MVN - Most Valuable Network

Weatherman’s Enthusiasm for Jared Allen is Creepy

Let’s play a game of “Did the giddy WCCO weatherman say ‘69 sacks’ or ‘69 sex’ when discussing the acquisition of Jared Allen?”

I’ve concluded that this enthusiastic gentleman, Chris Shaffer, said “69 sacks,” but that hardly lessens the hilarity of this clip. You know the Vikings are on the right track when they can reduce television personalities to the equivalent of a giggling six-year-old Hannah Montana fan. For a phenomenal screen cap of Shaffer, head over to Kissing Suzy Kolber.

*Randball brings us the news that John David Booty’s Wonderlic Test results indicate that he might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer. According to Macmirabile.com, JDB could only manage a meager 14 on his Wonderlic…indeed, for those unfamiliar with the Wonderlic, a 14 ain’t anything to write home about.

By comparison, Michael Vick scored a 20, Eli Manning scored a 39, and Terry Bradshaw scored a 15. And when you get ousted by Terry Bradshaw in an intelligence evaluation, you should be downright ashamed.

OK, to be fair, there are plenty of good quarterbacks that scored poorly on the Wonderlic. After all, although having a great deal of intelligence could prove beneficial to football players, it’s certainly not a requirement.

*I’ve seen some discussion about next year’s special teams units, so I’ll pose this question: If the season started today, who’s your punt returner and who’s your kickoff returner?

I honestly think I’d be happy with anyone but Bobby Wade returning punts. I like the guy as the third or fourth receiver on the depth chart, but I cannot stand him as a punt returner…it was an absolute joke that Chilly spent several weeks last season idly standing by as Wade made countless poor punt returns. At long last, Chilly gave Mewelde Moore the opportunity to return punts, but we spent far too many games enduring clueless special teams performances from Wade.

Now that MeMo’s in Pittsburgh, I’d be interested in seeing Aundrae Allison get an opportunity to return punts. I realize that the coaching staff seems more comfortable with having him return kickoffs, but Allison appears to have a skillset that’s conducive to returning punts; elusiveness, a good burst of speed, etc.

Maurice Hicks is a lock for the kickoff returner slot. He returned 65 kickoffs for San Fransisco last season, averaging a solid 23.1 yards per return. But that still doesn’t answer the punt returning question, as Hicks hasn’t returned a single punt in his four-season NFL career.

I wonder about Jaymar Johnson’s prospects of filling the punt returner role. The sixth round pick averaged 11+ yards per punt return for Jackson State last season, and even though he made many of those returns against weak competition, we shouldn’t ignore Jaymar’s special teams success during his collegiate career. The kid has phenomenal speed, and I’d list him as a dark horse candidate to return punts in the 2008 season.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.