Author: David Shama

Ryan Longwell, the Vikings’ 34-year-old place kicker who has made 19 of 23 field goals, is a stretching advocate.  Among the most likeable of local athletes, Longwell has the temperament and successful resume to kick for several more years.  He needs two more field goals to tie his previous best season total as a Viking.

Viking Ryan Cook not only lost the starting right tackle position this week, his former head coach at New Mexico, Rocky Long, resigned after 11 seasons coaching the Lobos.  Cook will have a utility role now with possible future service at center, guard and tackle.

The Vikings’ rushing offense ranks fourth in the league while the rushing defense is second.

Adrian Peterson needs only 59 yards in Sunday’s game at Jacksonville to become the 14^th player in NFL history to go over 2,500 yards in his first two seasons.  

Bernard Berrian’s 20.2 yards per catch is the best in the NFL for receivers with 30 or more catches.

The Vikings are 0-4 in outdoor road games so far this season.

Troy Williamson, the former Vikings No. 1 pick who bombed here, has played in five games for Jacksonville, starting one.  He has four receptions for 27 yards and one touchdown.

Mick Anselmo’s return to local radio as the new boss of CBS properties here has knowledgeable sources anticipating program and personnel changes.  Included perhaps is the return of Vikings broadcasts to WCCO Radio.

Bryce McNeal, the Breck wide receiver who was highly publicized coming into this season, wasn’t included on the Star Tribune’s first, second or third team All-Metro selections this week.  

Joe Salem, the Gopher coach from 1979-1983, was probably more into the Minnesota-Iowa rivalry than any Minnesota coach in memory.  His son Tim, who played quarterback for his dad at Minnesota, once said that Joe had a different look in his eyes the week of the Iowa game.  Joe Salem came off the bench as a reserve quarterback in 1960 to help the Gophers beat Iowa when both were top five teams in the country.  The Gophers went on to win the national championship.

Gopher fan Ken Lien recalled this week that years ago Salem came out to practice the week of the Iowa game dressed up in overalls and a flannel shirt.  He couldn’t remember whether Salem had a piece of straw in his mouth or was wearing a straw hat. Maybe both.

The Gophers will have 12 seniors suiting up for the final regular season game tomorrow.  The Gophers expect to be invited to a bowl game and will have 15 practices.

The Wild, which has won seven one goal games this season, lost last night 3-2 to Vancouver after winning the previous two games by one goal. The Wild have four players on the NHL all-star game ballot, Niklas Backstrom, Brent Burns, Mikko Koivu and Marion Gaborik.

Boston’s Kevin Garnett, who was suspended earlier in the week because of an incident with Milwaukee’s Andrew Bogut, will play tonight at Target Center against his old team, the Wolves.  During his career here Garnett had run-ins with Wally Szczerbiak, Rick Rickert and Joel Przybilla.

The Gopher basketball team, with five new players on the roster, has its first road game tomorrow night at Colorado State, a 4-0 team coached by former North Dakota State coach Tim Miles.  The Gophers won exhibition games against St. Cloud State and Northern State, then took their first three regular season games playing in last weekend’s NABC Tournament with wins over Concordia-St. Paul, Bowling Green and Georgia State.

Gopher co-captain Jamal Abu-Shamala thought the team improved in helping one another on defense in recent games.  Shamala was asked about being ready for Colorado State.  “We’ll see,” he said.  “This weekend will be a good test for us. “

The Gophers’ leading scorer so far is junior guard Lawrence Westbrook, averaging 16 points per game.  At Chandler High School in Chandler, Arizona he led the country in scoring with a 41 point average.   Last season with the Gophers he averaged 8.5 points per game (3.5 as a freshman).

Is Westbrook more confident now than in the past?  “Actually no,” he said.  “I’ve been confident since I was a freshman.  It’s just that I am one of those guys now that I am getting more of an opportunity than I ever had.  I think my confidence level is the same.”

The best news for Minnesota and the other teams in the Big Ten Conference concerning Iowa’s extraordinary running back, Shonn Greene, is he may leave school next year for the NFL.  Of more interest to the Gophers, though, is that the nation’s leading rusher will be at the Metrodome on Saturday trying to lead Iowa to a final regular season record of 8-4 and a quality bowl game like the Outback Bowl.

Greene’s emergence this season has been a little like a science fiction film where a superhuman guy lands on earth.  In this case the arrival took place at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium where Greene was a seldom used reserve in 2005 and 2006, then wasn’t even in school last season and didn’t participate in 2008 spring practice.

Greene won the starting running back job this summer, replacing the departed Albert Young, now on the Vikings’ practice squad.  It’s been a fast ride to stardom for Greene who gained 175 yards and 205 yards in 2005 and 2006.  What Greene has accomplished this season is to rush for over 100 yards in every game and gain a total of 1,585 yards, second best in the country.

No other player in America has rushed for over 100 yards in every game this season.  If Greene can do that against the Gophers he becomes the first Big Ten Conference player since Penn State’s Curtis Enis (1997) to rush for over 100 yards in each league game.

The 5-foot-11, 235-pound New Jersey native runs with power, speed, balance and moves.  The topper is his determination, running with will and aggressiveness.  He will remind local fans of former Gopher Marion Barber III.

Last Saturday he rushed for 217 yards and two touchdowns in a 22-17 win over Purdue.  He now has 15 rushing touchdowns, tied for second in school history and is among the national leaders. On Monday he was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week for the second time this season.

Greene, who was academically ineligible last season, is 23 years old.  With only one season of college eligibility remaining after 2008, he has the option of declaring for the NFL draft.  It’s no secret in Iowa he will consider that route.

Because he didn’t receive pre-season hype and Iowa has a so-so record, Greene won’t have serious Heisman Trophy consideration.  The NFL won’t blink over that, though, and Greene is a likely first or second round pick.

Meanwhile, the Gophers will butt heads with a bull of a running back who has gained over 75 percent of Iowa’s total rushing yards.  When Saturday’s game is over the Gophers are likely to say, “Once was enough.”

Gopher coach Tim Brewster has a strategy and can only hope his players execute. “You can’t tackle him with one guy,” he said. “There’s got to be multiple tacklers hitting this guy.  Swarming this guy.  Four or five, six guys around him.  You’ve got to do a great job with your gap control.  Your defensive line is so critical to stopping a guy like him.

“To be quite honest with you, you’re not going to stop Shonn Greene. …What you’ve got to try to do is limit the amount of yards that he gets and to me the critical thing is the explosive runs. The runs over 12 yards.  Absolutely limit the number of runs he’ll have over 12 yards.”

Now in week 11 of the NFL schedule would not be a good time to poll league players about expanding the regular season.  NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and others have approached the subject of increasing the 16 game schedule but nothing has been finalized so far.

The subject came up last week at Winter Park when former Vikings coach Bud Grant told Sports Headliners that the need for more games is being dictated by the league’s popularity.  He said preseason games are a “farce” because coaches don’t use their starters and often are evaluating lesser players.  He favors an 18 game schedule and reducing the number of preseason games from four to two.  Grant said not to expect changes soon, though, comparing the NFL to the government in being slow to “move.”

The overwhelming popularity of the NFL as America’s favorite sport and the potential for increased revenues is increasing momentum to seriously consider a 17 or 18 game regular season with two or three preseason games.  It’s a good bet, though, that your average NFL player is dramatically less enthusiastic about the prospect than fans who already enjoy a long season, plus playoffs, with games on Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Ryan Longwell, a Viking captain and 12-year NFL veteran, has a balanced perspective.  “Well, I definitely see both sides of the equation, good and bad,” he said.  “I think from a marketing standpoint, two extra games would be great for the league and give people more of a product that they love. But having been around this game for so long and seeing the beating that these guys take over a 16 game schedule (raises concerns).

“Most of the guys that are playing all 16 games don’t play in those preseasons, so taking two games away is not going to freshen them up any. …I just can’t imagine stretching that out (the season) for two more meaningful games. …”

Longwell mentioned Chad Greenway and Heath Farwell, two Vikings who were hurt in early pre-season games and lost for the season.  He described those games as “meaningless” but losing valuable players like Greenway, a linebacker injured in his rookie year, or Farwell, a special teams star, was not a good development for the players or team.

”I am all for shortening for the preseason, but I just know when you get to December and you look at these guys on a Wednesday and a Thursday morning they are really fighting to get to Sunday healthy again, and (then) you add two more games to that.  It’s tough physically.  It’s tough mentally. …A really, really long season of constant beating.”

Longwell likes the idea of a 16 game schedule and reducing the pre-season games to three per team.  The fourth game has become notorious throughout the country for starters being on the bench and no-name players on the field.  Longwell said it’s “tough” to sell tickets and the games are a “marketing juggling act.”

For the players there’s not only the concern of physical health, but also compensation if the league schedule is expanded.  Longwell said players will want to be paid for one or more regular season games.  They won’t want the same compensation spread over additional games.