Wild and Children First, or, Maybe Gonna Give You Up, or, I’m Gettin’ Too Old for This: The Ethics and Adjudication of Taking a Break from One Team to Get Closer to Another

Courtesy of Forbes.

I’ve been hung up on this piece for the last six weeks, mostly because I couldn’t settle on a title. That’s why there’s three of them.

And then the always entertaining Michael Rand kicked me into high gear by posting an article at the Star Tribune Tuesday investigating whether Minnesota sports fans can believe that this year’s Wild won’t let folks down by going on one of their long winter skids that have derailed each of their last 3 seasons. The article’s headline: “Is it safe to go ‘all in’ on the Wild? Yes and no.” Don’t be wishy-washy, Michael—they’re a Minnesota sports team. The answer is no.

Actual Things You Might Want To Know About Tonight's Top 21 Draft Prospects

Editor's Note: Tony D put this together. These 21 players are projected to be drafted in the first round of the NFL draft. Rankings are based SOLELY on video highlights from YouTube. This is not a “big board” or mock draft, it is simply a list of player rankings and ratings based on their highlight films. Player position, off the field issues, and potential are not directly taken into account here. 

Take these to your draft party tonight and sprinkle in whatever ones Todd McShay or Mel Kiper don't say when these guys get drafted. Or just be smart and watch the NFL Network's coverage. Enjoy. 

Leonard Williams, DT, USC                                                                        

Video Grade:  9.5
Positives:  First of four guys that really surprised me on film. Very disruptive. He tackles everything that moves. Can make plays all over the line. Explosive. Mean Streak. He’s got it all.
Negatives:  For many teams, DT is not a position of pressing need (especially at the top of the draft).

Amari Cooper, WR, Alabama

Video Grade:  9.0
Positives:  Complete player. Good speed. Good hands. Decent size. Makes plays. Solid and safe pick.
Negatives:  He’s not the most explosive player in the draft. Wish he was taller (6’1”)

Todd Gurley, RB, Georgia                                                                                                     

Video Grade:  9.0
Positives:  Explosive. Great speed. Good moves. Decent strength. Home-run guy.
Negatives:  Runs recklessly – Fear more injuries. Not super powerful between the tackles.

Melvin Gordon, RB, Wisconsin                                                                                   

Video Grade:  9.0
Positives:  Great short burst. Big, strong. Good vision. Shifty. Fast enough.
Negatives:  Not as explosive as some runners. Not many highlights catching the ball.

Vic Beasley, DE/LB, Clemson                                                                                       

Video Grade:  9.0
Positives:  Second of four that really surprised me on film. Super fast. Often gets in the backfield before you can figure out where he came from. Disruptive off the edge. Reminds me of Clay Matthews.
Negatives:  He is a little small. Lacks strength to contribute consistently in run support. Relies on his speed.

DeVante Parker, WR, Louisville                                                                                  

Video Grade: 8.5             
Positives:  Fluid player. Natural. Great hands. Beast in the red zone. Brings in jump balls. Long arms. Good route runner. As a Viking fan, it was fun watching Teddy throw TDs to him.
Negatives:  Not explosive. Slender frame. Doesn’t have great speed or moves.

Landon Collins, S, Alabama                                                                                          

Video Grade:  8.5
Positives:  Third of Four guys that really surprised me on film. Made many impact plays. Big hitter. Great tackler. Good hands. Nose for the ball. Plays like a LB on running downs. Reminds me of Harrison Smith.
Negatives:  Not super fast. Better against the run. Always had a great defense around him to compensate for mistakes.

(14 more after the jump.)

Don't Buy a House: Catching Up with Minnesota Sports in 2,100 Words or Less

First rule of buying a house: Don't buy this tiny of a house.

On May 30th, my girlfriend and I closed on a house just east of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. This was the culmination of a whirlwind month-long search to find a place we could afford in a nice neighborhood relatively close to where we worked. A couple dozen showings and open houses into our search, we found what would become our new house on the last day before we would have to switch our focus to rentals. It's a charming 3-bedroom with room for renovation in the finished upstairs and enough work done in the "unfinished" basement to host Vikings games and (heaven forbid) the occasional Minnesota playoff contest.

MelAnChoLy in Minnesota Part IV: Reconstructive Surgery

Adrian Peterson tries out his reconstructed knee against the Jaguars. Find out how the folks at the Ligament Graveyard dealt with his amazing comeback season below.

John watched as the last of the contractors exited the graveyard. His gaze lingered as the gate swung shut slowly, and audibly. John took a deep, cold breath, satisfied that he was finally alone. His breath condensed into a vapor around him as he exhaled. He turned around to face the effigy of Al Harris that had been warming his back, and held out his hands close to the smoldering straw man as he tried to regain some feeling in his fingers. It was barely five in the evening, and the sun had already gone down; not unusual for this time of year in northern Minnesota. As his hands warmed up, John looked over at the massive limestone structure nearby, which until a few minutes before, had housed a half dozen independent contractors as they renovated the building. The contractors had just finished the final touches, and as head groundskeeper at Greenwood Cemetery in Virginia, MN, it was John’s duty to inspect the work done on the cemetery’s most brilliant mausoleum. 

Reverse Psychology: The Vikings' Disappointing 3-1 Start

Adrian Peterson, during what were happier times for all of us. New Year's 2012.

It seems like every time a Minnesota team has gotten a little momentum going in the early season the past few years, a litany of articles spreading positive vibes and dissecting why THIS YEAR'S DIFFERENT! rain down on us from the local and, occasionally, national media. Like this article about last year's Wild written just before their slight post-December downturn. Or this little nugget about the Timberwolves from the Sporting News written last February 28th. Ten days later, Ricky Rubio had one functional ACL. Not to mention this jerk proclaiming the Gophers were back not eight days ago. So I'm going to try something here: A modified approach to a modicum of success.

Stagnant offense, porous defense, sieve-like special teams. For the third consecutive season, the Vikings are disappointing fans throughout the state. After posting nine wins combined in their last two seasons, the Purple Ones have won just three of their first four games in 2012. The failures of the front office and coaching staff have been on full display every week so far, and I intend to point out these numerous misgivings in order to do my small part to get this bunch of losers swept out of here so we can finally field a winning team by the time the Zygi Dome opens around 2016.

Minnesota Vikings Season Opener: A Recap

Genevieve Ross/ Associated Press

Sundays are back, baby! Woo! Our Minnesota Vikings kicked off the 2012 NFL regular season against the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday. It’s not often that the opening game of the season is a must win, but in this case, it was a must win. The Jags are a much worse team than us on paper, but they haven’t played games on paper since the infamous 1966 Paper Bowl, captured by the Kansas City Chiefs. If the Vikes were to make any progress this year after a disastrous 2011 campaign, they had to start with a win against the Jags. Week 1 also represented the potential return (resurrection?) of Purple Jesus himself, Adrian Peterson. His recovery after tearing everything in his knee last December has been nothing short of, well, miraculous. Would his ascension to the end zone be complete? Would he return to lead the Vikings to football heaven? Find out the answers to these questions, as well as more blasphemy, after the jump.

The Week in Review: Preakness Stakes Edition

As we amble into the long summer months, the nights containing multiple Minnesota sports contests have dwindled to near nil due to the ineptitude of our winter franchises. A night with no Twins game and no Lynx contest, then, seemed like the perfect period for reflection on recent exploits of the field and court. Our barometer this week involves the equines who made the 137th Preakness Stakes the most thrilling two minutes of the weekend. Annnnnd they're off...

NFL Draft Recap 2012: The MSE Vikings' Draft Grades

Coming into this draft as a 3-13 team, we had a lot of holes to fill, which was a given (and, coincidentally, what she said). But Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman crafted a masterful first day of the draft to remedy two of our largest problem spots. Below the jump, you’ll find the individual grades and commentary from each of your three humble correspondents as we recap and relive all the twists and turns of the Vikings’ 2012 draft.

NFL Draft 2012: The Late Round Additions Edition

It was certainly an eventful first day for the Vikings. They moved down one spot and still got their guy, Matt Kalil, OT, Southern California. Then, they drafted Harrison Smith, S, Notre Dame, the exact guy that I would have been writing about in this article had we not traded back into the first round to go get him. They’ve got a whole slew of picks left in the later rounds, so let’s take a look at some of the players Spielman and Co. will be targeting.

NFL Draft 2012 Preview: Mr. Positivity

It’s draft time, and for those who bleed purple, tonight should make for a very interesting evening. With the third pick, there are two and a half prospects targeted by the Vikings, led by Matt Kalil and Morris Claiborne. The third guy, Justin Blackmon, is a long shot for the Vikings this high in the draft. Kalil and Claiborne have been discussed by Spencer and Silky, so let’s focus on the TRUE optimism regarding the first round of the 2012 NFL draft for your Vikings. And no, it’s not Blackmon...

NFL Draft 2012 Preview: Kal-eels Like the Very First Time

As the great baseball Hall of Famer and football enthusiast (?) Yogi Berra once said, "It's deja vu all over again."

On Draft Day 2009, I howled for the Vikings to take Ole Miss LT Michael Oher when he slid down the board to us at the 22nd pick. Dreams of an immovable bookend duo that could relocate more flurries than Mr. Plow danced in my head for about 12 minutes...until the Triangle of Authority pegged skill position guy Percy Harvin as the pick.

NFL Draft 2012 Preview: Please, sir, I want some Mo’

If that line weren’t enough to make you want the Vikings to draft Morris ‘Mo’ Claiborne, I’ve got a few more reasons here that will help you change your mind.

Just How Right Are the Prices: The Week in Review

Much like the yodeler from Cliff Hangers who makes his way up the mountain, hoping not to crash at the apex of his ascent, it's been a week of high hopes and dramatic tumbles for your local squads.

MelAnChoLy in Minnesota: A Stroll Through the Ligament Graveyard

O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,

O I say now these are the soul!

--Walt Whitman, "I Sing the Body Electric"

The drive to Virginia, Minnesota, takes about three and a half hours from my home in the southwest suburbs of Minneapolis. Tony, Silky, and I made the trip Wednesday afternoon with solemn business on our minds. We are three of the youngest members of the Ligament Induction Panel, and the news had just come through the wire that Twins pitcher Scott Baker would miss the 2012 season to fix and rehab the flexor pronator tendon in his pitching elbow.

Game of Groans: The Week in Review

Tough week for sports fans in Minnesota (or as I call it, Wester-gross). Here’s a brief summary:

The Fiscal Year of Our Discontent: Article 1

Combined Win-Loss Records, March 31, 2011-March 29, 2012

Minnesota Gophers (BKB) 23-14 (.590)

Minnesota Gophers (FB) 3-9 (.250)

Minnesota Timberwolves 25-35 (.417)

Minnesota Twins 63-99 (.389)

Minnesota Vikings 3-13 (.188)

Minnesota Wild 34-38-10 (.415)

Combined: 151-218 (.409)

FY 2012 has largely been an unkind one for Minnesota sports fans. Losses mounted quickly as quarterbacks were battered, shootouts were squandered in embarrassing fashion, and all kinds of collateral ligaments were torn asunder. Our most successful team percentage-wise--Gophers' basketball--possessed zero players who wanted to even attempt a shot in a late-game, high-pressure situation against Michigan State one month ago. The past year has been so bad for our big-time sports teams that you could make a compelling argument that the best Minnesota athlete of the past year was actually the guy who finished 2011 as the top-ranked American tennis player in the world: Mardy Fish. And he's only a Minnesotan inasmuch as he learned to burp and crawl and use a potty here before his family moved to Florida when he was four years old.

Whether it's warranted or not, Minnesota fans have a reputation for loudly applauding our occasional flashes of brilliance and largely condoning the long periods of subsequent mediocrity. We break audience decibel-level records when we make the World Series, but mostly, we hope that our general managers know what they're doing when they bring in the Mike Lambs and Kim Johnssons of the sports world to fix our teams' glaring holes. And as the win-loss records show, the past 12 to 18 months in particular have been a special kind of emotional beat-down for the followers of the most prominent local squads.

Now, there have been signs of life with certain squads lately. The Wolves have again become a hot ticket with their exciting brand of play this season, and both big-money Gophers squads (with the promising late-season look of Jerry Kill's squad and a dangerous Hollins-Mbakwe duo on the 2012-13 horizon) look as though they might finally be heading in an upward trajectory. But it seems for every Kevin Love 40-point outing we've celebrated, there has been, say, a Zack Bowman signing that makes Vikings fans wonder if our front office remembers what a competent football player looks like and threatens to drag the whole fan base a little deeper into the dredges.

What I (and several of my friends, who will occasionally contribute as writers and editors) hope to do through this site is analyze, criticize, yell and scream, stomp and cheer, and generally translate Minnesota fandom into the written word. You can expect to check us out a couple times a week for new content here in our infancy. I'm especially excited to try out a few original types of blog posts, including installments of the "21 Years..." series, in which we count down various lists of the top 21 athletes, events, and...I don't know, local beers that have helped define and shape life as a Minnesota sports fan in the time since our last major professional or collegiate title. You can also expect to find Game of the Week breakdowns; commentaries and columns; occasional tangents into topics like local music, un-American football, and video games; and a live blog or two, once I figure out how to work this here Internet device.

We're Minnesota. We're the fan base that knows more about the symptoms and ramifications of bilateral leg weakness than any other in the country. We're the state whose catered food is apparently so bad, it can serve as the catalyst for the messy departure of a beloved Hall of Fame-caliber athlete. We're the people who ask to be circled by a Dutchman who loves his flatulence, and we hold up signs at our one championship-caliber team's playoff games that say "At Least We Got Da Lynx."

Sometimes fatalistic, often irrational, occasionally analytical, always entertaining. The qualities of the fans I have met while rooting for the teams of this state are the ones that I hope come through most evidently on this website. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go celebrate a nail-biter of a Timberwolves victory over the cellar-dwelling Bobcats by muttering complaints about Anthony Tolliver into a Soco Seven.

**Special thanks right off the bat goes out to Tim Lien for putting all the balls on a rack, just how I wanted them, in the header design.