(credit: Hennepin County/CBS)
It’s a tradition: the Minnesota Vikings’ annual Sisyphean struggle to put a winning season together and the predictable roster of new Viking mug shots.
In this most dismal of years — with last week’s tie possibly blowing a shot at landing the top draft pick — comes the news that, in three weeks, three Vikings have been arrested. Jerome Simpson and Erin Henderson for were booked for DWI, and AJ Jefferson for felony domestic assault.
According to several analyses, as of this summer, the Vikings and Cincinnati Bengals were tied for the most for all NFL teams, with each team seeing 40 arrests since 2000.
Could this burst of arrest productivity in the past three weeks have made the purple number one? I will have to check with colleagues in Cincinnati, but somehow I think we may finally have bragging rights to something.
The teams with the fewest arrests are the Houston Texans and St. Louis Rams.
Could a culture of losing contribute to reckless, lawless behavior? New England has had 23 arrests since 2000 and three Super Bowl wins. But if you want to argue their arrests are worse than our arrests, there is always Aaron Hernandez.
The Vikings have a problem. The NFL has a problem. And until fans demand a change with their spending and viewing habits, the problem will almost certainly continue.
