Friday, February 17, 2006

Daunte on the block?

Well, the latest news from Minnesota is that Daunte Culpepper can be had for a 2nd round pick... which I find to be incredibly stupid. Although Daunte says he is focusing on rehab and not the trade talks, this really can't be good for his mindset. The Star Tribune cited an "anonymous source" as saying that the Vikings were looking around, trying to find Daunte's trade value.

Of course, you could say Daunte has brought a lot of this on himself with the boat scandal, as well as demanding more money this offseason after the nightmare that was his last season, namely 6 TD, 12 INT, and a season-ending knee injury that leaves him a question mark for the start of next year.

My view? I really hope they hold on to him. What's their backup plan? Brad Johnson? He's 38 years old and has a weak arm. He's not an awful option for maybe one more year, but after that he'll probably about be done. Philip Rivers? He'd probably cost more to get than we'll get for Daunte, and he's completely unproven. The draft? That's even more of a crapshoot.

The Vikings already traded Randy Moss last offseason, and that didn't work out so well. For the most explosive WR maybe ever, they essentially got a WR at the #7 pick, since Napoleon Harris ended up being useless. Do we really want to make the same mistake and trade the franchise player two years in a row?

Please Vikings, have some common sense here. Keep Culpepper.

2 comments:

Ian C. said...

I can't believe the Vikings are willing to give up on Culpepper, either. My first thought is that Childress must think he can't operate the West Coast offense. But maybe it's the baggage you mentioned that is behind this.

Two other thoughts on this:

1) Minnesota should've hired Scott Linehan as head coach. Under Linehan, Culpepper had his best numbers.

2) If I were another NFL team, I wouldn't give up more than a 2nd-round pick either, considering the severity of Culpepper's knee injury. It could take a year before he's truly ready to play again.

rstiles said...

I say trade Culpepper if you get a high first round pick...