Minnesota Vikings GM Rick Spielman Says There Are No Issues with Percy Harvin
By Josh Hill
The Minnesota Vikings aren’t in the playoffs anymore but they’re still very much in the NFL spotlight, thanks to what many are interpreting as an ongoing problem with wide receiver Percy Harvin. The former Rookie of the Year made a big deal about being placed on injured reserve before the Vikings final games of the season, which now has many calling into doubt his future in Minnesota.
Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder went on the Paul Allen Show earlier this week on KFAN in Minneapolis and gave cryptic comments about Harvin’s future.
“I’m not sure, I don’t know,” said on Tuesday. “We’ll see. I mean, we’ll see how everything shakes out. I’m not sure what Rick Spielman’s gonna be doing. Obviously, it’d be nice to have [Harvin]. He’s a heck of a player. … He had a lot of leadership qualities. He was a good teammate.”
The key phrase from that interview that people are reading way too much into is the bit where Ponder says, in past tense, that Harvin was a good teammate. He could have just been speaking about playing with him the previous season, but skeptics are trying to say that Ponder knows more than he should about Harvin’s situation.
[RELATED: Are Percy Harvin’s Days in Minnesota Numbered?]
Vikings general manager Rick Spielman has come out and said that people are indeed reading too far into Ponder’s slip of the tongue and that Harvin is not an issue in Minnesota.
“Percy comes to work every day. Everybody sees what Percy puts on the field. He plays the game as hard or harder than anyone else in the NFL, the effort that he puts up out there,” Spielman said, via Tim Yotter of Scout.com. “So, we have no issues with Percy Harvin.”
Still, Harvin is entering a contract season next year and there is much uncertainty as to whether or not he’ll be in Minnesota in the long term. There were trade rumors dating back to training camp and Harvin didn’t do much to kill those rumors by fighting with Leslie Fraizer on the Vikings sidelines and causing a hubbub about being place on IR.
The future is still in flux when it comes to Harvin, even if Spielman wants to try to put out some fires.