Singletary Confirms He'll be with Vikings

Former San Francisco 49ers coach Mike Singletary confirmed today with ESPN 1000 today that he has taken the linebackers/assistant head coaching job for the Minnesota Vikings. This doesn't come as much of a surprise as Vikings Coach Frazier made it well known that is he still friends with Singletary going back to their Chicago Bears days. The two of them won a Superbowl together with the 1985 Bears. This time they will be trying to knock off the 2010 NFC North Divison Champ Bears.

Right now, it seems many Vikings fans are very happy with this move. Not only will it give the fans a Defensive Coach who they're familar with, it gives them an assistant with some Head Coaching experience behind Frazier and adds some "tough" attitude to the defense who seemed to be soft most of last season. Many Vikings players said they loved playing for Leslie Frazier because hes actually played the game, the same could be said for Mike Singletary. The Vikings still have an Offensive Coordinator position open and they hope to fill that gap sometime in the near future. They did interview former Broncos HC Josh McDaniels last week.

After the decision on which Coaches to bring in, the Vikings have some tough decisions to make on which Free Agents to keep. Former 2009-10 Pro-Bowl WR Sidney Rice and OLB Chad Greenway are each Unrestricted Free Agents. Greenway has already told the Vikings he would love to stay, and who wouldn't if you were a Viking fan growing up in Iowa? The Vikings will likely use the Franchise Tag on one of them, but who will be the question? We will see down the road.

Posted by : Ryan

Vikings Blogger.

What does Jim Harbaugh Bring To The Table?

Well what exactly does Jim Harbaugh bring to the table?  Can He have the success that he did at San Diego and Stanford?  Can he win over the locker room for the 49ers?  Does he have the "Good Coach" gene that the rest of his family did/does?  Lets go through what we know first and find out.

In '05 he took a 7-4 San Diego football team to a 11-1 team in the next season.  The season after that he again made that team 11-1.  Throughout his career at San Diego he had a record of 29-6.  So he got the job done there.  In 2007 he took a Stanford Cardinal 1 win team to a 4-8 season. Some may "Ha! only 4 wins, I knew he wasn't good," those people need to remember he was playing in the PAC-10 against the likes of USC, Cal, Washington, Oregon and Arizona.  So the PAC-10 was no cake walk.  In '08 he made Stanford a 5 win team with 7 losses and '09 Stanford's record was 8-5.  Then there was this season, only one loss was to Oregon (the National Champ runner-up) and they should have won that game.  So Harbaugh can defiantly pull a reeling team back to being relevant.

He has the track record but can he pull am NFL locker room together? Honestly know one can really know 'till the season starts, but he certainly did it at his last job.  You don't take a 1 win team and four years later take then to the Orange Bowl without taking charge and winning over the locker room.

What style of offense does he run, and will it work in the NFL?  Jim Harbaugh has run a PRO-style offense at Stanford and will likely run that in the NFL.  The NFL has always primarily been a PRO-style offense type of league, so this should work out well.  Teams have used the west-coast offense but can never seem to win the Super Bowl with it, just ask the Philadelphia Eagles. This offense that John Harbaugh runs will fit in just nicely with wining in this league.

How in the world was he able to get a 5-year 7 million dollar deal in his first year?  Well if you weren't following along with what i said earlier that might be the reason why he got this big of a deal in his first year.  Also, Jim Harbaugh right now is all hype. Lets be honest he has never won a game in the NFL.  Another reason for the big deal is that other teams were fighting for him and the 49ers had to pay a pretty penny to get their man.

Overall, in my opinion I think Harbaugh will be successful just his family.  He may not win a lot games in his first year, but then again he might with the NFC West, but he will be a successful coach and the 49ers organization will not regret the the hiring of Jim Harbaugh.