This weekend, the Vikings announced their final roster cuts, including 4-year veteran safety Willie Offord. Offord was signed as an un-drafted rookie free agent in 2002 and was taken under the wing of then rookie head coach Mike Tice, who named Offord the starter for the opening game in 2002, the first game of Offord's career. Throughout his career he played safety (losing his starting job to free agent acquisitions like Corey Chavous, Darren Sharper and Dwight Smith) and special teams, where he was a standout, eventually being named captain of special teams in 2005 (before his season was cut short by injury). In his career, he recorded 53 tackles and two interceptions while showing great physical promise. And just to prove that he belonged on the team, he even added a DWI to his resume, although there never seemed to be much of a fan backlash against him like with the arrests of so many of his teammates. In short, Offord perfectly symbolized the past 5 years of Minnesota Viking history. Nevertheless, when Tice was fired last January, Offord no longer had anyone looking out for him, and his release was inevitable.

Offord's first game was also my first game as a season ticket owner. At the time I was living in worm5's basement and barely making a living wage, earning less than half of what I make now (but doing twice as much work - go figure). When he was earning his place on the team as the guy who no one wanted but who had physical skills that could be molded, I was squeezing my way into the workforce, just trying to get into a situation where I could do what I was capable of doing and moving up to something better. In the 4 1/2 years between Offord signing with the Vikings and getting released, I moved out of that basement, got married, got a few promotions, got a cat, bought a townhouse and then sold that and upgraded to a real house, and found out that I'm gonna be someone's dad. Not quite 53 tackles and two interceptions, but not bad either.

The back yard of my current house is the perfect shape/size for a game of football. The endzones are the left and right (east and west) boundaries of the yard, marked by a neighbor's garden on the left and two friendly dogs on the right. Out-of-bounds are the line of trees on the visitor (north) side and along the deck on the home (south) side. The deck and windows upstairs provide ample seating for spectators and media types. The area is a perfect rectangle, offering wide open passing lanes and plenty of even ground to run on (but I keep my grass thick, so you're better off with Mike Alstott than Warrick Dunn).

But on the right (east) side of the field, at about the 30 yard line and between the hash marks is a tree about 9 feet tall with purple leaves. I think someone told me it was a maple, but I really have no idea about those things. It's exactly where a safety playing deep coverage would be standing, watching the quarterback's eyes and waiting to make a play. It's like having an extra defender, one who doesn't move too much or react quickly, but who will knock down anything thrown to him and take out any receiver running toward him while looking back over their shoulder for the ball. When I first moved in, I unceremoniously dubbed the tree Joey Browner, a hard-hitting safety from Vikings past. But while I remember watching and enjoying Browner play, I never felt any real connection to him.

Thus, the purple-leafed protector of passing lanes (well, one passing lane at least) has been re-christened as the Willie Offord Tree. Offord was the quintessential scrapper, a guy who was never handed anything and had to work his tail off to earn that minimum salary and one-year contract. He may never again play in the NFL, or more likely he'll get picked up by a team on a one-year deal, play special teams, and move on next season to another team, and go that way until the phone stops ringing or he blows out another knee. But long after he's been forgotten as an inexpensive scrub for a team and owner notorious for bargain shopping, he'll be knocking down lame ducks and taking out inattentive receivers in my back yard.