Apparently the Vikings report for training camp today... or so the committee has been told. Childress and Co. have done such a great job of stripping this team of personality and likeability (and talent) that I'm really not even looking forward to the season. It reminds me of the Twins in the late 90's, when they were fielding guys like Butch Huskey and Otis Nixon, and their All-Stars were Ron Coomer and Marty Cordova, and I was living in Wisconsin and couldn't see those games anyway. Looking back, it's like that whole 1997-2000 era never happened. That's where the Vikigns are now. Five years from now, we'll say things like "Drew Henson started 9 games that season... really?" and "We had a 1000-yard rusher named 'Artrose'... what are you smoking?"

Maybe even the Viking of the Year has passed it's usefullness. There aren't any characters left, no one the committee would actually enjoy spending time with. ("Conversations with Ryan Cook"? - I don't see it happening.) You could put me at a corner booth at Denny's with 2006 VOTY Greg "Bell-Ringer" Blue, comedian Josh Blue, legendary bluesman Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, and the starting Left Wing for the St. Louis Blues and, after making fun of whoever orders the Moon-over-My-hammy, there'd be nothing but awkward silence. Maybe I'm just bitter because of how last season worked out, or maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention. And it's possible that Cedric Griffin will give an anti-semetic interview to Judd Zelgad tomorrow and we can just call him "Professor Griff" and none of this will matter. Whatever, I really don't care anymore. Here are the nominees.

Tarvaris "Action" Jackson: A retread from last year, just to show where the committee's mind is at. Ever since the Vikings drafted him it seemed that I had seen him somewhere before. Just the other day it hit me - he's the black guy from every season of The Real World. He's even got that annoying necklace that cool guys wear. Enough said about him.

Antoine "Little Bitch" Winfield: He's little and he likes to bitch.

Visanthe "The Shank" Shianco: Ooooh... we're really scared. Hate to end up on the bottom of a pile with that guy. (On a side note, we've got four TE's, three of whom have big contracts, and none of whom were our best TE from last season. Is Tice still in charge?)

Yup, just three. Go ahead and come up with something better, but the committee'll probably just ignore you and try to push the "Action" t-shirts left over from last year's stolen election.