EAGAN, Minn. – Rick Spielman’s office inside the Minnesota Vikings’ palatial new headquarters looks out over 360,000 square feet of Kentucky bluegrass that last week was blanketed underneath a dense layer of snow.
The sprawling landscape soon to serve as the team’s four outdoor practice fields provided an oasis during one of the craziest weeks of the year, a place Minnesota’s general manager could go for a brief respite and minute of clarity in between negotiating franchise-altering moves.
When he wasn't corralling free agents with the team owners’ private jet or hosting deal-closing dinners, Spielman didn’t venture far from this space, traversing between his quarters and that of salary-cap master Rob Brzezinski, assistant GM George Paton and the coaches’ offices located down the hall.