12-30-2017, 10:47 PM
Vikings lineman Joe Berger hopes to retire in style. (A Super Bowl would be nice.)
After 13 years, Vikings offensive lineman Joe Berger expects to play in his final regular-season game on Sunday.Berger said last June that 2017 likely would be his final NFL season. He hasn’t changed his tune entering the game at U.S. Bank Stadium against the Chicago Bears.
“That’s the way I’m thinking about it,” Berger told the Pioneer Press on Friday. “To me, this is it. Things change and stuff comes up. I’m not signing retirement papers as soon as I walk out of here, but’s that’s kind of the way I see it. I’m 35 years old. It’s been fun, but it’s time for the young kids to do it.”
Berger said he wants to go out the way linebacker Chad Greenway did last season when he retired after 11 years.
There is one difference. Greenway departed following a season in which the Vikings didn’t make the postseason. Berger still has a playoff run ahead of him, with the possibility that Minnesota (12-3) could play in Super Bowl LII at U.S. Bank Stadium.
“I want the opportunity to be like Chad last year, to be able to walk away on his own,” said Berger, who has a salary-cap number of $2.1 million in the final year of his contract. “And if you can walk away on your own after a Super Bowl win, that’s hard to beat.”
https://www.twincities.com/2017/12/29/vi...d-be-nice/