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Vikings Discussion & Random Thoughts
First, many thanks to Bowbunch for posting yesterday’s thread. I was dealing with a water leak at my house. Kiddo and I were out pressure washing outside, and luckily my wife was inside and heard the water spraying inside the walls of the house. Apparently, the pipe inside the wall that connects the outdoor faucet decided to take a dump. It only leaks when that faucet is turned on, so it’s obviously the packing nuts (heh heh) inside the hydrant. Anyway, we were busy sucking up water, pulling back carpet, and cutting out carpet padding. Good times.
On a more fun note, our 10-year old team had a baseball game last night, and they did great once again. Kiddo got 2 doubles and a single, drove in 3 of the team’s 7 runs, and scored twice. We have a little fella who we’ve been working with to help him improve (don’t think he had a ton of good coaching in the past), and he’s been working hard & hitting much better in practice, so I put him in at leadoff last night. He was happier than a puppy with two peters, and he went two for 3 and scored two runs. It was a really fun night; they did really well in the field, and do a great job of being good teammates for each other. Final score was 7-1. It’s been a great year, this is the best group of kids & coaches I’ve had in my 5 years of coaching kiddo’s teams.
Vikings News
From the AP, Brian Flores finds joy in running the Vikings D after being passed over for head coaching gigs. I’m glad, I’d love to see him stay for years. He seems like a smart dude, I think he sees how miserable it is to be the head coach at a poorly run franchise, so I’m guessing he won’t leave unless the opportunity is right. I hope not, anyway.
Vikings.com has 5 takeaways from Minicamp media sessions from O’Connell, JJ McCarthy, and Justin Jefferson. You’d think with 3 media sessions, they’d go with 6 takeaways instead of 5, that way they’d have two takeaways from each person. I guess someone is going to get shortchanged.
NFL News
ESPN has minicamp updates from around the league.
Antonio Brown is in the news again, and it’s not good news again. This time, he’s been charged with attempted murder, per CBS Sports.
Travis Hunter is splitting time with both offense in defense at Jaguars minicamp, per NFL.com.
Texans safety Jimmy Ward was arrested on a felony family assault charge, per NFL.com.
Media Selection
We haven’t played music up here in a while, hows about a little Megadeth? Enjoy!
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God Bless the Israelis.
destroy the beast.
Doing ‘HIS’ work.
A couple of things: it’s Friday the 13th, not Thorsday. Give this day it’s due.
Congrats MT, Oilers did good yesterday. I’m starting to hate the German.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
Woooo baby if you got 15 minutes this is a good watch.
We have signed OL Vershon Lee and released S Bubba Bolden. Lee went undrafted out of South Carolina as a 5th year senior. Played in 51 games, started 40 of them. Had 18 starts at center, 16 starts at left guard, and 6 starts at right tackle. Versatile if nothing else.
Depth depth depth
Hopefully it is not due to an injury on the O-line with made an opening/need.
Dang! Okudah is tall.
Have to say, Israel is pretty darn smart on how this all went down.
They’ve had a secret drone site inside Iran near Tehran for a couple of years.
They also knew the Iranian leaders movements and tricked them into a meeting.
Sure beats bombing an empty aspirin factory to wag the dog, ala Bill Clinton.
Or to give them access to money to give to their proxies so that they can attack us, Israelis, shipping in the area ala FJB.
There’s a youtoob channel I enjoy following called Grim Reapers. They do a lot of simulation using the DCS (Digital Combat Simulator) engine. Drone attacks have been shown in the simulation to be notoriously difficult to defend against in a surprise engagement, say a US fleet traversing the Strait of Hormuz. Can throw up 200 relatively cheap drones and watch the multimillion $$ SM-2’s lose the war of attrition.
At least none of our adversaries with drone technology own a bunch of land next to all of our military bases.
@At least Woke Govs are keeping us safe@
https://www.deseret.com/politics/2025/06/06/katie-hobbs-vetos-bil-that-would-restrict-chinese-investements-in-farmland/
I guess Addison > Antonio Brown.
Since Brown is wanted on attempted murder.
😳 I did not know this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/06/12/antonio-brown-arrest-warrant-attempted-murder/
Wouldn’t that be an SUI? Sleeping under the influence?
I had a soldier kicked out of the Army for sitting in a car in a parking lot waiting for a cab that he called. He had too much to drink to drive home, knew it and it was Dec in Colorado.
While the MPs were arresting him the cab showed up, confirmed he had called them but the Command still kicked him out.
It really pissed me off as he was one of the best soldiers I ever served with. I wrote letter of recommendation for him and spoke at his ‘hearing’ to no avail.
That’s terrible, especially for using good judgement and doing the right thing. What charge did they use to kick him out?
DUI.
The car was running so the heater could be on, he was keeping warm and the club had closed. So despite the fact that it was sitting in a parking lot it was enough to consider it ‘driving’.
Hard line, black/white policies have their issues like this.
It was the Army’s loss.
It taught me a lot about rules and command politics. I used that after that to protect my troops and that pissed off a lot of CDRs and CSMs. It cost me a promotion or two but I considered it worth it.
I took command of unit once, and announced at the change of command that I would be reviewing all the policy letters that day, and I would likely eliminate 90 percent of them. I told them policy always gets in the way of common sense eventually. I said I trust my leaders, especially Senior NCO’s, to provide salient guidance to the troops. If my guidance/direction was needed, my door was always open. Got a loud cheer for that, that I honestly wasn’t expecting.
But you were Air Force. The Army lives by progress impeded by 250 years of tradition.
There’s no right way, or wrong way, only the Army way.
I’ve had my fill of Army leadership in my career.
Bet you did at your level.
There was a time, that there was a group of Army leaders I admired.
I was at the Pentagon at a time when there was still a large group of senior officers that were WWII combat vets. They would distill their leadership down to two tenants – accomplish your mission and take care of your people.
The Viet Nam leaders and those after were different.
I heard of a Korean War General saying ‘Regulations are guidelines, don’t ever tell me I can’s do my job the way I see fit due to regulations’.
And at that time, if he was a Korean War General, he was a WWII vet too.
Yeah, there is always benefit in maintaining good order and discipline, as well as commitment to high standards and excellence, so sometimes tough leadership is needed. That said, folks don’t meet standards for one of two reasons, they can’t or they won’t. First establish that, then take the appropriate action.
I always wanted my units to have immense pride in themselves, and I pushed the excellence message pretty hard. I also don’t like losing and that was quite evident in my leadership persona as well. But the troops do the mission, and they have to be trained and supported fully. If I didn’t believe in them, and have their back, why should they try hard for me?
You were a senior leader in a life or death business. Coming up short or second is usually not a good outcome.
Yep… old adage… there is no second place in war. Warriors who come in second are buried.
CO didn’t have a choice, if he wanted to stay as the CO that is.
He choose career over his soldier in this case. IMHO
What crap, but typical Army.
That is a terrible story SoCal. He did exactly the right thing, and got kicked out? Ridiculous in the extreme. He should have been praised, and held up as positive example of being responsible.
The Command was ‘cracking down’ on DUIs so his CO basically said he had no choice.
In other words the Base CDR was putting pressure to maximize penalties for all DUIs regardless of the facts.
Brilliant… cracking down on a troop for doing exactly the right thing. That’s damn bad leadership, and totally gutless. I would have fired that Base CDR.
Oh, no doubt he was getting pressure from further up the chain. Some don’t believe they can follow any logic in these cases.
And sometimes they are right.
Should have never gotten past the MPs. Officer discretion should have stopped it.
Indeed
Discretion is not a word used in Army Regs.
The theory is in there but ignored in real life.
The MPs probably thought ‘got me one’.
They might not have been given any choice due to Command pressure though.
As I have posted recently, I feel the Vikings are in a very good position to win the Division and go a ways in the playoffs, maybe all the way to the Super Bowl this year. This is not so much because McCarthy is the QB. He should be fine, but I feel strongly about the team because the whole rest of the team is “there”. Barring unforeseen circumstances, we can win it all this year.
I agree. JJ could be great, but he just needs to be good for this team to excel.
Your comments give me some hope…
It’s the hope that kills you
I agree that the roster looks as good as any we have had since the Denny Green/Moss/Culpepper days.
I am trying not to get sucked into ‘exuberant fandom’ but I am looking forward to seeing how this season plays out with this team.
I have no pre conceived notion one way or the other.
On paper, they should be pretty good.
But this is the Vikings after all.
They defy expectations.
If people think they will be bad, they surprise.
If people think they will be good, they surprise the other way.
My trick knee says they will be a disappointment this year.
Every time I have heard folks hype the Vikings before the season, I could see very clearly where that exuberance might be misplaced. This year, I feel they “should” have everything in place to be a contender. We shall see though.
We are right back to “Hope for the best but expect the worst”.
All you can do is put together as much talent as possible and then play the games. Hopefully, there’s good chemistry, few key injuries, and a fair amount of good bounces.
when it becomes playoff time, you are going to be playing good teams, so you can’t have a down week (Detroit last year).
One good thing that is particularly strong in my opinion, we have talent on the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. With that, you can play against anybody.
Yes, our lines are both very good now. Biggest key to a team’s success is in the trenches.
As long as they avoid major injury issues, they should contend. It should be a really fun year, I’m more optimistic than I’ve been as a Vikings fan.
I think optimism is warranted. As you say, avoiding major injuries will be a key element, but that is a given in the NFL.
I’m terrified by the possibility of Kelly (new Centaur) getting hurt. And I’m worried about one of the starting CBs (Murphy or Rodgers) getting hurt.
Happy Friday the 13th.
#nojinx
i used to LOVE scary/horror movies.
Once i had kids, i just couldn’t do scary movies anymore.
My favorite “horror” is The Thing and i think it’s a masterpiece
Right there with you, saw all the Halloweens, Friday the thirteenths, etc., but now they hold no interest for me. Tried checking out some of Blood and Honey on Pluto TV, same old thing, went on to something else. Saw the original black and white The Thing when I was a kid, I just remember it falling off of people when they screamed. That and The Day the Earth stood still.
I hear you about how what is ‘scary’ changes after you have kids.
Pet Sematary by S. King was like that for me. Kid gets killed by running into the road just before his dad can reach him. This was the book, have not seen either of the movies.
The event and the following family drama were way to real to me as my son was about the same age as the kid in the movie. S. King can tell a story that you can put yourself inside of, I didn’t want to be in that one. And that was even before it got ‘spooky’.
In the immortal words of Curtis LeMay ‘ Bomb them back into the stone age.’
Some might say that would be progress for them.
A collateral benefit for them.
The West needs to really accept that the East wants to destroy them. Palestinians, Iranians, etc, want the West exterminated. That means you and me. Therefore the West must truly pursue peace through strength. We cannot allow nuclear proliferation in Iran. We cannot let Palestinians destroy Israel. We must keep these factions in a box. Period. One day, hopefully, there will be real peace, if we keep trying and working towards that. Until then, we cannot ignore this threat. We have to face up to it.
Agree. Trying to get a ‘deal’ with Iran is stupid. They will sign anything with zero intent to keep their word. All the military capabilities and terrorist activities must be destroyed.
And already there are some idiot progressives in Congress ‘shaming’ Israel for the attack.
Soon we’ll have student marches at the Ives for the poor poor Iranians.
Much like Russia or China.
Deals to them are short term things to be worked around.
Getting them to honor any of them long term has so far been impossible. Does that mean we shouldn’t even try? That is above my pay grade.
They’re all criminals.
All three understand and respect one thing – strength.
Trump is working this correctly. The U.S. has the ability to wreck any country’s economy, or help make them prosperous. This is a reality to the world. He has applied that power in his first few months as President exceptionally well. He is making deals with country’s to bring in trillions of dollars in new business investments, that are win-win deals for both sides. Sooner or later, countries will see, it’s better to be a partner, than a foe.
Love Trump but don’t understand his position towards Iran. Believe they have in their constitution to destroy Israel and the United States. Can you really negotiate with people that are trying to destroy us.
I could give a rats about the Iranian people and whether. they prosper or not. Rather we Americans prosper and destroy any capabilities they have as well as punish the hell out of them for funding terrorists all over the world.
You can not reason or negotiate with radicals. The only way to stop them is to remove them. I’m scared about how many likely snuck into the US over the last 4 years and are ready to use these “peaceful protests” as a place to hide and cause real havoc.
That’s a concern too. Hell a division of Russian tanks could have come across our ‘closed’ southern border under Biden.
When a population has a choice between hate and poverty, and acceptance and prosperity, one would rationally think over time, acceptance and prosperity will win out. Certainly wars that going on ad infinitum, are not the answer.
Haven’t they chosen the hate route in Gaza? This is a lot to due with religion and not rational.
Is it rational to blow yourself up to kill a few Jews?
Well, no… but if there is no positive outcome choice, that is what you get. Create incentives that we can control completely, that make their lives better, and work toward acceptance and prosperity. That option has never been tried before. Let’s work together towards a better existence, while establishing a relationship where that prosperity can go away immediately if folks decide to return to hate.
OK…. but control completely is a monumental task.
When their prosperity is dependent on us, we have control. If you have bread, and I can take it away from you, then you aren’t gonna want that bread to stop coming.
I hear you but these people in the middle east are I don’t know. This idea sure didn’t work very well when we “liberated” Iraq
Politics screwed us up in Iraq, along with stupidity. We had a chance to do something really great there, but we totally screwed the pooch.
Politics always screws us up and I don’t think it’s going away.
Good thing the current Commander in Chief is a businessman, not a politician.
He’s been in politics long enough that there is definitely some politician in him, IMHO.
I also have a lot of trouble spelling definitely.
Politicians are only interested in two things… getting elected, and getting re-elected. Trump understands politics better now, than his first term, for sure. He’s still pretty much all businessman though.
Ultimately, whatever happens, it won’t change a thing.
US/Israel could get a brief win in totally destroying them for now.
Hitler tried to kill them all and was defeated. The UN gave Israel nation status after the war. Yet the attempts to attack Israel continues. Now, the World hates Israel again. The world has always wanted Israel wiped off the map.
That won’t change, because all of this is Biblical.
Headed to ‘Armageddon’?
At some point sure.
In our day and time?
No clue.
Nuke em till they glow then shoot em in the dark.
Fine with me.
I dated his great-neice, true story. The only gal I was ever serious with besides my wife. I went to her Air Force basic training graduation, they had some thing during the ceremony talking about Curtis LeMay being related to her.
To clarify, I didn’t date her while I was married, I dated her back in 2000, long before my wife & I met.
Don’t worry, understood. Neat story.
Ope, I better send a retraction email to your wife.
No Vikings hurt, that we know of.
One of greatest mini camps in the history of the Vikings !!!
#nojinx
Templars day of dread and death.
Good morning, SKOL!
FTP!
Happy Friday the 13th!
Go Israel!
Scary $hit with Russia at war, too. 😳
And Trump bringing the military into DC for his takeover tomorrow.
Not to mention the ICE raids and the
mostly piecefullprotestsriots.Only-eat thing on the news so far today is the Israel attack and it ramifications.
Skol
I happily have never seen any of those movies.
Not a big horror movie fan. Life is scary enough.
GM!
FTP!
Not Thorsday again! Happy Friday the 13th!
FTP Auto Rec.