Last night I went to the Southern California Vikings Club Dinner, Bruce (Sixxking) and Ralph (rfelix7550) were there too. The honorees this year were Gary Anderson, Don Morgan, Mike Merriweather, Cory Withrow, Mike Malano, John Henderson, Autrey Beamon, Mark Mullaney, Fred Zamberletti and Ron Yary and the emcee was Stu Voigt. Kenny Wright, Kailee Wong and Mick Tinglehoff were all no shows. Overall the speeches were a little less entertaining then last years, but they were still well worth listening too. Anderson talked about a day of golf with John Randle and Robert Tate that was pretty funny. Merriweather spoke a little about the awesome talent of the D when he was there in 89-92. Morgan talked about his first day of camp and how Cris Carter dropped him off a half mile away from the meeting room with a minute left until it started and how he had to haul ass to make it on time. Malano and Withrow didn't really say all that much. Beamon spoke about having to run laps when Mullaney forgot to buy donuts (a rookie thing). Mullaney told a story about Walker Lee Ashley calling defensive plays and no one could understand him. Henderson talked about the Kansas City Superbowl loss. Zamberletti had some good Burnsie stories, as did Yary. They were all cool during the autograph session, they all liked my pole dancer shirt. Ralph kind of pissed off Yary when he told him that the Hall of Fame was dropping its standards this year. I had to apologize for him. Actually Yary was really stoked to be in the HOF, you could see it in his eyes when you congratulated him. It was very cool. Zamberletti also talked about the Giants loss and basically said that the team lost that game in December when they couldn't bring home a win versus the Rams, Packers or Colts and that they hadn't played or practiced outdoors in six weeks leading up to that loss. He basically said that the team started pressing after the Carter endzone interception and that everything just fell apart. He also went into a lengthy praise of Dennis Green, and how great of a job he has done. I truly believe from listening that Zamberletti meant all of it, which gave me a new perspective on the whole deal (although I still think Green has some major negatives). Zamberletti also mentioned that the Vikings are paying 12 million to players no longer on the team this year for all of you capaholics. That seems like an awful lot to be spending on jack shit, I thought all of those Green releases were supposed to save cap space, but now I realize it was to save real $$$ the cap be damned. So now I have even less respect for Red McCombs.

I also glanced at the Sporting News draft preview at Barnes and Noble today, they had us picking Michael Bennett. I think someone posted that somewhere already but I thought I'd pass it on. There seems to be a lot of potential keepers at the Corner position in this draft, I hope Denny snaps up a couple of them. I also would love to see the Vikes pick up Chad Ward OG, U of Washington in the second round if he is around. This guy would be a great replacement for Lacina, enabling us to move Liewinski to OT and not having to go to that scrub Badger. After seeing Malano and Withrow, they both seem kind of small, so I think moving Birk out to Tackle would be a mistake. Maybe Lewis Kelly is still an option, but I thought he was weak in the upper body.

Finally, I think Moe Williams should get a shot at replacing Robert Smith this season. We don't have the money to go after a true replacement and Chapman is an unknown. I think drafting a RB in the first 3 rounds would be a mistake considering our needs at OG, DL, LB and CB. If Kleinsasser becomes more of a factor with 5+ carries a game and another couple of catches, I think Williams can handle the load barring injury. Why not bring back Leroy Hoard? He could serve as a backup/short yardage guy again.

Just a few thoughts since Vikingland is dead right now.

IZ

-- Iz (izmorrow@aol.com), March 18, 2001