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Percy Harvin is unhappy with Vikings, requests trade from team

Wide receiver Percy Harvin stood on the sidelines on Tuesday during a Minnesota Vikings minicamp. That was expected, as he's still recovering from shoulder surgery, but the organization probably didn't expect Harvin to tell the media that he was unhappy with his current situation with the Vikings.

What situation is that? No idea. Harvin wouldn't tell anyone anything, except that he's not getting back on the field until some mysterious, nameless issues are addressed.

What we do know is that things have accelerated to the point where Harvin would like a different home address. Jon Krawczynski of the Associated Press reported on Wednesday morning that Harvin has requested a trade from the Vikings, but that the request will not likely be granted.

Via 1500espn.com, here's are a couple of snippets of what Harvin told reporters on Tuesday:

I'll just put it this way -- it's a lot of different things that have to be sorted out. Just haven't been real happy lately. So, we've got a couple things to work on. I'm here in the classroom, so we'll go from here.

We're kind of keeping everything in house. If specific people choose to tell you the stories, then they do. I keep everything in house and we deal with things in house. So, that's the way I keep it.

I'm just not happy. I won't go into how unhappy. I'm just overall not happy with a couple situations.

Ignoring Percy Harvin's very liberal definition of "in house," in any fit of NFL player unhappiness, the first place to look is the contract. Harvin has two years left on his deal, making about $2.5 million this year and about $2 million next season. That's likely part of the problem, as he has outplayed that contract. Mystery solved.

Fantasy football advice from the Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Minute:

"[The] Vikings are wary of paying him," Tom Pelissero of ESPN1500.com said via Twitter on Wednesday morning. "If he wants to get paid elsewhere, he needs to prove he can stay on [the] field -- and they don't think he can. So, they want to protect their investment and Harvin doesn't think it's much of an investment. Add those two things together, and voila.

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"Also worth remembering how closely Percy Harvin stays in touch with Randy Moss, who is no stranger of going public to get his way," Pelissero continued. "I'd heard from multiple sources that after Moss got cut in 2010, he called Percy daily, telling him, 'You need to get [then-head coach Brad] Childress fired.' Five days after the cut, Harvin and Childress got into it, had to be separated, and Harvin ended up chucking a weight at him."

Well, alrighty then.

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What else could it be? I doubt Harvin's upset about his role in the offense. He is, by far, the most targeted Viking, having the ball thrown his way 123 times last season. Only Devin Aromashodu was also above 60 for the Vikings, and he only made catches on 26 of the 84 times he was targeted. And I doubt Harvin feels particularly threatened by fourth-round draft picks Jarius Wright or Greg Childs.

Anything else? I don't know. Maybe Harvin has a preference in the Christian Ponder vs. Joe Webb quarterback battle. Maybe there's a certain coach he doesn't like. Maybe he's grown tired of the color purple. Maybe Leslie Frazier told him he's not allowed to watch reruns of "The Big Bang Theory" in the clubhouse. Come on, Coach Frazier! That one guy is so nerdy! He says things that are totally situation-inappropriate!

There's a long time between now and the start of the season. That's a lot of time to get these things identified and worked out.

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