One little loss to Northwestern can change everything. Iowa looked like the team to beat in the Big Ten title race, but now that it has fallen to the Wildcats and Ohio State has beaten Penn State, all the momentum has moved back to Columbus. Technically, both the Hawkeyes and Buckeyes control their own destiny. Whichever team wins Saturday's game is the presumptive conference champion.
Now go try to figure the odds that Iowa can win in the Horseshoe with a redshirt freshman quarterback making his first career start with no run support to speak of.
"It's a little different," Hart said ... "The only surprise is it's not as tough as I thought it was going to be, as far as practice and those type of things ... It's more laid back."
... "Indianapolis is a different organization. You watch 'Hard Knocks' on HBO and you expect to be hazed and a lot of those things, but the Colts are a lot different. It's not as bad as I thought -- we don't get taped, we don't get hazed with the Colts."
Hart, who set the record for most rushing yards by a freshman at Michigan, and left four years later as the school's all-time leading rusher, will be fighting for a roster spot in Indianapolis. Newly (re-)signed Dominic Rhodes and Kenton Keith will battle for the backup/change-of-pace job behind Joseph Addai. If Hart shows well in the coming weeks and months, he could also be in the mix.
The easiest way for low-round picks to make the club in on special teams, and given the Colts have one of the worst units in the league, it might not take much for Hart to sneak onto the final 53.
I think it's fair to call Erasmus James an underachiever. Or at the very least unlucky. His career started well enough: after the Vikings selected him in the first round of the 2005 draft, he appeared in 15 games (started nine) and registered nine four sacks.
And then James played in three games the next two seasons after twice injuring his left knee. Two surgeries and many unfulfilled expectations later, he was traded to Washington.
Apparently, the grace period for taking shots at your former team is a week, because James sorta did just that in Monday's Washington Post.
"Coming in as a first-rounder there's a lot of pressure on you," he said. "A lot of guys think because you're a first-rounder, you're going to come in and start. . . . And that's the worst thing to come in as, especially as a rookie with people like that, because you can't get any help. It's kind of like you fend for yourself. It's nice to be around older guys who are not out there to say, 'Hey, there's this new guy coming in.' It's not like that at all. You can learn from these guys. I'm real excited about that."
Hmm. The Vikings waivedErasmus James, rescinded the transaction, and then sent their 2005 first-rounder to the Redskins for Washington's first-round picks in 2009, 20011 and 2012.* Or maybe all the 'Skins had to give up was a 2009 conditional seventh-rounder.
Either way, this is the first time I've heard a team fake-waiving a player before trading him. Maybe Minnesota discovered there was a market for James, hence the change of heart, but a conditional seventh-rounder hardly seems worth the paperwork.
Washington, a team that has been looking to add depth to the defensive line for a few years now, gets a guy with an extensive injury history, but who also has some upside:
We really liked Erasmus coming out of college," executive vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato said. "He's young and talented, and he has a great deal of potential. We like the fact that his defensive line coach at the University of Wisconsin--John Palermo--is our current defensive line coach."
Said Palermo: "Erasmus is an every down player. He's tough enough to play on first and second down and fast enough to give you a good pass rush on third down.
Well, Erasmus is an every-down player when he's healthy, something he hasn't been throughout his three-year NFL career. He's appeared in just eight games the last two seasons, and has had three surgeries on his left knee.
Despite the health concerns, the Redskins continue to make shrewd personnel moves this offseason, which is, well, mind-blowing. If anything, it just reinforces the fact that Vinny Cerrato is much smarter than he looks.
The Minnesota Vikings finally waivedErasmus James after he couldn't pass a physical.
James, who is recovering from three operations on his left knee in a 13-month period, did very limited work during the Vikings' opening four days (Monday-Thursday) of organized team activities this week. "We decided today to waive Erasmus and we wish the best for him in the future," Vikings coach Brad Childress said in a statement on the team's website.
James blew out his knee in Week 2 of the 2006 season. He spent most of last year battling injuries before re-injuring the knee late last season.
And so it goes with the Vikings 2005 draft, which may go down as one of the worst/hardluck in franchise history. James was the #17 overall pick in that draft -- one that sees just OL Marcus Johnson remaining from that class.
Third round pick Dustin Fox never played a down for the Vikings. Fourth round pick Ciatrick Fason became a goal line back before being release prior to last season. Sixth round pick DT C.J. Mosley played decent in his rookie season ... and was sent to the Jets for QB Brooks Bollinger. Seventh round pick Adrian Ward didn't make the roster.
The Vikings' season has been over for less than a week, and already the talk has turned from a late run at the playoffs to the draft. The St. Paul Pioneer Press' Charley Walters, who never makes it clear if he has actual sources or is just making stuff up, offers this:
The Vikings, who have the No. 17 overall pick in April's NFL draft, are expected to consider defensive end Derrick Harvey of Florida. There is virtually no chance they'll draft a quarterback in the first three rounds.
Like I said, no idea where this is coming from, but in any case, Harvey seems like a reasonable pick. According to NFLDraftScout.com, he is ranked second behind Virginia's Chris Long for draft-eligible defensive ends, Harvey registered 11 sacks in 2006, and was named All-SEC second team this season.
Given the Vikings' biggest weakness has been on pass defense, the pick would make sense. Of course, the team drafted Kenechi Udeze and Erasmus James in the first round in back-to-back years, so it's not like they haven't tried to address the issue the last few seasons.
Perhaps more interesting, though, is the "news" that Minnesota won't take a quarterback on the first day of the draft. If true, that says that either the team is willing to start 2008 with Tarvaris Jackson, or there's a good chance they trade for a veteran this off-season. I'd guess the latter, but at this point, four months out from the draft, who really knows.
If you have a heart, it's hard not to have some sympathy for Erasmus James. The Vikings defensive end was placed on injured reserve after tearing the ACL in his left knee for the second consecutive season.
Tearing an ACL is a bad enough injury when it happens once, but to have to go through the months of rehab twice in two years has to be a crushing blow for James. He had just regained his starting job and had only played in six games since coming back from his previous knee injury.
"For us, it's frustrating to watch a guy work as hard as he has to get back and, obviously, you'd never wish that to happen to somebody one time," said linebacker Chad Greenway, who also had major knee surgery early last season and spent 2006 on the shelf. "But to have it done twice, in this short amount of time, it's really unfortunate."
Rehabbing an ACL injury involves months of extensive physical rehab. The good news is that ACL injury recoveries are very common, but since the injury happened so late in the season, James is a pretty likely bet to miss most or even all of the 2008 season, which would be the third straight season largely lost to knee injuries.
The Vikings depth at defensive end is quickly disappearing. First it was Ray Edwards being hit with a four-game steroid suspension for what his agent said was a tainted supplement (has anyone in the NFL actually taken steroids? If you listen to agents they're all tainted supplements). Now Erasmus James is likely to miss the 49ers game with knee injury.
James' surgically repaired left knee has been giving him problems recently to the point where the Star-Tribune is reporting he might not play again this season.
If that's the case the team all of a sudden has one solid DE in Kenechi Udeze, one promising rookie in Brian Robison and an inexperienced second-year fill-in in Jayme Mitchell. The team signed Panthers practice squadder Otis Grigsby to a contract. Grigsby has been bouncing around training camps since 2003 looking for a job, so it's a safe bet he won't be fighting for a starting role.
With the defensive ends banged up, the Vikings may have to rely on even more blitzing. The good news is that the 49ers passing offense has been bad enough that this week's game might not be the perfect time to get youngsters a chance to get comfortable in playing extended numbers of snaps.
The report that Vikings running back Chester Taylor got into a fight in the locker room on Wednesday with defensive end Erasmus James is gaining steam. Among the details we've learned today are that Taylor ended up with a shiner, James ended up with a shoulder injury, and Taylor threw a chair at James that missed James and instead hit left tackle Bryant McKinnie.
And it's that last one that spurred a Pro Football Talk report that Taylor once threw a chair at offensive lineman Orlando Brown when the two were teammates with the Baltimore Ravens. This June 2006 article says the Ravens were more than happy to see Taylor leave, and that the incident with Brown is one of the reasons.
Taylor, of course, is seeing less playing time this year because of the presence of rookie running back Adrian Peterson. Veterans who are hoping to keep their jobs after their teams use a first-round draft pick on a player at the same position would be advised not to throw chairs at teammates.
UPDATE: Sean Jensen of the Pioneer Press reports that McKinnie "had to get several stitches above his right eye after being hit by a chair thrown by Taylor." Jensen also reports that James' shoulder injury was unrelated to the fight.
Sean Jensen of the St. Paul Pioneer Pressreports on the Vikings Now blog that two Minnesota Vikings players, running back Chester Taylor and defensive end Erasmus James, got into a fight after practice on Wednesday. No one is saying what started the fight, but Jensen offers this report , citing four members of the team:
James landed at least one punch before the two were separated, and their scrap prompted head coach Brad Childress to call an immediate team meeting.
Following the afternoon practice, players usually clean up quickly then head into position meetings before they are allowed to leave the facility. But Childress called the team together to bolster the need for them to remain focused on finishing the season strong, taking care of one another and leaving any differences on the field.
By Thursday, though, emotions had dissipated, and players were joking about the incident.
"It was no big deal," one member of the team said.
Interestingly, though, James surfaced on the Vikings injury report Thursday, and he was limited in practice. His ailing body part: his shoulder.
Hmm. A shoulder injury is definitely something that can happen to a guy who has thrown a punch. For the record, the Vikings roster lists James as 6-foot-4, 266 pounds and Taylor as 5-foot-11, 213 pounds.
One little loss to Northwestern can change everything. Iowa looked like the team to beat in the Big Ten title race, but now that it has fallen to the Wildcats and Ohio State has beaten Penn State, all the momentum has moved back to Columbus. Technically, both the Hawkeyes and Buckeyes control their own destiny. Whichever team wins Saturday's game is the presumptive conference champion.
Good news: Colts sixth-round pick 
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