Vikings notes 10/16

To help shore up the linebacking corps, which will miss E.J. Henderson for the rest of the year and might be without his replacement David Herron, who suffered a hip injury in Sunday's game against the Lions, the Vikings signed former a pair of former Viking linebackers this week.

Napoleon Harris is best known in the Twin Cities as the player obtained from the Raiders in the Randy Moss deal in 2005, along with a first-round draft pick that produced Troy Williamson. Also returning to the fold was Dontarrious Thomas, a second-round pick by the team in 2004, who was cut after the 2007 season. Harris, cut by Kansas City earlier this week, spent a little more than one full season as a starting linebacker with the Vikings, while Thomas only racked up 10 starts in his four years with the team.

Obviously, neither will provide the presence that Henderson, or probably even Herron, did over the middle of the defense. While the run defense up the middle is stout, with the Williams boys jamming it up inside, look for teams to run more short passes over the middle against the Vikings to take advantage of their weakness at middle linebacker. As if teams needed another reason to pass on us....

* Speaking of Troy Williamson, I caught a little bit of the Jaguars/Broncos game on Sunday, enough to see him haul in a spectacular 50+ yard reception...which was then promptly negated by a holding penalty on Jacksonville. Even when it goes right for Troy -- which isn't often (officially, he has two catches for 11 yards this season) -- it goes wrong.

* If Tony Romo can't go for the Cowboys, Dallas will start Brad Johnson, who will be backed up by Brooks Bollinger. Is this the 2008 Cowboys or the 2006 Vikings?

* Speaking of the Cowboys, this is the rare week when Minnesota and Dallas play at the same time on Sunday, so Adrian Peterson fans in Oklahoma will be forced to watch the Cowboys/Rams instead of Vikings/Bears at noon local time. I think watching the Rams this year is a form of cruel and unusual punishment, but at least they won't be subject to Detroit/Houston (which occupies only a tiny area of the map), which could have been an epic clash of winless teams if the Texans hadn't ruined it by pulling out a win last week against Miami.

* Former Golden Gopher and Philadelphia Eagle fullback Thomas Tapeh, who signed a free-agent deal to come to Minnesota in the offseason, hasn't even seen the field in 2008. Now it turns out that Tapeh had surgery on his knee just before signing his free-agent deal and the team might be looking to void his contract based on his injury status.

Which is really too bad, because I've been running the Vikings in franchise mode in my Madden '09 and that guy is a great safety valve out of the backfield. Then again, in that third year, Tarvaris Jackson is up to a 96 overall QB, so maybe it's not the most accurate judge of player's abilities.

* 9% and nearly twice as many votes as the second-most guy.

* So it was the Packers who were the front-runners to get TE Tony Gonzalez from Kansas City. Welcome to the world of having to deal with Chiefs GM Carl Peterson. Jared Allen says "Hi."

* Finally, Beverly Hills Chihuahua is the #1 movie in the nation? Really?