Searching For a Name: The Return of Tyler Thigpen

I'll be perfectly honest. I'm jealous of Pacifist Viking. It's not because of his writing, the fact that he's got help writing his blog or anything like that. It's solely because he came up with a great title for all of his link centered posts: "Blizzard". That's just genius. Genius. I've been trying to come up with something that good for a long time and have nothing.

Any suggestions for something equally catchy would be appreciated. While you're working on it, here are a few articles worth taking a look at:

Former Viking seventh round pick, Tyler Thigpen, might actually challenge for the Chiefs starting quarterback job. You may remember Thigpen as the player the Vikings tried and failed to slip through waivers onto the practice squad last year so they could keep Brooks Bollinger and Kelly Holcombe. Hopefully, if Thigpen does win the starting job, it's because the Chiefs are so awful they don't have a better option than a seventh round draft choice, otherwise we're going to have to add Holcombe over Thigpen to the list of really regrettable roster decisions by the Purple. Thankfully, it's highly unlikely he'll turn into a valuable player (more on that tomorrow and Friday).

The Vikings didn't make a first round pick this year, which means that they will likely avoid the problems that come with trying to sign their top draft pick. As Chris Cooley points out, rookies are vastly overpaid (consider that Jake Long was signed for a similar amount of guaranteed money as Jared Allen) and current players don't really like it. It's definitely been a problem for the Purple in the past (Bryant McKinnie sat out the first half of his rookie year), but a lot of that can likely be laid at the feet of Red McCombs. Whether or not the system is fixed, expect it to dominate the news as rookies sign and especially as they don't sign.

The Twins just missed being no hit by Gavin Floyd last night, avoiding it only because of a slicing double into the gap by Joe Mauer in the ninth inning. What makes the Twins' offensive performance even more embarrassing is that Floyd wasn't even pitching lights out--the Twins just made him look like he was by swinging at everything. Then again, I guess that's what can be expected from a team that has only four players better than league average at laying off pitches outside of the strike zone and feature the players who have swung at the third and fourth highest percentage of balls in the American League.

When I wasn't watching the bonus coverage of the Twins' game on ESPN (I don't know why they chose the Twins feed over the awful White Sox announcers, but after I realized they had, it was the happiest I've been with ESPN in a long time), I was watching Kevin Garnett actually outplay another NBA star in crunch time of a playoff game, the first time he's done so since he dominated the fourth quarter of Game 7 against the Kings. Watching his post game interview only reinforced my feelings of hatred for Kevin McHale--I'm still a KG fan, even if I want the Celtics to lose horribly. Can't say I'm particularly happy that he's finally starting to realize that he can and should take over in crunch time though.

Finally, if you can, sign up to donate Bone Marrow and help fight Leukemia. Do it for Kenechi.