I’m sorry, I know he’s a first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback, but the Minnesota Vikings is the last place I want to see Brett Favre suiting up in his condo hotel to come out of retirement. After sixteen years, Favre is too much “the enemy,” and I’d rather see the Vikes take their chances with a young, high-potential guy like T-Jack and bring in Favre for a season or two and really screw up the kid’s development.
It’s simply not worth it. Not in the least.
After the Wolves tested the free agent market for alternatives and PG Sebastian Telfair tested it for other suitors, the two parties reunited last week, as the Wolves signed unrestricted free agent Sebastian Telfair to a new contract. Terms were not disclosed, but it is a multi-year deal. At least Telfair didn’t opt for massage therapy schools over the Wolves.
One would hope the Wolves didn’t overpay, as has been their habit over the years, but at least Telfair is a solid backup point guard who can step in as starter when needed. Averaging 9.3 ppg and 5.9 apg, he’s exactly the kind of role-player that made last year’s trade of Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics so appealing for the long-term improvement of the Wolves.
Telfair is the second free-agent to re-sign with the Wolves; Craig Smith did so not too long ago. Ryan Gomes, possibly the second-most-important cog in the Garnett trade, behind Al Jefferson, remains unsigned, as does second-round draftee Chris Richard. Both are expected to re-sign with the Wolves.
Practices will soon be underway for Minnesota Gophers football.
The second year for the program has to be better than the first, and that’s largely because there’s not much further down for the program to fall. Under coach Tim Brewster last year, the Gophs went 1-11, bottoming out so badly, even his own son decided to transfer out of the program.
(Not really… his son had other reasons to leave.)
But this season really ought to be better. Adam Weber has some experience at QB now, and if he falters, we have some great QBs recruited behind him who are more than anxious to take over the reigns.
Most importantly, this year’s squad as a full defense; last year, about half his starters never even made it to the first game due to being idiots off the field. When you don’t have a great defense, it doesn’t matter how many succesfful drives your QB leads your team on. You have to stop the other team because even if your score 70 points, you lose if your opponent scores 71.
That lesson learned and that problem corrected, it’ll be intriguing to see what coach Brewster can do this season with a year under his belt, a full defense, and more of the squad he’s coaching consisting of kids he recruited himself, and that’s worth all the Cat5e patch cables you can count.
When he came to Minnesota last year, Gophers men’s basketball coach Tubby Smith made a large, noisy splash in the Big 10 pool, putting together an outstanding draft class in his first season on the job.
This season, Tubby’s just as hard at work, but operating a bit more silently. Coaching a Big 10 program is sometimes like sales manager jobs; sometimes you need to be loud to get results, and sometimes your approach needs some stealth to it.
With a couple key commits already, one of them a solid gold Top 40 recruit, Tubby Smith could very well put together an even better recruiting class this season than he did last season. This time, though, he’d just not doing it with trumpets blaring.
As long as he’s this effective, I don’t really care one way or another. Go, Tubby!
I realize and admit that I don’t write about the Minnesota Twins very often. I make no secret that I’m a football and basketball guy first and foremost, and that baseball and hockey hold only a passing interest for me.
However, I have to say it was nice to see Twin Justin Morneau selected to take part in the upcoming All-Star Break’s home run derby. Morneau is a big-time hitter who earns every penny of his contract and I’m a bit worried that were it not for the new ballpark under construction, we’d be doomed to lose him at the time of his next contract.
Still, it’s nice to see the Twins have so many toys left to play with after trading or letting go of Johann Santana, Torii Hunter and Carlos Silva in the offseason. These Twins may not have as many stars, but they are a great, overachieving squad with a solid core group of players.
Morneau’s a big part of that, and it’s nice to see major league baseball finally recognize that with the home run derby invite.
As it turns out, Brett Favre doesn’t want to retire after all; he just doesn’t want to be a Packer anymore. Rather than checking out his Medicare advantage, Favre wants to have at least one more go at it with a team that’s on QB away from a Super Bowl ring.
Some folks, down on T-Jack, say Minnesota is the team that best fits that description. But as a long-time Viking fan, I say no way. Minnesotans have spent too long hating Favre to ever welcome him to the purple and gold locker room. It’s just too much to ask.
Also, there’s the fact that Favre isn’t the 28-year-old world-beater he once was; he’s nearly out of his thirties and had a couple really bad years before bouncing back last season to have, well, a season that didn’t quite stink.
Even though the Pack was one drive away from a Super Bowl, it wasn’t because Favre had an awesome year, particularly. It’s that he had a year in which he wasn’t losing games for them, like he had the past couple years.
The odds of Favre being effective with a new team on a one-year contract are slim and none. And Slim, this is None saying keep Brett Favre out of Winter Park!
On paper, Minnesota’s trade with Philadelphia last week made little sense. Minnesota received John Carney, Calvin Booth, and a first-round draft pick from the 76ers. And in return, Philly didn’t even get a player; they got what they needed most, though… something Minnesota couldn’t even give them directly: Elton Brand.
Brand, one of the hottest players on the free-agent market this off-season, did indeed sign with Philadelphia following the move. Minnesota, in turn, gets a couple players and a pick, and sets themselves up to have a lot of cap space available in 2009 and 2010.
And 2010 is a year the Wolves want to be among the players in free-agency, because of who will be available then. Sure, there are some big names: Joe Johnson, Amare Stoudemire, Tracy McGrady, Michael Redd, Chris Bosh, Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade.
But the biggest name of all is the name that could put Minnesota back on the superstar map, a name that would make people actually wipe from memory
the Garnett era. It’s a name that, teamed with the core players Minnesota is putting together, would make the Wolves a perrennial championship franchise for years and years to come.
That name, of course, is LeBron James. In 2010, he’ll be 25, a free agent, and he’d look good in black-green-and-blue.
