Off-The-Field Issues

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.”

After Midnight, Nothing Good Happens At A McDonald’s

June 4, 2012, by 13 comments

In the post below this one, we passed along the news that Minnesota fullback Jerome Felton was nabbed for a second degree DWI early Saturday morning.

What is otherwise a pathetic story took a somewhat (only somewhat) humorous turn on Monday when Judd Zulgad of 1500 ESPN reported that Felton was busted in none other than a McDonald’s drive-thru line.

According to the report, police were alerted to an intoxicated driver in a McDonald’s drive-thru and were able to respond before Felton received his order of seven big mac’s and a McFlurry (that part is speculation) and drive off.

Interestingly enough, this is not the first time in recent memory that a Vikings player ended up in the headlines due to a late night visit to a McDonald’s.  In January of last year, Adrian Peterson got a McDonald’s worker fired when she let him into the restaurant after hours to use the restroom.

Thus, I think it is safe to say, nothing good happens at a McDonald’s after midnight.

Or strip clubs.

Or Miami nightclubs.

Or boats on Lake Minnetonka.

Felton’s Arrest Provides Another Challenge For Frazier

June 2, 2012, by 6 comments

When Leslie Frazier was promoted to head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, fans of the organization thought they would at least be getting a leader capable of keeping a group of young men out of trouble.

With Chris Cook, Caleb King, Rhett Bomar, Tyrell Johnson, and Everson Griffen all having gotten into trouble under Frazier’s watch it is now fullback Jerome Felton that continues the trend.

Felton, a free agent signing this offseason, was arrested on a second degree DWI charge after refusing to submit to a chemical test.  Felton landed in Hennepin County Jail early on Saturday morning, but was released later in the day after making a $12,000 bond.

“We are aware of the situation and working to gather more information,” a Vikings statement read. “We’ll have no further comment at this time.”  Felton’s agent also declined to comment.

Felton has no prior known incidents with the law and will likely escape punishment from the NFL, but to Vikings fans this is just another case of a completely preventable embarrassment occuring when it shouldn’t have.

According to Tom Pelissero of 1500 ESPN, the Vikings offer a car service to their players to utilize in instances that they should not be driving.  Apparently, Felton had a reason (a good one or otherwise) for not utilizing the service and is now on the hook for embarrassing himself and the team.

Felton was penciled in by many, including myself, as the presumed starting fullback this upcoming season and it remains to be seen if this incident impacts his chances in any way.

All I know is that these guys have to get their act together.

There is not enough talent on this team, or any NFL team for that matter, to have starters sitting in jail cells on Sundays, or sitting at home on suspensions.

Oh, and as if my disgust isn’t making itself known enough:  Driving drunk is a selfish, dangerous, and idiotic thing to do… no matter who you are.

Ponder Breaking NCAA Rules On Behalf of Agency?

May 24, 2012, by 7 comments

Well, as if we needed another completely dull and unfulfilling storyline to follow, it appears our young franchise quarterback may have just got himself wrapped up in a yet-to-come (but probably soon-to-come) investigation of the people currently representing him.

Yay?

I’ll just go ahead and defer to Riley Schmitt of Rant Sports for all the details:

Kohl Stewart was just your average high school recruit until Minnesota Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder texted him.  Stewart was so excited about the text that he uploaded it to Twitter.  Unfortunately for him, it might cause him a lot of trouble.

Ponder said he was texting Kohl Stewart on behalf of the CAA. The CAA is also known as the Creative Arts Agency, which is a grouping of sports agents. Now why would Ponder be texting a high schooler about an agency? The kid has not even stepped on a college football field, much less thought about an agency.

Then again, this could easily be someone posing as Ponder and texting Kohl Stewart. It’s unlikely, but possible. The area code is one that is found in the suburbs of the Twin Cities so I would guess it is Ponder.

In the world of social media, Kohl Stewart may have just exposed some dirty practices by the CAA. I am not sure why they had Ponder text him, but I would guess it would be to have Stewart consider being represented by the agency. Then again, the NCAA tends to frown upon agents contacting college players.

Kohl Stewart seemed excited that he was being texted by a pro quarterback but this is going to raise some serious questions about the CAA. It is getting a lot harder for agencies to contact players. Why not use pro players to convince kids to sign with you? It’d be a good theory if you thought you would never get exposed.

I have a feeling Kohl Stewart is going to find himself in the middle of a controversy. Once the NCAA and others find out about this, it probably will not be pretty.

On the plus side, we all now have the first seven digits of Ponder’s personal cell.

Pre-Camp Buzz

May 19, 2012, by 23 comments

Between now and the season opener, the Minnesota media will follow a very specific formula to make sure their sports pages are still interesting despite the relatively boring period of time that is the middle of the offseason.

I am, of course, referring to the strategy creating a scattershot of “fluff” pieces that will profile a player, perhaps give us a snapshot of their personal history, and leave us all with a hopeful message:  This guy could be the answer at his respective position.

I’m not saying these articles don’t serve a worthwhile purpose, and aren’t interesting to those of us that love our Vikings football, but I just want to help you temper your expectations by reminding you that these articles come and go every year.  Sometimes the player turns out to be a nobody (i.e. Logan Payne) and sometimes the player actually does become a contributor (i.e. Marcus Sherels) despite the stacked odds.

I’m not trying to be the poster child of pessimism.  Rather, I am just trying to keep your expectations in check, as it is always a dangerous time when the hopes of Vikings fans begin to rise.

Okay, so with all of that said, I want to highlight some stories about the pre-camp Vikings and how they are doing.  After the jump.

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Once Again, Cris Carter Talks While Vikings Fans Cringe

May 9, 2012, by 13 comments

With the Saints player suspension less than a week old, former Vikings receiver Cris Carter re-confirmed what many of us already knew, or at least believed, about the sport of football:  “bounties” have long been a part of the game.

“I’m guilty of it,” Carter said of using bounties. “It’s the first time I’ve ever admitted it. But I put a bounty on guys before. I put bounties on guys. And the guys tried to take me out, a guy tried to take a cheap shot on me, I put a bounty on him, right now.”

Carter insisted that he used bounties strictly as a defense mechanism, but also witnessed times when bounties were use to target specific players on opposing teams.

“Protect me. . . . Protect me from him. . . . Especially if he’s playing a different position where I can’t protect myself,” Carter said. “I’d tell one of them guards, ‘Hey man, this dude is after me, man. Bill Romanowski.’ He told me he’s gonna me out before the game, in warmups. No problem. ‘I’m gonna end your career, Carter.’ No problem. I put a little change on his head before the game. Protect myself, protect my family. That’s the league that I grew up in.”

Since the day the news of “Bounty Gate” first broke I have maintained a pretty uninspired stance on the matter, despite some very emotional reactions from other Vikings faithful, but part of my measured response to this story has to do with the assumption that this troubling practice was not isolated within the City of New Orleans, with a Gregg Williams defense, or even just within the NFL.

Instead, it is becoming clear that this was a widespread problem that Roger Goodell has decided there is no room for in a league run by him.

The Saints will take the fall, but bounties have been around for a long time and have infiltrated many locker rooms.

Including, apparently, the Vikings locker room.

Questions Of Character

May 3, 2012, by 2 comments

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.