John Randle – Hall of Famer

John Randle makes it into the Hall of Fame. Cris Carter does not.

I won't get into the debate on why Carter didn't make it in for the second straight year. But there seems to be a fair bit of debate about the merits of Randle getting in. And the debate seems to center around Randle's ability (or rather, lack of ability) in defending the run.

However, my simplistic view of this is if a player was that good at doing something as important as rushing the passer, then he deserves to be enshrined in Canton.

In other Viking news, here is an interesting column by Dan Le Batard about Bryant McKinnie that I got from the Access Vikings site.

Le Batard actually seems pretty sympathetic to McKinnie's situation in this piece. But he may have written it that way because he's scared McKinnie will hit him on the head with a metal pole.

On the other hand, I find myself sort of liking McKinnie after reading this. He's not unlike a lot of other people I've known who like to party, sometimes get into dust ups under the influence, but aren't necessarily evil people.

I also kind of like the fact McKinnie isn't hiding behind some publicist or PR firm, issuing silly statements expressing his deep regret about embarrassing the Vikings, Vikings fans and the universe, when he obviously doesn't feel that way at all.