{"id":19355,"date":"2013-03-10T10:42:24","date_gmt":"2013-03-10T15:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=19355"},"modified":"2014-05-09T14:23:35","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T19:23:35","slug":"rumour-percy-harvin-is-demanding-a-trade-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/03\/10\/rumour-percy-harvin-is-demanding-a-trade-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumour: Percy Harvin is demanding a trade (again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"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<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Percy Harvin saga continues with another report of his discontent. Nothing has really changed, however, as Harvin\u2019s status has been precarious for quite some time.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t want to remain with the Vikings.<\/p>\n

Before your Harvin jerseys become de facto lighter fluid to get a bonfire flame kicking up, let\u2019s climb in the Wayback Machine and go where people implore, \u201cNever mind the man behind the curtain.\u201d<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

The source of this \u201cbreaking news\u201d is an anomaly unto itself in that it could have legitimately been intentionally \u201cleaked\u201d by either side. If the leak came from the Harvin side, it\u2019s directed at the bottom half of the first round \u2013 teams convinced they\u2019re \u201cone player\u201d away from being a Super Bowl team. If the \u201cleak\u201d came from the Vikings, it\u2019s putting those in the Sweet 16 on notice \u2013 Percy comes with a price.<\/p>\n

The future of the Vikings and Harvin is no different today than it was Friday \u2013 before the window for free agent chatter was opened or not. Harvin is available for the taking. Still. Again. But now it\u2019s only for the right price \u2013 whether a mutually leaked story has surfaced or not. Serious bidders only.<\/p>\n

Does Percy stay? Does Percy go? Nothing has changed. It has only served to put 31 teams on notice \u2026 as if that hadn\u2019t already been going on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update, March 11<\/b>: The Star Tribune<\/em><\/a> is reporting that Harvin has been traded to the Seattle Seahawks:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a> 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.)<\/p>\n

\n

#Vikings<\/a> GM Rick Spielman deserves a lot of credit for keeping this under wraps until it was done and creating a market to get a haul.<\/p>\n

— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) March 11, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n