America's Game - The Missing Rings - 1998 Vikings

I am glad I watched the show. Though it was hard knowing what it was all leading to, I enjoyed listening to John Randle talk his talk, Cris Carter too.. I can't say I enjoyed Dennis Green's takes. He always sounded like a bullshitter to me - and I resent that he never made any efforts to improve our defense after our 15-1 season.

The fun thing about watching highlights of the game for me was the stuff we forget. Sure we all remember "taking a knee" at half and who could forget Gary Anderson's only miss of the whole year, "wide left." But some things I forgot that I'd like to mention. Randy Moss' dropped TD in the second half.. and our defenders drop of a certain INT in the end zone on the Falcon's game tying drive.. if he would have held on to that, we win.

So it brought me back to the now, and the coaching vs who's making plays discussions and who is ultimately accountable. I think the vikings as a team collectively lost that game. Robert smith did his thing.. Cunningham. there were a couple turnovers on each side of the ball... People forget that the Falcons were 14 - 2 that year. They were a very good team but I always felt they were worse then their record and that Chanlder was over rated, Jamal Anderson even.

If only we could have had players brought in during the following years like Atlanta had, the Ray Buchanans, or Aneas Williams from the cardinals types but Denny Green didn't bring in one blue chip defender after that, nor draft one. IT isn't forgivable and it is why we squandered that offense that we had for a few great years.

We won a lot of games that year 40 to 30, 34 to 28 etc... We ended up losing to the rams twice i think in the coming years, each game in the 40's... And who could forget losing to the NY Giants 41 to 0.

Awful.

If you want to go down memory lane.. go here.

article about the game

I miss John Randle.. and Moss obviously. I am so grateful we have AP. Let's hope we can turn him into a total threat like Reggie Bush or Brian Westbrook.

I wonder if we are gonna change up our blocking schemes.. my favorite plays involve going outside left or right with a pulling guard or two...

enjoy the game tomorrow!