Wednesday, March 14, 2012

John Carlson Is A Viking!

Early this afternoon, the Vikings met with and signed Seahawks TE John Carlson to a 5 year/$25 million deal with $11 million guaranteed. This comes before the departure of Visanthe Shiancoe, who is looking at meeting with the Seahawks now! Carlson was drafted in 2008 in the 2nd Round (38th overall). He is a product of Notre Dame, just as our current star TE, Kyle Rudolph. Both are large, receiving TE's, that if they are productive, will resemble the match up nightmares of Gronkowski/Hernandez. Since starting, Carlson has caught 137 passes for a total of 1,519 yards and 15 touchdowns. That was with sitting out all of 2011 due to tearing his labrum in his shoulder. He reports that his shoulder is now good and feels he can be good again. While I have some excitement for this signing, I still give it a C+. I give it this rating because TE was not the Vikings biggest need. Also some concern that maybe they slightly overpaid for him, but as one person put it, it's not a #2 signing, it's a #1b. Additionally, Rudolph and Carlson are superb run blockers, so we will need additional blockers to help Adrian Peterson. But I am hopeful that this will prove to be a good off season sign by the Vikings and provide Ponder with a much needed weapon. SKOL!!

No comments:

Post a Comment