A loss in Chicago on Sunday night would leave the Minnesota Vikings 1½ games behind the Bears in the NFC North. If the Vikings intend to win the division, they’ll probably need to defeat Chicago, then the Packers in another prime-time game next Sunday night in Minneapolis.
Minnesota’s schedule gets even tougher after the Green Bay game, with the Vikings facing the Patriots at New England the following week, then playing
the Seahawks in Seattle in another prime-time game on Monday night.
That’s a brutal four-game stretch for the Vikings.
“What makes (Sunday night) a big deal is that it’s a division game,” cornerback Xavier Rhodes said. “Our first goal is to win our division.”
The Vikings’ undistinguished offensive line will be especially challenged against the Bears’ pass rush, trying to stop relentless outside linebacker Khalil Mack, who has seven sacks in seven games. The Vikings will try to counter the rush with quick passes from QB Kirk Cousins while hoping to run the ball.
Chicago’s fate — good or bad — will rest on the arm of QB Mitch Trubisky.
Alex Smith, who replaced Cousins in Washington, has played well, but not as well as Cousins in Minnesota.
Smith has led the Redskins to a 6-3-0 record, completing 193 of 301 passes, including 10 TDs with three interceptions for a QB rating of 90.7.
Cousins has led the Vikings to a 5-3-1 record, completing 259 of 363 passes, including 17 TDs with five interceptions, and has a 102.2 rating.
Smith’s rating ranks 21st in the NFL, Cousins’ ninth. The Saints’ Drew Brees is No. 1 at 123.8. The Packers’ Aaron Rodgers is 14th at 100.0.
Vikings wide receiver Adam Thielen, who is tied for the NFL lead in receptions, asked how he gets open all the time: “I’m not sure. Sometimes it’s not even getting open — it’s just having a perfectly thrown ball and using your body and things like that.”
The Vikings-Bears game could attract some 20 million viewers to NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” which the network reports is averaging 19.7 million this season. Last Sunday night’s Packers-Patriots game — QBs Aaron Rodgers vs. Tom Brady — averaged 24.1 viewers.
Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Michele Tafoya will call Sunday night’s game.
Vikings wide receiver Chad Beebe’s father, ex-NFL wideout Don, last week was named head football coach at Division III Aurora (Ill.) University.
Tom Wistrcill, the former Gophers associate athletics director, will soon become commissioner of the Big Sky Conference.
Small world: Brothers Jeff and Dave Meslow from Mahtomedi, respectively Big Ten and NFL officials, this weekend stayed at the same hotel in Detroit, Jeff working the Michigan-Indiana game on Saturday and Dave the Lions-Carolina game on Sunday.
Joe Mauer’s father Jake, who helped develop the retired Twin’s impeccable batting swing, on Charles Joseph Mauer, born last week to Joe and Maddie.
“He already bats left and throws right,” Jake said of the 7-day-old baby.
Added Joe’s mother Teresa, the former St. Paul Central girls basketball standout, on Charles, “At nine pounds, two ounces, he’s probably going to walk out of the hospital.”
Mauer’s retirement leaves the Twins without a $23 million salary commitment for next season. But that doesn’t necessarily mean an extra $23 million for free agency, club owner Jim Pohlad said.
“It’s not like ‘OK, we’ve got this money now, and we didn’t have it before, so we can do so much more,’ ” Pohlad said. “I don’t feel that way.”
The Twins last winter spent $53 million on free agents Logan Morrison, Lance Lynn, Fernando Rodney, Addison Reed, Michael Pineda, Zach Duke and Matt Magill.
“It didn’t turn out that well,” Pohlad said.
John Anderson, the hall of fame Gophers baseball coach, remembers recruiting Mauer out of Cretin-Derham Hall 17 years ago.
“Joe did take an official visit at Minnesota, but what I remember is that he said he probably was going to go to Florida State because they had a better football program, and that would mean better leverage with his major league baseball contract negotiations,” Anderson said last week.
“Joe said, ‘If I was just playing baseball, I would come to Minnesota,’ and actually I saw him this summer and he said, ‘As I reflect back, I should have committed to the University of Minnesota. I wish I could have played in your program.’ That was a nice thing for him to say. So we had our shot.”
When Mauer and his parents made their official Gophers recruiting visit, Anderson said he told them they were going to need an agent. He recommended Ron Shapiro, who had represented former Gophers catcher Dan Wilson, the 14-year major leaguer, as well as Twins hall of famer Kirby Puckett.
“Ron was very selective who (his firm) represented,” Anderson said. “I told him ‘I’ve got the next Dan Wilson here at Minnesota in Joe Mauer, and I think you should get on him.’ ”
After researching Shapiro, Mauer’s family chose the Baltimore-based agent.
Pro football hall of famer Tony Dungy was to be keynote speaker on Saturday at the Gophers wrestling gala at Golden Valley Country Club to raise money ($500,000 is needed) to build a locker room.
The Gophers have 32-to-1 odds to win the Big Ten men’s basketball championship, according to SportsBettingDime.com. Barring further injuries, Minnesota should be a top-five conference team.
The Gophers football team is still projected to play in something called the Redbox Bowl on New Year’s Eve in Santa Clara, Calif., against California, according to athlonsports.com.
Northwestern, which visited the Gophers on Saturday, is providing students with free tickets and bus transportation, as well as free meals on the bus, from Evanston, Ill., to Indianapolis for the Big Ten championship football game at Lucas Oil Stadium on Dec. 1.
Scouting the Gophers-Northwestern game Saturday for the Vikings was Scott Studwell.
Local author Todd Smith has signed a deal to work on a book with Olympic cross-country skiing gold medalist Jessie Diggins from Afton.
Four Notre Dame football tickets plus lodging, donated in part by ex-Irish lineman Ryan Harris, brought in $3,000 at Cretin-Derham Hall’s live auction gala last week.
Vikings owner Zygi Wilf gave $2,700 to Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar in June, Sports Illustrated points out in a survey of political contributions by NFL owners.
One Gophers men’s basketball supporter paid $5,700 at a cancer fundraiser at Interlachen Country Club the other day to accompany the team on a road trip this season.
Tre Holloman, 14, the Cretin-Derham Hall basketball freshman, is regarded among the country’s top point guards for the 2022 class. Officials at USA Basketball are big on Holloman’s future.
Daniel Oturu, who starred for the Raiders’ large-school state championship team last season, is averaging 13.5 points for the Gophers. Also from that title team, Sy Chatman is averaging 6.7 points
as a freshman at Massachusetts. And Ryan Larson is averaging 3.7 points at Wofford.
Sam Hentges, the 6-6, 245-pound left-handed Mounds View grad with a 96-mph fastball and intimidating slider, is expected to be placed on the Cleveland Indians’ 40-player major league roster.
Hentges, 22, who received an $800,000 signing bonus from the Indians as their fourth-round draft pick in 2014, has recovered well from elbow ligament surgery. He’s the Indians’ sixth-best prospect according to Baseball America.
Brent Haskins, son of former Gophers basketball coach Clem Haskins, is advance scout for the Detroit Pistons, coached by ex-Wolves coach Dwane Casey.
First-year Gophers men’s hockey coach Bob Motzko was a hit speaking at the Capital Club at Town and Country last Tuesday.
Longtime Centennial girls hockey coach Kristi King is the new women’s hockey assistant at the University of St. Thomas, which has won 19 straight games. King joins head coach Tom Palkowski, the Columbia Heights hall of famer, and assistant Marty Sertich, the 2005 Hobey Baker Award winner.
Finally, local restaurateur Wayne Kostroski, who founded the Taste of the NFL that has raised more than $25 million for hunger relief causes, on Monday will be inducted into the Minnesota Hospitality Hall of Fame at Bunker Hills.
The Hockey Old Timers annual luncheon, with WCHA Commissioner Billy Robertson as speaker, is Tuesday at Mancini’s Char House.
DON’T PRINT THAT
Most former Twins stars wait years before their numbers are retired. Don’t be surprised if the Twins retire Joe Mauer’s No. 7 as early as next summer.
This week’s Sports Illustrated, on the admirable makeup of Mauer while with the Twins: “He was T-bills and Volvos and your mother’s arms. He never got within a ringing double of a scandal. He married a high school classmate; they had twins. He did local TV ads for milk, for cryin’ out loud.”
Since last week’s trade of Jimmy Butler to Philadelphia, odds of the Timberwolves winning the NBA championship moved from 80-to-1 to 150-to-1, according to Bovada-Las Vegas. The 76ers’ odds improved from 20-to-1 to 14-to-1.
The Timberwolves play the 76ers on Jan. 15 in Philadelphia, but not in Minneapolis until March 30.
The Wolves rank last among the NBA’s 30 teams in attendance with an average of 13,794 per game. The 76ers are No. 1 with 20,290.
It’s clear that it was owner Glen Taylor who expedited the Butler trade to Philly. And don’t think Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg wasn’t thrilled to dump Butler.
Wishing the best for popular former Gophers men’s basketball coach Jimmy Williams, who has worrisome health issues.
Ex-Gophers QB Mark Trestman, 62, who coached Montreal to two Grey Cup championships in Canada, was fired the other day as head coach of the Toronto Argonauts.
There is little doubt that whichever college choice Rochester John Marshall’s 6-9 Matthew Hurt makes (Memphis is considered the front-runner), it’ll be just for one year before heading for the NBA.
Deephaven’s Tim Herron, a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, has played golf with and against Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson for years. Herron thinks Woods will prevail in the $9 million, TV pay-per-view match-play event on Friday at the Shadow Creek course in Las Vegas.
“Tiger is playing good; I think it’ll be entertaining,” Herron said. “Everyone’s always tried to make Phil and Tiger in a dual, and it never really happened. I think it will be interesting.
“It’s not boxing, it’s still golf. (The pay-per-view, $19.99) isn’t as expensive as boxing. I’m not going to pay — I’ve seen them in person, I don’t need to see them on TV.”
Gophers football coach P.J. Fleck will receive a $75,000 contract bonus for his players having surpassed the 85 percent Graduation Success Rate, USA Today points out. Minnesota has an 89 percent GSR.
Turnstile count for the Gophers-Purdue football game at chilly TCF Bank Stadium last Saturday was 14,950. Capacity is 50,805.
That was Georgetown men’s basketball coach Patrick Ewing visiting East Ridge High School on an evaluation trip this fall.
The Wisconsin football team that hosts the Gophers next Saturday for Paul Bunyan’s Axe has Michael Deiter and Jonathan Taylor, who are semifinalists for the Outland Trophy (best interior lineman) and Walter Camp Player of the Year award, respectively. Taylor is a running back who, with 1,548 yards entering Saturday’s game against Purdue, had outgained the Purdue, Iowa, Rutgers, Michigan State and Northwestern teams on his own.
Brendan McFadden, the superb St. Thomas Academy running back who also is an elite hockey player, has a preferred walk-on offer from Rice University, alma mater of ex-Vikings QB Tommy Kramer. Division III St. John’s and St. Thomas are also vying for McFadden, who is also receiving Ivy League and Division II interest.
There are no plans, despite Phil Esten’s hiring last week as athletics director by the University of St. Thomas, for the Tommies to transition to Division I. The school thoroughly enjoys being in the MIAC and Division III.
The top three nationally-ranked college men’s hockey teams are from the state of Minnesota: Minnesota-Duluth No. 1, St. Cloud State No.2 and Minnesota State Mankato No. 3. Gophers are No. 19.
“Wrestlemania 34” is reported to have brought $175 million in economic impact to New Orleans last April while the NCAA Final Four in Minneapolis this April is estimated to be worth $142 million to the local economy.
Despite losing 41-10 to the Gophers, there’s talk that Purdue football coach Jeff Brohm could be headed to alma mater Louisville.
OVERHEARD
Malcontent ex-Timberwolf Jimmy Butler, quoted by the 76ers’ marketing department upon his arrival in Philadelphia: “I’m up early before a lot of people, in the gym, and I’m there later than a lot of people in the gym, just because I want to do whatever it is my team asks me to do to help us win as many games as possible.”
