14 October 2023
The NFL trade deadline is in 16 days. What happens Sunday afternoon in Chicago against the Bears could lead to several major changes for the Vikings.
The Vikings’ next game after the Bears is against the 49ers, the NFL’s best team. If the Vikings lose in Chicago, chances are good they will be 1-6 after playing San Francisco.
Minnesota’s biggest trade chip is pass rusher Danielle Hunter, not QB Kirk Cousins. Trading Hunter, who turns 29 in two weeks, would indicate a Vikings rebuild. The Vikings would be expected to seek a second-round draft pick for Hunter, but probably would have to settle for a third-rounder.
Meanwhile, free safety Harrison Smith, 34, is nearing the end of his career. The Vikings might graciously be willing to give away the potential hall of famer at this point so he has a chance to win a championship.
>> It appears now that Cousins, 35, a free agent after the season, won’t be moved.
>> If the season ended today, the Vikings would have the No. 4 overall pick in April’s draft. The Bears would have the top two picks — Carolina’s and their own. The Broncos would be No. 3.
A likely scenario is that the Bears would pick USC quarterback Caleb Williams, then trade the No. 2 pick (probably Drake Maye from North Carolina), to a team needing a QB. In the same division, the Bears would not trade the No. 2 pick to the Vikings.
>> A draft tiebreaker is by strength of schedule. The only way the Vikings would have a chance at USC’s Williams is if they finish with the worst record in the NFL.
>> This is the second season for Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and coach Kevin O’Connell, both of whom have four-year contracts. If they don’t produce after their third year, which could be a make or break season, their jobs could be in jeopardy.
>> Home field advantage? The Vikings already have lost as many games (four) this season as they did all last season, and they have lost four straight games at home, which could extend to five when they host the 49ers on a Monday night.
>> Running back Dalvin Cook, 28, is averaging just 2.7 yards on 36 carries for the Jets. For the Vikings last season, he averaged 4.4 yards on 264 carries.
>> Michael A. Taylor, 32, who filled in admirably in center field for injured Byron Buxton this season, can become a free agent soon after the end of the World Series. Taylor said he and the Twins have had no conversations about a new contract.
>> Former Twins chairman of the board Jim Pohlad on Buxton, 29, who has a $100 million, seven-year guaranteed contract but played in just 85 games during the regular season due to an ailing knee, then one at-bat in post-season: “He doesn’t want to be sitting watching — he wants to be playing. To his credit, he was willing to do a contract that gave him a lot of incentive for playing.”
Buxton’s contract has been insured for disability by the Twins.
>> On the winter trade that sent batting champion Luis Arraez to the Marlins for starter Pablo Lopez, Pohlad said, “You can’t get something unless you’re going to give something up. Most of the time you give up nothing, you get nothing.”
>> Pohlad’s nephew Joe is completing his first year as chairman after succeeding Jim.
“It’s been a learning experience and we’ve had a ton of success on the field,” Joe said. “Whenever you do something for the first time there’s things you try to learn from and try to grow. I’m going to look back from Year One and I think there’s a lot that I’m happy about, especially the fact that we’re in the postseason. We’re at 2 million fans and that’s a good thing as well. So far, it’s been all smiles.”
>> A parking lot several blocks from U.S. Bank Stadium was charging $50 for the Vikings-Chiefs game. But, an attendant said, “it’s $40 for games against the Bears.”
Among fans at the game was ex-Vikings QB Daunte Culpepper, who lives in Orlando, Fla.
>> Minnehaha Academy 7-foot-1 grad Chet Holmgren, 21, who missed last season due to a foot injury, has scored 21 and 16 points, respectively, with a total 13 rebounds in his first two preseason games for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
>> Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo on former Cretin-Derham Hall star Tre Holloman, a sophomore with the No. 4-ranked Spartans: “He’s had a heck of a summer and he’s doing well. He really defends.”
>> Former St. Thomas Academy running back star Chuck Kelly was in South Bend, Ind., on Saturday for his Notre Dame team’s 50th anniversary reunion of its undefeated national championship coached by Ara Parseghian.
>> Frankie Capan III, 23, the North Oaks golfer in his first year as a professional, was 53rd on the Korn Ferry Tour with earnings of $235,135 this year. He has full playing rights on the Korn Ferry for next year. Ex-Gophers Angus Flanagan, Will Grevlos and Thomas Longbella have advanced to the second round of Korn Ferry Q-School.
>> Friends of Herb Brooks’ widow, Patti, have auctioned off lunches with the effervescent Patti, who for charitable causes brings her husband’s 1980 Olympics gold medal and chats about the “Miracle On Ice.”
Meanwhile, players from Herb Brooks’ Olympic champions as well as former NHL players on Wednesday evening will partake in a fundraiser dinner in St. Paul to benefit a wellness center for hockey players suffering from mental heath in the name of Mark Pavelich, who two years ago died of suicide and was among Brooks’ favorite players.
>> Ex-Viking Jared Allen will compete on a pro pickleball tour.
>> Princeton, Minn., lost a legend with the recent passing of Luther Dorr, 81, a sportswriter for the local Union-Eagle for 55 years as well as a hall of fame town-team baseball player for 47 years.
>> Considering how expensive team jerseys have become, an upstart firm, Tarps Off Jersey Rental, is renting single game jerseys for Wild games for less than $20 a game.
Don’t print that
>> Pssst: Pending Timberwolves-Lynx owners Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore have a Dec. 31 deadline to pay a remaining sum of more than $500 million of the $1.5 billion purchase price, but people who know say it’s unlikely they will meet the deadline.
It’s still assumed the deal will eventually get done, but an extension might be needed. Owner Glen Taylor has already granted the pair one extension.
Rodriguez, at Target Field as Fox TV analyst for the Twins-Blue Jays playoff series last week, told the Pioneer Press the sale of the team is on schedule. That’s the same thing he tells Taylor, who regardless will retain 20 percent of ownership.
Rodriguez and Lore have been lax in communicating within scheduled timeframes for the sale. If the sale were to fall through, and there are rumors that it might, Taylor would retain controlling ownership.
>> Major League Baseball will not implement a robot umpire system next year, but it’s likely coming, Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred told the Pioneer Press.
Coming off a successful season with the initiation of the pitch clock, I asked Manfred, who has a new four-year contract and was at Target Field for the second Twins-Blue Jays playoff game, about the future of robot umpires.
“First of all, I don’t love that term (robot) because the system still involves a human umpire behind the plate making a call — there’s no robot involved, OK? That’s No. 1.
“No. 2, I think ultimately there will be an automated strike zone system. The open issue that we’re still working through is whether it’s going to call every pitch or whether it’s going to be a challenge system.
“And before anyone gets concerned about challenges, literally the challenges with ABS (automatic ball-strike) take about two to three seconds. It comes instantaneously.”
>> Mark Wegner, the former Cretin-Derham Hall baseball captain, was left-field umpire in Game 1 of the Twins-Blue Jays postseason series. Wegner, 51, tests extremely high in ball-strike accuracy.
>> If Craig Counsell leaves the Brewers as manager for the Mets, who recently hired former Brewers GM David Stern as president of baseball operations, an obvious popular choice to succeed Counsell would be former Brewers star Paul Molitor, who in 2017 was named American League manager of the year.
>> Sonny Gray’s age (34 next month) and sizable free agent contract potential (estimated at least $20 million a year) makes it difficult for the Twins to retain its No. 2 starter. Chris Paddock, 27, is a good bet to replace Gray if gone, with Tyler Mahle, 29, returning from Tommy John surgery mid-season next year.
>> The Twins, who lost their last two playoff games to the Astros, struck out 28 times in those games — that’s more than the total amount of outs (27) a team gets in a complete game.
>> For advancing to the second playoff series against Houston, Twins players can expect full shares of nearly $25,000 apiece.
>> Four of the six top-salaried major league baseball teams this season — Mets (first), Yankees (second), Padres (third) and Angels (sixth) — did not make the playoffs. The Phillies and Dodgers rank fourth and fifth, respectively. The Twins ranked 17th overall in salary.
>> Look for the Twins to end up with a multi-year jersey patch sponsorship next season worth more than $5 million annually to the club. The Twins are still negotiating with several potential sponsors. The Astros have a jersey patch deal with OXY (Occidental Petroleum) worth slightly more than $5 million a season.
>> Twins pitcher Louie Varland from North St. Paul has received endorsement interest from Waggle Golf apparel, which is based in Rockville, Minn. Leinenkugel Brewery in Chippewa Falls, Wis., which produces Varland’s favorite beer, is also a possibility.
“In the summertime on a boat, there’s nothing better than drinking a Summer Shandy Leinenkugel,” Varland said.
>> Ex-Gophers QB Tanner Morgan was to get $12,000 last week for being on the Vikings practice squad.
>> Although there were 67,003 spectators at the Vikings-Chiefs game the Vikings lost inside closed-roof U.S. Bank Stadium, more decibels from crowd noise were registered from the 38,450 at outdoors Target Field at the Twins’ Game 1 playoff victory over Toronto.
>> Don’t be surprised if the Vikings play one of their nine home games next year in Canada. Although hall of fame ex-Vikings coach Bud Grant began his career in Winnipeg, that city’s IG Field doesn’t have enough seating capacity (33,422) for an NFL game.
>> Ex-Vikings coach Mike Zimmer, 67, remains retired at his Kentucky ranch.
>> An enterprising local memorabilia collector was able to procure the baseball with which Twin Carlos Correa tagged out Blue Jay Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at second base with the stunning pickoff move in Game Two of the clinching Wild Card Series at Target Field. He plans to put it on a shelf at his home.
>> It was 10 years ago that then-Gophers athletics director Norwood Teague fired Tubby Smith because he was convinced he would get Shaka Smart to leave VCU, where Teague was athletics director. Smart, though, changed his mind and stayed at VCU, then took the Texas job in 2015.
Teague, insiders say, then interviewed Fred Hoiberg, who was at Iowa State, at Fred’s northern Minnesota lake home but then, surprisingly, offered the job to Richard Pitino, who eagerly accepted. Eric Musselman, who was rebuilding the program at Nevada, had been promised an interview before Pitino was hired but was never even told of Pitino’s hiring and never got to interview.
Smart, 46, is now at preseason No. 5-ranked Marquette; Hoiberg, 50, is at Nebraska; Pitino, 41, is at New Mexico, and Musselman, 58, is at No. 9 Arkansas.
>> Ex-Gophers men’s basketball coach Dan Monson, 62, who has won four Big West Conference coach of the year awards, is starting his 17th season at Long Beach State. At Minnesota over seven seasons, Monson was 118-106; at Long Beach State, 254-258.
>> Jim Dutcher, who coached the Gophers men’s basketball team to its last Big Ten championship (1982-83), on name, image and likeness (NIL) in college sports: “They (NCAA) are going to have to get their arms around it some way — they can’t just let players go to the highest bidders. That’s what’s happening.”
Meanwhile, 85 Utah football players on scholarship this season are getting complimentary leases via NIL for new Dodge Ram 1500 pickup trucks.
>> The Twins paid $15 million for the airspace just south of Target Field and could eventually use it for public parking or real estate.
>> Gophers 6-8, 220-pound redshirt basketball senior Parker Fox, the former Mahtomedi star who is back after two season-ending knee surgeries, has displayed eye-popping slam dunks in practices and might be the team’s best leaper.
>> Ray Vennewitz Jr. will retire as head golf professional at North Oaks Country Club on Jan. 1. Ray and his father, Ray Sr., held that position for 52 years at the club that’s about to celebrate its 75th anniversary.
>> The University of St. Thomas has raised nearly $100 million of the estimated $140 million it needs to construct a hockey-basketball arena complex on campus.
Overheard
>> Dick Butkus, the Hall of Fame Bears linebacker who died at age 80 last week, to the Pioneer Press years ago on Hall of Fame Vikings center Mick Tingelhoff, who died at age 81 two years ago: “After every game I played against Tingelhoff my jersey had fingernail holes in it from him poking me.”
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