Photo: Aj Mansour (KFAN)
By: Aj Mansour | KFAN.com
@AjMansourKFAN
Eden Prairie, MN - Despite the presence of 89 other players at Winter Park, the first two days of Vikings Mini-Camp were largely overshadowed by Percy Harvin and his current situation with the team. On that note, it would only be proper for Percy and his unhappiness to dominate the third and final day as well. On day one, he alerted the press that he was unhappy. Day two brought on a trade request. So how could Percy top himself on day three? He did exactly what he was supposed to do. He showed up and took part in a mandatory mini-camp.
After skipping out on Wednesday afternoon's practice, it was thought that Harvin's displeasure with the team had pushed him to miss the remaining practice and skip town completely. When head coach Leslie Frazier joined Paul Allen live on KFAN (hear the interview here) from Winter Park Thursday morning, he shared that Percy was indeed at the complex and scheduled to take part in the day's activities.
As it turns out, Percy took the field with his teammates and participated in all of the team and individual activities.
"I'm just glad that [Percy] was participating in what we're doing [today]," Frazier said. "It was good that he had the energy and wanted to get out there just to see how he felt...He leaves going home feeling confident that things are moving in the right direction, we feel confident things are moving in the right direction so that was really good to see."
Harvin must have been tuckered out after practice as he did not speak to the media after practice but was escorted to the locker rooms by a member of the Vikings media relations team telling us he would speak to us later. No surprise, but that conversation didn't happen. But Harvin gave us something taking to Twitter again to voice his mind. Somehow avoiding the worldwide Twitter outages, Percy's tweet squeaked through allowing him to claim that he is "clueless on the crazy reports." A pretty ironic statement since the initial reports surfaced from Percy telling the media that he was "unhappy" on Tuesday.
Either something has changed or Percy simply can't decide which side of the fence he would prefer, both are fair as Frazier did confirm that he and Percy sat down for a brief discussion yesterday afternoon. Following that chat, the coach feels as if the two sides are on the same page once again.
"He wants the same thing that we want," Frazier said. "We all want to bring a championship to Minnesota. He wants that in the worst way, and that's one of the most important things, that we all want the same thing, which is to bring a championship to Minnesota...[as for the issues], that should be behind us. We're moving forward."
The tone may have changed over the past 24 hours but the conversations will surely continue during the five week break before training camp begins. That said, last we heard, Percy still has a trade request on the table and has threatened to hold out from camp in Mankato.
"My expectations are we'll have 100 percent participation when we get to training camp," Frazier said.
Now we're left with nothing more than a little conversation starter, call it cheap entertainment during a five-week period which in past years has been nothing more than the doldrums of the NFL offseason. So thanks Percy! In a business where we do a lot of talking (writing), you've given us the talker of the offseason!
Aj Mansour covers Minnesota Sports for KFAN.com. Feel free to leave comments and questions regarding this post in the space provided below. For Vikings' updates and breaking Vikings' news, follow Aj on Twitter. @AjMansourKFAN
