Keep One Eye Open: On Jerome Simpson

by Matt Prendergast

Keep One Eye Open is a series of quick notes on players that ReclinerQB.com is pointing out that maybe, just maybe, you should put in your 'Players To Watch' queue, wherever your league may be hosted. These aren't guys that we're saying you should draft come fantasy league time; in fact, you probably shouldn't. These are guys to keep in your holster with a watchful eye, because there's some potential that you might want to take a roll on them at week three, five or seven when your sleeper guys are revealed to be 'the dead weight they've always been'.

Historically, at least for the last six or seven years, you could count on one thing in the NFC North: The Vikings would have some former-gonna-be-elite castaway from the Chicago Bears in their receiving corps. And also, it was never gonna work out for them, at least not in that 'Pro Bowl steal' manner that they were hoping for. Also not usually in that 'viable second option' manner either, but let's not quibble over syntax.

Devin Aromashodu, Bobby Wade, Marcus Robinson, Bernard Berrian...it's a cavalcade of the easily covered. But this year...this year the Vikes management decided to mix things up in the hopper.

Behold Jerome Simpson. Not a former Bear, but a former Bengal. Already we're straying into a new 'high risk/reward' proposition. It's a new era, Minnesota!

Now, last time we visited Jerome Simpson specifically on this site, it was mostly so I could throw up one of my personal favorite GIMP creations, that one over there of J-Simps 'receiving' a gigantor bag o' the kind, which turned out to be good for a penalty of '15 in the yard' and a meaningless $7,500 fine that is sure to show him the error of his ways. Because we are all equal in the eyes of the law, kids, especially if 'we' are professional athletes and/or movie stars!

(Write this down: remember that if you should get in any trouble down the line yourself, good reader, 'my girlfriend signed for it' is an iron-clad defense guaranteed to whittle five years down to two-weeks-and-a-day. HOORAY FOR JUSTICE!)

And yes, the NFL, as is their manner, has followed suit, leaving the Vikings leaning on always-half-busted Percy Harvin flanked by perennial fourth-option Michael Jenkins and aforementioned former Bear Devin Aromashodu. In short, come week four, Christian Ponder is gonna be half-crazy from running triple-reverses and bonking balls off the numbers of guys 17 yards out across the middle, and Percy's gonna need a break from quadruple-coverages.

So let's not quibble on the minor legal troubles - why should we be better than the Vikings? WE ARE NOT! Let's look at the positives.

First, how many wide receivers that barely played their first two-and-a-half years have a song written about them? Yeah, I don't know either. But Jerome certainly does! Behold:

Now, as you're trying to get that out of your head (and good luck with that), let's review the important facts:

1) The Vikings have, honestly, nobody else to legitimately keep JS from taking that WR2 spot over the very moment he returns from his sabbatical.

2) Simpson has hands. And speed. And the ability to use both. And he's been impressing in these way-early field outings thus far. For a team that had their soul crushed repeatedly over the past year, a glimmer of hope can go a long way towards getting seats filled in a stadium.

3) Oh yeah, this guy made one of the greatest plays I've ever seen, ever. Remember?

Well,  maybe he's got more than that is his bag (HA! GET IT!! I crack myself up, Willie..... )

File Jerome Simpson under 'Drop Doug Baldwin/Pick Up Flippy Flipperson' in Week Four.



Follow Matt @AmazingMattyP on Twitter. He can do flips also. They're just much sadder.


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