ESPN’s Kevin Seifert has an interesting item on his NFC North blog today. Seifert ran a letter from a reader in Los Angeles that reads: “I’m a HUGE Vikings fan living in Los Angeles. One of my employees and his brother know T.J. Houshmandzadeh. When asked why he passed on Minnesota, he told them that it was all good until they brought Tarvaris Jackson into talk to him (and basically signal to him that he is their starter). …”

Seifert acknowledges he has to be careful about passing along news tips, but in this case it has been confirmed that a meeting between Houshmandzadeh and Jackson took place. We have no knowledge of exactly what was said but there are a few who believed the meeting with Jackson tied into Houshmandzadeh’s decision to head to Seattle. However, others say it was purely about the money and the Seahawks are believed to have had a richer final offer than Minnesota.

Houshmandzadeh did come out and admit the Seahawks’ situation with Matt Hasselbeck at quarterback played a role in his thought process. The Vikings have a big-time unknown when it comes to the quarterback position.

While Houshmandzadeh met with Jackson, he did not get a chance to talk to the newly acquired Sage Rosenfels. Rosenfels was introduced to the media the day before Houshmandzadeh arrived for his visit and then left for Florida to attend a wedding.

Would things have been different if Rosenfels also had been involved?

What isn’t clear is how Jackson’s presence was sold to Houshmandzadeh. Did the Vikings explain that one of their quarterbacks simply wasn’t in town and here was a guy who would compete for the position? Or was Houshmandzadeh told that Jackson likely would be the starter and so the two should talk?

The truth of what happened isn’t likely to come out anytime soon but it would be interesting to know.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.