making an old guy worry about the next hit.’”

So did I do a good job by noting two years ago what is suddenly considered obvious? No, I did a terrible job. Yesterday I watched every New Orleans defensive snap of that game and found four, not two, instances in which unnecessary roughness should have been called against the Saints but was not. In retrospect, my column should have led with dirty play by the Saints. The four unnecessary roughness penalties that were not called:

• On the game’s first snap, Favre handed off, turned away from the play and was hammered with a forearm to the chin by New Orleans linebacker Scott Fujita. Not only should a personal foul have been called — Fujita should have been ejected on the game’s first offensive snap. Instead, no call. Scott, were you paid for behaving like a street thug?
• At 6:14 of the first quarter, after Favre released a pass he was hit with a forearm to the chin by safety Roman Harper. No flag. Roman, were you paid for delivering that cheap shot?
• At 4:15 of the first quarter, Favre released a pass and then Darren Sharper slammed him in the chest with a foreman. No flag. Darren, were you paid for having low standards?
• At 13:29 of the second quarter, Favre released a pass and then was hurled to the ground by Bobby McCray. No flag. Bobby, were you paid for doing something you should be ashamed of?

Reviewing the tape, another aspect of the game jumped out at me that I missed when watching live, and so far as I can tell, all sportscasters and commentators missed, too. Beginning midway through the first quarter, whenever Favre handed off, he immediately ran backward 10 yards — to get away from New Orleans late hits.

And the assistant coach who ran the bounty operation? What a piece of work he is:

Gregg Williams has a classy first name, but may be a man of twisted values. Monday on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Mike Pesca dug up audio of Williams speaking after the Saints’ Super Bowl win. Williams says, “My whole life … I’ve been trying to get people to play nastier.” Can he seriously think lack of aggression is a problem in football? Williams also had this to say about his two sons’ youth football days: “I told their little league coaches my kids will play fast, they’re going to play nasty, they’re going to play tough. Tell the rest of the babies around them to speed up.”

What kind of a man boasts that his sons are nasty and denounces as “babies” 10-year-olds who want to participate in a sport safely? Williams needs to take a long look in the mirror — and by his distorted values, he has forfeited any claim to a leadership role.

The NFL has a bigger problem than figuring out how to discipline the New Orleans Saints players and coaching staff. Perhaps that is why no penalties have yet been announced. The bigger problem for the NFL is that they need to retain the aggression and the passion, yet clearly enforce and be seen to enforce the rules against deliberate attempts to harm other players. If they miss this opportunity, expect politicians (in an election year where media exposure is even more important than usual) to jump in and start trying to do it for them.

The National Football League on Friday found the New Orleans Saints guilty of a wide-ranging system of bounty payments to between 22 and 27 defensive players from 2009 through 2011, and player-safety-conscious commissioner Roger Goodell could bring the hammer down very hard on the franchise.

The most alarming finding by the league, according to one club source who was briefed on the investigation late Friday afternoon, was this: Before the 2009 NFC Championship Game, Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma offered any defensive teammate $10,000 in cash to knock then-Vikings quarterback Brett Favre out of the game. Favre was hit viciously several times in the game. Favre told SI.com Friday evening: “I’m not pissed. It’s football. I don’t think anything less of those guys.”

The details of Vilma’s offer were in a report to the 32 NFL owners, sent out by the league to detail further what the league’s 50,000-page investigation found.

Early indications late Friday afternoon were that the sanctions against the Saints and their former defensive coordinator who the league said administered the bounties, Gregg Williams, will be severe. The league said the penalties could include suspensions, fines and loss of draft choices — the latter of which could be particularly damaging to the Saints, who do not own a first-round pick this year. Their first choice will be late in the second round, the 59th overall … unless Goodell takes the pick away.

Football is a rough sport, but Goodell needs to crack down on this with enough force to send a message to the entire league. Taking away New Orleans’ draft picks would certainly be a punishment of that magnitude.

We so easily could be another decayed downtown, if not for the corporations, and the law firms and the accounting firms, and the retailers that remain committed to being in the city, when everything could be cheaper and more convenient by joining the sprawl in Maple Grove or Eden Prairie or Eagan.

Last month, Sandra Colvin Roy, another of the dedicated lefties on the Minneapolis City Council, announced opposition to the plan for a new Vikings stadium in downtown Minneapolis without a citywide referendum (that she knows would fail).

[. . .]

And yet it’s not only Roy and her lefty colleagues who offer a roadblock to Minneapolis coming up with its stadium share. There are righties in the Legislature with equally mysterious thoughts on the city’s entertainment tax.

“You know who pays for this?” Rep. Sarah Anderson of Plymouth said. “The citizens in my district, my constituents that decide to go to Minneapolis, maybe go out to a restaurant for the night.”

Some way, we have wound up with politicians who would put the cleaver to a great asset for the state’s largest city, and then offer the silliest of explanations, like 1) several score of people sleeping outside on government property, and 2) a few guys from Plymouth who would rather not pay an extra 3 percent for a Dewars and water at the Seville.

What stands in the way of a stronger heartbeat for downtown Minneapolis are the collections of the nearsighted that we have elected.

As you’ll know if you’ve read the blog for any length of time, I’m a big fan of the Minnesota Vikings, despite never having lived there or even visited the state. I’d be very upset if they became the L.A. Vikings. But I also totally sympathize with Minnesotans who don’t want their taxes being used to give corporate welfare to the billionaire owner of the football club. Pouring money into facilities for professional sports teams is one of the very worst ways to use tax dollars, as the lads at Reason.tv explain:

And from an article last year at Hit & Run:

To put it bluntly, regardless of how much money the state treasury might be rolling in, a public stadium is not a good use of money. Indeed, sports economists Dennis Coates and Brad Humphries estimate the presence of a major-league franchise reduces overall GDP by about $40 per resident in a given metro area.

The Vikes’ ownership has graciously offered to put up $400 million and the state is looking at ponying up $300 million, which means county and local taxpayers (read: suckers) would be on the hook for the remaining $400 million. So generous of the owners, don’t you think? Needless to say, the team would get all naming rights and a host of other related goodies.

[. . .]

Here’s a real surprise: Almost 75 percent of local residents don’t think public money should be used for a new stadium but the folks literally invested in the team and the building of the stadium are all for it!