General News

Minicamp Schedule Is Set

June 14, 2012, by No comments yet

The Vikings offseason training activities are drawing to a close and the next step is minicamp.

The Vikings will hold their minicamp next week, starting with Tuesday morning walk-throughs, and will end with a Thursday morning practice.

After that, we will enter the dead period:  Training Camp in Mankato is scheduled to begin on July 26th.

Minicamps, unlike parts of training camp, are not open to the public but there should still be plenty of reports coming from all the normal updates and we will be sure to keep you all updated.  The things to keep an eye over the next week mostly involve individual player health and the progression of the younger players on the roster.

Smith, Burton, And Others Get Time With The First Team

June 13, 2012, by 6 comments

Here are some interesting tidbits for how the depth chart looked during Tuesday’s OTA practices:

SAFETY:  It didn’t take long for first round pick Harrison Smith to “work his way up” the depth chart and received mostly first team reps on Tuesday.  Across from him, Mistral Raymond and Jamarca Sanford rotated first team reps.

“I saw a play (Tuesday) where he really got angry,” Leslie Frazier said of Smith. “He got pretty fired up, and you kind of need that out of your defensive backs. You need them to have a little something about them, and it was good to see.”

CORNERBACK:  Smith and Matt Kalil aren’t the only rookies to be getting first team reps at this point.  Third round cornerback Josh Robinson received some reps as the starting right corner.  It isn’t clear why, but Antoine Winfield missed Tuesday’s practice, and it is equally unclear if Winfield’s absence resulted in Robinson getting his chances with the first team.

LINEBACKER:  Jasper Brinkley suffered a minor groin injury last week and, while he is expected to be fine, has missed some time.  Chad Greenway has been in South Dakota dealing with his family matters and Solomon Elimimian has had to sit out with a hamstring injury.  That means that the starting group of linebackers has looked like this:  Erin Henderson, Larry Dean, and Tyrone McKenzie.

WIDE RECEIVER:  With the absence of Percy Harvin, Stephen Burton has been filling in as the go-to flanker with the first team.  Burton has generated a lot of offseason buzz, along with Jerome Simpson, and these reps with Christian Ponder could give him the inside track to a roster spot.

OFFENSIVE LINE:  Matt Kalil, Charlie Johnson, John Sullivan and Phil Loadholt.  These guys are assumed to be occupying four of the starting spots along the offensive line from day one, which means there should be one hell of a competition for the starting gig at right guard.  Right now, Brandon Fusco is acting as the starting right guard with Geoff Schwartz getting reps with the second team.

KICKER:  Blair Walsh has been handed the kickers position on a silver gold platinum platter.  On Tuesday, during 11-on-11 drills, Walsh made four of six field goal attempts.  He missed from 42 and 44 yards.

Banks To Visit Vikings At End Of The Week

June 11, 2012, by 19 comments

A few days back, we passed along the information that linebacker Brian Banks is somebody of interest to the Vikings (and everybody else that follows football) this offseason.

After being exonerated of rape charges that took a decade of his young life, Banks has become quite the celebrity and many are hopeful he will become the feel-good storyline of this season, regardless of where he lands.

According to Sam Farmer of the L.A. Times, Banks will attend a minicamp with the Seattle Seahawks this week.  If he leaves Seattle without a contract, then he is scheduled to visit the Vikings at the end of this week.

The Vikings could be the perfect match for Banks should they choose to offer him a contract.  They are a young team looking to improve but, at the same time, expecting some growing pains.  Plus, they could use some depth at linebacker.

Banks could have the inspired type of play, the will to succeed, that coaches will love in training camp despite the certain obstacles he will have to hurdle in order to succeed in the NFL after such a long time away from the game.

We’ll be sure to keep an eye on this storyline and let you know of any progress as far as the Vikings are concerned.

Brian Banks Is On The Vikings Radar

June 9, 2012, by 4 comments

After being falsely accused of rape, linebacker Brian Banks is trying to break back into football after an incredibly trying 10 years.  Banks has drawn interest from a number of teams and we can now put the Vikings in that category.

Reports have surfaced, citing Banks’ lawyer as the source, that the Vikings would like to bring Banks in for a tryout to see what he has.

Banks is now 26 and had once made a verbal commitment to attend USC after being highly recruited, but the accusations derailed his life and his football career.  The accuser, Wanetta Gibson, recently recanted her accusations revealing a plot to gain a financial settlement from the school district that both her and Banks attended.

“I think that any team that gives me an opportunity would be really impressed with what I can do despite all of what I’ve been through these past 10 years,” Banks told Ann Curry of Today in May.

Banks has an uphill battle to catch on with an NFL team, but he has certainly caught the attention of football fans (and morning news audiences) and has been a unique, interesting, and inspiring storyline to follow this offseason.

Burton Makes An Impression At OTA’s

June 8, 2012, by 2 comments

Stephen Burton was a late round flier that the Vikings took last year, and he didn’t get a whole lot of chances to prove himself in the post-lockout arena.

However, Burton may be benefiting from a full offseason and could be an interesting guy to keep an eye on as the preseason progresses.  According to Mike Wobschall of Vikings.com, Burton is making an impression during OTA’s and Leslie Frazier has noticed his progress.

“You can see the confidence and that’s a big thing for a receiver, big thing for any young player,” Frazier said. “He has tremendous athletic ability and he is one of those guys who can jump out of the gym and make the acrobatic catch, but his confidence, that’s the one thing that you can see is coming through now.”

Burton is 6’ 1” and weighs 224 pounds, so he has the size and athleticism to be a solid option at wide out, but Wobschall also indicates that Burton will get a chance to prove himself as a return man.

We don’t have the same video evidence as we do with Jerome Simpson (click here), but I can’t help but get a little giddy every time I hear about a young guy progressing… because that is what this offseason is all about.

I had Burton sticking to the 53 man roster in my early projections.

Felton Wants You To Know He Is Sorry

June 7, 2012, by 1 comment

If you are here, then you are probably a Vikings fan.  Jerome Felton has apologized to fans for his DWI from last weekend.

Ergo, if you are reading this, then Jerome Felton has apologized to you.

Here is the full comment made by Felton on his McDonald’s DWI situation:

“Everybody on this team and in this organization has been good to me and the fans have been great.  I love it here. I can’t put myself in negative situations that don’t have a positive impact on the team and the community. That’s something that’s very important to me and I just want to sincerely apologize to the fans, No. 1, the organization and everybody around the Vikings.”

Pro football fans do not always get apologies from their players following screw ups, mainly because an apology is an admission of guilt.  Strangely, both Felton and Justin Blackmon of the Jaguars decided to proactively apologize to their teams and their fans for driving while intoxicated.

Felton is believed to have the inside track on the starting fullback position in Minnesota, but he may have a lot of work to do to gain back the trust of the coaching staff.

“We talked about some things when we got together for our first OTAs in our meetings about how we wanted to conduct ourselves,” Leslie Frazier said. “Then when a new guy comes to the club and he’s a veteran guy and something happened like it did over the weekend, it’s very disappointing. It’s something we’ll have to deal with and have to address, but you don’t want that to drown out all of the good things that some of our players are doing and what they’re doing in the community.”

Some Wide Receiver News On Tuesday

June 5, 2012, by 8 comments

In filling their last remaining roster spot, the Vikings signed South Florida receiver A.J. Love as an undrafted free agent on Tuesday.

This isn’t really anything earth shattering, but I can remember in the flurry of UDFA signings right after the Draft finished it was reported by numerous outlets at that time that Love was signing with the Vikings.  At the end of the day those reports were erroneous, but in the long run I guess they turned out to be correct.

Love stands at 6’ 2” and weighs 208 pounds.  In 2008 and 2009, combined, he managed 56 catches for 843 yards and six scores.  In 2010, he had to sit out due to a knee injury, and his production lacked big time in 2011 where he only had nine grabs for 122 yards and a lone touchdown.

The story sounds similar to that of Greg Childs, which we discussed here, and Love could end up having some upside.  Childs, coincidentally enough, has not been participating in OTA practices due to a calf strain.

Some good news, however, is that Percy Harvin has rejoined the team during practices after initially sitting out and rehabbing as a result of his bone spur procedure from April.  Chad Greenway has also reportedly joined the team after dealing with a family issue.