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wtfvikesfan (449)A half game out of first place. An intense battle with Larry Fitzgerald and Patrick Peterson coming up. A need to rebound following a disappointing loss to Washington. A team in need of some serious progression this season.
The work week must be intense at Winter Park this week, right? Well, probably, but there is also an abundance of TMZ-type stories going on with these Vikings and I thought we’d better just get them out there in the open here at VT, even though I would rather just avoid them.
When one dedicates a good portion of his week reading, researching, and writing about football it can be difficult to remember that there are more important things in life. I imagine that it is a gazillion times harder for players and coaches to remember that, which could lead to some shocking situations like Brad Childress docking a player’s pay for attending his grandmother’s funeral and Torrey Smith playing lights out football only hours after finding out his brother was dead.
Yesterday, Vikings defensive lineman Everson Griffen found out he will be living the rest of his life with his mother there to help him along. His mother reportedly died suddenly, cause unknown at this point, while visiting her son in Minnesota.
“As you can imagine, it was tough,” Leslie Frazier said on Thursday. “There was nothing that could have prepared him for that news. He wasn’t here [Thursday]. I’m not sure what his status will be going forward.
“Our prayers as an organization, as well as his teammates, are with him and his family. This is a difficult time for him, as you can imagine, and we’ll be there to support him as best we can. . . . He loved his mom, like we all do. And to have no clue that something like this was on the horizon it was tough. It’s still tough, obviously.”
“Everson means a lot to me, like all our guys do, and I’ve seen the maturation in his life,” Frazier continued. “I told him that [Wednesday] night. I know his mom would be so proud of how he has grown up and become a young man that has made her very proud. It’s hard to see him hurting. I lost my mother not long ago, I know what that experience is like, and it’s hard. It’s hard.”
Unlike the Childress situation mentioned earlier, Frazier is giving his player all the time necessary to properly grieve and says Griffen can return whenever he is ready to do so.
“It’s purely up to him when,” Frazier said. “There’s no timetable. I explained that to him,” Frazier said. “He needs to go through the grieving process properly and don’t be thinking about football. Just doing whatever he needs to do away from football. His mom was very, very close to him. This is going to be a tough deal for him.”
We here at Vikings Territory would like to extend our thoughts and prayers to Everson and his family during this trying time.
I remember giving the selection of Percy Harvin in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft a “C” grade due mostly to the character concerns following him out of Florida.
After three seasons of breath-taking plays, Harvin’s character concerns have never reared their ugly in any big way, and he has actually grown into a sort of leadership role on the offense.
Now, however, stories about Urban Meyer’s mismanagement of the Florida program are now uncovering new details of Harvin’s checkered past. According to the reports from Sporting News, Harvin “epitomized the climate” created by Meyer that entitled certain players and led to practices that placed stars like Harvin into a special category, allegedly allowing them to get away with things they should not have.
In 2008, Meyer told the press that Harvin and two other players missed four games due to injury. In reality, it appears that Harvin missed those games as a result of a failed drug test and the University required the four game suspension but Meyer made sure to cover for his players. Harvin also reportedly failed a drug test at the NFL Scouting Combine prior to the Vikings drafting him.
The report continues to recall a story where Harvin grew tired of doing stadium runs and decided to just stop. When told to keep moving he exclaimed, “This (bad word) end now.” The following day conditioning did not include stadium runs, and instead the players played basketball.
The most troubling story is the one that tells of Harvin assaulting wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales by throwing him to the ground and putting his hands around his neck. Meyers never let the truth about that incident become public, saying only that “something did happen,” and Gonzales himself claims that the incident was blown out of proportion.
Harvin, in November of 2010, reportedly got into a verbal altercation with Brad Childress that nearly turned physical but stopped just short.
Harvin has not yet commented on the article by Sporting News and with his surgery scheduled for Tuesday, it is unlikely he will grant media access any time real soon.
At the end of this latest season, Harvin won the Korey Stringer Good Guy Award for his professionalism in dealing with the media. Outside of the Childress incident and some mild pouting about the sudden release of teammate Randy Moss, Harvin seems to have his life under control and appears to be the exact type of player the Vikings were hoping to get when they selected him.
In fact, if it wasn’t for recent scandals following Urban Meyer around, Harvin’s character concerns would still be just a thing of the past.
Former Vikings head coach Brad Childress is reportedly joining the Cleveland Browns as their offensive coordinator, the first coaching gig he has landed since being fired by the Vikings in the middle of the 2010 season.
Us Vikings fans remember all too well how Childress had an affinity for bringing players to Minnesota that he was familiar with from his days in Philadelphia. I can’t help but wonder if, despite the fact that he has a lesser role now, the same might be true now that he is in Cleveland.
Maybe fullback Naufahu Tahi or tight end Jeff Dugan will once again find employment under Childress. Perhaps the Browns will show some sudden interest in trading for a guy Childress vouches for, such as Anthony Herrera who Childress developed a close relationship with as Herrera went through the process of gaining citizenship.
More than a year removed from the Brad Childress era of Minnesota’s football history, I debated whether or not this news was worth passing on.
The “Chuckle Factor” made me decide it is.
Chris Mortensen reports that Brad Childress is a candidate for the Head Coach vacancy in Tampa Bay. The Bucs recently fired Raheem Morris, who interviewed on Friday for the Vikings unsettled defensive coordinator position.
Tampa wouldn’t be the worst situation to for a guy like Childress to fall into.
Hey, as long as the guy isn’t coaching the Vikings, I wouldn’t mind being entertained by Brad Childress and his “streams of consciousness” for another couple of years.
Good Luck, Brad.
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