RB Tomlinson continues with free agency trip to Jets

The free agent running back LaDainian Tomlinson just finished his visit to the Minnesota Vikings without any deal done, so he has to continue with his trip and the next stop is the New York Jets.

The former San Diego Chargers star running back reportedly enjoyed his meeting with the Vikings, and the team seemed like to have Tomlinson put on the Vikings jersey
to be a replacement for Chester Taylor, who was signed away by the Chicago Bears. However, it seemed that they did not make an offer that satisfied Tomlinson.

Well, I guess Tomlinson will still have to make another visit to another team after the Jets. The Jets released free agent veteran running back Thomas Jones despite objection from fans other players. Besides, they are still hopeful that starting runningback Leon Washington could return from his broken leg for the 2010 season. In that case, signing Tomlinson would not be a necessary move and even if they may decide to make an offer, that offer could not be a great one expected by Tomlinson.

Vikings added kickoff specialist Lloyd to roster

Already with one of the top return threats in the league in Percy Harvin, the Minnesota Vikings now added one of the top kickoff threats in the league to their team. With the determination to be a better team in 2010 season, the Vikings singed kickoff specialist Rhys Lloyd on Monday.

Lloyd, who played in college at the University of Minnesota, was happy to put on Vikings jersey with the feeling of returning home. He will be banging kickoffs into the end zone for them. It’s a smart move by the Vikings. They just made their special teams unit much better.

Before announcing his decision to join the Vikings, Lloyd planned to get on plane and travel to New York on Tuesday to meet with the Giants, the second stop of trip since he became an unrestricted free agent after he did not receive any qualifying offer from his former team the Carolina Panthers as a restricted free agent.

Vikings CB Griffin will probably not return in time for next season

The Minnesota Vikings cornerback Cedric Griffin might not be seen in his No. 23 Vikings jersey for quite a long time while he is to rehabilitate after the surgery he will undergo to repair an injured left knee next week.

Griffin was hurt while covering the overtime kickoff in Vikings’ loss to the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship Game. Coach Brad Childress said Tuesday that the cornerback needs to have a surgery and the recovery may take long enough to keep Griffin out for the beginning of the next season, six to nine months.

With starting cornerback Antoine Winfield missing two months with a broken right foot, Griffin led the Vikings with four interceptions this season and helped stabilize the secondary team.

Middle linebacker E.J. Henderson may also miss some part of next season because of badly broken left thigh bone. So it seems that the Vikings need some plan B with defensive starters for next season.

Vikings WR Harvin will play Pro Bowl as a kick returner

In his first year since putting on NFL jersey, the Minnesota Vikings rookie wide receiver Percy Harvin made it to his first Pro Bowl game, and he himself becomes the Vikings’ second kick returner to make the Pro Bowl NFC team, joining Koren Robinson, who played as kick returner in NFC in 2005.

Harvin was added to the NFC roster on Monday by the NFL, and his joining made the Vikings stretch a league-high total of Pro Bowl players to nine. Harvin was added later than other Pro Bowl players because the position was taken previously by the Philadelphia Eagles DeSean Jackson, who occupied bother wide receiver and kick returner in the NFC team before the league made a decision on who could fill the spot.

Jackson received the least voting points for the kick returner spot, and the league used his team at the spot and planned to find a best player to fill the void. The player turned out to be Harvin, who returned two kickoffs for touchdowns and finished fourth in the NFL with an average of 27.5 yards per return as well as set Minnesota’s single-season franchise record for all-purpose yardage.

Now Peterson began to surpass Favre in catching attention

Since he decided to get out of retirement and accept Brad Childress’ invitation to put on Vikings jersey, Brett Favre has been mentioned too much when people were talking about every Vikings’ game. We know running back Adrian did as great job, but we were just so busy talking about Favre that we forgot to mention that.

Peterson just ran. He helped take pressure off the quarterback in the second half and eventually put away Cincinnati. He provided some tough, effective running that worked the clock and got him into the end zone twice.

So it is time believe that the Vikings would be even better if they make their offense more about Peterson and less about Favre, to trust Peterson to be the man who can take advantage of what has become a vulnerable Saints run defense if the teams meet in the NFC title game.

Vikings WR Harvin missed third straight practice

Although not willing to rule the rookie receiver out for this Sunday’s game, the Minnesota Vikings Coach Brad Childress is just 100 percent confident that Percy Harvin could appear in the game against the Cincinnati Bengals, wearing his Vikings jersey and playing as good as before.

Harvin, dangerous as a receiver and kick returner, missed practice time before the San Francisco and Green Bay games earlier this season and responded well in both. Besides four catches for 51 yards, he returned a kickoff for a touchdown against the 49ers, and had five catches for 84 yards and a touchdown against the Packers.

The Vikings have 14 players listed on injury report, with 13 of them starters. Injuries are bothering running back Adrian Peterson, right tackle Phil Loadholt and left guard Steve Hutchinson. Even starting quarterback Brett Favre was limited in Friday’s practice, not because of injury but a coach’s decision.

8-3 Cardinals became the second team to beat Vikings

Neither the Pittsburgh Steelers nor the Arizona Cardinals has given a performance that could be called perfect for this season, but both teams managed to achieve other teams have not achieved by so far of this season: they beat the Vikings.

With a 6-0 start, the Vikings lost their first regular-season game to the Steelers, but they soon cleared doubt about their future by winning four consecutive games, but (but again) the Cardinals did not allow them to continue with the winning streak. Kurt Warner made it to 22 of 32 with no interceptions and no sacks, while the guy wearing his No. 4 Brett Favre jersey was picked off twice and sacked three times.

Hard to say which team surprised us more. The Vikings has kept their power rank at No. 3 following the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints for weeks, but they failed. The Cardinals lost last week’s game to 3-6 Tennessee Titans when they were still 7-3 and caused many to think that they would begin a loss streak when encountering the Vikings, but the team won.

The Vikings may win again in next game, and the Cardinals may lose again, but for now, Cardinals fans should cheer loudly for their beloved team for they really have done a good job.

Brett Favre: the Older, the Better?

Brett Favre has started ten consecutive games in his purple Minnesota Vikings jerseys, somewhat incredible for a 40-year-old player. Doubters can shut up now as they have had no reason to chastise the star quarterback for ending a second retirement.

Favre proved what he believed in himself by completing a career-high 88 percent of his passes for 213 yards and four touchdown passes while playing with the Vikings against the Seattle Seahawks last Sunday. It seemed that he is becoming even better as he is getting older. Favre has only completed at least 80 percent two other times in his previous 18 seasons. And for this season only he has did that twice: he completed 85.2 percent while playing against the Detroit Lions on Sept. 20.

He surpassed Dan Marino by finishing Sunday’s game as his 22nd career game with at least four touchdown passes, earning himself an extreme honor from fans, including those who booed him during his 16 years with the Green Bay Packers. When the record was announced to the sellout crowd in the fourth quarter, fans gave him a standing ovation and chants of “MVP! MVP!”

Brett Favre is a great player, now more and more people have been convinced.

Vikings CB Winfield not available to play against Packers

Pro Bowl cornerback Antoine Winfield of the Minnesota Vikings still needs some more time to take care of his injured right foot and will not be available to play with his team at Green Bay on Sunday.

According to Coach Brad Childress, Winfield has been making progress throughout the week, but he is just not healthy enough to get on the field after missing last week’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers already. It is very likely that Winfield will be in his place again after the bye week following this Sunday’s game.

Karl Paymah, Asher Allen and Benny Sapp played in Winfield’s place last Sunday and will do the same job this weekend. After holding Ben Roethlisberger to 175 yards passing and Hines Ward to one catch for 3 yards, it does not seem harder for them to play against Packers Aaron Rodgers, Greg Jennings and Donald Drivers in Green Bay.

As Brett Favre’s return to Lambeau Field has been highly anticipated, the star quarterback now wearing Vikings jersey is not completely sure that he will be able to play against his old team because he had to look after his injured hip. He was listed as probable along with linebackers Ben Leber and E. J. Henderson and fullback Naufahu Tahi.

Vikings CB Winfield injured right foot during 33-31 win over Ravens

During Sunday’s 33-31 victory over the Baltimore Ravens, the Minnesota Vikings cornerback Antoine Winfield injured his right foot and had to stay sidelined for the second half of the game. Karl Paymah replaced Winfield but the Vikings just was weakened with Winfield’s leaving.

Winfield was chosen to Pro Bowl for the first time in his career last season and earned a fat new contract during the summer with the Vikings. As being expected to prove his worth the team again, the 10-year veteran cornerback was frustrated by his foot injury, which caused Coach Brad Childress to sideline him for the remainder of the game.

He must be anxious while watching Ravens Derrick Mason finishing with 97 yards and a touchdown and Joe Flacco passing for 385 yards and a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns, especially when Vikings starting running back Adrian Peterson limped off the field with left ankle being hurt. Fortunately, Brett Favre’s 58-yard completion to Sidney Rice set up Ryan Longwell’s fourth field gold while Ravens Steve Hauschka missed a 44-yard field goal. Time expired, the Vikings won, 3 minutes 37 seconds after the Ravens made a 31-30 lead.

Vikings cut four players in move of reducing rosters to 75

Tuesday was the NFL’s deadline to reduce rosters to 75 players, so the Minnesota Vikings cut four players to trim their roster. The released included kicker Taylor Mehlhaff, cornerback Derrick Roberson, running back Antone Smith and guard Nick Urban.

That was not the end of trimming. By Saturday, teams must be down to the regular-season limit of 53 players. And for the Vikings, the most urgent to do is to decide which backup quarterbacks to keep, behind Brett Favre, who put on his No. 4 vikings jersey not long ago and became the team’s starting quarterback.

The Vikings won over the Houston Texans by 17-10 in Tuesday night’s preseason game. They will play their last preseason game on Friday against the Dallas Cowboys at home.