The long-range forecast for the quarterback situation in Minnesota: cloudy until mid-July

A month ago I thought it was ridiculous to hear fans and sportswriters theorize that Brett Favre dislikes organized team activities and minicamps so much that he would delay a decision on unretiring until training camp, just to avoid all that nonsense.

But now there's this. If I'm Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels, I'm preparing myself for when training camp open in July, and the Vikings schedule a press conference to announce they've signed Favre.

I wonder how Brad Childress is handling this with Jackson and Rosenfels? He's been careful to say as little as possible about it publicly. But is he keeping the two guys who are supposed to be competing for the starting job in the loop on what interest the Vikings have in Favre? Past comments by Rosenfels and Jackson suggest they haven't spoken to Childress about it. If that's the case, I think it's unfair and unethical to give two professionals the impression they are fighting for a starting job when you're ultimate plan is to coax Favre out of retirement if he's healthy. However, fairness, ethics and professional sports do not always mix.

Interesting post by Football Outsiders' J.I. Halsell on NFL teams and salary cap efficiency. If Halsell's numbers are to be believed (and I have no reason not to believe them), the Vikings under the Wilf's ownership have a very good handle on the salary cap – although if no new collective bargaining agreement is reached with the players and owners soon, there will be no cap in 2010.

Still, for those of us who remember those dark days in the late 90s and the early part of this decade when the Vikes always seemed to be in salary cap trouble and couldn't keep many of their core players together, (who inevitably signed with Cleveland for some reason) there's something reassuring in knowing we've got ownership and management that is spending money efficiently and wisely. It's one less thing for a Vikings fan to moan about. Which is nice, because we do enough moaning.