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Minnesota Vikings 2018 Season
Minnesota Vikings Training Camp 2018
Vikings Training Camp Evaluations, Part II: Defense/Special Teams
Eric Thompson completes his breakdown and roster projections for every defensive and special teams player based on what he saw in Eagan.
By Eric J. Thompson@eric_j_thompson Aug 17, 2018, 8:00am CDT
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The Vikings defense is looking to remain one of the best units in the league.
Thad Chesley
If you missed Part I of my Training Camp evaluations and projections for the offensive side of the ball, click here. Today we'll be tackling the defense and special teams.
I'll cover the defensive and special teams players in the same manner that I covered the offense. I'll go position by position through every player and give my brief evaluation of what I saw from them during my time in Eagan. Again, think of it as a CliffsNotes version of Training Camp. These won't be comprehensive evaluations; they will simply be blurbs giving you a general idea of how I thought the player performed. After each mini-evaluation, I will provide where I think the player will end up after the final 53 is announced: lock, bubble, practice squad, or cut.
And for some visual stimuli before another big ol' wall of text, here is part two of our Training Camp gallery from Thad Chesley.
Stefon Diggs Battles Xavier Rhodes Thad Chesley
Ready? Let's get it.
Everson Griffen
Griff is still every bit of the top-end pass rusher that he has been over the past few years. He'll turn 31 toward the end of this season but I haven't seen any signs of him slowing down. There don't appear to be any concerns of the foot injury that slowed him at the end of last year lingering. Griffen is all the way back and ready to go. With his endless motor complimented by his motor mouth, he's probably my favorite player to watch from the sidelines at camp.
Projection: Lock
Linval Joseph
Joesph is the Mountain to Griffen's Viper when it comes to camp demeanor. Big Goon is a quiet, menacing, heavily armored presence and destroys everything he faces with zero remorse. (He really is heavily armored. As Drew Mahowald of Vikings Territory has joked, Joseph looks like a created player in Madden where you maxed all the sliders and gave him every possible accessory.) Joseph doesn't seem to be tapering off at all either. He's still a force to be reckoned with in the middle.
Sheldon Richardson
Richardson doesn't seem quite as physically imposing in person as I expected—he seemed like a space-filling giant when he was in New York and Seattle. Then again, that'll happen when you're standing next to Linval every day. Sheldon didn't have a ton of splash plays in camp but his impact was still felt. I kind of got the feeling that he was going through the motions a bit at times during drills. More in a "saving it for when it counts" sense than "mailing it in." That said, he's incredibly fluid and a very efficient tackler in the middle of the line. He has defensive end agility in a defensive tackle body. Richardson consistently stymied runs up the middle before they got started. I'm confident that he'll turn it up a notch when the games start to count; after all, he's on a one-year "prove it" deal.
Danielle Hunter
We're on year two of wild hyperbole surrounding Hunter's potential. I think he could live up to quite a bit of it this season. It felt like Hunter was using his otherworldly size a lot more efficiently than last year's camp. His repertoire of pass rush techniques looks more polished, especially the spin move. Hunter was already an excellent defensive end by relying mostly on his physical skills and technical ability. If he can be a little more savvy with his game plan, I pity opposing tackles and quarterbacks. The sky is the limit.
Brian Robison
After 11 seasons and 173 games with the Vikings, I think we all know what we have in B-Rob at this point. He's the Chad Greenway of the defensive line—you don't want to depend on him to play 1000 snaps throughout the course of the season but he can still make some plays and be an invaluable locker room presence. Robison doesn't have the burst he once had, and he has a propensity to over-pursue around the edge at times. But he still had more than enough productive reps in camp to ensure he has a spot on the team for one last ride at glory.
Jaleel Johnson
I like how Johnson has progressed since his rookie camp. He's getting off the ball better and showing the instincts that made him such an impactful player at Iowa. He still needs some work finishing plays off and being more consistent. There are still stretches where he can sort of disappear into the mix along the trenches. Overall, I think he has definitely shown enough to earn a spot among a loaded defensive line rotation.
Jalyn Holmes
The first thing that jumped out to me watching Holmes in camp was his strength. He can move his opponent around regardless of where he lines up. I saw a handful of amazing 1-on-1 reps by Holmes throughout camp as well. The potential is certainly there. However, he's sort of a DE/DT "tweener", and the last few of those the Vikings had didn't really pan out. He didn't show an expansive set of pass rush moves, which could be problematic too. I see his rookie year going a lot like Johnson's last season—he'll make the team but he might not see a ton of the field when the season starts.
Prediction: I'd say lock, but this line is stacked. If the team thinks he could survive getting put on the Practice Squad, perhaps they stash him for a year to develop?
Tashawn Bower
Last year's darling of the preseason and surprise addition to the defensive line still has a lot to prove this time around. He used his big, athletic frame to make several plays throughout camp. A solid showing against Denver in the first preseason game certainly helped his case as well. But there are still a lot of worthy players along this defensive line—he needs to keep it up for the next three weeks to secure a spot.
Prediction: Bubble. I think he'll make it.
Ifeadi Odenigbo
When the Vikings announced that they were going to try Odenigbo out on the interior defensive line as well as on the edge, I thought it sounded like the beginning of the end of his tenure in Minnesota. I liked what I saw from him as a pass rusher during his rookie camp that earned him a Practice Squad spot. I was weary of his abilities to do much on the inside though.
Odenigbo really surprised me in Eagan. He was consistently getting behind the line regardless of where he lined up. In my opinion, he was easily the most improved player out of this group. I had to put him ahead of the rest of the players we're covering, especially with his newfound versatility. (Hopefully I'm not being persuaded by the fact that he's one of the best interviews on the team.)
Prediction: Bubble. If the Vikings keep nine defensive linemen, I think he's the last guy in out of this group. If it's eight, maybe another year on the Practice Squad.
Weatherly hasn't regressed or anything. He still uses his long frame and athleticism to shed blocks and cause pressure. But I don't think he has progressed enough to guarantee himself a spot on the roster. It doesn't seem like he has added to his catalog of pass rushing moves and his timing off the snap is spotty at best. Weatherly could definitely use some impact plays over the next three preseason games.
Prediction: Bubble. I certainly wouldn't be shocked if he makes it, but I don't have him on the 53 right now.
Ade Aruna
The three words that best describe what I saw from Aruna: raw, raw, and raw. His size is incredible; I joked to other writers in camp that I gave Aruna the Jayron Kearse Memorial "I Can't Believe How Big He Is!" Award. But wow does he need a lot of work. He was noticeably slower than the rest of the line in most drills that I watched and his hand placement was downright terrible at times. Aruna definitely needs more time to incubate before cracking the shell of his potential.
Prediction: Practice Squad. Definitely not ready for prime time.
Like Aruna, Parry's stature strikes you when you see him in person, albeit in a very different way. Parry looks like a stout guard that accidentally put on the wrong color jersey and wandered into defensive line drills. I was impressed with his strength in the middle, but nothing about his technique jumped out enough for me to think he'll get a spot in a loaded position group.
Prediction: Cut
Curtis Cothran
It always looked like Cothran was going hard and giving everything he had when given reps in camp. Unfortunately, there weren't nearly enough reps for him to make much of an impact.
Prediction: Cut. Possible Practice Squad.
Jonathan Wynn
To bastardize a famous sonnet from the great American poet T-Pain: "THEY WON'T GO WITH WYNN WYNN WYNN NO MATTER WHAT!" He was unheralded coming into camp, and he'll probably be unheralded going out of camp.
Anthony Barr
It was an odd Training Camp for Barr to say the least. The former ninth overall pick saw a second rounder (Eric Kendricks), third rounder (Hunter), and fifth rounder (Stefon Diggs) all signed to lucrative contract extensions while his future with the team remains uncertain. He missed a handful of practices to an undisclosed injury. He spent a lot of time at the beginning of camp training with the defensive line in anticipation of rushing the passer more this season. When Barr was out there, I'd say he looked a lot like what we saw last year. Not the amazing 2015 version of Barr, not the inexplicably bad 2016 version of Barr, but the 2017 very good version of Barr. He'll still be a key cog in the Vikings defense, and it looks like they're going to play to Barr's strengths as much as possible this season.
He's going to have to go out and earn that new contract though.
Prediction: Lock
Eric Kendricks
Last year at this time I was certain that Barr was the most irreplaceable linebacker in Mike Zimmer's defense. I believe that Kendricks may have taken that mantle. Barr's former college and current pro teammate has improved his pass coverage every season in the NFL and it looks like he is set to take it up another notch this year. Kendricks is always flying around the field from sideline to sideline. His instincts and football IQ usually put him in the right place, and once there he's still a very reliable tackler. He can still get caught guessing from time to time against crossing routes. Kendricks' size can be a bit of a hindrance against the run, but being a smaller linebacker isn't nearly as much of an obstacle in today's NFL. He'll be the man in the middle of this defense for years to come.
Ben Gedeon
The book on Gedeon in 2018 is a lot like it was last year. He'll likely be the starting third linebacker in the base package, which of course means fewer snaps than the non-starting nickel corner. He can still tackle everything in front of him, but he still struggles a bit at getting into position to make said tackles. He's still a special teams ace and will likely be among the team leaders there again. (Gedeon led the team with 368 special teams snaps in 2017.) Gedeon remains very reliable, albeit a bit limited.
Wilson was a surprise addition to the 53-man roster as an undrafted free agent last season. In 2018 it would be a bigger surprise to see him left off. Wilson came into camp noticeably larger and it doesn't appear that packing on some muscle has slowed him down at all. He was getting shoved around much less than last preseason and made some impressive plays in coverage. The majority of Wilson's action will still be on special teams, where he proved to be very valuable last season. But don't be surprised to see him rotate in on defense every now and then, especially if any of the three starters miss time.
After spending last season on the Practice Squad, I didn't exactly have the former Lions linebacker highlighted as a key player to watch in Eagan. He certainly made me watch more than I anticipated though. Williams vacillated between linebacker and safety in college, so I was surprised to see him explode through the middle to disrupt so many runs in camp. He never shies away from contact and has an impressive motor.
Prediction: Near-lock, especially with the next guy suspended.
Kentrell Brothers
I was incredibly disappointed that Brothers got suspended for PED usage before the season. His performance thus far in the preseason hasn't changed my attitude much. Brothers had a few really bad plays in the Denver game and didn't do much to counteract that in Training Camp. His lack of speed, especially for someone his size, stuck out more than I remember last year. His saving grace will likely be special teams, where was excellent in 2017.
Prediction: N/A, suspended for the first four games. When he comes back he'll likely have a spot unless one of the other linebackers really impresses on special teams.
Linebacker is always one of the toughest position groups to analyze in camp. It's hard to tell if they're in the right place much of the time because you don't know what coverage was called. The majority of practices have limited hitting so you can't assess a lot of tackling. Many of the backup linebackers make the team because of their special teams play, but most of that is at half speed in practice. The preseason games are really the only place you get a good idea of what a linebacker is capable of.
Downs was especially hard to analyze considering he's coming off a serious injury in college and he didn't play on Saturday. He didn't really show a ton of the athleticism that made him such an intriguing late-round prospect and he tended to get lost in the shuffle a lot in practice. However, that might be by design—the Vikings are likely planning to stash him and bring him along slowly. I still like his upside.
Prediction: Bubble. He might make the roster until Brothers comes back, or he might go straight to the Practice Squad.
The Vikings taking a flier on Cliett fits their M.O. He's an excellent athlete that has flashed potential but had some bad injury luck thus far in his career. Cliett had a pretty solid showing in Denver, making a nice tackle for loss and being heavily involved on special teams. Out of the group of linebackers that was mostly buried with the 2's and 3's, Cliett stood out the most. His relatively slender 225-pound frame was a problem against the run at times. Thankfully for Cliett, he won't be called upon to stop the run much if he makes the roster, because the only way I see him making it is on special teams.
Prediction: Bubble. If the Vikings stash Downs, I think Cliett could sneak in for the first four weeks. If not, he's probably out.
Garret Dooley
Mike Needham
I'm lumping these two together for three reasons:
Of all the players in camp, I had to check my numerical roster to remind myself who each guy was the most often.
Neither of them are very physically imposing for their position.
Both of them are likely meeting the same fate at the end of the preseason.
Brett Taylor
The two things I remember most about Taylor in camp: he was noticeably smaller than the rest of the linebackers and he sat watching other players go through drills a lot. Probably not a great combination for making the team.
Defensive backs
Xavier Rhodes
Rhodes is still the straw that stirs the poison for opposing quarterbacks in this secondary. His ability to take on top receivers with little to no help makes everyone else's job easier.
But you already knew that. What I have been most impressed with is how Rhodes has developed into a vocal leader of the defense over the years. He was very quiet and reserved in his first couple seasons in the NFL; now you can tell he's extremely comfortable doing just about anything on and off the field.
(I have to admit that I secretly enjoyed Zimmer putting Rhodes and Diggs on timeout for one practice last week. It showed the competitive fire in both players.)
Still the best safety in the NFL. No need to elaborate here—this article is already way too long.
Andrew Sendejo
Remember a few years back when every Vikings fan was incredulous that Sendejo was playing, let alone starting? And how his four-year, $16 million extension was ludicrous? Those loud voices have slowly melted away since then, haven't they? Sendejo has quietly evolved and improved every season of his career. Suddenly he's a mainstay one of the best defenses in the league and a trend-setting fashion icon to boot. Sometimes it almost seems like the people in charge know better than the fans.
Dejo is in the last year of his contract, and I have my doubts on whether the team will pay him the going rate next season. (Although the market for safeties was inexplicably low this past offseason.) But for now, he remains a very reliable starter next to Smith.
Trae Waynes
Like Sendejo, Waynes has slowly been winning people over since being a lightning rod for loathing early in his career. He is using his straight line speed much more efficiently these days and getting beat at a significantly lower rate. However, one major knock on his game remains. Even with consistent tight coverage, opposing receivers still make a maddening amount of catches over Waynes because he struggles to locate the ball too often. I don't know how many times Diggs or Adam Thielen or Laquon Treadwell made a circus catch over a perfectly positioned Waynes because he was just a skosh late on getting his head around or his hands up. It's the hurdle between Waynes making the next leap in his career. Zimmer said as much in a press conference this week. Even if Waynes never makes that next step, he's still a very good bookend to Rhodes on the outside for now.
Mackensie Alexander
As of right now, it appears that Mack is the nickel corner. And on any other team that didn't have a stud rookie breathing down his neck, Alexander would have definitively earned that distinction. Now that Alexander has finally accepted his role in the slot, his play has taken off in his third Training Camp. He still had a handful of missteps, but the good reps outweighed the bad by a fairly large margin in Eagan. Alexander looks like he would be a fine slot corner on nearly any team in the league. Nearly...
Mike Hughes
Go ahead, Vikings fans. Keep bashing the selection of Hughes in the first round as a "luxury pick." Use the hindsight of the offensive line camp injuries to accentuate how the Vikings should have gone after a need. But I implore you to keep a close eye on Hughes throughout the next three preseason games.
You might have to look closely, though. Chances are Hughes might not get a lot of passes thrown his way because he's usually covering his receiver like a wet sleeping bag. Cornerback is supposed to be one of the toughest positions to learn in the NFL, yet Hughes is making it look like he has been in the league for years. He is so incredibly smooth and fluid in coverage. People all around the team can't stop singing his praises.
So go ahead, be mad that the Vikings didn't pick a lineman at 30. Just appreciate how damn good the guy they did pick is.
Ant lifts, bro. Harris came to camp much more jacked—largely in part to one of the first completely healthy offseasons of his career—and his play in camp has benefited from the extra muscle. His run game support has noticeably improved and his hits have a bit more of the wallop that they were previously lacking. He was rarely caught out of position in the passing game, which was definitely not the case for Harris early in his career. As solid as Sendejo has been, one could make a decent case that Harris deserves a crack at a starting gig. (I highly doubt that will happen, but it isn't insane either.)
Harris proved last year that he could fill in admirably if either starting safety missed time; that might hold even more true in 2018.
Terence Newman
This year I realized that Newman absolutely has to make the team for one reason: if he doesn't, there will be no Vikings players older than me for the first time in my life. I'm not ready for that kind of midlife crisis.
Thankfully, it doesn't look like Newman needs to be put out to pasture just yet. Critics will point to how he has lost a step. I'd say he lost that step a couple years ago, yet he keeps chugging along because of how well he can anticipate almost any kind of route.
Newman got beat pretty badly at times in camp. If the Vikings were depending on him to take 800 snaps this season, I might be pretty nervous about it. But the old man can still ball in a rotational role.
Prediction: I won't put him down as a certainty, but he'll be there.
You know our saying around these parts by now: the three things in this world that can survive anything are Twinkies, cockroaches, and Marcus Sherels. We have been doing this dance every year since 2010. Even with the Hughes on the team, Sherels is still the team's lead punt returner. Coaches can't stop commending him in press conferences. Heck, he's even making a bunch of great plays in red zone drills that he should have no business making.
Just accept it.
Prediction: Lock until proven otherwise.
Jayron Kearse
I was hoping that Kearse would take a big step forward in his development this season; that doesn't appear to be the case so far. His incredible size and length can seem like more of a hindrance than an asset at times. Kearse can still look a bit awkward in coverage and got caught on the wrong side of receivers too often for my liking. He was mysteriously kept out of the game against Denver even though he hasn't missed a single practice in camp. Fortunately for Kearse, he is still effective on special teams and I don't think the other safeties in camp are going to threaten his spot on the depth chart.
Prediction: Not a lock but still probably on the good side of the bubble.
Holton Hill
Before camp started, Hill was pegged as a possible steal that had slipped out of the draft because of his off-field problems. After camp started, it looked like Hill was a definite steal that was going to make a loaded defensive roster with his undeniable talent. Hill was the darling of the first week in Eagan, making a ton of big plays and pass breakups.
Since then, the hype train has slowed a bit. Hill didn't have a particularly good showing in Denver and has been more hit-and-miss in practice. I think the first practice against Jacksonville was indicative of what the Vikings have in Hill—a very talented and athletic corner with a ton of potential that still makes his fair share of missteps in coverage.
Prediction: I don't think he'd survive getting put on the Practice Squad. Last year the Vikings put six corners and five safeties on their initial 53-man roster. I think they go with seven corners and four safeties this time to ensure Hill sticks around.
Jack Tocho
Tocho's entire young career has been a roller coaster. Since getting drafted in the seventh round last year, the Vikings have already cut him from the team and Practice Squad four times only to bring him back each time. So perhaps it was fitting that even though Tocho got roasted badly for two touchdowns last Saturday, he somehow earned Pro Football Focus Team of the Week honors. (To Tocho's credit, he was directly involved with both of Minnesota's interceptions as well. But c'mon, PFF.)
It was a lot of the same in Eagan for Tocho: a lot of good reps and a lot of really bad reps. Probably not enough to crack the 53.
Prediction: Sent to the Practice Squad again, where he will inevitably be cut and re-signed at least three more times.
Horace Richardson
After the first weekend of full team practices, I was convinced that Richardson was a dark horse candidate to make the team. He was making plays all over the field and getting a lot of run on the second team defense.
This is why covering camp for more than a few days is extremely beneficial—you aren't overly persuaded by a couple of nice practices.
Since that solid opening weekend, Richardson has basically disappeared into the crowd. I don't see how he's cracking a roster that's this loaded at his position.
Prediction: Cut, but I'd be OK with him on the Practice Squad too.
Tray Matthews
Matthews came in with an outside chance to unseat one of the incumbent safeties. It doesn't seem like he has had enough opportunities in practice to do so. He seems like a solid run stopper when he does get reps, but I wasn't overly impressed with anything I saw from him in pass coverage. The good news is that Matthews got plenty of work in the first preseason game, so he might have three more big chances to make an impact.
Prediction: Solid Practice Squad candidate at best.
Trevon Mathis
I came into camp knowing very little about each player outside of the fact that James played for the Gophers for a while. I left camp continuing to know very little about each player. Both were buried on the third team and I can't recall a time where either were involved on the good end of a big play.
Daniel Carlson
The kicker bout seemed to be over and done with on Saturday night—TKO by 57 yard Carlson field goal. While I wouldn't call the fight just yet, I am giving Forbath a standing eight count.
Neither kicker has been perfect in camp by any means. There have been a fair amount of misses from both. Carlson has one gigantic advantage over Forbath, and that's his gigantic leg. It was on full display during the first preseason game. This past Tuesday, both kickers went 6-for-6 on kicks ranging from 32 to 53 yards. I would suspect Forbath gets a few opportunities against Jacksonville, but this is going to end up as Carlson's job.
After all, the Vikings have a great history of drafting SEC kickers with big legs that might have a lingering accuracy issue that could rear its ugly head at the worst possible time. (Too soon?)
Prediction: Carlson wins, Forbath cut
Ryan Quigley
No competition for Quigley this year. His directional kicking looked good in camp. So...uh, yeah...we good on punter talk now?
He still has one job. He still does that job well.
[Gigantic exhale]
We made it! After 90 players and over 9500 words, we have put a nice little bow on the 2018 Minnesota Vikings Training Camp. I hope you enjoyed following along half as much as I enjoyed covering it.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


"I became Indian. I ignored her. Silence, the Indian's best weapon, an aunt of mine once said. Be an Indian, cut yourself off with silence any way you can. Don't talk. Don't give yourself away."
--Greg Sarris, "Reading Narrated American Indian Lives," from his 1993 collection of essays, Keeping Slug Woman Alive.
Greg Sarris strides into the lobby of the Rohnert Park Doubletree Inn on a sunny afternoon in mid-October, running late as usual, slight beads of perspiration running down his forehead and neck and disappearing down a long-sleeved white shirt open to the second button.
The chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria has just returned from Paris, where, in his other persona as Loyola Marymount University professor and critically acclaimed author, he attended a conference on Native Americans with other scholars and American Indians.
The French, he ruefully notes as he sits down and stretches his long legs out under a coffee table, were much more interested in the Indians dressed in authentic beaded and feathered costume than with the academics.
Sarris is rendezvousing at the Doubletree with 30 or so members of the Graton band in preparation for that night's Rohnert Park City Council meeting, where the tribe's proposed megacasino and resort was topic A on the agenda. In roughly an hour, they'll be facing down hundreds of Rohnert Park citizens angered by what they view as the behind-closed-doors agreement between the city council and the tribe that permitted a casino to invade their community without public input. On this night, they'll get a chance to voice their opposition.
The anticasino activists claim the proposed 360-acre casino, hotel, and restaurant development will exacerbate Rohnert Park's already significant traffic problems, deplete the region's scarce water supply, degrade the environment, and create more crime in the area, thereby destroying the city's way of life. The leader of the opposition, Assembly of God pastor Chip Worthington, openly calls the conflict over the casino a "cultural war."
The Graton band insists that the $200 million it has agreed to give to the city over the next 20 years will offset the casino's impact on the community, in addition to putting Rohnert Park's strapped city budget back in the black. But since no study has yet been done to determine the actual dollar value of those impacts, opponents say the deal is not good enough. Since August, when the tribe announced it was relocating its proposed Indian gaming facility from the Sears Point area to Rohnert Park, the debate has become increasingly incendiary.
Missing from the argument over the casino, at least so far, has been any discussion of gambling's moral implications. Neither Sarris nor Worthington really views the present conflict over gambling as an ethical issue. That seems odd, because both have been influenced by religions that morally prohibit gambling.
Sarris in particular has been heavily influenced by the Bole Maru, the spiritual resistance movement that helped rescue Northern California Indian tribes such as the Southern Pomo and the Coast Miwok--the ancestors of the present-day Graton band--from the brink of extermination.
Among its many tenets, the Bole Maru forbids mixing blood with whites, drinking alcohol, and gambling. Without the resistance movement, the Graton band might not exist today. Now, ironically, the tribe has turned toward gambling for its survival. Whether it is moral or not is of little concern to either side. In our culture, money talks and morality walks.
As the battle over the casino has heated up, media access to tribal members has been strictly limited. The Graton band have preferred to communicate through a well-organized public-relations campaign rather than grant interviews. Sarris agreed to an interview with the Bohemian after being told the topic of the discussion would be the morality of gambling and how it relates to the Bole Maru.
Flanked by tribal vice-chair Lorelle Ross and tribal secretary Jeanette Anglin, Sarris is no longer the young man gazing out from the back-cover jacket photographs of novels such as Watermelon Nights and Grand Avenue. The shock of black hair has receded and is flecked with gray; faint worry lines crease his face.
But at 52, Sarris--who is of Kashaya (southwestern coastal Pomo), Filipino, and Jewish descent--is still tall and good-looking, with wide shoulders and a thick chest that betray heavy gym work. The heavily caffeinated Ripped Force sports drink he's sipping cuts through the jet lag fast as Sarris warms to the topic of the Bole Maru.
The Bole Maru was an amalgamation of traditional Native American spiritual beliefs and Victorian-era Christianity. The movement's origin dates to 1870, when migrant Pomos brought first word of the Ghost Dance from Nevada's Paiute tribe to Northern California. Stressing resistance to cultural assimilation, the Bole Maru ironically borrowed many of its tenets from white culture, including religious-based prohibitions against alcohol and gambling.
"When the first Dreamer, Richard Taylor, came back [from Nevada], he saw the people in great disarray," Sarris says. "There was drinking, there was a sense that it was all over."
For up to 10 millennia, Northern California's Indians enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with nature that, according to the somewhat romanticized vision of Vinson Brown and Douglas Andrews in The Pomo Indians of California and Their Neighbors, enabled each tribe member to "relate himself deeply to his environment, the woods, the waters, the rocks, the plants, the animals and birds, and other creatures in a way that modern man has surely forgotten."
Squabbles between neighboring tribes were infrequent; California's fearsome ecology--featuring drought, flooding, earthquakes, and Mt. Konocti's eruption 5,000 years ago--was the major enemy.
The Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok occupied what is now southern Sonoma County and northwest Marin County. At the peak of their civilization, they numbered 20,000. They lived in round thatched huts clumped together in small villages of 600 to 1,000 inhabitants known as tribelets, and used their prodigious talent for weaving to make baskets for cooking, storing acorns and water, and for devising ingenious traps to capture fish, rabbits, and other wild game.
Nothing in the Indians' 10,000 years of existence prepared them for the arrival of the Europeans. By the time the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill brought European-Americans flooding into California in 1849, the tribal populations had already been reduced by an estimated 90 percent from the deprivation and disease inflicted by the Spanish and Russian fur traders during the past century and a half.
But if the Spanish and Russians were brutal, the Americans turned out to be oppressors par excellence. The Indians were quickly pushed into the wilderness; many were massacred in cold blood, such as the band of 188 Lake Pomos--men, women, and children--cornered on a small island in Clear Lake that were slaughtered by U.S. Army troops in 1850. Today, only a small plaque next to a grassy knoll not too far from the Robinson Rancheria and Bingo Casino in Nice commemorates the Bloody Island Massacre.
When the Gold Rush was over, the number of the Graton band's ancestors had dwindled to 20. Without the Bole Maru, the tribe may have never recovered. "The purpose of the Bole Maru was strictly functional: to rebuild a tribe that had been decimated," Sarris says. "What it did was rebuild the tribe so that the old blood lines were developed."
The movement's spiritual leaders were known as Dreamers. They drew upon visions from dreams and dance-induced trances to guide their respective communities through the lean years of the early 20th century, when the federal government and the state of California banished so-called homeless Indians to small rancherias, often in the middle of nowhere.
The Bole Maru rules were harsh, tolerating no mixing of blood between Indians and whites. If Kashaya-Philipino-Jewish Sarris had existed during its early years, he might have been killed at birth or at least banished from the tribe. The prohibitions against drinking alcohol and gambling, adapted from Christian morality, were designed to thwart unscrupulous whites who used liquor and games of chance to pry away from them what little wealth indigenous people had.
"Mabel McKay was the last of the Bole Maru Dreamers," Sarris says, speaking of the internationally renowned Pomo medicine woman and basket weaver about whom he wrote the biography Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream. McKay, who passed away in 1993, claimed that the intricate designs for her baskets came from her dreams, and in much the same way, the Bole Maru Dreamers wove the fabric of the material and spiritual worlds together in a blueprint for survival. Something worked, and the Graton band now claims 568 certified members.
Sarris neither drinks alcohol nor gambles and says he's been heavily influenced by Bole Maru Dreamers like McKay and the late Essie Parrish. Nevertheless, he sees no conflict between the Bole Maru's prohibition against gambling and the Graton band's effort to establish a casino in Rohnert Park.
"The Bole Maru doesn't exist anymore," he says. "It was a remarkable thing what they did, to keep the tribe going." But even Dreamers like Essie Parrish eventually backed off the movement's strict antiassimilation doctrine, he adds. "She said go to school, integrate, we need to survive."
The Bole Maru borrowed freely from Christian doctrine. Although the Bible contains no passages that specifically forbid gambling, many clerics have long insisted that the teachings of Jesus are incompatible with indulging in games of chance. In a 1999 article for nonprofit conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, writer Ronald Reno cites numerous Biblical passages that have been interpreted in such a manner.
"Jesus commanded, 'Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31),'" he writes. "Gambling, meanwhile, is predicated on the losses, pain, and suffering of others."
Studies have shown that up to 10 percent of those who gamble may have problems controlling their gambling activity, leading to familial problems such as divorce, bankruptcy, child abuse, domestic violence, crime, and suicide. Allowing fellow human beings to suffer thus is immoral, Reno insists, because it violates the commandment to love thy neighbor.
As Reno correctly notes, studies have also shown that poor people tend to gamble in numbers larger than their proportion in the population. "Scripture exhorts us to look out for the poor and disadvantaged, and issues strong warning against taking advantage of their plight," he says, citing passages such as Prov. 14:21, 14:31, and 22:16.
Gambling also violates the Protestant work ethic. "Work has been part of God's design for mankind from the very beginning. We are to invest our time and energies into labors that supply our needs and those of our families (Prov. 31, 2 Thess. 3:10, 1 Tim. 5:8), and that allow us to share with others (Eph. 4:28). Gambling, meanwhile, portends something for nothing."
Since Florida's Seminole tribe opened the first Indian casino two decades ago, the opposition to the subsequent national gambling boom has been led by Christian ministers, so it's no surprise that the opposition to the proposed Rohnert Park casino is led by Assembly of God pastor Chip Worthington. What is surprising is that Worthington doesn't see this as a religious or moral battle.
"This is a cultural war," he says via telephone from his church office. "The culture of Rohnert Park is family-oriented, with many parks and schools and nice neighborhoods, and a lifestyle that is dominated by families getting together to have barbecues. Culturally, gambling will destroy this city."
When asked to talk about the religious aspects of his antigaming stance, Worthington says, "It's the Protestant work ethic. You work hard, you invest your money, you save it in the bank, and over time, you prosper," he says. "I believe the get-rich-quick morality of Indian gaming is wrong." However, he insists that casino opponents are not the religious zealots portrayed by local media, but concerned citizens who are mad as hell and not willing to take it anymore.
"Religion and ethics have little to do with this; it's all about the almighty dollar," says the Assembly of God pastor. "If we held to our religion and ethics, there probably wouldn't be any gambling."
And the genocide of Native Americans might never have occurred, he could have added. Perhaps 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was correct when he wrote, "The last Christian died on the cross."
Asked to explain what he means by "cultural war," Worthington leaves the Graton band out of the picture, framing the conflict as one between Rohnert Park citizens concerned about the environment, traffic, crime, and potentially declining home values, and Station Casinos, the Nevada-based gaming company providing financial backing to the proposed casino. Estimates of the proposed casino's annual take have ranged from $150 million to $500 million.
"Basically, what they want to do is drain our local economy," he says. By federal law, Stations, which will operate the casino for the tribe, is allowed to collect as much as 50 percent of the casino's annual revenue. Like the revenue earned by big-box stores like Home Depot, that money will leave the county. That still leaves the $200 million over the next 20 years the tribe has agreed to give to the city, but that isn't enough for Worthington.
"If they were negotiating with me, they would be giving us a lot more money," he says.
Apparently, everyone in Babylon has his price.
Sarris and Worthington are a study in contrasts. One leads the push to establish a casino; the other leads the opposition against it. One is a smooth-talking intellectual; the other is a garrulous, plainspoken minister for a church that condemns homosexuality and abortion.
Politically, Sarris leans to the left. The deal the tribe cut with the Rohnert Park City Council contains progressive elements, such as a unionized casino labor force and environmental mitigations that would normally draw praise from local liberal groups if the proposed development didn't happen to be a casino.
Worthington is a tough-talking conservative who opposes big government "paternalism" but concedes that Indian sovereignty grants the Graton band the right to a casino. "This paternalism drives me crazy," Worthington says. "I think this is nothing less than Las Vegas-style paternalism. I think the tribe has a right to a casino, but I just hope they can put it in a place where they can get their economic engine to work without destroying our lifestyle."
He says he's currently working on a proposal that will move the proposed casino to an undisclosed location outside Rohnert Park. In the mean time, the campaign to recall Rohnert Park's city council is underway. He suggests the real answer to the problem of Indian self-reliance is to abolish the Bureau of Indian Affairs and distribute its $3 billion annual budget to the Indians, which by his calculations would amount to $50,000 annually per person.
The reality is that Indian gaming is so far the only method that's been able to restore Native Americans to some semblance of self-reliance. It's far from perfect. As Newsweek magazine reported last year, only one in 20 Native Americans receives money from gambling. Many tribes are isolated geographically, and casinos are either out of the question or don't do enough business to provide meaningful income.
But in California, at least, a reserve trust fund established by Proposition 1A in 2000, the Indian self-reliance initiative overwhelmingly approved by voters, has finally started to pay out increments to the state's nongaming tribes. The Sycuan tribe in Southern California have dramatically raised their standard of living, and casinos in Northern California such as Cache Creek, owned by the Indians of the Rumsey Rancheria, where the Bole Maru Dreamer Mabel McKay grew up, are doing well enough to provide healthcare and college scholarships to tribal members.
Sitting in the Doubletree lobby, Greg Sarris knows the Graton band's window of opportunity is closing. Some gaming industry experts predict that within the next 10 years Internet gambling may make Indian casinos obsolete. Time is of the essence. For the past decade, he's led the fight to restore the tribe's federal recognition, which was removed by the Rancheria Termination Act in 1958. Recognition was restored in 2000, but many Graton band members are still sore about termination.
"They came in August of 1958," recalls tribal vice-chair Lorelle Ross. The Termination Act disbanded the rancheria but granted individual Indians the right to own the 16 acres of land as private property. Unfortunately, state and federal agents didn't mention concepts such as property taxes to the new landowners when they showed up at the rancheria. "Anybody who could was out harvesting, and it was never explained to them."
As levels of indebtedness increased, tribal members began selling off their property. Ross' father was one of the last ones to hold out, but eventually debt forced him to sell all but one acre of his land.
"Mom is still the original owner of the property," Ross says. "But in most cases, they lost everything and you don't have that generational link to the land."
When recognition was restored, Sarris said publicly that the tribe wasn't planning on building a casino. The tribe explored other options, such as organic food processing, a cheese factory, and a winery, Sarris says, "all of which need capital or there is already a glut of here."
"No bank was going to give us money," he continues. Enter Station Casinos, which also bankrolled a controversial casino in the Sierra foothills outside Auburn. "Any good economist will tell you we made a prudent decision. As I tell my friends, do the math."
Doing the math has replaced dreaming for the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria. It's simply a matter of survival. Some of Graton band members still weave baskets, but unlike Mabel McKay, they no longer dream their designs. Such dreams no longer have a place in a culture supposedly founded in part on the doctrine of loving thy neighbor. That this culture can only offer the victims of its genocidal rage the right to build casinos is a sign of not just how much they've lost, but how much we've all lost.
But Sarris is not ruling out the possibility that they may someday dream again.
"Mabel McKay always said the spirit doesn't go away and hide under a rock," he says with a mischievous smile.
With that, he stands up to join the rest of the Graton band to prepare to face the angry citizenry of Rohnert Park.
The tribe get their way that night. The Rohnert Park City Council refuse to rescind the deal, despite a raucous crowd of more than 500 protesters.
But Worthington promises the battle is far from over. "The bottom line for me, why I'm fighting this like a dog, is that I'm not going to give up democracy to these guys," he says, referring to the Rohnert Park City Council. "For too long, we've let these guys ruin our city."
From the December 4-10, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.


text:
Arachamia ist der Familienname folgender Personen:

 David Arachamia (* 1979), ukrainischer Unternehmer und Politiker georgischer Herkunft
 Ketewan Arachamia-Grant (* 1968), georgische Schachmeisterin

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia