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Welcome to part four of our ten part series entitled “Welcome to the Big Show” where we attempt to bring you a comprehensive, in-depth look at each of the Vikings ten Draft selections of 2012. In case you missed them, here are links to the first three: Matt Kalil, Harrison Smith, and Josh Robinson.
Now, we move on to USC’s Rhett Ellison who was a surprise pick by the Vikings near the end of the fourth round.
Just one week ago, the Vikings commenced in weaving their way through seven rounds of the 2012 NFL Draft, and seemingly placing a great emphasis on leadership and character in their selecting their next generation of football players.
In the same week, however, the Vikings welcomed two players of concern back into their building for offseason workouts.
Cornerback Chris Cook was found not guilty in March of charges that he assaulted his girlfriend and tried to strangle her and has now rejoined the team for the first time since the October incident landed him in jail.
“I definitely appreciate it a lot more than I have in the past,” Cook said of being back with his teammates. “This is what I love to do, even though this isn’t the really fun part, it’s kind of hard, but I love doing this. This is the part of the year when you get better.”
“I feel like I have to earn their trust again. I definitely let them down last year by being in the situation I was in and missing the 10 games. I’m really looking forward to earning their trust and being a contributing factor to the team,” he said.
Cook said that he and Leslie Frazier kept in contact during the cornerbacks lengthy legal issues took place.
“It was positive. He’s a very encouraging man, and I respect him a lot. He’s not really been down on me. He’s very supportive of me,” Cook said.
Time will tell if Frazier’s willingness to not come down hard on Cook will pay off. If Cook turns his life around, then Frazier could be credited with some sort of second-chance mentorship role being the turning point. If Cook stumbles again, however, then Frazier will likely be blamed for coddling the young cornerback because of his talent on the field.
The other player who has a bit of proving to do is newly acquired receiver Jerome Simpson. Simpson will begin his tenure with the Vikings by serving a three game suspension for a September incident that landed him in jail on drug trafficking charges.
Simpson was sentenced after he plead not guilty and admitted to his “mistake” and appeared willing to acknowledge his wrong doing, accept the consequences, and move on.
“Everybody knows that (incident) wasn’t my character, what happened, and it’s basically just prove it. You can talk all you want to, but if you don’t prove it, it really doesn’t mean a hill of beans,” Simpson said.
“That wasn’t my characteristics,” Simpson continued in his first meeting with the Minnesota media. “I’m a good guy, love the community, love kids and everything, and I just made a poor decision.”
Simpson, while grateful for the opportunity, knows full well that he needs to produce positive results on and off the field for the Vikings or else this one year contract could be the last one he ever gets.
“It’s absolutely a ‘prove it’ (season) just because the nature of that I did get in trouble last year and I have to prove to the league, myself and everybody else out there that I deserve to be in this league,” Simpson said. “(The Vikings) believed in me and I’m just blessed to have the opportunity to come back and play football again.”
Both of these players have the tools and the talent to help the Vikings improve upon their dismal results from 2011, but each will be on a short leash and needs to understand the importance that will be placed on their actions moving forward… not their words.
The Vikings selected ten players in the 2012 NFL Draft last weekend and immediately agreed to terms with 15 undrafted free agents.
With Caleb King having already been released, the Vikings announced another pair of cuts on Wednesday.
The team has waived tight end Daniel Hardy and guard Butch Lewis. Neither had ever appeared in a regular season game with the Vikings and both seemed to have incredibly long odds of landing a full time role with the team.
The Vikings now have 65 players on the roster, so once all the rookies are signed, they will be at the roster maximum of 90 players.
I imagine it was a good feeling for Caleb King to walk out of an Anoka County jail on Tuesday, but probably not as good of a feeling to find he isn’t only a free person but also a free agent.
The Vikings released King on Tuesday after he spent three days in jail on suspicion of severely beating a man at a party who supposedly teased King for looking like Eddie Murphy. King has not yet been charged.
The Vikings seemingly placed a great emphasis on talent, leadership, and character in this weekend’s Draft. The decision to cut King, a player that would likely be nothing more than the third running back, should surprise nobody.
Welcome to part two of our ten part series called “Welcome to the Big Show” where we give you an in-depth look into each of the Vikings ten Draft selections of 2012. Brett did a fine job handling Part One, a look at Matt Kalil, and now we move onto our other first round pick, Harrison Smith.
PERSONAL HISTORY
Born on Groundhog’s Day in 1989, Harrison Smith grew up as an extremely gifted athlete.
From a young age, adults took notice of Smith’s leadership abilities and willingness to include everyone. His mother received calls from summer camp counselors telling stories of Smith comforting kids through the night as they cried from being homesick, and often including other kids in activities even when other children considered them outcasts.
Smith went to high school at Knoxville Catholic where he was a do-it-all player. Heck, he was even a solid basketball player. He ran wild as a running back, was a gifted receiver, and showed prowess on defense, and even averaged 14 yards per punt return as a senior. In 2006, he was selected as Tennessee’s Gatorade Football Player of the Year.
Having grown up at a Catholic school with a strict dress code, Smith got to Notre Dame and let his hair grow out. While drawing comparisons by some to Justin Bieber, he preferred the Scooby Doo comparisons and embraced the “Shaggy” role when Halloween rolled around.
He was a four star athlete coming out high school, with some schools envisioning him on offense and some wanting him to play defense. With offers on the table from a number of schools that included Tennessee, Auburn, and Alabama, Smith ended up choosing Notre Dame. His decision not to play for Tennessee ended up seeing his family be semi-spurned in their hometown.
At Notre Dame, he graduated from Mendoza College of Business with a management-entrepreneurship degree and enrolled in a graduate studies program.
No fan or analyst is going to agree 100% with every move made in the NFL Draft in any given year, but this year has certainly left Vikings fans feeling better than they have in recent years.
The Vikings theoretically took big strides in improving their secondary, added a key piece to the offensive line, and should have an interesting competition amongst their receivers. Still, it is tough to believe that the Draft, combined with the few free agent moves made earlier this offseason, will be enough to turn a 3-13 roster into a playoff contender.
Rick Spielman’s patience in the initial stages of free agency, however, could pay off in the months between now and September. The team is believed to have $12.5 million in cap space after the Jerome Simpson signing, which is a considerable sum and gives them some firepower if a player that intrigues them becomes available as a result of being a cap casualty.
It is quite possible that this was Rick Spielman’s plan all along, to leave enough space to be major free agency players later on in the offseason when there is a great potential for steals.
Increasing the potential for success in this area is the fact that the Vikings will have third priority for players that are released from their current teams and subject to the waiver process. Only the Colts and the Rams will have higher priority, and neither of them have the cap space available that the Vikings do. In fact, the Rams may only have enough space left to sign their rookie class and that is it.
Names like Jacoby Jones, Mike Jenkins, and Josh Brown have already been mentioned in regards to potentially hitting the open market and many more are sure to follow.
The Vikings may be in an ideal situation to scoop up one or two players of value in an attempt to further rebuild this roster from top to bottom.
It never fails, every year somebody is added to this roster that has an incredible story worth telling.
This year, that guy is UCLA’s running back Derrick Coleman who has had to overcome an unusual disability on his way to the NFL.
Coleman, who reportedly signed as an undrafted free agent with the Vikings, has a severe hearing impediment and has to wear hearing aids in order to communicate with teammates on the field. He has to wear skull caps under his helmet in order to keep the hearing aids dry and properly in place.
It hasn’t always been a disadvantage, though, as Coleman admits that in one particularly loud stadium he simply clicked the hearing aids off. I bet offensive linemen wish they could do that from time to time to avoid false starts.
The lack of hearing heightens Coleman’s other senses, according to Coleman, who will read the lips of those trying to communicate to him.
“My dad always said: Keep your head on a swivel and be aware of your surroundings,” Coleman said. “So that’s how I am on the field. I always have to know what’s happening everywhere. You should anyway. You’re supposed to know what’s happening.”
“I’m not the type of person who is ever going to blame it on my hearing if I mess up,” he said. “Maybe I have too much pride because even if I don’t hear it, I might just say I got it wrong, rather than blame it on my hearing, you know?”
It sounds like Coleman is a fairly incredible kid worthy of a chance to keep on playing running back.
For more on Coleman’s story, click here for a great write up.
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