I would have been ecstatic to play this year. And I'm disappointed that I'm not. But also, at those moments when I separate the emotion from it all, I think this is probably the right thing to do, not only for myself and my career, but also for the Vikings.

Don't put this in the paper ... no, wait, go ahead and put it in. Gene Upshaw is a piece of (expletive). Too many guys in the league just accept whatever Gene says. I don't know why no one has called this guy out.

Besides steaks and fish, we're going to have meat loaf and big old burgers.

(Wilf) decided he wanted to sit down with me at some point later on and talk about some stuff. All he said is he was concerned about my physical health and he wanted to sit down and talk with me about it. He looked me in the eye and told me that and I believed him, which made me think also that I'm in the long-term plans here, the long-term thoughts, which is great, because I want to be.

He's actually good. I'm not.

I think that a percentage of contracts should be guaranteed. But [trailblazing] wasn't my thinking. I was just trying to think of a scenario under which I would be comfortable playing given my condition, something that would work for both sides.