MVN - Most Valuable Network

Vikings Sign Two Draft Picks

We’re closing in on training camp, and the draft class is gradually inking contracts — Letroy Guion and Jaymar Johnson both agreed to deals, and the Vikes are getting closer with Tyrell Johnson, John David Booty, and John Sullivan:

The Vikings agreed to terms with fifth-round defensive tackle Letroy Guion and wide receiver Jaymar Johnson, one of their two sixth-round draft choices in last April’s draft. Johnson received a four-year contract that begins with a base salary of $295,000 in 2008 and increases to about $555,000 in the final season. Guion is believed to have received similar base salaries.

Good news, good news. If I were a betting man, I’d definitely wager that the draft class will be fully signed by Friday.

Guion and Johnson are a pair of intriguing picks. The Guion selection surprised me a bit on draft day — I thought the Vikes would go offensive line in the fifth round — but nevertheless, I can see the thought process for taking Letroy. Pat Williams will be 36 in October, and although he’s shown no signs of slowing down, it makes sense to start looking down the road a couple years when he’ll need to be replaced.

As for Johnson, if you have a chance to add a guy with tremendous speed in the sixth round, you definitely take advantage. Of course, it remains to be seen if he can even make the roster, but I like his chances of landing a spot on special teams and potentially becoming a deep threat on offense sometime down the road. He’s someone to keep an eye on when training camp gets underway, and when the preseason kicks off.

Update: Booty and Sullivan have both signed. Access Vikings has the details.

Elsewhere, Patrick Reusse provides a dissenting voice on the Vikings’ latest stadium proposal to reuse parts of the Metrodome, cutting the cost of a new stadium by $100 million to $853 million:

After a decade of lobbying, the Twins took what they could get in a new ballpark. So far, the Vikings have not dealt with the reality of “take what you can get.” If they had, construction would be underway on a peat bog somewhere in Anoka County.

The commission, more than the Vikings, has insisted on the need for a roof on a new stadium at the Metrodome site. The retractable roof adds $225 million to the cost, and a modern permanent roof isn’t much cheaper.

An open-air stadium would drop the public’s donation to roughly $400 million — and you would be talking about a number easier for Purple-loving taxpayers to digest.

It makes you wonder when we’ll learn. We built the Metrodome on the cheap and spent the last 25 years complaining about it — if the scenario Reusse mentions becomes reality, then we’ll have simply repeated our mistake.

But then again, removing the retractable roof from the project might be the best way to push a stadium proposal through the State Capital. I’d prefer that we concern ourselves more with building a premier stadium than continuously attempting to cut costs of the proposal, but that might not be a realistic perspective.

So I could live with an outdoor stadium just to get the dang thing over with. It does seem like “take what you can get” is the golden rule for Minnesota sports teams seeking new stadiums, and although it’s a shame that things have to be like that, it’s a rule that Zygi needs to pay greater attention to.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 3:04 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.