After having roughly 30 seconds to digest the Vikings regular season schedule, I wanted to pass along some of my initial thoughts. Be sure to chime in yourself in the comments section!
Don’t Sleep In!: Not too surprisingly, the 2012 schedule makers didn’t see the Vikings as an attractive option for prime time matchups. In fact, the only nighttime game scheduled is the week 8 game against Tampa. That will be on the NFLN’s Thursday Night Football. 13 of their games are scheduled to be played in the early time slots.
Hopes Up: Jacksonville and Indianapolis aren’t exactly the world’s most dangerous football teams. Even with the additions of high draft picks, such as Andrew Luck, the Vikings might be able to get our hopes up by starting the season 2-0 against a soft beginning to the schedule.
Resting Late: The Vikings have a week 11 bye week. I personally like the late byes, as that is when most rosters could really use the opportunity to rest and heal.
In The Hunt Until Late: Things would have to go very poorly for the Vikings in the first half of the season in order for us to feel fully eliminated from the playoffs heading into week 10. Of the last seven games of the season, five of those will be played against divisional opponents. Beating our NFC North foes is the best way to climb into playoff contention, so hope is likely to cling for quite some time this season.
Bring Your Boot Warmers: In the winter months of November and December the Vikings will be playing outdoor football at Seattle, Chicago, and Green Bay. This equates to a pretty darn good chance that they will need to prepare themselves for some cold old fashioned snow bowls.
Last Ever?: The Vikings are not expected to be playoff contenders. They also aren’t expected, at this point, to have a stadium deal in place in 2012. That could (could) mean that the December 30th game would be the last Vikings game ever to be played in Minnesota. Who do we play? The Packers. How nice.
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Where We Make A Huge Announcement
by Ted Glover on Apr 12, 2012 4:21 PM CDT in Site Stuff
Dear Readers of the Daily Norseman,
We strive to bring you top quality Minnesota Vikings content, day in and day out, no matter what. Sometimes we add humor, big people words, and do downright goofy things, but it all comes from what is a genuine love of our team.
We aren't trained journalists in the sense we went to college for it. Well, some of us have gone to college, but not journalism school, so we're not school trained writers. But we're good at what we do, and I'm not bragging when I say that. Why isn't that bragging? Because somewhere along the way in this labor of love that Christopher Gates started and let the rest of the staff be a part of, DN became a mainstream, legitimate source for a lot of people when it comes to Vikings news and information.
How do I know that? Well, because for the first time in Vikings team history (at least near as I can tell based on my shady, Wikipedia based Internet research) an Internet blog that isn't affiliated with any Twin Cities newspaper, TV station, or radio station has been given fully credentialed media access for the entire draft. We've had credentialed access to cover the first round before (last year, and we were the only blog that did that, I think), but not the whole draft.
So starting Thursday, April 26th, Eric and I will be live blogging from Winter Park the entire weekend, and we might even saunter on down to the Vikings draft party at MOA Field and give you updates from there on Thursday night. We'll have interviews, instant reaction, press conference coverage, video for the YouTube page--all of it, all weekend long.
And none of this--last year's training camp and draft coverage, this year's coverage--none of it--would be possible without what is hands down the by God best community of Vikings fans on the Internet. Without you coming to DN to read our stuff and commenting on it, we're not getting press credentials, so I want to say thank you, each and every one of you, for giving us a shot at doing what most of us can only dream of doing. I am eternally grateful and humbled that we have this opportunity.
So get ready, because Eric and I will be bringing the heat in a couple weeks.
wilf's must've been hedging their bets, suspecting that the votes weren't there for the stadium deal, and the league office knew it, too, so we got one-year deals galore and one last nostalgic phackers game as the last one in MN, to put more pressure on the pols and the public
let's hope there's a solution or they change their votes after the Nov. election
I think the 1 year contracts were sort of a contingency plan in case the state screwed the Vikes again. It looks like that it was excellent planning on the Vikings part.
This will be the year for the Minnesota Vikings. I hope the fans go out and support them during home games and give them a big send off.
sure does hope that as well. Even though I live in Denmark as I still want them to stay in MN