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Knockin' on Valhalla's Door


Klomp

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NBC Sports revealed the members of their broadcast team for the 2023 USFL season. In the announcement, it was shared that Kyle Rudolph is going to be one of the color analysts inside the NBC Sports broadcast booth for some of the USFL games this year.

https://thevikingage.com/2023/04/16/former-minnesota-vikings-kyle-rudolph-call-usfl-nbc-sports/?fbclid=IwAR1jjXN9H8eE8MdZTS2nU2sRE1thmaErK1XabEXSUmeJRfufZhT2I2V1lv0

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Dennis Ryan was 16 years old, still a student at Highland Park High School, when he had his first memorable encounter with the late Bud Grant.

Recruited while working for the City of St. Paul on the grounds crew for the old Midway Stadium on Snelling, Ryan helped move the Vikings to and from training camp in Mankato during the summer of 1975. “On the move down, we saw nobody. It was mid-July and they were setting up for camp,” Ryan recalled. “But when we went down to pick up, everybody was around.”

Including Grant, the no-nonsense coach who led the Vikings to four Super Bowl appearances and already had become a Minnesota icon. Grant was waiting in his dorm room for someone to come pick up a boxful of playbooks to load up for the trip back to the Twin Cities.

Enter Ryan, who picked up the box only to have the bottom fall out and dump playbooks all over the floor.

“He stood over me, and I stared up at him,” Ryan said. And the look the coach gave him? “It was that look you saw on TV.”

After becoming a full-time Vikings employee, first as an assistant to equipment manager Jim “Stubby” Eason in 1977, then as the equipment manager in 1981, Ryan had an epiphany of sorts about that August day in 1975.

“I realized a few years later, when I got to know him better, that he set that up on purpose,” Ryan said. “No doubt. ‘Just watch this kid scramble. What will he do with all those playbooks?’ ”

https://www.twincities.com/2023/04/18/after-47-years-as-vikings-equipment-manager-st-pauls-dennis-ryan-has-seen-it-all/?utm_content=fb-PioneerPress&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR21O8g6jC5fqc3Qp48BEzF9Yy8nKXppZ4QdjQkryelcUTFp6szbrL5zgjI

Edited by vike daddy
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31 minutes ago, wcblack34 said:

https://www.the33rdteam.com/category/feature/remembering-vikings-drafting-randy-moss-25-years-later/

Good, quick read about selecting Randy Moss and some of the players that were considered over him (Tebucky Jones...yeesh). 

Tebucky Jones was a competent player, but not much else.  😉  There were a lot of good players in that draft...not all HoFers like Moss, Manning and Woodson, but also Fred Taylor, Donovin Darius, Alan Faneca, Pat Surtain, Samari Rolle, Charlie Batch, Olin Kreutz, Ahman Green, Birk, Pat Tillman (taken in the 7th round!) and Matt Hasselbeck.

Future Viking Corey Chavous was also in that draft. 

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40 minutes ago, VikeManDan said:

I was rather familiar with the whole situation and in retrospect, both situations where they were embarrassed turned out in their favor, although I certainly preferred Suggs at the time, and still probably do, even though I really liked Kevin.    

It should also note that that article confirms my viewpoint on the discussion about  McCombs ownership from a few weeks ago.  The cheapskateness didn't really happen until 2001-02.

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By mid-January of 1973, Chuck Foreman had three new cars and a pretty darn good idea that he was going to be selected in the first round of the NFL draft.

Over the phone, Foreman reminisced on how he set his own stage for nearly the next decade of his life as a groundbreaking back who would grace the cover of Sports Illustrated and spin around NFL Films reels narrated by John Facenda. Foreman remembered gifting the Toyota to his father, giving one of the Chargers to his brother, Gary, and keeping the other — a black one — for himself.

Fifty years is the golden anniversary. Fifty years is also how long it’s been since Frederick County had a first-round NFL draft pick. Foreman is the one and only.

As an anniversary gift, Frederick County might just give him some company.

Jordan Addison and Bryan Bresee have been in draft prep mode since their college football seasons ended about five months ago.

Addison, a willowy wide receiver from the University of Southern Cal via Tuscarora High, and Bresee, a destructive defensive tackle out of Clemson who is from Frederick, are — if you believe the sea of purported experts on the subject — projected to be selected in the first 32 picks of the NFL draft on Thursday.

 

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/sports/level/professional/back-in-my-day/article_bf4177a3-b3df-5b50-9a55-02b46439e71e.html

 

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