Hey, want to hear something that will ruin your day? Percy Harvin is pissed off at the Minnesota Vikings, likely about money issues:
| Pretty much unprompted, Harvin decided to make it clear following the first practice of the day that he isn’t happy with his situation and went so far as to threaten to not show up for training camp.
“I’ll just put it this way — it’s a lot of different things that have to be sorted out,” Harvin said after the morning walkthrough. “Just haven’t been real happy lately. So, we’ve got a couple things to work on. I’m here in the classroom, so we’ll go from here.” |
Hurray! Just when you thought the team had lost all of their interest and appeal, we get this! I get the feeling that the Vikings are BACK baby!
To me, this seems like a pretty simple solution: GIVE HIM MONEY. He’s one of the four best players on the team right now (Purple Jesus, Winfield, Harvin, Kevin Williams, in that order), and one of the two best players under the age of 30 (Harvin, Purple Jesus – Not yet dead, by the way). On top of that, his base salary for 2012 is under a million dollars. Come on. Ponder is making more than that, isn’t he? And he plays with his shirt on half the time! Garbage!
Sure, the argument can be made that Harvin still has two years left on his deal (2012 and 2013) and that the team wants to get maximum value from that contract. I get it. But what are you going to do by deferring Harvin’s extension another year? Piss him off and go sign 12 more Zachary Bowmans? Draft 13 more rookies every year? Let Sidney Rice walk again (Ok, good move, but still …). The point is, I haven’t been very convinced with the moves the team HAS been making with their money, so why would anyone have any confidence that they would handle Harvin’s contract well, either?
On top of this … We all just forked over a dick load of money to build these clowns a new stadium. The least you could do is use some of that good will and not let one of our objectively best, most dynamic, and league-wide popular players get all pissed off and probably eventually leave. That would seem a bit inappropriate, right?
“But PJD, he gets headaches and can’t stay on the field! Why give that whiny, injury prone loser a bunch of money?! He doesn’t deserve it!!” Yes. He. Does. He’s the ONLY player we have to play wide receiver. He’s so much more than “just a slot guy.” That, in fact, may be the dumbest comment I’ve ever heard. Remember what he did in 2009? That’s what he should ALWAYS be doing when you have a quarterback who’s not getting prison tackled every time he touches the ball, and a coach who can run an offense. Headaches? Let him smoke his weed and we’ll be done with it, Jesus already. And face it, if you don’t give him an extension NOW, you’ll have to give him one next year or the year after his contract is up, when inflation and production will have driven the cost of his new contract even higher.
It’s not that complicated. Play a little hard ball with him, pretend you’re a tough guy, then give him a contract like Desean Jackson got, let him see the value in being a team player while simultaneously rewarding his previous outstanding production with more financial benefits. Give him part ownership in a local bodega that only sells to players and high class athletes in the Twin Cities. See if he wants in on sponsorships with HCMC for medical marijuana. Tell him he can have his own private smoking lounge in the new stadium if he signs a five year extension at a reasonable rate. THIS ISN’T HARD, PEOPLE.
Honestly, do I have to do everything around here?
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