It looks like money may have been a factor in Seattle’s trade of quarterback Geno Smith to the Las Vegas Raiders on Friday, opening the way for Vikings free agent Sam Darnold to possibly end up with the Seahawks.
Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold (14) scrambles as Seattle Seahawks linebacker Uchenna Nwosu (10) tries to tackle during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
The Seahawks wouldn’t have traded Smith without feeling strongly that next Wednesday they could sign Darnold, clearly the top free agent QB on the market.
Darnold is 27. Smith is 34. Smith is under contract for $31 million next season. Word is Smith couldn’t agree on an expensive extension with the Seahawks.
— Until Smith’s trade, Darnold was the likely choice of the Raiders or Indianapolis Colts. Darnold, if he signs with Seattle, could end up with a three-year contract in the $115 million range, but not all guaranteed. Smith’s value is at least $120 million over three years, which also wouldn’t be fully guaranteed.
— Darnold’s status with the Vikings isn’t dissimilar to what the Vikings faced a year ago with Kirk Cousins, except that other QB-needy teams aren’t expected to be as foolish as were the Atlanta Falcons, who gifted Cousins, at age 36 and coming off Achilles’ tendon surgery, a $180 million, four-year contract.
— Incredibly, on Saturday there was buzz that Aaron Rodgers, 41, who on Wednesday will be officially jettisoned by the New York Jets, would consider coming to the Vikings. As late Vikings GM Mike Lynn used to say while puffing on a Kool cigarette, “Stay tuned.”
— The Vikings now seem, however, set to proceed with unproven rookie J.J. McCarthy while hoping to sign free agent Daniel Jones, 27, as a backup QB for a year. Jones, though, could receive offers from the Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers with a chance to become their starter.
Jones’ market value with the Vikings is a one-year deal in the $15 million range with incentives, which is something Darnold wishes he would have insisted on a year ago when he signed for a straight $10 million without incentives.
— Should the late Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from Major League Baseball for betting on his team’s games be lifted?
“I feel bad for Pete because when I coached for him (1985), it was just coming out about his gambling issue,” Jim Kaat told the Pioneer Press last week.
Kaat, the former Twins pitcher who is in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, played briefly with Rose in Cincinnati, then coached under him as a manager.
“I begged him to just admit he had a problem and that baseball would forgive him,” Kaat said. “But he kept denying it, denying it. I think if he had handled it differently, he’d already be reinstated.
“Gambling, as we (players) all know, was a lifetime ticket to suspension.”
Rose, who died in September at age 83, is baseball’s all-time hits leader (4,256). He was banned from baseball in 1989 by then-Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti and thus remains, even in death, ineligible for election to the hall. Rose’s family is seeking to lift his ban so he can become eligible.
— Kaat, who would have warranted election to the hall as a superb broadcast analyst had he not been voted in as a pitcher, was working for ESPN in 1989 when Rose addressed a media crowd on his gambling issue during spring training in Plant City, Fla.
“Must have been 200 media members in front of the clubhouse,” Kaat recalled. “I got through to Bernie, the clubhouse man. I said, Bernie, I’ve got to interview Pete. So he snuck me around the back of the clubhouse. I was the only one there with a cameraman.
“So I said to Pete, ‘I’ve got to ask you this on camera.’ I already knew by being with him how much he gambled. I said I’ve got to ask you, did you ever bet on baseball?’
“He said, ‘Kitty, I bet on everything.”
But Rose told Kaat he never bet on baseball.
“I said, all right, because I’m going to ask you that on camera,” Kaat said. “Because if you did, and you would just admit you had a problem and you needed help … but Pete wasn’t wired that way. He wasn’t going to admit that. I put him on camera, and he denied it.”
Rose kept denying it for years.
“Until,” Kaat said, “he finally admitted it.
“So as much as I love the guy — and he’s one of a kind — I wish that when he was alive he would have still been involved in baseball because he could have helped so many organizations with his knowledge of the game. To use the old cliche, he shot himself in the foot.”
— Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred apparently is considering a petition by Rose’s family to have the lifetime ban lifted. Meanwhile, President Trump recently said he’ll pardon Rose posthumously.
— That was 6-foot-9 ex-Gopher Pharrel Payne from Cottage Grove scoring 12 points with five rebounds for Texas A&M in the Aggies’ 83-72 upset of No. 1 Auburn last week.
— Chicago Cubs first baseman Michael Busch, 27, the Simley grad signed for $800,000 this season, is hitting .440 (11 for 25), putting him among major league spring training leaders.
— Tre Holloman’s 60-foot buzzer beater to lift Big Ten Conference champion Michigan State over Maryland the other day wasn’t a fluke.
The Cretin-Derham Hall grad’s shot from beyond half-court gave the No. 8 Spartans a 58-55 victory at Maryland.
In 2021, then a high school junior, Holloman converted a three-point buzzer beater to lift his Raiders past the Royals at Woodbury to win the section title by the identical 58-55 score.
Holloman’s victorious shot for Michigan State was hardly by chance. In practice the day before each game, Spartans coach Tom Izzo has each player shoot a beyond half-court shot. In his previous two practices, Holloman was the only player to make the shot.
For the season, the 6-3, 190-pound Holloman, son of former Gopher Crystal Flint and Andre Lanoue, is averaging 8.7 points and a team-high 3.9 assists.
— Considering a difficult schedule to start their first season under coach Ty McDevitt, the Gophers baseball team, with 14 transfer players, has impressed a scout with pitching depth, speed (30 stolen bases) and power (20 home runs).
The team’s best hitter has been Wayzata grad Drew Berkland (.311, 6 homers). Slick-fielding Jack Spanier from Cold Spring has been brilliant at shortstop.
Berkland and pitchers Kyle Remington (Grand Rapids, Mich.) and Cole Selvig (Eau Claire, Wis.) are pro prospects. Selvig is a transfer from Texas who left the Longhorns seeking more innings, which he’s getting (20).
— Dan Wilson, the former Gophers All-America catcher, is favored at 7-2 odds to become the American League’s manager of the year with the Seattle Mariners, per BetOnline.ag The Twins’ Rocco Baldelli is next at 6-1.
— Jake Knapp’s 59 at PGA National the other day was the 15th time a PGA Tour player broke 60 in a round. The first was Al Geiberger, now 87, and he chatted with the Pioneer Press about his 59 in 1977 in Memphis.
What a lot of people don’t know about Geiberger’s feat is that it was 13-under-par, better than any of the other sub-60s. Knapp made 12 birdies in his round. Geiberger made 11 birdies and one eagle in Memphis.
“And there’s only 18 holes out there — think about that,” Geiberger said recently in Palm Desert, Calif.
— During much of Geiberger’s era, tour players used balata balls with covers so thin that they could easily get out of round when hit. During Geiberger’s 59, he used just one balata ball the entire round.
“Back then, they were wound golf balls — they’re all solid now,” he said. “And the wound golf balls weren’t always the same. If I had one going pretty good, I didn’t change. It was a Ben Hogan ball. Hogan said he was amazed that I went 18 holes with one ball.”
— Speaking of Geiberger and Hogan, Al played in two Ryder Cups for the United States. Hogan was his captain in 1967 in Houston.
These days, USA Ryder Cup captains strategize over player pairings. Another issue is what team attire to wear.
“Hogan said play with anybody you want and wear any clothes you want,” Geiberger said. “And don’t lose.”
— The Royal Golf Club in Lake Elmo, which began as a public course but has since become private, now has a $25,000 initiation fee and some 200 members.
— In the Twins’ recent spring training game against Baltimore in Fort Myers,Fla., there were three former No. 1 overall draft picks on the field: Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis and the Orioles’ Jackson Holliday.
Don’t print that
— Gophers athletics director Mark Coyle has a complicated decision whether to retain Ben Johnson after four seasons as men’s basketball coach. There would be a buyout for Johnson of $2.9 million, then a probable buyout if an active college coach were hired, plus an expected yearly salary in the $2 million range for a new coach.
Timing is important — the NCAA transfer portal opens in 16 days and lasts for a month. Top talent goes fast, and what’s left are mid-level players.
If Ryan Saunders, 37, son of popular late Gophers-Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders were hired, there would be no buyout. He’s an assistant for the Denver Nuggets and, in 2019 when the Timberwolves fired Tom Thibodeau, the Minnesota and Wayzata grad was the Wolves’ interim head coach. NBA connections are important to college players.
Meanwhile, Richard Pitino, who was fired by Coyle to hire Johnson, is 25-6 at New Mexico, which leads the Mountain West Conference. Pitino’s father Rick’s St. John’s team is 26-4.
— Flip Saunders, who died of cancer at age 60, would have turned 70 last month.
— The reason Gophers a.d. Paul Giel fired football coach Cal Stoll in 1978 following a 5-6 record was, he told Stoll, because he “couldn’t sell him anymore.” Stoll told Giel he didn’t know he was for sale.
— Colorado State (22-9), which trails New Mexico by one victory and one loss in the Mountain West, is coached by Minnesota-Roseville grad Niko Medved, a former Gophers assistant who is a proven winner after head jobs at Furman and Drake. Medved, 51, is in the second season of a seven-year contract averaging $1.85 million with a reported buyout of one-third the remaining money.
— Johnny Tauer, 52, who has been highly successful as coach at the University of St. Thomas (23-9 in the Summit League), certainly would deserve an interview if there’s a Gophers vacancy.
By the way, Tauer wouldn’t be the first St. Thomas coach to move to the Gophers. Johnny Kundla did it for the 1946-47 season before leading the Minneapolis Lakers to six world championships.
— Look for the Vikings to substantially raise 2025 ticket prices in some stadium sections, and for there to be substantial fan backlash.
— The Vikings are worth $5.32 billion, up 20 percent from last year after revenue of $597 million, per Sportico’s new valuations.
— His improved season with the Gophers should push Dawson Garcia into the second round of June’s NBA draft. Otherwise,he’s probably headed overseas.
— Pssst: Before Harmon Killebrew died 14 years ago, the hall of famer quietly was a liaison for a Denver group that wanted to buy the Twins. Upon Harmon’s passing, another Twins hall of famer, Jim Kaat, became the Colorado group’s liaison.
But the Denver group — including another ex-Twin, Frank Kostro — wanted to deal directly with the Pohlad family to buy the Twins. The Pohlads, though, signed an agreement with Steve Greenberg’s Allen & Company in New York to find a buyer.
Greenberg, a former minor league player in the Washington Senators’ system, is the son of hall of famer Hank Greenberg and was deputy baseball commissioner from 1989-93.
— If the Timberwolves-Lynx arbitration ruling favoring a $1.5 billion ownership sale to Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez holds up, departing owner Glen Taylor’s wealth valuation would increase to nearly $4 billion. He could easily afford to buy the Twins.
Taylor, 83, has until May 12 to decide if he’ll appeal the arbitration ruling.
— The Timberwolves, at $203 million, are second only to the Phoenix Suns ($214 million) in NBA payroll this season. The Detroit Pistons, with the lowest payroll — $142 million among the league’s 30 teams — have a better record than the Wolves.
Four Minnesota players — Rudy Gobert, Anthony Edwards, Julius Randle and Jaden McDaniels — comprise the same total payroll of the Pistons, $142 million.
— NFL draft expert Mel Kiper’s prediction that the Vikings will pick Gophers offensive tackle Aireontae Ersery at No. 24 overall in next month’s draft makes sense.
— No doubt Dave St. Pater, who the other day officially moved from president of the Twins to a strategic advisor role, will be voted overwhelmingly into the Twins Hall of Fame.
— Notre Dame-bound Tommy Ahneman of Cretin-Derham Hall puzzlingly was not among Minnesota Mr. Basketball’s 10 finalists.
— On Thursday, Henry Lake’s sports talk show on WCCO-AM was inexplicably cancelled by the station’s corporate owners. But to the delight of Lake’s colleagues, the decision was reversed a day later.
— Some seasons ago, the University of St. Thomas honored iconic men’s basketball coach Steve Fritz by naming the floor at Schoenecker Arena after him. It would be appropriate for the Tommies to continue that honor when they move to their new arena next fall.
— It won’t happen, but ex-Timberwolf Karl-Anthony Towns of the New York Knicks is getting mentioned for NBA MVP.
Overheard
— Arguably the greatest all-around running back in Vikings history, Chuck Foreman, whose highest one-year salary was $250,000, on tSaquon Barkley’s new $41.2 million, two-year deal with Philadelphia: “Well deserved. You can’t win without a great running back.”
Minnesota Gophers Men’s basketball coach Ben Johnson talks to the media before the teams practice at Williams Arena in Minneapolis on Tuesday, Oct 8, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Hall of Famer and former Twin great Harmon Killebrew, left, embraces newest Twin Jim Thome during spring training drills at the Lee County Sports Complex in Ft. Myers, Fla. on Saturday February 27, 2010. (Pioneer Press: Richard Marshall)
Chuck Foreman and guest walks the red carpet at the 2016 Starkey Hearing Foundation “So the World May Hear” awards gala at the St Paul RiverCentre on July 17, 2016 in St Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images for Starkey Hearing Foundation)
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