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Minnesota: Striking out for Underwood
Posted: Thursday August 05, 1999 10:08 AM
This is the fourth in a series of postcards Sports Illustrated's Peter King will e-mail from his annual NFL training-camp tour. Tuesday, Aug. 3 TEAM: Minnesota Vikings SITE: Mankato State University, Mankato, Minn., 75 miles south-southwest of the Twin Cities on a stark campus with little flavor. Nice fields, and pretty good vantage point for the fans who've flocked here in the Vikings' first week. PLAYER I SAW WHO I REALLY LIKED: Rookie tight end/H-back/fullback Jim Kleinsasser , a second-round pick from North Dakota. Oh, you're going to hear about this guy. He's 6' 2", 274 pounds, a bigger and more athletic version of Mike Alstott , a blocking bandit and much quicker man than your garden-variety tight end. Running the field Tuesday morning in his third pro practice, Kleinsasser was a big man among men. I can't wait to see what kind of hybrid role -- which is still being determined -- Dennis Green and offensive coordinator Ray Sherman find for him. THE FOOD: Quite a smorgasbord here in the heartland. Started with a fresh fruit salad, with nice cantaloupe and fresh strawberries -- then grazed on a leaf lettuce, cauliflower and radish salad, with light ranch. Very nice. But the penne with red sauce tasted like overdone pasta with Ragu. I couldn't finish. Luckily, a custard square with graham crust was a nice finish, and the apple juice was quasi-real. Overall, it was nice lunchtime fare, but the pasta deadened my enthusiasm.
Dear NFL Junkie: This morning, around 9 a.m., SI correspondent and buddy Don Banks of the St. Paul Pioneer stunned me when I walked into practice. He told me that defensive end Dimitrius Underwood , the Vikings' second first-round pick in April's draft, walked out of camp Monday. But this was no ordinary walkout. Underwood just signed his rookie contract Sunday, with a $1.8-million signing bonus. His agent drove him from Minneapolis to move into the players' dorm Sunday. The agent, Craig Domann , said it was a normal trip, with Underwood excited about the chance to compete for the starting job vacated by departed free-agent Derrick Alexander . His first practice was uneventful Monday, as was lunch, and when he left his room around 2 p.m., he told fellow rookie Talance Sawyer he'd see him later at practice. That's the last anyone saw of him Monday or Tuesday. "We were not aware he was leaving," declared owner Red McCombs Tuesday morning. No kidding. By the time I talked to Domann late Tuesday afternoon, he was in his Chicago office, calling everyone he could think of. "Nobody's seen him or heard from him," Domann said. "Frankly, I'm starting to get pretty worried about him." The NFL was on the case, and I'm told they had no clue where he was as of late Tuesday afternoon. He had no car. He had no money to speak of, because the team had frozen his bonus. He had no friends in Minneapolis. And the team reaction was just weird, almost passive. It seemed cold until you realized: None of these guys know Underwood yet. If this had been a nothing practice-squad guy from last year's team, at least there'd be some sentiment about him because people knew him. Some of the defensive players didn't even know what he looked like. As I write this, at 9:30 Tuesday night, I don't know where Dimitrius Underwood is. And Dennis Green, who drafted this troubled underachiever from Michigan State hoping he could turn him into this year's Randy Moss , might have to accept batting .500 in his two-year quest for projects -- a hit on Moss, a strikeout on Underwood.
Check back soon for more Postcards from Camp. To send a question to
Peter King's NFL Mailbag, click here.
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