Two-year contract indicates Favre’s 2010 return

The Minnesota Vikings have been confident that their starting quarterback Brett Favre, who has not made his final decision on his playing status in 2010 season, will return to play his 20th NFL season. The confidence is nothing about any underground contacts, but simply because the team signed a two-year contract with Favre in 2009 offseason.

You may think that Favre can choose not to finish that last year on the contract, but if he intended to do that, why did he still sign a two-year deal instead of a single-year one? Favre must have made the plan to play for his last two NFL seasons before retiring. Frustration after the NFC loss to the New Orleans Saints caused him to say that he was unlikely to play again in 2010, but self-esteem will anyway push him back to finish his last season. Favre is not a coward man fearing challenges. At age 40, he still managed to have one of his best seasons, so we still have reasons to believe that he could make a Super Bowl appearance at age 41.

No matter what reasons caused Favre to sign a two-year contract with the Vikings, the deal itself just showed the quarterback’s willingness to work with the team for as long as he could. That willingness would also bring Favre back into his No.4 Vikings jersey before the 2010 regular season.

Vikings begin boring part of offseason

There has been nothing new about the Minnesota Vikings for quite a few days, and I do not feel like writing anything about anyone of the team now. It seems that Brett Favre, new stadium and the Williamses lawsuit are all parts of the team’s updates in offseason. This is a strange moment, new play of Favre drams is not ready, no new progress of the new stadium bill, and the Williamses are almost sure to take the four-game suspension. Anything else is available for real news? Hardly.

Apparently, all other Vikings players have been concentrating on their own improvement during the offseason and have little to say about themselves or their family or their personal life. No violations, no decision to make, to happy events to celebrate for, no contract issue to complain for. Oh, sorry, I miss Ray Edwards, who is still struggling to get a long-term contract. Actually, I don’t think there is anything to talk about Edwards’ contract, and I bet he will finally wear back his Vikings jersey for workouts with a slender contract. If he doesn’t, the Vikings still have a few other options on roster and can still go well without him.

I like the team in regular season as they always bring enough excitement to you by winning out of expectation or losing out of expectation. I like reading discussions about Brett Favre. But even if he returns this season, he may not return for next year. Will that mean the Vikings 2011 offseason is to be more boring? If so, it’s just fine. Concentration is also important, and silence may finally take the team cross the final step to a Super Bowl win.

Vikings urgently need to improve their defensive tackle

As most people now believe that the Minnesota Vikings’ two defensive tackles, Kevin and Pat Williams are very likely to be suspended by the NFL for four games at the beginning of 2010 season, the issues around the team are now mainly about their defense, which is unlikely to defend much if the Williams Wall was not there.

The Williamses should have served the suspension last year after testing positive of banned drug more than one year ago, but the two players filed lawsuit against the league and caused the suspension to be delayed. They lost the lawsuit earlier this month and are still facing likely suspension from the league. Without Kevin Williams, one of the best defensive tackle in the world, and Pat Williams, a huge run stuffer in his sixth year of wearing Vikings jersey, the Vikings are very likely to lose their first four regular-season games with a weak defense.

At the moment, the Vikings still have reserved options with Jimmy Kennedy and Fred Evans, who play well when rotating in for the Williams Wall. But the two do not seem capable to play in replacement for the Williamses for four games. So there have been rumors that the Vikings may acquire Washington Redskins tackle Albert Haynesworth, but that would mean a huge investment. What the Vikings are going to do as a solution remains a puzzle.

Vikings have two more rookie defensive players

The Minnesota Vikings now bring more competitors onto their defensive line by signing two former Golden Gopher football players, defensive back Marcus Sherels and defensive end Cedric McKinley. The decision was made three days after the two had a tryout in Vikings’ rookie minicamp over the past weekend.

McKinley used to be a leader among the Gophers' defensive linemen by having a total of 35 tackles last season. 7.5 tackles of 35 were for loss and ranked third most on the squad. McKinley played in totally 23 games during his college football career and was starter at his position in eight of them. His college career number include 43 total tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, 3 fumble recoveries and 2 forced fumbles.

McKinley’s former and current teammate, Sherels, also had a brilliant college football career. He ranked sixth on the squad last season with 51 total stops. Although, he had to skip three games because of injury, the defensive back still managed to be the second best defensive end on the team last season. Finishing his college career with 106 tackles, 18 pass break-ups and 4 interceptions in 37 games, Sherels is highly expected to have as brilliant professional football career after putting on the Vikings jersey.

What’s attractive with Vikings’ preseason games?

As the three-day 2010 NFL draft ended with each team landing a bunch of new faces, what’s expected to be seen in the preseason games is also coming to a conclusion. Here we will have a look at what the Minnesota Vikings fans are expecting of the preseason.

The Vikings’ first preseason show will be against the St. Louis Rams on August 14. With the first overall pick, quarterback Sam Bradford, the Rams will have a chance to test whether the rookie quarterback deserves all the fame, while the Vikings could have a overall view of how well their rookies could deal with situations in a real game.

The second game is to playing against the San Francisco 49ers on Aug. 22. While the 49ers will feature newly drafted offensive linemen Anthony Davis and Mike Lupati as well as safety Taylor Mays and wide receiver Ted Ginn, the Vikings are expected to show what performance cornerback Chris Cook and running back Toby Gerhart can give off if they are given important roles to play.

The third game against Seattle Seahawks will be the debut of left tackle Russell Okung and safety Earl Thomas, who are likely to co-work with veterans like running backs Leon Washington and LenDale White. However, this game will be much less attractive then the last one, September 2nd’s game against the Denver Broncos, who drafted the most high-profile quarterback Tim Tebow. Before the draft, some people thought that Tebow could be a perfect fit with the Vikings and regretted he did not have the chance to put on the purple Vikings jersey but joined the Broncos as the 25th overall pick. Whatsoever, Tebow will anyway play at the Mall of America Field for his first time, and Vikings fans could judge from his performance whether it’s really a pity that the Vikings missed him.

There is little change to Vikings after the draft

While most of other teams tried to make the best use of their draft picks and acquire the most help to improve team, the Minnesota Vikings remained almost the same 12-4 team of last season when the 2010 NFL draft ended on Saturday afternoon. The addition of new players did not change the starting line much at all.

The Vikings even did not pick a quarterback at all although there were pretty good choices when it turned to them for choice. It seemed that they are determined to wait until Brett Favre makes his final decision to set the starting quarterback of 2010 season. They added cornerback, running back, defensive end, guard, linebacker, wide receiver, tight end and linebacker, none of which seemed to be the team’s urgent need. Even though the selection of cornerback Chris Cook and running back Toby Gerhart was taken as smart move, they are just not likely to play import roles as the team already has a group of cornerbacks with Antoine Winfield, Cedric Griffin and Lito Sheppard, and one of the best running backs in league with Adrian Peterson.

What makes some more sense than other picks is the addition of a rookie running back as the Vikings just lost backup running back Chester Taylor, who took off his No. 29 Vikings jersey and joined the Chicago Bears earlier this month. So Gerhart probably will have a good chance to play as a secondary running back behind Peterson and obtain some starting experience in case Peterson has to be out with injury or something.

Newly signed CB Sheppard wants starting job with Vikings

Only one day after signing a one-year contract with the Minnesota Vikings, cornerback Lito Sheppard began to show his confidence in having new achievements with the new team and the first part of his plan is to get the starting job.

"I definitely wanted to go in and start," Sheppard said during a conference call on Thursday. "And given this situation, the predicament, I definitely have that opportunity."

He does have the chance as both of last season’s starting cornerbacks are still recovering from injuries. Cedric Griffin tore the ACL in his left knee while playing against the New Orleans Saints for NFC championship and it remains unlikely that he could wear back his Vikings jersey in time for the start of the 2010 season. The other starter Antoine Winfield is struggling with a foot injury that caused him to miss as many as six games last season.

Sheppard spent his first seven seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles and intercepted totally 18 passes during the tenure, being selected to the Pro Bowl for twice. However, he was injury-plagued in the past few years, missing five games last season while playing his first and only season with the New York Jets. Unsurprisingly, he was ruled out of the AFC title game and lost the starting job to second-year cornerback Dwight Lowery. Then in late early March, he was released by the Jets before a $10 million roster bonus was due to be paid. Even though he did not have impressive performance in recent years, he still has the favor from Vikings Coach Brad Childress, who worked as an offensive coordinator during the first four years Sheppard played for the Eagles.