FanHouse Bryant Mckinnie

Because the NFL season never ends, we present our 2009 Offseason Roadmaps for front offices to navigate through the summer.

In an NFC that is heading into the offseason without a clear favorite, the Minnesota Vikings have almost all the pieces to be the presumptive favorite. They have an outstanding defensive line, an improved secondary and the best running back in the business. They also have a very good offensive line and thanks to Bernard Berrian, the receiver corps no longer is a joke.

There were two facts about the Green Bay Packers' preseason that you might find startling.

For starters, an offensive line that has prided itself on protecting Brett Favre for so many years didn't do a very good job with Favre's replacements in the preseason. Aaron Rodgers, Brian Brohm, and Matt Flynn were sacked a combined 16 times in four games, the most sacks allowed by any team in the preseason.

Meanwhile, the Packers defensive line struggled to generate much of any push against their opponents. The defense picked up just two sacks, which ranked last in the NFL.

Yes, it's just preseason, but the Packers clearly have a little bit of work to do in the trenches.

Luckily for them, so does Minnesota.

Bryant McKinnie's four-game suspension couldn't have come at a worse time.

There's never a good time to lose your above-average left tackle, but Artis Hicks is going to have to face Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, Dwight Freeney, Julius Peppers and Kyle Vanden Bosch. Four weeks, four Pro Bowl defensive ends. Could you draw up four tougher tests for the new left tackle?

The good news is that KGB is battling a knee problem and may miss Monday's game--which would give Hicks a week to get comfortable before a trio of tough tests, but it is safe to say that Hicks' success or failure will play a large role in determining if the Vikings get off to a fast start.

The Vikings will likely to a lot to help Hicks--Jim Kleinsasser might get some extra playing time for some double-team help and the Vikings will likely chip the defensive ends with a running back. Tarvaris Jackson has a lot of weaknesses, but his escapability will come in very handy over the next four weeks.

The Minnesota Vikings won't have an easy go of it in the first month of the season, as their mammoth left tackle, Bryant McKinnie, has been suspended for four games.

The suspension was first reported early this month, a report the league said was premature. But today the NFL announced that the four-game suspension will, in fact, begin tomorrow and run through the Vikings' September 28 game at Tennessee.

McKinnie's suspension stems from repeated violations of the league's personal conduct policy. The most recent violation involved a fight with a nightclub bouncer; he was previously involved in the Vikings' infamous "love boat."

Having McKinnie out will make things particularly difficult for quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, an at times skittish passer who relies on McKinnie to protect his blind side. The Vikings want Jackson to learn to look to pass first and run only as a last resort, but that will be hard to do when he's got defensive ends bearing down on him for the first four games.

Because Vikings tackle Bryant McKinnie can't seem to steer clear of the back seat of police cars, there's a chance NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will fine or suspend him (or both) at some point in the near future.

Last Friday, McKinnie met with Goodell, presumably to discuss McKinnie's off-field, po-po-related run-ins, the last of which took place two months ago.

Judd Zulgad, on the Star Tribune's Vikings Blog, writes that:

McKinnie's attorney, Larry Kerr, has asked that the state of Florida allow his client to enter a pre-trial diversion program; that could lead to the charges being dismissed. Right now, McKinnie has a court hearing scheduled for June 20 in Miami-Dade County Court.

The latest incident marks the fourth time McKinnie has been involved with law enforcement since being drafted in 2002: in one case, no charges were filed, another case the charges were dropped, and Al and Alma's resulted in a $2,000 fine, 48 hours of community service and an NFL game check.

If McKinnie is suspended, the Vikings will have to re-shuffle their line, and although he's been something of an underachiever in his seven-year career, no one's advocating for Artis Hicks to replace him at left tackle. Particularly Tarvaris Jackson and Purple Jesus.

Jeffrey Standen, a professor of law at Williamette University writes a blog called The Sports Law Professor. His most recent entry, entitled "Roger Goodell and the Cheating Scandal," I think is worth a read, even if I don't agree with all of it.

His argument is nuanced and is best read in its non-summarized form, but he's a blogger so he knows how these things work. His contention is that the most profitable sports league in the world could have chosen someone more educated, seasoned and accomplished to be its commissioner. That so far in his job, Roger Goodell is "starting to look like an unthinking moralist."

A moralist, as Professor Standen explains, is "the kind of person who prefers to arrive at the facile, stark ethical conclusion than to perform the heavy mental exercise of making fine distinctions that might produce a better answer."

From this POV, Goodell has painted himself into a corner with the severity of the rhetoric and punishment he's used to respond to the Patriotgate Spygate and player discipline scandals.

"A commissioner only has so much moral capital to expend," he writes, and Goodell has spent his in awkward, to high profile ways.

I'm not sure I agree with his conclusions relating to Spygate (I believe Goodell is responding in part to the pressure he is feeling from Senator Arlen Specter). However, I do have significant concerns about Goodell turning the commissioners office into nothing more than an arbitrary and capricious police, jury and judge.

Presumably, the on-again, off-again rumors that defensive end Jason Taylor wants out of Miami is predicated on the idea that he'd like to end his career on a team with a realistic chance to get to a Super Bowl. Which sort of renders moot the latest nugget from Charley Walters:

Trading unpredictable left tackle Bryant McKinnie to the Miami Dolphins for high-character pass rusher Jason Taylor would seem to make sense for the Vikings. The problem for Minnesota, though, would be replacing McKinnie. Next month's NFL draft will feature several top offensive linemen, but they're expected to go early, and the Vikings don't pick until No. 17 in the first round.

But assuming Taylor wouldn't mind relocating to Minnesota, this trade scenario becomes less ridiculous. The Dolphins would stand to gain the most -- McKinnie is a dominant left tackle and is only 28 -- but they would also be taking the biggest risk: McKinnie has been arrested four times since coming into the league in 2002. And we all know how Bill Parcells feels about thugs and hoodlums.

In Taylor, the Vikings would get a proven pass rusher and high-character guy. At 33, he probably has two or three more productive seasons so he would provide a short-term Band-Aid to the defensive line issues.

Vikings left tackle Bryant McKinnie, who was arrested last month and charged with aggravated battery, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, pleaded not guilty today, Sean Jensen of the Star-Tribune reports.

McKinnie is accused of spitting in the face of a bouncer who kicked him out of a club in his hometown of Miami, and then leaving the club only to return, shove his phone in the bouncer's face and then pick up a heavy pole and hit the bouncer with it.

For now we don't know enough to judge the merits of the legal case against him, but it does appear safe to say that McKinnie is going to need to demonstrate that the accusations are totally false if he wants to avoid a suspension. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has made clear that he doesn't have to wait until a player is convicted of a crime before he issues a suspension: An arrest alone is enough to warrant a suspension, especially for players who aren't first-time offenders of the NFL's personal conduct policy.

McKinnie was already once docked a paycheck by the NFL and has been arrested twice in the last three years, once in October 2005 for a disturbance at a Minneapolis gas station, and once when he and some teammates were accused of doing some things they shouldn't have during a boat party. These latest accusations are more serious than those previous incidents, meaning Goodell is very likely to suspend McKinnie for the start of the 2008 season.

It looks like the Vikings need to start making backup plans at left tackle. Bryant McKinnie's recent brush with the law will lead to a March court case, but it will also likely lead to a September suspension.

As the Star-Tribune points out, it doesn't even really matter if McKinnie is found guilty or not. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has the power to suspend McKinnie simply for getting into trouble again. Thanks to McKinnie's misdemeanor plea for his role in the Love Boat scandal, he's considered a repeat offender by NFL standards, which makes Goodell much more likely to bring a smackdown.

If there is any good news in this, and there isn't much, it's that head coach Brad Childress doesn't really have to worry about balancing the need to punish McKinnie with the need to put a winning team on the field. Since Goodell has started handing out discipline Childress can rightfully say that he will leave that decision to the commissioner.

The Vikings have had their share of players in trouble, but this one might end up being more serious than the average pot arrest.

Starting left tackle Bryant McKinnie was arrested and charged with aggravated battery, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. According to a police report, as quoted by the Miami Herald, McKinnie spit in the fact of a bouncer then picked up a heavy pole and hit the bouncer with it. Pro Football Talk, which is run by a lawyer, reports that the aggravated battery charge could carry at 15-year sentence.

The standard disclaimer applies: McKinnie is innocent until proven guilty. But if the police report is true, he could have some trouble with this one, since the fight was apparently witnessed by a large crowd who gathered to watch the whooping. It's a little harder to explain he said, she said when there are plenty of witnesses.

This is obviously the kind of unknown teams don't want to be dealing with as free agency nears. If McKinnie misses time next year, he leaves a gaping hole that can't be easily filled. Of course, this case could end up going away, like many athletes' criminal cases do, but this isn't the kind of trouble you want to see your seven-year, $48 million tackle get into.