Daily Chat: Sidney Rice Injury

DEFENSIVE RECEIVERS

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We’ve got a couple of defensive wide receivers on our hands…and I’m not talking about on the field.

First, Bernard Berrian takes to Twitter to defend his self-benching and now we’ve got Sidney Rice blogging that the talk of him not wanting to play due to contract considerations is “A Bunch Of Bull.”

Here are the things we know about Sidney Rice’s situation:

  • He elected to delay his hip surgery till training camp rather than during the offseason, delaying his recovery and thus his return to the field significantly.
  • Though he calls the surgery he had “very serious,” we don’t know any specifics about it except that it was hip surgery.
  • In Rice’s defense, if the surgery was as serious as he makes it out to be, and I’d have to guess that for a wide receiver any surgery dealing with your hip would be, any reasonable person would be cautious in returning to play.
  • As the Star Tribune‘s Judd Zulgad points out, Rice’s contract situation lends itself to strongly considering the financial implications for returning or not this season.
  • Rice’s agent is Drew Rosenhaus, whose clients have a long history of manipulating situations in order to gain leverage in contract negotiations.

Given those realities, Rice will have to forgive the skeptical among us. While it’d be nice to get him back this season, because Sidney Rice can be awesome [WATCH], I’m not holding my breath.

WHAT THEN?
So if the Packers don’t have Bernard Berrian or Sidney Rice to kick around, what’s a struggling team in desperate need of a win supposed to do?

You’d think it’d be lots of Adrian Peterson…but I know I’ve said that before many times.

GOLDIELOCKS
A.J. Hawk. Clay Matthews. Chad Greenway. Apparently, if you’re white and you aspire to be an elite NFL linebacker, one of the prerequisites is long, flowing locks of blonde hair.

Not that A.J. Hawk is elite but I”m sure he aspires to be.

WILLIAMS WALL INJUNCTION
Pat and Kevin Williams‘ case was back in court yesterday. At issue was the temporary injunction Hennepin County Judge Gary Larson granted the two players after their March trial.

The Pioneer Press’s Brian Murphy reports: “Larson concluded that the NFL violated Minnesota law by failing to notify the Williamses within three days that they had failed tests. The judge also scolded the league for playing ‘gotcha’ by failing to disclose it knew StarCaps was tainted with bumetanide three years before the Williamses were tested.”

No, that would not be the Gary Larson of The Far Side fame, though that would be pretty funny.

Nor would it be the Gary Larsen, the silent partner of the Purple People Eaters fame, who wore number 77 and anchored the Vikings ferocious defensive line of the 70s that included Carl Eller, Alan Page, and Jim Marshall.

Though you’d be forgiven for thinking so because Judge Larson has consistently rule in the Williams’ favor.

PRANKSTERS
When your season goes as the Vikings’ has, the pranksters tend to come out to play.  This season is no different.

Enter the Vikings Sad Trombone, a site created by Vikings fan Corey Anderson and Packers fan Karl Pearson-Cater, both MinnPosters. This is their own independent project, I should note. You can follow them on Twitter at @lolVikings, if you must.

@savechilly is another such prank.

OPPOSITION RESEARCH
As usual, I got your back with all the links you’ll need to conduct your opposition research on this week’s Hated Opponent, the Green Bay Packers: [RESEARCH.]

THROWBACK THURSDAY
For your Throwback Thursday video I’ve got the Packers playing the Vikings at the Metrodome, with a certain Brett Favre at the helm, in 2004. Daunte Culpepper is taking the snaps for the Vikings during the best season of his NFL career. [WATCH.]

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