Friday Blizzard

It's here: the depths of the offseason
Though we don't write exclusively about pro football on this blog, that's definitely our primary focus. And now that the draft is over, we've got little actual news to write about. So what do we do?

Naturally we'll cover irrelevant controversy season. We'll also cover "suspension of disbelief" articles (these are feature stories on a player that has struggled but is really optimistic about next season and doing well in training camp: they are "suspension of disbelief" articles because in the offseason the writers and players ask us to imagine all sorts of wild possibilities. For example, each offseason at least one running back discusses the possibility of a 2,000 yard season). And since summer is when we get the bug and start reading a lot of articles about football, we'll probably fill use up some more bad sportswriting tags.

We'll also do team by team fantasy previews (with subterfuge: I don't want people in my league knowing exactly what I'm thinking), and we'll cover basketball and maybe even baseball.

All this probably starts in earnest about a week from now, when I'm not buried down to my very Being in grading papers.

Links
Yes, the Vikes have questions at quarterback: now the Star Tribune has a story on the undrafted quarterback they signed. Is this a case of beat writers looking for something to write about in the off-season? Or, given the team's quarterback situation, should we know details about every possible quarterback on the roster?

The Vikes are paying Kenechi Udeze's salary next season (Star Tribune). That's great, of course, though it makes me wonder about how many Americans get sick and just lose their income.

When I was a little T-Wolves fan, I loved Christian Laettner. I would go to school in a Christian Laettner sweatshirt, and when I got warm, I would take it off to reveal a Christian Laettner t-shirt. I had over 20 different Christian Laettner rookie cards. In art class I drew a big picture of Christian Laettner that's still at my parents' house. Well, Christian Laettner just got elected to the Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame (10,000 Takes). Now that I'm no longer such a little T-Wolves fan, that just seems silly.

Fire Joe Morgan writes on the stupidity of calling the Twins the 7th worst franchise in all of sports. Uh, yeah, if the most successful pro franchise in the Twin Cities is that bad, whither the Wolves, Wild, and Vikes?

Because I'm an idiot, I think that if the Buccaneers cut Chris Simms, the Viking should sign him and immediately install him as starter.

Chris Paul's playoff average: 25.6 points, 11.8 assists, 4.5 rebounds. Kobe Bryant's playoff average: 34.3 points, 6.3 assists, 5.8 rebounds. What happens if the two most unstoppable individual players in the game meet up in the next round? Well, I mean, I know what happens: one team will win and the other team will lose. But the second round isn't over yet.

Sports Law Blog on horses dying in races.

TNABACG discusses Pat Reusse's comments on newspapers and blogs. While I think blogs could make columnists irrelevant (for columns often fail to provide news, insight, or good writing), blogs will not make reporters irrelevant. Viking reporters like Kevin Seifert, Judd Zulgad, Sean Jensen, and Don Seeholzer do good work. On the other hand, we could ask about the big scheme of things: just how necessary is it to have reporters digging out inside information from teams? Without it, we'd still hear about the signings and draft picks (on team sites), and we could still watch the games. Most of my pleasure as football fan comes from watching the games themselves. Without the reporters, I'd have less to blog about, but I'd still be able to watch all the games and express opinions about the individual and team performances in those games.