Quotulatiousness

April 13, 2013

Antoine Winfield signs with the Seattle Seahawks, official day of mourning declared by Vikings fans

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:52

Okay, I’m exaggerating the impact a bit in the headline, as it was highly unlikely that the Vikings would be able to re-sign Winfield after their abrupt decision to cut him in order to make room under the salary cap to re-sign Phil Loadholt. However, it is true that he was one of the faces of the franchise and will definitely be missed now that he’s going to be playing for the “Vikings West”:

It wasn’t exactly protracted as these things go. Just a little two-day mini-drama. And it ended just the way most of us expected. Antoine Winfield ultimately chose Seattle over Minnesota. The Seahawks picked up the former Viking cornerback on a one-year, $3 million contract with $1 million guaranteed. Three million for one year is not a bad score for a 36-year-old defensive back coming off an injury. Good job for Antoine.

We could now sit here dissecting the way this played out and asking lots of questions. Did Rick Spielman’s alleged snubbing of Winfield play into the decision? Were the Vikings ever really players for Winfield after the way he was apparently dissed? The Vikings were reportedly still in on it in the last hours but who knows if they really were. Who knows if Winfield was just trying to get more money out of Seattle by acting like the Vikes still had a shot.

There’s a lot we’ll never know about how this played out. But here’s something we do know. Veteran players on the Vikings are not happy. Several older players expressed their wish to have Winfield come back. How do they feel now that another major piece of the 2012 surprise playoff run team has been let go for money reasons? They certainly appreciate the realities of the salary cap. But they also know that Rick Spielman has been on a frugality kick and there are probably some other guys who are wondering if they will be next to either get cut or be asked to re-negotiate.

The economics of the situation made the release of one of the older, highly paid veterans likely when free agency opened. Many were expecting the victim to be defensive tackle Kevin Williams (who had already indicated he’d be open to renegotiating his contract), or even getting defensive end Jared Allen to sign a new longer-term contract, but it was the way Winfield was treated that shocked most fans. Many of us were hoping that he could somehow be brought back on a cap-friendly deal and finish his career as a Viking, but we all knew that was unlikely after he was released in such a cavalier manner.

April 10, 2013

The former players’ class-action suit against the NFL

Filed under: Football, Health, Law — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:05

John Holler opines that the players are morally right, but that the legal system probably won’t give them the vindication they hope for:

Inaccurately known as the City of Brotherly Love – a more appropriate definition would be the City of Unholy Beat-Downs In the 600 Level – Philadelphia was the site Tuesday of the first big meeting on men in $5,000 suits and matching ties and pocket splash.

Judge Anita Brody heard arguments Tuesday from the NFL and a class-action group of more than 4,000 NFL players concerning the NFL’s culpability for not diagnosing concussions in the formative years of the NFL becoming the financial juggernaut it is today.

It’s a complicated and sometimes emotional battle. From a personal perspective, I teared up (that’s a generous description of it) after interviewing Brent Boyd at a time when he was a lone candle in the wind seeking justice for his injuries at a time when the NFL denied any connection to playing the game and post-concussion symptoms. Boyd was in an a cappella group at that time. Now he has a loud chorus of backup singers in the choir. Boyd was right when he told Congress that the NFL’s policy toward worker’s compensation claims were characterized – in his words – as, “Delay, deny and hope they die.”

On the other side of the coin is the legal question. It’s not a coincidence that Lady Justice, the sculpture of a woman holding the scales of justice, is blindfolded. The intent of that symbolism is that a jury can only render a verdict on the facts presented. A former NFL player from the 1970s once posed the question to me, “Does Boeing owe former employees more benefits now because the company became successful?” That was a hard pill to swallow considering that, even in the 1970s and 1980s, there were enough former players suffering from dementia and game-related debilitation that an impartial juror could see the connection between playing NFL football and the results that have followed in post-football life for thousands of former players. Yet, what does the current NFL owe them?

March 23, 2013

How will the new crown of the helmet rule impact Adrian Peterson?

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:14

The NFL passed a new rule to penalize hits delivered by ball carriers with the crown of the helmet. Scott Kacsmar at ColdHardFootballFacts.com crunches the numbers from last season to see how much the new rule would have changed Adrian Peterson’s hard-charging ways if it had been in force for that year:

The NFL’s rushing king, Adrian Peterson, is known for his physical running style. If the reigning MVP is going to lose some of his greatness, then that could be a major problem for the league.

Peterson’s recovery story was a big one for the NFL as he is one of the most popular players. You do not hamper your superstars.

That is why we went to the video to study Peterson’s 2011 and 2012 seasons – a total of 556 carries including the playoffs – for just his rushing attempts. Any play is a potential flag, though we wanted to focus on the running game.

At its absolute worst, the Crown Rule would have impacted 1.98 percent of Peterson’s runs the last two years.

Have you breathed a sigh of relief yet? You will after we show you the 11 plays.

[. . .]

Recall how the argument for defenders getting flagged in the same situation was that the offensive player would lower their head, leaving them almost no time to react. No matter which side you play on, it is common for players to get low as they brace for impact.

This could become the trickiest part of enforcing the rule. In several of the Peterson runs, you can see the defender leading with his crown as well. This rule can even the playing field, though how many of these plays will become runs for nothing as offsetting penalties are called?

Again, the Crown Rule should not be a game-changer as long as it is called on only the most blatant of plays. It may take away some fun, physical plays, but it will save the NFL’s ass down the road from lawsuits.

Adrian Peterson is still going to run like a Greek God, though he just may have to spare a mere mortal’s life (like William Gay) the next time he’s in the open field.

March 16, 2013

Greg Jennings signs with the Vikings

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:01

The Minnesota Vikings have signed former Green Bay receiver Greg Jennings. There was no puff of smoke — white or purple — from the head office of the team, but many reports went for a Latinesque title, like Christopher Gates at the Daily Norseman:

Habemus Packem: Minnesota Vikings Sign Greg Jennings

After letting the initial rush of free agency settle down a little bit, the Minnesota Vikings finally made a move at the wide receiver position on Friday, signing Greg Jennings.

(That promo headline and the headline that you saw on Twitter was all Ted, by the way. Have to give him credit for that one.)

Well, ladies and gentlemen, there’s white smoke coming from Winter Park. And since Percy Harvin is in Seattle and I think Jerome Simpson is out of town, that can only really mean one thing.

We have a new receiver.

The five-year deal Jennings accepted was for $47.5 million with $18 million guaranteed. It is not quite as rich a deal as he was offered by Green Bay, but the opportunity to be the number one receiver was probably the difference maker (he’d be third or fourth receiver in Green Bay).

Also at the Daily Norseman, Ted Glover explains the Vikings’ painful recent history with their wide receiving corps:

A mercurial wide receiver wears out his welcome, but not before his team makes a playoff appearance against Green Bay. After the season, which ends in an early playoff exit, the superstar receiver finally pulls out the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and he’s traded to the West Coast for a first round pick, giving the team two first round picks and a golden opportunity to upgrade the roster.

No, I’m not talking about Percy Harvin. The year was 2005, and the receiver was Randy Moss. Moss wore out his welcome with the Vikings (maybe specifically Red McCombs), and the Vikings were able to trade him to Oakland for their first round pick and LB Napoleon Harris. Harris wasn’t the big catch in that trade, it was the Raiders first round pick, #7 overall.

The Vikings infamously used that pick from the Raiders to draft Troy Williamson, who has been the biggest bust in recent Vikings draft history not named Demetrious Underwood. I remember writing at the time that the Vikings needed to draft any position other than WR with that pick, because no matter how good that player might have been, he would always be compared to Randy Moss.

Williamson moved fast to make sure those comparisons would never had to be made, though. And other than a Pro Bowl season from Sidney Rice in 2009, the Vikings receivers as a group haven’t really recovered since then.

Which is why, on the heels of the Harvin trade, Greg Jennings is such a big deal for the Vikings. He’s been a top NFL wide receiver for several years, and his signing might be the first step in replenishing what has historically been a position of strength for the Vikings.

March 14, 2013

Vikings storm the Cassel

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 15:43

The Minnesota Vikings have signed former Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel to a two-year contract:

While you were waiting on the Vikings to sign a wide receiver like Greg Jennings, the NFL quarterback carousel just kept spinning.

Matt Cassel’s butt probably still smarts from where the door hit him on the way out of Kansas City — it hasn’t even been a full day since he was released by the Chiefs. Of course the signing of Alex Smith made Cassel expendable and expensive, which is always a bad combination. (The Chiefs also signed Chase Daniel to a three-year contract just to make sure the writing was on the Cassel wall, pun intended.)

[. . .]

Before you start screaming at me, I know that Cassel’s play has often been as consistent and odorous as an infant’s diaper since his breakout season in 2008 with the Patriots. I’m not going to argue with that. However, he’s coming to a team that just saw Joe Webb start a playoff game. I shouldn’t have to tell you that this tragedy must never happen again. Webb had his shot at backup quarterback and it didn’t work out in spectacular fashion. The Vikings needed a new backup to Christian Ponder, plain and simple.

March 12, 2013

Vikings part company with Antoine Winfield

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 14:27

I’m a bit shocked by this one. Antoine Winfield has been a pillar of the Vikings defence since he arrived and still had one year to go on his current contract. He is, to put it mildly, popular with the fans. Here’s the brief report from Tom Pelissero:

Antoine Winfield is done with the Minnesota Vikings.

The veteran cornerback was informed on Monday afternoon he’ll be released, an NFL source said.

Winfield was due $7.25 million in base salary in the last year of his deal.

The Vikings wanted him to restructure his contract, but Winfield [turned] down the offer, per sources.

I understand the mathematics here … $7.25 million is too much to pay for a player who was supposed to be playing fewer snaps in the 2013 season. But it feels wrong.

In other Vikings news, wide receiver Jerome Simpson signed his offer to come back for another year after a disappointing 2012 season. That means the current receivers under contract are Simpson, Jarius Wright, Stephen Burton, Greg Childs (on IR for his rookie season), and Chris Summers (practice squad in 2012).

I’ll be updating this post with other free agent news as it trickles in:

  • Right tackle Phil Loadholt is reported to have signed a new multi-year contract. The expressed interest from divisional rivals in Chicago may have helped this deal happen.
  • Backup offensive lineman Joe Berger is also reported to have signed a veteran minimum contract for 2013.
  • A bit more information on the release of Antoine Winfield from 1500ESPN.
  • Safety Jamarca Sanford told his Twitter followers that he’s re-signed with the Vikings.

Update, 13March: After I logged off last night, the Vikings re-signed outside linebacker Erin Henderson to a two-year deal. They also re-signed fullback Jerome Felton to a three-year deal.

At the Daily Norseman, KJSegall pens a tribute to a great player:

You hear about Ray Lewis and how he would motivate a locker room, fire up teammates, blah blah blah. You hear about it because the guy is the biggest media whore since… OK, I sat here for no less than four minutes and really couldn’t come up with a good follow up. Winfield was so much like Lewis, and yet the total opposite at the same time. He was the heart and soul of the defense, an aging vet who cared far more about his teammates all along than he ever did himself. He bought into the idea that football is a team sport, and that football players are team players. Arif pointed out in the comments section that he himself watched Winfield coaching the very players who could take his job as deeply as an actual coach. Winfield was a Viking, and that was always first and foremost.

Last season, three times, Winfield put team before self as fiercely as any football player could have. First, after his younger brother died, he fought through the emotional agony that he surely must have felt and returned to play in a September game. Then, when things were looking bleak for the team, he silenced the locker room to even beyond a whisper, giving a fiery speech that spurred his team on, helping in a key way to propel the Vikings to an amazing finish and a playoff berth. And then, in the last, he suffered through a broken hand, playing in the season finale (before finally yielding to the pain halfway through) and then returning for the playoff game.

That speech, by the way- do you have any clue what was said? I don’t. No one really does. And there is the oxymoronic comparison between him and Ray Lewis. Sure, Lewis too could spark his team with a big speech. But then he wanted cameras around, he wanted reporters to know what happened and what was said. Winfield, however, had none of that. His words were for his team and his team alone. He didn’t want the glory or the adulation, he just wanted the win. That was always good enough for him.

Reactions to the Percy Harvin trade

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:31

As reported yesterday, the Minnesota Vikings struck a trade agreement with the Seattle Seahawks, sending disgruntled wide receiver Percy Harvin and getting three draft picks in return (Seattle’s first and seventh round picks this year and their third round pick in 2014). Under the circumstances, the Vikings got a very generous deal for the extremely talented player. Just a few weeks ago, the guessing among NFL writers seemed to be that Minnesota might be lucky to get just a third-round pick in exchange for Harvin’s services.

1500ESPN‘s Tom Pelissero:

One veteran starter told 1500ESPN.com on Monday the trade ” is genius.” Another said he’s happy for Harvin but Spielman did “a great job” getting so much value for a player much of the league thought the Vikings were desperate to dump.

Harvin had demanded trades. He had clashed with coaches. He had complained about the offense and the quarterback. He once stormed out over a disagreement about medication.

He was, and is, one of the NFL’s most dynamic players for 3 hours after Sunday. It’s the other 165 hours a week the Vikings had begun to fear having a basket case on their hands.

Dressing down mild-mannered coach Leslie Frazier on the sideline in Seattle and again at the team facility weeks later was just the most overt signal Harvin had worn out his welcome and probably wanted out anyway.

Leslie Frazier is reportedly the most even-tempered coach in the NFL: if you can’t get along with Frazier, you probably can’t get along with anyone. Harvin has had arguments and confrontations with his coaches at college and in the NFL, so it will be interesting to see how long he can go in Seattle before the cameras catch him on the sideline giving a coach a dressing-down (or chucking weights at him).

All that, and Spielman still found — or perhaps created — a marketplace and yielded a better return than most around the NFL expected.

“Vikes got very good return for (a) player with no future there,” one NFL personnel man said.

(more…)

March 10, 2013

Rumour: Percy Harvin is demanding a trade (again)

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:42

There’s no such thing as an off-season in the NFL, even if they still use the term. There’s a brief downtime between the end of the SuperBowl and the start of free agency, but that’s about it. In the case of the Minnesota Vikings, the big drama so far this year is around Percy Harvin:

The Percy Harvin saga continues with another report of his discontent. Nothing has really changed, however, as Harvin’s status has been precarious for quite some time.

A local Twin Cities media columnist, Sid Hartman, is reporting the Vikings are planning to cut ties with Percy Harvin. The short and the long of it is that Harvin wants to be traded and doesn’t want to remain with the Vikings.

Before your Harvin jerseys become de facto lighter fluid to get a bonfire flame kicking up, let’s climb in the Wayback Machine and go where people implore, “Never mind the man behind the curtain.”

[. . .]

The source of this “breaking news” is an anomaly unto itself in that it could have legitimately been intentionally “leaked” by either side. If the leak came from the Harvin side, it’s directed at the bottom half of the first round – teams convinced they’re “one player” away from being a Super Bowl team. If the “leak” came from the Vikings, it’s putting those in the Sweet 16 on notice – Percy comes with a price.

The future of the Vikings and Harvin is no different today than it was Friday – before the window for free agent chatter was opened or not. Harvin is available for the taking. Still. Again. But now it’s only for the right price – whether a mutually leaked story has surfaced or not. Serious bidders only.

Does Percy stay? Does Percy go? Nothing has changed. It has only served to put 31 teams on notice … as if that hadn’t already been going on.

Update, March 11: The Star Tribune is reporting that Harvin has been traded to the Seattle Seahawks:

Percy Harvin’s time as a Viking has come to end. According to an NFL source, the Vikings have agreed in principle to a trade with Seattle, formally ending a rocky relationship with their ultra-talented yet mercurial receiver.

The NFL’s free agency period will open at 3 p.m. Tuesday, which is also the opening of the new league year. That’s the earliest a trade could be rubber-stamped and completed. But as of right now, the deal has been finalized and Harvin will simply have to pass a team physical in Seattle.

[. . .]

If the trade to Seattle doesn’t hit any unforeseen snags and is indeed finalized, Harvin would reunite with Darrell Bevell, the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator who held the same position with the Vikings during Harvin’s first two seasons. Harvin would also join forced with Pete Carroll, who in his previous post at the University of Southern Cal, had recruited Harvin out of Landstown High School in Virginia.

If this is confirmed (as it appears likely to be), I’ll be sorry to see Percy leave, but it might be the best of a bad situation for both the team and the player. Harvin is a great talent, but the long list of troubling signs indicated he wasn’t happy as a Viking. If he prefers playing in Seattle (where several Vikings receivers have gone in recent years: Nate Burleson and Sidney Rice also became Seahawks), I hope he does well. If the Vikings get good value for the trade — talk right now says they get Seattle’s first round pick (at #25), a 7th rounder, and a mid-round pick in 2014 — then I’m happy. (Just a few weeks back, the wiser heads “in the know” were talking about Harvin only being worth a second- or even a third-round pick.)

March 3, 2013

The brief lives of fireflies and NFL offensive co-ordinators

Filed under: Football — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:05

As a professional career, being an NFL assistant coach requires a lot of flexibility and the ever-present risk of job upheaval. Among NFL assistant coaches, the offensive co-ordinator is an especially short-tenured position:

When they talk about the average career of an NFL player being somewhere plus or minus three years, it comes as a shock to many casual NFL fans. To achieve that, for every Brett Favre, there have to be about 10 guys who only last one year. It’s not an easy way to make a living. It’s a hard reality to realize how brief so many NFL careers are.

At times, doing some background research can glean surprising results. Starting from the premise that Bill Musgrave’s offense is entering its third year, the thought of trying to compare the third seasons of other NFL offensive coordinators came to mind. Therein lay the problem.

Being an offensive coordinator isn’t an occupation anyone wants to have long-term in the same town. You rent. You don’t own.

It’s a job in which coordinators are happy to have at the moment, but it’s not one he actually wants to keep. With the combination of head coaches being fired, offensive coordinators being forcibly pushed onto their own sword by a head coach looking to save his own job for another year, or a coordinator being successful and landing a head coaching job, the attrition rate among OC’s is unsettling.

After just two years in the job, Bill Musgrave is tied for sixth-longest tenure among NFL offensive co-ordinators. That’s an incredible rate of job turnover.

March 1, 2013

Kickstarter promotion: win a day with Chris Kluwe

Filed under: Business, Football, Gaming — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:33

Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe has been in the news a heck of a lot for any non-quarterback. He’s probably the most newsworthy punter in the NFL in the last 25 years or more. A new Kickstarter initiative is trying to take advantage of Kluwe’s popularity to raise money for their project:

Former Chicago Bears’ linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer has designs on launching something called “Overdog.” According to this interview with Hillenmeyer in Forbes, what Overdog is designed to do is connect athletes that like to play video games to … well … other people that like to play video games.

[. . .]

Before Overdog can launch, Hillenmeyer wants to raise $100,000 for various aspects of the project. In order to do this, they’ve done what pretty much everyone with a project is doing these days. . .started their own Kickstarter to raise money. Like other Kickstarter drives, there are various levels of pledges you can give, with a higher pledge giving you a higher level of recognition, access, whatever. One of the levels you can pledge at … and there are only four spots available at this level … will give you the following:

    The Kluwe Experience. Describing a day with OverDog advisory board member Chris Kluwe any other way would be shortchanging him. One lucky fan will have the chance to receive a punting lesson (in Minneapolis), play some video games (likely World of Warcraft), and soak in the wisdom from the NFL’s most interesting man. Unfortunately, travel is not included but a Forever Subscription is.

February 12, 2013

The State of the Union address is the political version of the NFL’s Pro Bowl

Filed under: Football, Humour, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:05

Jim Geraghty explains:

If you said to me, “let’s end the NFL Pro Bowl,” I’d probably disagree. Because while I haven’t watched a Pro Bowl in its entirety in decades, I’d hate to see a tradition end. But as any football fan will acknowledge, the Pro Bowl is a quasi-necessary event that is executed in a fundamentally flawed fashion. For starters, it occurs at the end of the season, instead of at the halfway point of the season like in other sports. This is because of players’ legitimate fear of injury in a game that has only pride on the line; as a result, everybody plays at about half-speed. Selected players decline to go, so you get the second, third, and sometimes fourth-best players at each position. The NFL moved it to the week before the Super Bowl, to make it less of an afterthought to the season, but now the players on teams in the Super Bowl skip the game.

My friends, the president’s State of the Union Address is our national pro bowl — a simulation of the art of persuasion and politics featuring all the big stars, played at about half speed, with no real consequence.

[. . .]

You’ll recall Matt Welch’s discovery from last year about just how interchangeable the rhetoric is:

    Starting with John F. Kennedy’s address to a joint session of Congress in 1961, you could take one sentence from each SOTU since, in chronological order, and cobble together a speech that will likely resemble much of what you’ll hear tonight. So that’s precisely what I’ve done.

Every president uses the event as just another speech, and avoids anything resembling a hard-nosed assessment of where they’ve made progress and where they need to improve their performance. What’s fascinating is the ritual news articles about drafts of the speech and previews, as if you or I couldn’t predict a half dozen points and themes. This is why we have State of the Union drinking games — because people can often predict the precise phrases, never mind the topics or arguments.

February 4, 2013

CBS Sports fumbles during SuperBowl blackout

Filed under: Football, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:23

In the New York Daily News, Bob Raissman asks why CBS didn’t bother to do any actual “journalism” about the blackout:

The fans inside the Superdome were not the only ones left in the dark when half the building’s power went out in the third quarter of Super Bowl XLVII Sunday night. Viewers were left with unanswered questions as CBS Sports’ sideline reporters, and the rest of the cast, failed to go into a reporting mode.

There was no outrage, no questioning how a thing like this could happen on the NFL’s biggest night of the year.

At a time when they should have been aggressively gathering news, CBS’ crew was satisfied with the crumbs the NFL dropped on them. And they swallowed the scraps gladly. Not once during the 34-minute delay did a representative of the National Football League appear on camera to attempt to explain what caused half the Superdome to lose power. Why should they? No one from CBS put any pressure on them.

[. . .]

Think about it. CBS pays billions for the right to air NFL games. Much of that dough is shelled out to secure rights to the Super Bowl. So, on the big night, there is a major screwup and the NFL won’t put someone on the air — and CBS won’t push the league — to try to explain what’s going on? That’s mind-boggling.

But not quite as wacked as CBS’ laid-back approach to reporting this story, which will go down as one of the more unusual moments in Super Bowl history. All the players were on the field, waiting, stretching. Why not take a camera and microphone on the sidelines for an interview? If they blow you off, fine — at least viewers would have something worth watching.

A legal spectre is haunting the NFL

Filed under: Football, Health, Law, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:12

In the wake of a vastly entertaining SuperBowl contest between the “San Francisco 50-1’ers”* and the “Baltimore Black Birds”*, Steve Chapman outlines the possibility that we won’t see too many more SuperBowl games:

Professional football is the most popular spectator sport in America, which is one reason yesterday’s Super Bowl was expected to draw 110 million viewers. With its famous athletes, storied franchises, and lucrative TV contracts, it’s an industry whose future appears limitless.

But football has a problem: the specter of mass brain damage among current and former players. So far, the steady trickle of disturbing revelations has had no apparent effect on ticket sales or TV ratings. What it has done, though, is more ominous: It has invited lawsuits.

If football falls into decline, it may not be the result of fans turning away, athletes avoiding it, or parents forbidding it. It may be from lawyers representing players who sustained chronic traumatic encephalopathy and expect to be compensated for the damage.

[. . .]

Walter Olson, a Cato Institute fellow, blogger (Overlawyered.com), and author of several books on liability, knows well how a tide of litigation can transform a landscape. And he has a bold prediction: “If we were to apply the same legal principles to football as we do to other industries, it would have to become extremely different, if not go out of business.”

“Seriously?” you may ask. A guy who made a good living engaging in high-speed collisions with 300-lb. blocks of granite can say he didn’t understand the risks involved? It may seem that case will be laughed out of court.

But Olson thinks not. “Courts have not been very friendly to this argument, particularly when something as grave as permanent brain damage is involved,” he told me. And it’s become apparent that while players were aware of the possibility of mangled knees, broken bones, and concussions, they didn’t grasp that repeated blows to the head could produce debilitating and irreversible mental harms.

* See the Samsung commercial in this post for explanation of the team names.

February 3, 2013

Adrian Peterson named NFL MVP

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:02

The man who almost single-handedly pushed the Minnesota Vikings into the playoffs has won the NFL’s Most Valuable Player award (and is the first Viking to win the award since Fran Tarkenton back in 1975):

Adrian Peterson racked up a bunch of awards on the night, starting with the NFL Fantasy Football Player of the Year Award. Peterson thanked the folks that drafted him in fantasy football this year … NO PROBLEM, ADRIAN … because that’s just the kind of guy he is.

The next award Peterson racked up on the evening was the award for NFL Offensive Player of the Year, which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.

The biggest highlight, however, was when Peterson was named the Most Valuable Player of the National Football League. This morning, I wondered whether or not Peterson would be able to fend off the challenge of Peyton Manning for the award, and it turns out that he did. In a season that started just eight months after Peterson had surgery on his left knee to repair a torn ACL (among other damage), he put together a season for the ages, rushing for 2,097 yards. That’s the second-highest total in NFL history, and just eight yards fewer than Eric Dickerson’s all-time single-season record of 2,105 yards. He also led the way in taking a Vikings’ team that was a 3-13 disaster the year before to a 10-6 record and a spot in the 2012 NFL playoffs.

There will be some people that will jump up and down and throw a fit about Manning not getting the award, but really … and yes, I’m biased … but Peterson really was the best choice for the award. If you base the award on who had the best season, nobody had a better year in 2012 than Adrian Peterson. If you base the award on who meant the most to their team, nobody meant more to their team than Adrian Peterson meant to the Vikings in 2012.

Judd Zulgad has more:

Peterson, who suffered torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his left knee late in 2011, finished this season with 2,097 yards rushing on 348 carries, giving him an average of 6 yards per attempt, and 12 touchdowns.

His rushing total was the second best in NFL history behind the 2,105 yards that Eric Dickerson had in 1984 with the Los Angeles Rams.

Peterson beat out Peyton Manning, who in his first season as Denver’s quarterback contended for a fifth MVP trophy. Manning’s four are a record.

Peterson received 30½ votes from a nationwide panel of 50 media members who regularly cover the NFL. Manning, who also won the Comeback Player of the Year award after missing the 2011 season following neck surgery, got the other 19½ votes for MVP.

“It’s truly an honor to be recognized as the league’s most valuable player,” Peterson said in a statement issued by the team. “While the award is considered an individual achievement, I couldn’t have had the success that I did without my teammates, my coaches and the Vikings organization. I’m blessed to be a member of the Vikings, and I hope next year we can get the ultimate team award by bringing a Super Bowl championship to Minnesota.”

Cris Carter (finally) voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Filed under: Football — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:49

The “receiver log-jam” has finally broken in favour of former Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Cris Carter. Picking him up off waivers was the best $100 the Vikings ever spent. After all, “all he does is catch touchdowns“:

Carter’s numbers, as they have for years, speak for themselves. His 1,101 career receptions are still fourth in National Football League history. He is ninth all time in receiving yards with 13,899, and his 130 receiving touchdowns is fourth-best in NFL history. When he retired from the game after the 2002 season, he had more receptions, yardage, and touchdowns than any wide receiver in NFL history not named Jerry Rice.

1500ESPN’s Judd Zulgad has the full story:

Carter began his career with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1987 after being a fourth-round pick in the supplemental draft out of Ohio State. Carter had 19 touchdowns among his 89 catches in three years with the Eagles. That caused then-Eagles coach Buddy Ryan to utter the now famous phrase, “All he does is catch touchdowns,” when talking about Carter.

The Vikings landed Carter before the 1990 season, paying only $100 to get him off of waivers. Carter, who had some issues early in his career with the Eagles, spent the next 12 seasons with the Vikings.

Carter is still fourth in NFL history in career receptions and fourth in receiving touchdowns. He is now ninth in receiving yards (13,899).

Asked if he thought he might not get elected to the Hall, Carter said: “No. I never let people do that. Those years I didn’t make it, I took two or three hours to cry or mourn or think about it, then right after that I went right back to what I had to do. I’ve got stuff, I’m busy. It’s a great experience but, no, I thought I was going to get in.

“Then this year, I said to myself, ‘I’m going to get in the Hall. I believe I’m going to get in the Hall.’ I just believed. It’s always the right time to do the right thing. With this list and these players, and the wide receivers, eventually one of us had to get in. Eventually, one of us had to get in.”

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