San Diego's release of running back LaDainian Tomlinson came two days after we engaged in this bit of funny-talk speculation in the weekend mailbag.
The short of it: Chester Taylor signs with his hometown team in Detroit and Tomlinson replaces him in Minnesota as the Vikings' third-down back/insurance for Adrian Peterson. I'll stress I have no inside information to suggest it's a possibility. But from an outsider's perspective, I think it makes some sense.
The move also gives us an opportunity to make one addendum to the Final Eight discussion we had last week. As you know, the Vikings can't sign an unrestricted free agent unless one of their own unrestricted free agents signs elsewhere first. Moreover, the contracts must be comparable.
But in a very technical sense, Tomlinson won't be an unrestricted free agent. In the NFL, a player who is released from his contract is classified differently than one whose contract expires. So assuming there is an uncapped offseason in 2010, the Vikings -- or any of the other 2009 "Final Eight" teams -- could sign Tomlinson even if they don't lose an unrestricted free agent first.
Hope that makes sense.