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Vikings Answer Skeptics in Defeat

Posted on December 11, 2015December 11, 2015 by David Shama

The Vikings and their fans can feel additional confidence after last night’s 23-20 loss to the Cardinals in Arizona. Predictions earlier this week were the Vikings would not only lose but by a big score.

It was known during the week the Vikings would play without three of their best defensive players and that unit would be reshuffled with lesser personnel. Teddy Bridgewater was coming off a disappointing performance last Sunday in a 38-7 loss against the Seahawks, and Seattle linebacker Bruce Ervin said the second-year quarterback played scared.

The Vikings showed a character check last night, playing the Cardinals to a 10-10 halftime tie before losing by a field goal in the fourth quarter. With the win the Cardinals, now 11-2, further positioned themselves among elite teams in the NFL. The Vikings, 8-5, are no longer in first place in the NFC North but still are having a season that is surprising critics who didn’t see them as a serious threat to unseat the Packers as division champions, and thought even less of Minnesota after an opening game 20-3 loss to the mediocre 49ers.

Teddy Bridgewater (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings.)

Bridgewater threw for a career high 335 yards and had a passer rating of 108 last night. That kind of work will be needed the rest of the season when the Vikings play the Bears and Giants at home, before closing out at Green Bay. No one, including critics, should be surprised if the Vikings win two or three of those games against the Bears and Giants, both with 5-7 records, and the 8-4 Packers.

If the Vikings follow the lead of head coach Mike Zimmer and his staff, good things should continue to develop in their march to the playoffs. After last Sunday afternoon’s game in Minneapolis against the Seahawks, Zimmer let it be known he expected his players to prepare their bodies for a short week of practice and Thursday’s game in Arizona. The majority of them headed for Winter Park before nightfall on Sunday. “We followed suit,” said placekicker Blair Walsh on Tuesday.

Three days of rest and rehab is different than the typical Sunday to Sunday game schedule. “You don’t come in Sunday after the game usually, unless you’re severely hurt or you need treatment,” Walsh said.

Defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd arrived at about 4:30 p.m. and stayed for more than one hour. Massages, foam rollers and cold tubs are used by players to revitalize worn bodies targeted since training camp last summer.

“It’s just hard work,” Floyd said about the rehab. “You can’t complain about it, you just gotta do it…nowadays.”

Key defensive players Anthony Barr, Linval Joseph and Harrison Smith were unable to play last night because of injuries. But Floyd said earlier in the week it does no good for the team to worry about the injured and absent.

“Never worry. If you worry you’re setting yourself up for failure,” he said. “No need to worry. Just come in with a game plan and fight as hard as possible. That’s all we ask for. We’re not asking you to do something out of the ordinary, just come do your job and be prepared to play tough.”

Even the critics can’t knock the Vikings’ effort last night.

Worth Noting

Tom Moore, who turned 77 last month and was an assistant coach for the Gophers in the 1970s and Vikings in the 1990s, is assistant head coach of the Cardinals. This is his 51st season of coaching, 37th in the NFL. Moore attended high school in Rochester, Minnesota and played college football at Iowa.

The Cardinals have sold out every game at University of Phoenix Stadium since the retractable roof facility opened in 2006, and noisy crowds provide the team with a home field advantage. Dating back to 2006 and going into last night’s game against the Vikings, Cardinals’ opponents had 132 false start penalties, the most in any NFL stadium during that period.

Both Sports Illustrated and the National Football League Players Association have ranked the playing surface at University of Phoenix Stadium best in the NFL. The playing surface is natural grass that can be moved outside in one giant tray to grow and be effectively maintained, and then put in place for Cardinals games.

It’s an oddity having the Vikings last night, then the Wild tonight and the Timberwolves on Sunday all playing games in the Phoenix area over a four-day period.

Andy Dalton, the Bengals quarterback who the Vikings could have drafted, has thrown for 3,000 yards in all five of his first NFL seasons. Only Peyton Manning has done that. In the 2011 NFL Draft the Vikings chose Christian Ponder with the No. 12 selection in the first round. The Bengals selected Dalton with the third pick in the second round.

More than half of the St. Thomas football roster could play Division II football, according to Tommies head coach Glenn Caruso. The talented Tommies, 13-0, host 12-0 Linfield tomorrow in a 2:30 p.m. Division III semifinals game. The Tommies have reached the semifinals for the third time in five years.

Caruso said Linfield has been a favorite since week one of the season to win the national title. “They are supremely loaded with talent,” he said.

Linfield will need to not only match the Tommies’ talent but also Caruso’s willingness to take risks. A trick play or surprise move like an onside kick is who the Tommies are. Caruso believes too many coaches are “risk averse.”

Would Caruso welcome moving indoors to U.S. Bank Stadium if the Tommies are playing home December playoff games in future years? “I don’t want to give away home field advantage (outdoors and on campus),” he said.

The Tommies, though, would consider a regular season game in the new Minneapolis stadium—perhaps against legendary rival Saint John’s.

Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor has heard the rumors Prince and Jimmy Jam Harris have interest in buying the team but said no one representing them has approached him.

Among the highlights of the Minnesota prep basketball season will be tomorrow’s annual Breakdown Sports Tip Off Classics at Minnetonka High School involving boys and girls teams. Class 4-A boys powers Apple Valley and Hopkins play at 3:45 p.m. in the most anticipated game. The schedule of games throughout the day and into the evening will showcase nationally ranked prep players including two seniors who are Gophers recruits, Amir Coffey from Hopkins and Michael Hurt whose Rochester John Marshall team plays an 8 p.m. game against Shakopee.

Hurt’s brother and teammate Matthew is a Rivals.com five-star recruit in the class of 2019. Other players in the tournament being followed nationally include Tre Jones and Gary Trent Jr. from Apple Valley, and Theo John and McKinley Wright from Champlin Park. Class 4-A Champlin Park plays 3-A DeLaSalle at 7 p.m. in another anticipated game.

Two of the winningest college hockey coaches face each other tonight and tomorrow evening in Ann Arbor. Michigan coach Red Berenson has won 818 games while the Gophers Don Lucia has 680 victories. The two rank second and third for most wins, with Boston College’s Jerry York first with 997.

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Bud Grant Survives Airport Landing

Posted on December 7, 2015December 7, 2015 by David Shama

Bud Grant has lived through 88 autumns here in the North Country. During his professional sports career and also as an avid outdoorsman he probably has travelled more miles than a feature writer for National Geographic, but this fall he had an experience he doesn’t care to relive.

During a recent telephone conversation I told the former Vikings head coach I heard that he had a little unexpected adventure. “Well, yes. I am glad you mentioned little adventure,” Grant replied. “It could have been a great adventure if things hadn’t gone the way they did.”

Grant is a longtime Bloomington resident, and is a hunting buddy of Jim Hanson from Albert Lea. Hanson is a pilot and has access to a couple of airplanes. He and Grant were in a Beechcraft twin engine plane on a nice weather day when they approached the international airport in Regina, Saskatchewan.

There are buttons on the Beechcraft’s instrument panel indicating whether the landing gear is engaged or not. Prior to landing, Hanson pushed the button for the landing gear and as normal a green light went on. Hanson and Grant soon realized, though, there was a malfunction regarding the wheels moving into place.

Bud Grant (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings.)

“To our surprise, when we went to touch down, we came down on our (airplane’s) belly,” Grant said. “Slid down the runway, sparks flying, propellers breaking and came to a stop. Within a minute and a half, the ambulances, the trucks were all on the runway. But fortunately the sparks did not ignite anything and we walked away (safe).”

In just a few seconds the sliding airplane had come to a stop. “It could have been a lot worse,” said the legendary coach known for his stoic personality.

Hanson and Grant planned to return to Minneapolis after the incident at the airport but knew they wouldn’t be flying that Beechcraft. Grant said they inquired about a car or minivan rental, but learned that driving one-way from Canada to the U.S. without returning the rental vehicle back across the border wasn’t allowed. The policy, though, didn’t apply to a U-Haul truck rental. So for 17-hours the two Minnesotans made their way back to Minneapolis in a truck.

Grant played professional basketball for the Minneapolis Lakers and pro football for the Philadelphia Eagles. He was head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers before taking the Vikings to four Super Bowls during a career that lasted 18 seasons. His adventures as an outdoorsman have taken him to various parts of the world including the Arctic Ocean where once his group had to consolidate into a single pontoon after a hole damaged the other pontoon. But Grant had never experienced a “life threatening” incident like this fall in Canada.

“Flying does not bother me,” Grant said before telling a story about travelling with the Lakers in the 1950s. The Lakers had played the Celtics in Boston and were in a hurry to get back to Minneapolis. The team boarded a DC-3 aircraft at Boston’s airport and was in the sky for a few minutes when one of the plane’s engines burst into flames. The engine stopped working and the pilot immediately turned the aircraft around and landed in Boston.

“John Kundla, our coach, did not like flying, as did a couple of the other players,” Grant said. “It’s a scary thing to look out the window and see one of your engines on fire and…(land back) in the airport.”

The aircraft was taken into a hangar and the Lakers were told that it could be fixed. Back in Minneapolis, Lakers general manager Sid Hartman was anxious for the team to return home.

Grant recalled overhearing a phone conversation between Hartman and Kundla when the Lakers were still in Boston. “Sid said, ‘Well, you gotta get here, we play on Sunday afternoon.’ I remember they were arguing whether John was going to get on that airplane again to fly back all night to Minneapolis and play on Sunday afternoon.”

If Grant—who said the Lakers did return in time for the Sunday game—was ever going to develop a fear of flying, that incident in Boston would have been an opportune start. But even while nearing his 90^th birthday, Grant has no fear and appreciates how air travel not only delivers him quickly to various places but also provides access to destinations that otherwise can be difficult or impossible to reach by car.

Grant is a waterfowl, turkey hunter and deer hunter. “I do it all, but I am an expert at nothing,” said Grant who retired from the Vikings in 1985 but is a consultant for the franchise.

Lately, he has been hunting in Manitoba, Minnesota, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Wisconsin. Before Christmas he will head to Nebraska, and maybe sometime soon to Texas. “Chasing critters and birds…’have gun will travel’ kind of philosophy,” he said.

The travel itinerary is usually during the week. “Come home on the weekends, and go to a Viking game, high school game, even a college game, and be with family, and then head off on Sunday night or Monday,” Grant said. “It’s hard work having fun.”

The last few years Grant’s name was as likely to pop up in local media for his annual garage sale as anything else. He is planning to have another one at his home next May, the same month he turns 89. All of Grant’s family is nearby—the six children with 19 grandchildren and 10 great grandkids. The family helps provide inventory for the sale.

If you see Grant next May, tell him you’re happy he and Jim Hanson had a safe landing in Regina.

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Vikings Harris Talks O-Line ‘Pressure’

Posted on December 4, 2015December 4, 2015 by David Shama

It’s no secret the Vikings’ passing offense ranks near the bottom in the 32-team NFL. Even more to the point, improvement could well be the key to whether the team wins the NFC North.

Guard Mike Harris acknowledges expectations that the line must do its part to help quarterback Teddy Bridgewater have time to throw as the team prepares for Sunday’s home game with the Seahawks, and looks toward four more regular season games.

Mike Harris (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings.)

“We’re coming along (with pass protection),” Harris said. “We’re not perfect, where we want to be, but each week in practice we’ve been harping on working on stuff that we need to work on…like (defensive) stunts, picking up blitzes. The run game—I feel like that’s our strong ability—because we have big tough guys that like to move guys around.

“If we can have a good balance of run and pass, this team will be able to beat anybody. The team goes as far as we go. I know we have a lot of pressure on us.

“We (the line) didn’t do so well a couple of weeks ago against the Packers but I feel like we’ve grown from that and we ought to continue to play better.”

Bridgewater was sacked six times in a 30-13 loss to the Packers in Minneapolis last month. He has thrown only eight touchdown passes this season and while he sometimes holds on to the ball too long, pass protection is an issue for the division leading 8-3 Vikings who top the NFL in rushing yards.

This Sunday the Vikings’ offense faces a Seahawks defense that is among the NFL’s best against rushing and passing. The defensive unit includes formidable players such as end Michael Bennett and cornerback Richard Sherman. “Playmakers are at every position that we’re going to have matchups with, and (we need to) go out and execute,” Harris said.

The Seahawks aren’t bad on offense either, including quarterback Russell Wilson who threw five touchdown passes in a win over the Steelers last Sunday. His passer rating of 97.4 puts him near the top among NFC quarterbacks. His strong arm and mobility will test the Vikings defense.

Vikings defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd acknowledged the major challenge of keeping Wilson in the pocket. “Him and Aaron Rodgers (Packers) are the only two (quarterbacks) I can truly think of that can throw touchdowns from the 50-yard line on the run,” Floyd said.

The Seahawks played in the last two Super Bowls and despite a 6-5 record now certainly aren’t a team to sleep on. Seattle has dealt with injuries while playing some of the NFL’s best teams and losing three games by a total of 10 points.

Harris is a West Coast guy and has known of Seahawks coach Pete Carroll back when he was coaching USC to powerhouse seasons. He expects Carroll will have the playoff-worried Seahawks ready on Sunday. “Just a players’ coach,” Harris said. “I feel like guys just want to go out and play hard for him because he has a winning history. …”

Worth Noting

With expected temps well above freezing today, the Vikings plan to practice outdoors at Winter Park. The forecast for Sunday in Minneapolis calls for similar temperatures with perhaps a high of 42.

Stefon Diggs, the Vikings rookie wide receiver from the University of Maryland who leads the team in receptions with 40, was asked if there’s a major difference between Big Ten defensive backs versus those in the NFL: “Yeah, it’s a big difference. As far as the NFL, everybody is pretty much good.”

Vikings center John Sullivan, who has missed the entire season because of a problematic back including surgery, said this week he isn’t in pain and expects to be on the field in 2016. Sullivan comes to Winter Park for rehab but watches all the games, home and away, on television at his residence where he and his wife have a four-month old baby, the couple’s first child.

That was former Gophers football coach Jerry Kill and wife Rebecca having dinner at Murray’s Restaurant earlier this week with WCCO Radio friends Sid Hartman, Dave Lee (with wife Julie), and Mike Max.

With the signing of Korean slugger Byung Ho Park, the Twins have yet another player on the 40-man roster who has experience playing first base. Joe Mauer apparently will be given most of the time at first next season with Park as the team’s likely designated hitter. But others on the roster also have experience at first including Trevor Plouffe, the team’s regular third baseman, and Miguel Sano (an infielder headed to the outfield), and Kennys Vargas, Max Kepler and Adam Walker.

Vargas impressed in 2014 with his hitting but not last year when he fell off from .274 to .240—with home runs and RBI declining from 9 and 38, to 5 and 17. He looks like a player who perhaps isn’t in the Twins future, partially because he doesn’t fit well in the field except first base. A switch hitter, Vargas might complement the right-handed hitting Park as a DH. Kepler and Walker are likely to play in the outfield in the minors next year.

The 5-2 Gophers basketball team earned its most impressive win of the season on Monday night against Clemson, and plays South Dakota tomorrow at Williams Arena. Expectations this season are minimal for Minnesota but the Gophers could be a surprise team if they continue to score like they did in the 89-83 victory over Clemson.

Freshman forward Jordan Murphy led all scorers with 24 points and had a team high 10 rebounds. The 6-6, 230-pound Jordan once scored 44 points for Brennan High School in San Antonio.

Former Gophers coach Jim Dutcher praised Murphy’s advanced fundamentals for a freshman. “He’s got a good basketball I.Q.,” Dutcher told Sports Headliners.

College basketball has new rules to speed up play, but deliberate fouling in the closing minutes can still be agonizing to watch. ESPN2 viewers saw Illinois State drag out the end of its game against Kentucky on Monday night when it took about 10 minutes to use up almost two minutes on the game clock. The Gophers-Clemson game was joined in progress on ESPN2 because of the slow finish with Illinois State and Kentucky.

Don Lucia’s Gophers hockey team hopes to have continued outstanding performances from sophomore forward Leon Bristedt tonight and tomorrow evening against Ohio State at Mariucci Arena. Bristedt has at least a point in seven of the last eight games and leads the team with 12 points (seven goals, five assists) in 11 games this season. His seven goals have already surpassed his freshman total of five in 35 games last season.

Bristedt, from Sweden, is one of only four non-North Americans ever to play for the Gophers, a program whose rosters have been dominated by Minnesotans. The others are Bristedt’s Swedish teammate Robin Hoglund, and NHLers Erik Haula (Finland) and Thomas Vanek (Austria).

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