JOTTINGS
• Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman on navigating the salary cap for the 2019 season: "We don't have a lot of room right now, but our cap planning has always been planned out over the next couple of years. I'm very fortunate to have guys like George Paton and Rob Brzezinski that work here, and we have a great team here working together."
• Pro Football Focus rated the starting quarterbacks for the 2018 regular season and had the Vikings' Kirk Cousins ranked No. 14. New Orleans' Drew Brees was No. 1, with Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes No. 2. Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers was No. 6. On Cousins, PFF wrote, "Only [Houston Texans QB DeShaun] Watson finished the year with more pressured dropbacks than Cousins. In weeks 1-9, Cousins ranked third in passer rating from a pressured pocket (91.5). In weeks 10-17, he dropped to 20th (69.5)." … The Vikings didn't land a single player on the PFF rankings for the top 25 offensive linemen this season.
• Jacob Clark, a Rockwall, Texas, native and the Gophers' top quarterback recruit, will be on campus this month. He told Gophers Illustrated, "I'm all set on Minnesota and I'll see what I can do with getting some top targets to commit as well." … Damarion Williams, the 5-11 cornerback out of Highland Community College in Kansas, is one of five junior college players who coach P.J. Fleck expects to play for the Gophers in 2019.
• The Gophers men's basketball team looks to be set up to go on a little run. Following Thursday's victory at Wisconsin, the next four games are against unranked teams, and three are at home: vs. Maryland, vs. Rutgers, at Illinois and vs. Penn State.
• All of the baseball publications have shortstop Royce Lewis as the consensus No. 1 prospect for the Twins. The top overall pick in the 2017 draft, Lewis hit .292 with 74 RBI and 83 runs in 2018 as a 19-year-old between low-Class A Cedar Rapids and high-A Fort Myers.
