Quotulatiousness

February 7, 2014

After a long wait, Vikings finally announce the rest of Mike Zimmer’s coaching staff

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:52

The Minnesota Vikings took a long, long time between hiring Mike Zimmer as the new head coach and announcing the rest of the coaching staff. Some of the delay was obviously to interview and hire the individual assistant coaches, and some of the delay was assumed to be a side-effect of the Chris Kluwe accusations against incumbent special teams co-ordinator Mike Priefer. The second assumption can’t have been very important, as Priefer has retained his position on the new coaching staff. Kluwe’s lawyer immediately threatened to sue the team over the situation.

Setting aside the potential courtroom drama, here are the new and retained members of the coaching staff:

Norv Turner — Offensive Co-ordinator

  • Jeff Davidson — Offensive Line
  • Klint Kubiack — Assistant Wide Receivers/Quality Control
  • Kevin Stefanski — Tight Ends
  • George Stewart — Wide Receivers
  • Scott Turner — Quarterbacks
  • Kirby Wilson — Running Backs

George Edwards — Defensive Co-ordinator

  • Robb Akey — Assistant Defensive Line
  • Johnathan Gannon — Assistant Defensive Backs/Quality Control
  • Jerry Gary — Defensive Backs
  • Jeff Howard — Defensive Assistant
  • Andre Patterson — Defensive Line
  • Adam Zimmer — Linebackers

Mike Priefer — Special Teams Co-ordinator

  • Ryan Ficken — Assistant Special Teams
  • Drew Petzing — Coaching Assistant

Jim Souhan discusses Norv Turner’s record and his tentative plans for the coming season:

Norv Turner doesn’t name-drop. He fame-drops.

In 20 minutes on Thursday, Turner, the new Vikings offensive coordinator, mentioned John Robinson, Don Coryell, LaDainian Tomlinson, Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, Terry Allen, John Riggins, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Ricky Williams and Josh Gordon.

What might hearten Vikings fans is that he also mentioned Brad Johnson and Russell Wilson.

Turner is one of the best offensive coaches of the past 25 years. He has excelled while coaching for and with Hall of Fame coaches, and while coaching Hall of Fame-caliber players.

With Matt Cassel opting out of his contract, the Vikings currently employ one quarterback: Christian “You still here?” Ponder. Turner’s quarterback could be Cassel, should the Vikings re-sign him. It could be a first-round draft pick. It could be a third-round draft pick. It could even be Ponder, because Vikings fans apparently have not been punished enough for the deal with the devil that twice brought Fran Tarkenton to town.

Turner either will be asked to coax a career performance out of a less-than-heralded veteran, or rush a rookie into action, or both.

February 2, 2014

Some of the Super Bowl commercials Canadians won’t see on TV

Filed under: Business, Football, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:13

The audience for the Super Bowl is split between fans of the game (who actually care about the outcome) and fans of the ads (because this is the biggest TV audience, advertisers pull out all the stops and generally try to be genuinely funny). In Canada, thanks to our TV regulations, most of us will see the broadcast of the game itself, but we won’t see the same commercials as our US neighbours … we’ll get the same assortment of crummy ads they’ve been showing since the start of the season, with a few of the US ads as a “teaser”.

Fortunately for those who aren’t interested in the game itself, but like the commercials, the lead-up to the Super Bowl usually includes web release of many of the ads that will air during the broadcast. Here’s a selection put together by the Guardian, including a “behind the scenes” of an ad that won’t get shown … because it was never made:

Go behind the scenes of the Mega Huge Football Ad Newcastle Brown Ale almost made with the mega huge celebrity who almost starred in it. See more at http://www.IfWeMadeIt.com

The VW ad is rather amusing, too:

Don’t forget your Super Bowl Bingo card

Filed under: Football, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:23

Super Bowl bingo

Update: Seattle, you’re drunk. Go home.

February 1, 2014

The hand-egg championship, described

Filed under: Football, Humour, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

Part of a continuing series of reporting American events in the way American media reports foreign events:

This Sunday, the eyes of millions of Americans will turn to a fetid marsh in the industrial hinterlands of New York City for the country’s most important sporting event — and some would say the key to understanding its proud but violent culture.

Despite decades of exposure to the outside world through trade and globalization, Americans have resisted adopting internationally popular sports like soccer, cricket, and kabaddi, preferring instead a complex, brutal, and highly mechanized form of rugby confusingly called football. (Except for in a couple of instances, feet do not touch the ball.)

The two finest teams from the nation’s 32 premier league squads meet each year in an event known as the Super Bowl. (There is in fact no bowl.) This year, the game pits a young upstart team from the Northwest Frontier Provinces against another from the mountainous interior region led by the aging scion of one of the sport’s most legendary families. The winner of the contest will claim the title of “world champion,” although very few people play the sport beyond the country’s national borders.

Although the rules are complex — this video [embedded below] offers a brief overview — in broad strokes the contest involves two large teams of large men wearing large amounts of protective padding attempting to move an oblong ball down a 91.44-meter field by either throwing it or running with it while their opponents attempt to knock them to the ground with maximum force.

January 29, 2014

YouTube‘s formative nine-sixteenths of a second

Filed under: Football, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:19

Marin Cogan explains how less than a second of TV helped to trigger the development of YouTube:

You know what happens next. Justin reaches over, grabs a corner of Janet’s right breast cup and gives it a hard tug. Her breast spills out. It’s way more than a handful, but a hand is the only thing Janet has available to cover it, so she clutches it with her left palm. The breast is on television for 9/16 of a second. The camera cuts wide. Fireworks explode from the stage. Cue the end of halftime. Cue the beginning of one of the worst cases of mass hysteria in America since the Salem witch trials.

[…]

Michael Powell, then the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, was watching the game at a friend’s house in northern Virginia. He’s a football fan and was excited to relax and watch the game after a rough couple of weeks. “I started thinking, Wow, this is kind of a racy routine for the Super Bowl!” he says, his voice pitching up in bemusement. “He was chasing her kind of with this aggressive thing — not that I personally minded it; I just hadn’t seen something that edgy at the Super Bowl.”

Then it happened. Powell and his friend gave each other quizzical looks. “I looked and I went, ‘What was that?’ And my friend looks at me and he’s just like, ‘Dude, did you just see what I did? Do you think she … ?’ And I kept saying, ‘My day is going to suck tomorrow.'” Powell went home and watched the moment again on TiVo. The same thought kept running through his mind: Tomorrow is going to really suck, he remembers thinking. “And it did.”

[…]

Of course, our children and our children’s children will never need to dig up an actual time capsule to find out about the wardrobe malfunction. As soon as they hear about the time Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed on live TV, they’ll watch it online. And the reason they’ll watch it online is that in 2004, Jawed Karim, then a 25-year-old Silicon Valley whiz kid, decided he wanted to make it easier to find the Jackson clip and other in-demand videos. A year later, he and a couple of friends founded YouTube, the largest video-sharing site of all time.

January 28, 2014

Reforming the NFL (and the NCAA)

Filed under: Football, Law, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 14:33

Gregg Easterbook is worried that we’re at peak football (NFL football, anyway), and has a few suggestions to fix what he thinks are some of the worst problems facing the game as a whole:

For the NFL:

  • Revoke the nonprofit status of league headquarters, and the ability of the league and individual clubs to employ tax-free bonds. A bill before the Senate, from Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, would end these and other sports tax breaks.
  • Require disclosure of painkiller use club by club — as anonymous data, with names removed. Painkiller abuse may be football’s next scandal.
  • Change law so images of football games played in publicly funded stadia cannot be copyrighted. The effect would be that the NFL would immediately repay all stadium construction subsidies, and never seek a subsidy again. Altering national copyright law seems more promising than trying to ban pro football stadium subsidies state by state, since the handouts originate with a broad mix of state, county and city agencies. (Yes, careful wording of such a law would be required to prevent unintended consequences.)

For the NCAA:

  • Graduation rates should be factored into the new FBS playoff ranking system. Not the meaningless “Academic Progress Rate” the NCAA touts precisely because of its meaninglessness — graduation is what matters. News organizations that rank college football should add graduation rates voluntarily, as news organizations have voluntarily agreed to many best-practice standards.
  • For FBS players, the year-to-year scholarship — which pressures them to favor football over the library, to ensure the scholarship is renewed — should be replaced with a six-year scholarship. That way once a player’s athletic eligibility has expired, typically after 4.5 years, and once the NFL does not call — 97 percent of FBS players never take an NFL snap — there will be paid-up semesters remaining for him to be a full-time student, repair credits and earn that diploma. Not all will need the extra semesters. But six-year full scholarships would change big-college football from a cynical exercise in using up impressionable young men and throwing them away, into a fair deal: The university gets great football, the players get educations.
  • NCAA penalties should follow coaches. If a coach breaks rules at College A then skedaddles to College B, all College A sanctions should follow him. The NFL should agree, voluntarily, that the length of any NCAA penalties follows any coach who skedaddles to the pros. So if Coach A gets out of town just before the posse arrives and imposes a two-year sanction on College B, Coach A should face a two-year sanction from the NFL.

[…]

For football at all levels:

  • Eliminate kickoffs, the most concussion-prone down. After a score, the opponent starts on his 25. Basketball eliminated most jump balls; purists cried doom; basketball is just fine.
  • Ban the three-point and four-point stance. Because of these stances, most football plays begin with linemen’s heads colliding. No reform reduces helmet-to-helmet contact faster than requiring all players to begin downs with hands off the ground and heads up. Will this make football a sissified sport? That’s what was said of the forward pass.
  • Only four- or five-star rated helmets should be permitted. Some of the safest helmets are prohibitively expensive for public high school districts, but the four-star, $149 Rawlings Impulse is not. Only double-sided or Type III (individually fitted) mouth guards should be permitted. Double-sided mouth guards are the most cost-effective way to protect against concussions. Many players won’t wear them because they look geeky. If everyone was wearing them, this would not matter.

A more general reform is needed, too. Football has become too much of a good thing. Tony Dungy told me for The King of Sports, “If I could change one aspect of football, it would be that we need more time away for the game, as players and as a society. Young boys and teens should not be doing football year-round. For society, it’s great that Americans love football. But now with the internet, mock drafts, fantasy leagues and recruiting mania year-round, with colleges and high school playing more games and the NFL talking about an even longer schedule — we need time off, away from the game.” We need less of everything about football.

January 20, 2014

A Rickspeak decoder for the Mike Zimmer introductory press conference

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:53

At the Daily Norseman, Ted Glover provides a highly informative translation of what was said — and what was really meant — at the Vikings’ press conference to introduce new head coach Mike Zimmer:

Rickspeak is a complicated, evolutionary form of communication that takes years, if not decades to master. And yes, we’ll completely ignore that fact that Spielman has been here less than a decade. Shut up.

So, how is Mike Zimmer in the ways of Rickspeak? Let’s break down some of what he said during the introductory presser, shall we? Now, we won’t break down the whole press conference (you can read the entire transcript here if you like), because it was over half an hour long. And, as always, what Rick or Mike actually said will be quoted first, and then what they probably meant will be interpreted below. There’s some NSFW language in here, because Mike F@#$% Zimmer, yo.

[…]

Q: Have you decided on your coordinators yet?

What Mike Said: No. We are still working on the staff situations on everything right now. We are going to announce the entire staff at a later time when we get them all finished.

What Mike Meant: I know exactly who I want, chucklehead. I’m not going to tell you, though.

Q: When you look at the roster you inherited, how do evaluate the situation and the players you now have?

What Mike Said: I am a big believer in when we get out here in the field show me what you can do. I don’t ever want to pre-judge a player from what I see on film because I do not know what the previous coaches have told them and I have my own ideas on the way I want to do things.

What Mike Meant: I don’t know what the hell was going on here before, but on film it looked like a combination Clown Show and Kabuki Dick Dance Theater. When I get these guys out on the field, I’m going to be watching them, because I’m pretty sure the previous coordinators didn’t know what the hell they were doing. I’ll fix it, too.

January 19, 2014

Vikings hire Norv Turner as OC

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:19

It’s been widely rumoured that Norv Turner would be hired as the new offensive co-ordinator, but the deal was still being negotiated. At The Viking Age, Dan Zinski exults that former OC Bill Musgrave has been replaced:

After three years of infuriating Viking fans with his over-conservative playcalling, Bill Musgrave is officially out as offensive coordinator in Minnesota. He will be replaced by some guy named Norv Turner, who I hear has a pretty decent track record as an OC (head coach … that’s another matter).

It’s not entirely official yet, but the word is that Norv has signed up to be Mike Zimmer’s top offensive assistant, and that George Edwards will be defensive coordinator.

Zimmer has indicated that he will be heavily involved himself in designing the defensive scheme and may call plays, so Edwards’ responsibilities may be somewhat more limited than a normal defensive coordinator’s.

It doesn’t always work out when head coaches try to run the defense or offense themselves, so we’ll see if Zimmer ends up sticking with that plan.

Norv comes over from Cleveland where he spent a year as offensive coordinator. Under Turner, Josh Gordon became one of the top receivers in the league, and Jordan Cameron developed into one of the better tight ends. With guys like Brian Hoyer, Brandon Weedon and Jason Campbell playing quarterback.

Norv will have raw materials to work with in Minnesota as well. The Vikings sport one of the game’s most exciting young receivers in Cordarrelle Patterson and one of the better young tight ends in Kyle Rudolph.

January 16, 2014

Vikings officially announce the hiring of Mike Zimmer

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:46

It took a bit longer for the team to get an official announcement out, but they confirm that Mike Zimmer is the new head coach of the Minnesota Vikings:

Mike Zimmer was hired as the 9th Head Coach in Vikings history on January 15, 2014. A veteran defensive coordinator, Zimmer enters his 21st season on an NFL sideline, the past 14 working as defensive coordinator for Cincinnati (2008-13), Atlanta (2007) and Dallas (2000-06).

Zimmer has been a part of 11 playoff teams in his NFL tenure and teams that have won 7 Division titles. He coached the Cowboys DBs when the team won Super Bowl XXX over Pittsburgh after the 1995 season. Zimmer’s Bengals defenses since 2008 have ranked in the NFL’s top 10 in total defense 4 times, climbing to #3 in 2013. Since 2011, the Bengals ranked #2 in the NFL with 139 sacks (46.3 per season) and have allowed 18.8 points per game, ranking #4 in the NFL in points allowed. The 2013 Bengals posted 20 INTs, the 5th-best mark in the NFL.

Zimmer’s arrival in Cincinnati for the 2008 season signaled a franchise turnaround on the defensive side of the ball. The Bengals notched top-10 defensive rakings in 2009, ’11, ’12 and ’13 after only cracking the NFL’s top 10 once in the previous 18 seasons before Zimmer joined the team. During his tenure, Zimmer coached DT Geno Atkins as he became one of the top DTs in the NFL, earning consensus All-Pro honors in 2012 and Pro Bowl berths in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, LB Vontaze Burfict continued his rise from a rookie free agent in 2012 to a Pro Bowler in 2013. Atkins became the 1st Bengals defensive lineman since Tim Krumrie in 1988 to earn a Pro Bowl trip and Burfict was the 1st Bengals linebacker to be honored since Jim LeClair in 1976. Over the 2012 and 2013 seasons the Bengals had 4 different players earn AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors- Michael Johnson, Carlos Dunlap, Atkins and Burfict.

Zimmer led top-10 defenses for Dallas in both a 4-3 and 3-4 scheme. The 2003 Cowboys defense led the NFL with only 253.3 yards per game allowed. During Zimmer’s tenure in Dallas as DBs coach (1994-99) and Defensive Coordinator (2000-06) the team ranked in the top 5 of NFL scoring defense a total of 6 times. The 1995 Cowboys hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl XXX with a win over Pittsburgh and one of Zimmer’s pupils, CB Larry Brown, won the Super Bowl MVP award with a pair of INTs in the game.

Update: Judd Zulgad highlights a key difference between former coach Leslie Frazier and new coach Mike Zimmer:

January 15, 2014

Minnesota hires Mike Zimmer as their new head coach

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:12

It’s being widely reported (at least on Twitter) that the Minnesota Vikings have offered the head coaching position to Cincinnati Bengals defensive co-ordinator Mike Zimmer. Zimmer arrived in Minnesota yesterday for a second interview with Vikings executives and remained in town overnight. At the Daily Norseman, Arif Hasan put together a voluminous compendium of information on the head coaching candidates. Here’s part of the section on Mike Zimmer:

The former linebacker is also well-known for specific gameplanning, and pre-game adjustments to the scheme to match the weaknesses of the opponent, rather than relying on a base scheme. There are significant drawbacks to this approach (which is why the league-leading Seahawks defense prefers to stick with the scheme instead of changing much for specific game plans), but it has its adherents (Bill Belichick being the most famous — though defensive mavens like Rex Ryan do this as well. It is also the approach of Todd Bowles, the DC of the second-best defense in the league in Arizona).

The position that Zimmer prefers to be deepest seems to be cornerback, although he’s made sure the roster has had competition at a number of levels. Also interestingly, he has a tendency both to stick with and quickly move on from players. The best example of this odd paradox is Rey Maualuga, second-round pick for the Bengals in 2009. Rey was a solid-to-good strongside linebacker that did well for two years before switching to the middle.

[…]

Zimmer is probably best known for his hardnose, “no-nonsense” style of coaching that has endeared him to Bengals fans and seems to follow the tradition of Bill Parcells, berating players blue in order to get them fired up. Applied with intelligence, it also seems to have gotten the players’ loyalty. He’s even used it as an asset in his free agency recruiting, arguing that his ability to get results is better for players than what others can offer. It also means that players know where they stand with him, which can be invaluable.

Update: The Star Tribune confirms the news with this report by Mark Craig:

Mike Zimmer, a 20-year veteran NFL assistant coach who worked with Hall of Famer Bill Parcells in Dallas before turning the Cincinnati Bengals’ defense around as their defensive coordinator the past six seasons, has been hired as the ninth head coach in the Vikings’ 54-year history, NFL sources confirmed.

Zimmer, who has never been a head coach at any level, replaces Leslie Frazier, who was fired on Dec. 30, and becomes the third head coach hired since current owners Zygi and Mark Wilf bought the team in 2005.

Zimmer, 57, played quarterback and linebacker at Illinois State. He then coached on the defensive side at the collegiate level for 15 years at Missouri, Weber State and Washington State before joining the Dallas Cowboys as secondary coach.

He won a Super Bowl ring when the Cowboys beat the Steelers in Super Bowl XXX. One of Zimmer’s players, unheralded cornerback Larry Brown, became the game’s MVP.

[…]

Zimmer was praised by Parcells recently in a Star Tribune article.

“He’s very competitive, he’s intense,” Parcells said. “I think he’s a smart guy. … Every place that I’ve ever heard that he’s been, the players really liked him. And yet he doesn’t coddle the players at all. He’s got a good balance with that tough love.

“I think now he’s got enough experience to handle the players and the big picture and the scouting and the constraints and the things that the league mandates now. He’s got enough experience to where he’d do a good job.”

Bengals coach Marvin Lewis also has said Zimmer has what it takes to be a head coach.

“Zim does a great job of identifying who to push and when,” Lewis was quoted as saying on the Bengals website. “He helps me by being the guy who puts his foot up their butt, getting them moving in the right direction so I don’t have to be the one to do it all the time.”

Zimmer’s son, Adam, is a Bengals assistant coach. He also has two daughters Corri and Marki. Zimmer’s wife, Vicki, passed away suddenly of natural causes at age 50 in 2009. That same year, he was named NFL assistant coach of the year by cbssports.com and the Pro Football Writers Association.

January 12, 2014

Vikings schedule second interviews with two head coach candidates

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:53

The Minnesota Vikings have moved on to setting up second interviews for at least two of the head coaching candidates they’ve talked to:

Numerous sources are reporting that both Todd Bowles, defensive coordinator of the Arizona Cardinals, and Mike Zimmer, defensive coordinator of the Cincinnati Bengals, will be getting second interviews with the team this week. Zimmer’s interview is reportedly going to be “early next week,” according to our friends from Cincy Jungle, while no date … firm or otherwise … has been floated for Bowles’ potential second interview.

The third finalist is presumed to be San Francisco 49ers’ offensive coordinator Greg Roman. Rick Spielman and company were in Charlotte today to interview him, the last day they could do so. If the Niners defeat the Carolina Panthers and advance in the post-season, the Vikings wouldn’t be able to interview him again until the week before the Super Bowl. If the Niners lose, one would assume that Roman’s second interview would be sometime next week.

Arif Hasan has a compendium of information on all the known head coach candidates the Vikings have interviewed. This is from the section on Todd Bowles:

Currently the defensive coordinator for one of the league’s top defenses, Todd Bowles is quickly gaining buzz among fans and within coaching circles as a potential head coach and like few candidates was actually a fairly fine player in the NFL. The Cardinals are doing well with Bowles for now, but it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to keep him for long.

[…]

Bowles is not particularly married to a specific type of front, whether 3-4 or 4-3 and has operated in multiple types of defenses with different gap concepts, from one-gap, to hybrids, to pure two-gap defenses. He’s shown a slight preference for tight man coverage, though focuses less on using the coverage to disrupt timing and more on finding ways to prevent outlet passes from appearing for opposing offenses.

This is in part due to the small amount of data that people have about the types of schemes he prefers—he hasn’t been a DC recently for very long.

From what seems evident, Bowles strives to create situations favorable to the player instead of maintaining scheme integrity, but doesn’t fully embrace the “adapt the scheme to the talent” mantra that has been so popular for fans and sportswriters (notably, neither did the other top DVOA defenses this year: Seattle, Carolina, Buffalo and Cincinnati), in that he prefers schematic soundness to maximizing success for every individual player.

There’s little doubt, however, that Bowles prefers to be aggressive more than anything else and seems to employ more one-gap principles than two-gap principles in his defenses.

This is from the section on Mike Zimmer:

Mike Zimmer has recently become a hot name in coaching searches, and it’s easy to see why: even with a defense missing its two best players (Geno Atkins and Leon Hall), Cincinnati had a top five defense and entered the playoffs despite spotty quarterback play.

[…]

Zimmer’s teams have been marked by an ability to recognize talent no matter the source and putting them in positions to perform, from first-round draft picks like Leon Hall, to undrafted free agents like Vontaze Burfict — both of whom are at the top of their position. Players like Vincent Rey (UDFA), Geno Atkins (4th-round pick) and others from nearly every round have made key contributions for Zimmer over the years.

The belief that Zimmer is an excellent defensive coordinator is very true, although I think overstated (I would put more stock in Wade Phillips or Rob Ryan, for example). Zimmer is considered a 4-3 specialist, but that probably pigeonholes him.

This year, he’s used more players in the same base formation to do different things. It would be correct to call Zimmer vanilla in his personnel deployments (the Bengals barely, if at all, used personnel outside of 4-3-4 or 4-2-5) but incorrect to say he doesn’t use situational players, rotate or find creative uses of his personnel. Interestingly, he was forced to run a 3-4 with the Cowboys, and that likely influenced how exactly he runs his defense.

January 4, 2014

Former Vikings head coach doesn’t stay unemployed for long

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:08

Leslie Frazier was fired as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings on Monday. Today, he accepted the job as defensive co-ordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

You can stop worrying about Leslie Frazier. He’s fine. He has scored himself a new gig as defensive coordinator with his old friend Lovie Smith in Tampa Bay.

Rumors have it that Rod Marinelli was actually the first choice as DC in Tampa but I guess Marinelli didn’t want the gig so they went to #2 choice Frazier. Leslie served as defensive coordinator for a couple years in Minnesota before his ill-fated tenure as head coach. Years back he was DC with Cincinnati.

Frazier, a long-time devotee of the Tampa-2 defense, goes to the city that gave the defense its name. Now we wait to see if he tries to bring any of his former Minnesota assistants with him. The Vikings still have all those guys under contract, including Leslie’s friend Mike Singletary.

We can also speculate on which current Viking free agents might now look at Tampa Bay as an attractive destination because Leslie is there and will likely install a system similar to the one the Vikings ran. Jared Allen is a guy who might be a fit in Tampa. You also have to look at a guy like Erin Henderson who is likely done in Minnesota after his most recent DWI arrest. Frazier was always in Henderson’s corner and seems to like him as a Will backer in his scheme.

I’d be surprised if Singletary didn’t also follow Frazier to Tampa Bay, and (sadly) Jared Allen has almost certainly played his final game for the Vikings and hasn’t indicated any plan to retire. I’m glad Frazier will be in the league next year, even if he is working for another team. Still no change on the replacement head coach search in Minnesota: lots of candidates mentioned, but many interviews still to be conducted.

January 3, 2014

Patterson goes to the Pro Bowl after all

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:20

The NFL Pro Bowl will be following different rules this year and one of the rule changes is the elimination of the kickoff (instead of a kickoff, the receiving team will just get the ball at their own 25 yard line). Cordarrelle Patterson was the best kick returner in the NFL this season, but if there are no kickoffs, there’s no need for KRs on the team. However, Pittsburgh’s Antonio Brown will miss the Pro Bowl and Patterson has been named as his replacement.

Patterson may already be the NFL’s best kick returner … a point that is moot in the Pro Bowl because, for the first time, the Pro Bowl has eliminated kickoffs entirely (teams will just get the ball at the 25-yard line to start each possession). Brown was on the Pro Bowl roster as both a receiver and a punt returner, so it’s possible that Patterson could get a look in that role in the Pro Bowl. Patterson was on the field for a couple of punt returns for the Vikings late in the season.

From what I can see of the Pro Bowl rosters, Patterson is now currently the only rookie on the team. Don’t know if that will help his Rookie of the Year campaign or not … but it should.

The Pro Bowl teams will be selected on 22 January, with the game itself taking place in Honolulu on 26 January.

The most visible change to the Pro Bowl this year is that the teams will no longer represent the two conferences: the teams will be chosen in sandlot style by two honorary captains (Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders) from the pool of nominated players.

Update: Interestingly, Patterson has also been named to the first team All-Pro roster as a kick returner. He’s apparently the only rookie on the All-Pro team this year. Adrian Peterson was nominated to the second team at running back, despite having his second-worst year statistically.

January 2, 2014

Chris Kluwe burns his bridges in Minnesota … and the rest of the NFL

Filed under: Football, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:57

He’s been looking for work since his time in Minnesota came to an end shortly after the team drafted Jeff Locke in the 2013 draft, but hasn’t been able to catch on with a team, despite his still-respectable abilities. He has strong suspicions why this might be, and he’s probably right. Now that he’s come to terms with the end of his punting career, Chris Kluwe explains what he think happened between him and the Vikings in 2012 and pretty much guarantees he will never work in the NFL again:

During the summer of 2012, I was approached by a group called Minnesotans for Marriage Equality, which asked if I would be interested in helping defeat what was known as the Minnesota Gay Marriage Amendment. The proposed amendment would have defined marriage as “only a union of one man and one woman.” (It was voted down, and same-sex marriage is now legal in Minnesota.) I said yes, but that I would have to clear it with the team first. After talking to the Vikings legal department, I was given the go-ahead to speak on the issue as long as I made it clear I was acting as a private citizen, not as a spokesman for the Vikings, which I felt was fair and complied with. I did several radio advertisements and a dinner appearance for Minnesotans for Marriage Equality. No one from the Vikings’ legal department told me I was doing anything wrong or that I had to stop.

On Sept. 7, 2012, this website published a letter I had written to Maryland delegate Emmett C. Burns Jr. chastising him for trampling the free-speech rights of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo. The letter also detailed why I supported the rights of same-sex couples to get married. It quickly went viral.

On Sept. 8, the head coach of the Vikings, Leslie Frazier, called me into his office after our morning special-teams meeting. I anticipated it would be about the letter (punters aren’t generally called into the principal’s office). Once inside, Coach Frazier immediately told me that I “needed to be quiet, and stop speaking out on this stuff” (referring to my support for same-sex marriage rights). I told Coach Frazier that I felt it was the right thing to do (what with supporting equality and all), and I also told him that one of his main coaching points to us was to be “good men” and to “do the right thing.” He reiterated his fervent desire for me to cease speaking on the subject, stating that “a wise coach once told me there are two things you don’t talk about in the NFL, politics and religion.” I repeated my stance that this was the right thing to do, that equality is not something to be denied anyone, and that I would not promise to cease speaking out. At that point, Coach Frazier told me in a flat voice, “If that’s what you feel you have to do,” and the meeting ended. The atmosphere was tense as I left the room.

[…]

So there you have it. It’s my belief, based on everything that happened over the course of 2012, that I was fired by Mike Priefer, a bigot who didn’t agree with the cause I was working for, and two cowards, Leslie Frazier and Rick Spielman, both of whom knew I was a good punter and would remain a good punter for the foreseeable future, as my numbers over my eight-year career had shown, but who lacked the fortitude to disagree with Mike Priefer on a touchy subject matter. (Frazier was fired on Monday, at the conclusion of a 5-10-1 season.) One of the main coaching points I’ve heard throughout my entire life is, “How you respond to difficult situations defines your character,” and I think it’s a good saying. I also think it applies to more than just the players.

If there’s one thing I hope to achieve from sharing this story, it’s to make sure that Mike Priefer never holds a coaching position again in the NFL, and ideally never coaches at any level. (According to the Pioneer Press, he is “the only in-house candidate with a chance” at the head-coaching job.) It’s inexcusable that someone would use his status as a teacher and a role model to proselytize on behalf of his own doctrine of intolerance, and I hope he never gets another opportunity to pass his example along to anyone else. I also hope that Leslie Frazier and Rick Spielman take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are the people they truly profess themselves to be.

Update, 3 January: The Vikings have hired two lawyers, one of them the former chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, to investigate Kluwe’s allegations.

Eric Magnuson, the former chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, and Chris Madel, a former U.S. Department of Justice Trial attorney, will lead the investigation.

“It is extremely important for the Vikings organization to react immediately and comprehensively with an independent review of these allegations,” Vikings owner/president Mark Wilf said in a statement issued by the team Friday.

Magnuson and Madel are partners in the firm Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P. Their investigation is already underway, according to the Vikings’ release.

“This is a highly sensitive matter that we as an organization will address with integrity,” Vikings vice president of legal affairs and chief administrative officer Kevin Warren said in the statement.

“Eric and Chris have stellar reputations in both the local and national legal community. They have handled numerous cases involving a wide range of issues, and we are confident they will move swiftly and fairly in completing this investigation.”

[…]

The Vikings investigation comes a little less than two months after the NFL hired attorney Ted Wells to investigate issues of workplace conduct with the Miami Dolphins, who asked the league for help after representatives for tackle Jonathan Martin turned over evidence of alleged abuse at the hands of teammate Richie Incognito.

The results of Wells’ investigation, which are to be made public, have not yet been released. Martin never returned to the team after a cafeteria prank Oct. 28. Incognito finished the season on the suspended list.

“The Vikings contacted us yesterday about the matter and have kept us fully informed,” league spokesman Greg Aiello wrote in an email to USA TODAY Sports. “We have no plans to conduct a separate review.”

Green Bay playoff game at risk of TV blackout in home market

Filed under: Business, Football, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:39

For some reason, I had the impression that NFL blackout rules didn’t apply in the post-season, but Dan Zinski says there’s a real risk that the Green Bay Packers may not sell all of their tickets for this weekend’s game against the San Francisco 49ers:

Packer fans are the greatest, most loyal and diehard fans in the world. Which explains why, as of Wednesday afternoon, there were reportedly still 7,500 tickets available for Sunday’s home playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers.

Huh?

Yes it’s true. Amazingly, the Packers are struggling to sell out their home playoff game. Despite their fans being better than everyone else’s fans.

[…]

The tickets must be sold by 3:40 PM Thursday to avoid a blackout. But if history is any indication the NFL will give the Packers an extension.

If the Packers still can’t sell the tickets and the blackout goes into effect? Look for a mass exodus out of Green Bay and Milwaukee and into all the towns where the game is on television. That will be a bad time to be traveling anywhere in Wisconsin.

And just wait until Sunday night when everyone is driving home, totally wasted. In the name of public safety, maybe the state government should buy up the tickets.

My guess is that the nightmare scenario won’t come to pass, that the tickets will get bought up and everyone will be able to see the game. And what an enjoyable game it will be…for people who hate the Packers.

On the other hand, I’ve seen predictions that the game-time temperature could be as low as -15F, which would be the coldest game in NFL history (the current record is -13F at the “Ice Bowl” in 1967). I wouldn’t blame the fans quite as much for not wanting to be part of that kind of historical event.

Update, 3 January: Earlier this afternoon, the Packers announced that they’d sold all the tickets to the game (a local business apparently stepped in to buy the remainder), so the game will be available on TV in the Wisconsin area. The weather reports are looking worse, however, as the temperature could go as low as -18F (or -25F) with a potential windchill of -53F. Brrrrrrrrrrrr.

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