Minnesota Sports Fan Weekly Roundup with Toups: Volume 2

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Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

Welcome back for Volume II of this yet-to-be-named weekly column….

Before we dive in, I want to direct you to the bottom of this page where you can subscribe to Minnesota Sports Fan so you get a friendly email whenever we post a new article or podcast! It’s FREE!

This week, we have a very Vikings-feel but there is plenty to recap and elaborate on, from the other pro teams here in the lovely state of Minnesota. Let’s get caught up on what has happened so far this week.

Terence Newman: By now you may have heard that Terence Newman elected to retire and open up a roster spot for younger players, when the Vikings cut their roster down to 53 players, last weekend. With young players like Mike Hughes and Holton Hill, Newman was going to be a mentor whether he got regular playing time or not. Newman, the perfect embodiment of “team player” said in his own words, that continuing to play at the expense of a younger defensive back would be “selfish“. Coach Newman (gonna be weird for a little while) wasted no time in getting to work from a new perspective:

The Opener Strategy: Kill it. Bury it. Forget about it. The Twins are getting creative with their season effectively over. Recently the Twins have been experimenting with the “opener strategy” which simply means they bring in a reliever for the first inning and then a starter or long reliever after that. Gabriel Moya got the first opener start on Sunday, and Trevor May got his turn Tuesday. The results were…. NOT INSPIRING. I can appreciate the desire to be ahead of the curve with analytics in Major League Baseball, but make sure you can ride the bike with training wheels before you try without them. FWIW Kohl Stewart looked good as the “primary pitcher” on Tuesday, but both games were losses. Good riddance for now.

Matt Wile: The Vikings have a new punter! After waiving Ryan Quigley the Vikings claimed Wile off waivers from Pittsburgh. Quigley struggled with hangtime and punt average even though he went all of last year without a touchback. Wile, in limited action, appears to have a better leg and after a rough preseason with Quigley, the Vikings clearly wanted a fresh start at the position. It will be interesting to see if there is any sort of learning curve for Vikings rookie kicker Daniel Carlson and Wile. Matt has bounced around, but did have a pretty good preseason, which is encouraging:

Here are some other things that caught my attention this week:

Welcome back to Minnesota Mr. Myrick! Always good to have former Gophers with the Vikings.

You either hate this move or you don’t. Eric broke this down yesterday and Twitter has been going bananas about Thibs potentially bringing in another former Bull to fill out the bench. It would be a minimum deal. Calm down.

It appears the Wolves are doing their due diligence to add some more shooting to the bench. Are you upset with any of these guys as potential bench options?

Best of luck Jake, in whatever is next for you. Maybe you’ll get to wear the Purple again somewhere down the road.

That is enough for this week. Football is finally back in our lives as of Thursday night (hopefully the Eagles get stomped) and the Vikings should start 1-0. The Gophers could move to 2-0 on Saturday. Life is good. More to come next week.

Seth Toupal @sethtoups

Minnesota Sports Fan

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