Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - 5 Vikings: Paralympian Vikings fan Chuck Aoki gives his favorite Vikings ever

Episode Date: January 30, 2021

We continue the 5 Vikings series with paralympian Vikings fan Chuck Aoki, who plays wheelchair rugby and has two Olympic medals. He's a huge Vikings fan so he got together with Matthew Coller to talk about his story and his favorite Vikings players ever, including some greats like Daunte Culpepper and total surprises too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, our second part in a series of five Vikings where I bring on guests and they tell me about five Vikings. And there will be a theme each time. Sometimes, like with Patrick Royce in our last episode, it was his five favorite to cover and write about. And in this case, it is just a Vikings fan telling you his five favorite Vikings of all time.

And that Vikings fan is Chuck Aoki. I think a lot of you on Twitter probably follow Chuck for his Vikings rants. Chuck is a Paralympian. He has a bronze medal, a silver medal, wheelchair rugby. Chuck, what's going on, man? Hey, I appreciate you having me on. It's super exciting to get to talk to the man, the myth, the legend, Matthew Collar himself. You know, it's pretty, you know, as a humble Vikings fan, I just feel so excited and honored to be asked to be a part of this. But, yeah, no, I've played wheelchair rugby for most of my adult life, actually, and it's taken me to do some incredible things in incredible places.

So I'm just excited to be here and talk a little bit out of that, talk about the Vikings, you know, all that good stuff. Yeah, I want you to tell me about wheelchair rugby first and how one becomes a Paralympian and a medal winner. I mean, how did that happen for you, Chuck? Yeah, well, you know, I use a wheelchair. I grew up using a chair when I was about 10 years old. I have a super rare genetic condition. I won't try to make you pronounce it or explain it because it's probably a little too tricky for you there, Matthew. I'm just kidding. But, yeah, so basically I used to cheer. My parents, though, growing up were like, hey, you're playing sports.

And I loved sports. You know, I'm from Minnesota. I grew up watching the Twins, the Vikings, all that stuff. And so, of course, I wanted to play sports, but I couldn't play baseball. I couldn't play soccer. You know, all those things. I would just get hurt too much. And so I first found wheelchair basketball.

I grew up. I loved playing over at Courage County in Golden Valley. Shout out to them. If you're ever looking for that in Twin Cities, go over there. And so I played that growing up. But then when I turned 15 years old, this movie called Murderball came out. I don't know if you've ever heard of Murderball. Yeah.

Yeah, much more fondly named back in the day. It was a documentary about the 2004 Paralympic team. And so 15-year-old me, who loves football and loves hockey, suddenly sees this sport where guys in wheelchairs are smashing to each other. They're talking trash. They're out partying. They're doing all these things, talking about girls, and it's like,

well, hey, that looks pretty good. I think I want to try that. And of course, my mom sitting next to me is like, no, I don't think so. So we went back and forth about it for a little while, and finally she said, okay, you can go check it out. So I went to a practice in the gym, and

some of the guys were like former college football players. They're like big dudes in their 30s and 40s. And here comes 15-year-old me, 130 pounds, dripping wet. And they kind of looked at me like, you want to play rugby? And I was like, big dudes, you know, in their 30s and 40s. And here comes, you know, 15-year-old me, 130 pounds, dripping wet. And they kind of looked at me like, you want to play rugby? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, okay.

You know, it's a very welcoming sport. And so they put me in a chair and I got knocked around. I crashed into walls. I went flying, tipped over, all this stuff. And as we drove home, my dad was like so – he was kind of skeptical because he watched me basically get beat up for an hour and a half straight. It was like, how was that? I was like, that was awesome.

I loved it. That's how I got involved. I just happened to be sort of lucky to be really good at the sport naturally. I trained for a long time. I played at the University of Arizona for a couple of years. i have a collegiate team there made some really good friends uh got really was able to train with some really excellent athletes and you know just basically worked really hard and made the pair with the team in 2012 we won a bronze medal there which was actually a little bit of disappointment we came in ranked number one but then it's third which was a bummer

uh and then we went on to i kept training for rio we got silver which we got so much closer and then i've just been currently still training for tokyo which will hopefully happen later this year we just got to get uh got to get the pandemic a little more under control which you know something about pandemics affecting sports industry i think so i don't think that's any new territory for you but yeah it's just been a it's been a wild ride you know it's a physical fun sport like you said But, yeah, it's just been a wild ride. You know, it's a physical, fun sport. Like you said, we used to call it murder ball. Some things we should still call it murder ball.

But it doesn't play as well with corporate sponsors for whatever reason. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't get it. Yeah, I thought of calling this purple kill people on the other team. But, you know, I just thought the same thing. You know, SodaStick was against it.

But, no, that is a great story chuck it's very cool and i can now sort of see why you're you know such a big football guy like you love this physical sport and um obviously you're really good at it were you just good right away i mean did you did you kind of like right away figure this out like how how did you discover like i could do this at not just sort of a, at the rec center, but like the real deal? Yeah, well, it's a good question. So like I said, I grew up playing wheelchair basketball. And so I, you know, I played that and I wasn't super good at that.

I was really good. I was pretty fast. I was pretty quick. I'm a terrible shooter. I am just objectively like, I am worse than Andrew Wiggins. I am worse than Andrew Wiggins and Michael Beasley. Yeah, I own this though. See, I own this.

I know how bad I am. There are certain people who don't know how bad they are. Anyway, let me be – sorry. 21-foot shot. You didn't do 21-foot shots all the time? No, no. Just inside three-point line? No, no.

My teammates literally would have thrown me out of the gym if i'd done that so uh no so i grew up playing that so i got a lot of you know what we call them chair skills the ability to turn the chair really quickly it takes a long time to learn how to use um a wheelchair really effectively in sports and so i had a lot of experience doing that before I came to rugby and what worked out personally with rugby is it took all the things I was good at which was quick turns you know defense guarding and it eliminated the one thing that I was just horrendous at which was shooting the basketball and said you don't have to do that all you gotta do is cross this line it's a ball and

it was like you know it was like it's like the sun started shining in front of me you know and I was like oh oh what is this the sport that I could score of me, you know, and I was like, oh, oh, what is this? This is a sport that I could score at will at? It was so much easier. And so it came very naturally to me. And also, not to get too in the weeds on the sport, there's something called classification with different people with different levels of functional ability. And I'm on the higher end of functional ability. And so that helped me move into the sport a little quicker. But what happened was, you know, my team, Minnesota, we were very, we were, you know, we were okay.

We were a fine team. But the first year we went to the national championships where I was on the team, we actually made it to the championship game for our division, kind of a division two type thing. Yeah. And the national team coach, you know, was at nationals and was like, who is this random kid who suddenly his team is in the championship? Like, we've never heard of these people. And then I got invited to try out for the national team, and I was like the most nervous I've ever been. Like, I mean, like throwing up in the locker room before training started.

Like, I didn't know anything. Like, I didn't know what we were doing at trials. Like, okay, we're going to do, you know, your endurance test. I was like, okay, what is that? And they're like,'m like oh you're gonna push a mile around this carpeted track and i was like okay i had never pushed harder than like 10 hill spreads but i was like sure why not and so i started off sprinting and if you know anything about distance running the one thing you should not do right immediately. Immediately. And so I took off and I could hear him being like, oh, he's going pretty fast. He's going to be awesome if he can keep it up. Fast forward about 30 seconds, I could not keep that up.

And so I did poorly. But, you know, I had enough talent to be able to make the team. But, you know, I've worked really hard. I've tried to always be a player who makes the people around him better. You know, kind of that classic sports concept, right? If you make people around you better, it's the most effective thing you can do. But yeah, just, you know, I've worked really hard at it and tried to train and just be the best

athlete I can possibly be, which is so many cliches in one sentence there. Yeah, I know. It's hard to get too deep into it without burying people in the weeds of wheelchair rugby, which, no. Anyway. If there was ever a podcast to bury people in the weeds about wheelchair rugby, it is this podcast. Oh, it is. Okay. Well, that's fair.

Well, then we can spend the next two hours talking about that. Yeah, no, like you said, it's a fun, it's a physical sport. I've never been afraid of the contact. I like to hit people. i like to knock people over i don't mind getting knocked over which is kind of the thing which i think you're going to play a contact sport you have to sort of embrace that that urge that that thing and you know i other thing i guess i'll say and i think i see this too which is why i like watching professional sports right i prefer professional sports i know some people like collegiate sports but i prefer professional sports and right? I prefer professional sports. I know some people like collegiate sports, but I prefer professional sports. And for me, it's because everybody says,

what does it take to be an elite athlete, you know, at that top level? And I said, what, here's the thing, that level, everybody's fast. Everybody's good. Like that, you know, you know this, right? There's nobody on NFL team who is like a scrub. Like there just are. I mean, well, there are some. As long as it's not the vikings offensive line hey oh uh defensive line now put it put it this way anybody who gets a second contract isn't a scrub right exactly and or to get to that level they had to do something impressive right yeah right they had to at some point to itself and so what i say to people is it's great to be physically strong,

and I'm strong, I'm fast, but it's the mental side of it that really will push you next level. You have to be able to think at this quick pace. It's not just enough to dominate. And that's why I like pro sports so much, because everybody is thinking and operating at such a high level. I have a huge LeBron fan, and he's the same way. He's operating.

He sees things before they happen. I like to think that's one of my strengths is the ability both offensively and defensively to kind of anticipate where the other team's going and make a key stop or to know that, you know, I don't have to do – rather than try to be the double team, I know if I wait an extra second, my teammate's going to come over and I can throw a deep throw. So I like to think that I'm really strong mentally, and that's hopefully one of my skills that I bring to the table

that's allowed me to succeed for such a long time. Man, that's a great point, and it applies to football as well. And it's something that I like to talk about is that when it comes to 40 times and all those things at the combine, those are great, and you need physical freaks. And sometimes physical freaks turn to be the highest ceiling players if they can master all that mental part. But a lot of times when we talk about why did a guy go bust or why didn't he work out?

Because he couldn't master the technical part. It wasn't – I didn't think this about Laquan Treadwell. Everyone made it about his 40 time. And look, he wasn't fast. But if you're not that fast, you need to master the technical part, and he couldn't master that. And that's why Justin Jefferson, I think, is so special, because he gets all, a while back and we've chatted about the Vikings a bunch of times. And so, you know, I get to kind of follow through your tweets and things that you put out there,

your career. And I think that's very cool. And I'm really glad that you could come on and tell your story. And now we're going to talk about your five favorite Vikings because you, you, even though you understand the plight of the pro athlete, you also get frustrated out watching the Vikings. Well, of course I do. I, I, I, I survived, you know, I, yeah, I try not to be too harsh because I, I get it on one level, but on the other level, it's like, come on, man, come on, you're professional. It shouldn't be that anyway. So yeah. Yes. Yes. I'm very excited. Okay. It shouldn't be that. Anyway. So, yeah. Yes.

Yes, I'm very excited. Okay. So let's start with the first guy on your list. And you did not go off the board here. You went with Randy Moss. And now, look, everybody likes Randy Moss. But tell me specifically for you your I love Randy Moss story. Yeah, that's a really good question because it's like the most basic answer.

Who's your favorite Vikings of all time? Oh, Randy Moss. Oh, duh. Randy Moss is the first football player I remember, like, remembering, which is a weird way to put that, but I think you get what I mean, right? Yes, definitely. He's the first one because, you know, we drafted him in 98. I was seven years old.

And it was the first time that, you know, I started watching with my dad. He's from Oregon. So they didn't have a pro football team. So he kind of was adopted all the Minnesota teams as his own. And he was like, Oh, let's, you know, let's watch, let's watch the, let's watch the Vikings. They got this new player. You know, he's got this, you know, a dad telling his seven year old, he's like, Hey, he's got all these issues. He's just like, Oh, you know, he's a little had some problems, but you know,

he should be really good. And I just remember watching this guy who was so fast, and he could jump and just – and everybody remembers this game, but I just remember Thanksgiving. You know, Thanksgiving, we always like to watch football on Thanksgiving. And watching this guy utterly dominate on Thanksgiving Day was like – I was like, whoa, this is amazing. Like I can't, this is, this is awesome. This is going to be perfect, you know?

And so that 98 seasons, the first season I really remember. And you know, that season was just driven by Randy Moss. Obviously there's seven. So I don't remember the details of it too much, but it's funny. I also remember not to get too far off Randy Moss, but when they missed that field goal, I was like, Oh, that's okay. Like, you know, I was, I was bummed. I was sad, but I was like, oh, that's okay. Like, you know, I was bummed. I was sad, but I was like, well, that's fine. We're really good.

We'll be here all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. By the way, that's not to take this on a different path, but I was thinking the same thing for Bills fans when they were talking about losing to Kansas City. Like, hey, we'll be right back there.

Like, well, you know, the Vikings have said that a couple of times. They've reached championship games. I'll tell you what I like about Randy Moss specifically, aside from just, like you mentioned, fast jumping, catching, like those things. Just utterly dominant physically. But I always had, there's always a part of me that wants someone to succeed when I feel like they've been unfairly treated. And now Moss earned some of his reputation. He certainly did. But the things that they were holding against him in the NFL draft,

I thought, I don't know how that correlates to someone not succeeding. Because I, a little older than you, grew up watching the Dallas Cowboys. And I don't think they were choir boys, the Dallas Cowboys, that won Super Bowls in the early 90s. But I remember listening to the NFL draft on the radio as a kid because we didn't have cable. Wow. Was it still Kuyper?

Was it still Kuyper then? Yeah, I think so. It might have been. Okay. I don't remember who was on the radio doing this, but they were just hammering Randy Moss. They were hammering. I mean, I was a kid.

I was probably like 12. But they were just hammering Randy Moss they were hammering I was a kid I was probably like 12 but they were just hammering him like oh he's not dressed appropriately at the draft and he's this and I just thought man I hope this guy shoves it up there you know and yeah and boy did he ever and I think that's a part of it that makes Moss just like so loved even though at times he was problematic for the Vikings. Yeah. I think that's a really good point, too. When everyone's piling on, you're like, whoa, did this guy – what is going on here? Why do you want to oppose this guy so badly? I think that's a good point.

I certainly over the years have come to appreciate him even more, realizing he was greatness. Watching greatness to me has something over the years I've become so much a big fan of because, you know, it's easy to hate the great player. Like, oh, Tom Brady. I hate Tom Brady. And Tom Brady does some things that I don't like. And obviously he comes off as like, you know, robot Tom Brady, execute quarterback play.

But, you know, what I've come to appreciate with people like him, Moss, all these guys is you're only going to see truly great players so often. So you really should just appreciate them and accept it. And, you know, yes, they'll have flaws, but this is why we shouldn't make sports players into, like, you know, the greatest people who should be listened to for everything, right? We should just enjoy them for what they are. And so I think I've come to appreciate Moss for similar reasons as you

over the years. It's just, this guy's amazing. And because in Madden, you can just, it was just like, it's too easy. You just dominate. You know, it's like, oh, you're always picking the Vikings. Hey, that's my team. I can pick them. That's my team.

No one's getting mad at you. Anybody who is in the 1% that had Sega Dreamcast knows that on 2K2, Culpepper and Randy Moss were literally unstoppable. You could score 100 points a game by just throwing a bomb every single time to Randy Moss. That is a good point how video games for people in our era certainly shaped the way that we have our fandom as well. The fandom and the way we think about it, which reminds me,

did you ever play the 2K game where you could do first-person football? No, I don't think so. You might have to do a whole think about it, which reminds me, did you ever play the 2K game where you could do first-person football? No, I don't think so. You never played, oh, you might have to do a whole episode about it. There was a 2K5 game at one point. You literally could play first-person. It was like the coolest thing ever. Okay, I have 2K5, and I played it a ton. I thought it was, okay. I didn't know that there was

this mode on it that you could play, like, inside the helmet? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I gotta, I'm gonna have to look this up now. Yeah, there was like inside the helmet yeah yeah you oh i gotta i gotta i'm gonna have to look this stuff down because yeah there was one of the 2ks 100 had a mode where you could play first person football and it was like this is the future sport game and i never get it again it's such a bummer yeah yeah because 2k5 was the end because ea sports basically bought out the exclusive rights to madden and then we've never gotten it back. But I've never discovered this mode.

I just kind of played it normally. I might have the wrong error. We will follow up. Yeah, find it out. We will look into it. But that is amazing. So, okay, anything more that you wanted to say about Lost before we move on to your next guy?

No. I mean, it's just he's a legend. He was so incredible. Yeah. Like I said, the kickstart of my fandom, like this guy's awesome. So, yeah. And also, to me, it's also part of it that's cool about Randy Moss is how much Vikings fans have kind of gotten to learn about Moss since. That during his career, maybe you didn't understand him very well and you just loved watching him catch touchdowns.

But then Randy University comes out, which is really in- depth about all the things that he went through to kind of make him who he was. And I was lucky enough to be at a press conference where he talked about how he kind of regretted, you know, shutting everybody out when he was in Minnesota and just sort of only, you know, kind of only focusing on football and not really becoming part of the community the

way that maybe he could have so I think that that's kind of part of his long-lasting legacy in Minnesota so your next best guy I love I love this pick because I watched this guy when I was growing up in Buffalo oh that's right right yeah he's one of the many Buffalo to Minnesota guys in Pat Williams man there is nobody who's stuff in the many Buffalo to Minnesota guys in Pat Williams, man. There is nobody who is stuff in the middle like Pat Williams. Oh man, Pat Williams. I just, I have, I love players who if you looked at them and you just looked at it and you'd say, that's a professional sports player. Like you look at them, you're like,

really? Pat Williams, man. Like you said, you just, the Williams wall back in the day, you know, I mean, and you, you're like, really? Pat Williams, man, like you said, the Williams wall back of the day. You know, I mean, like you said, he had a long career. That guy, I just, I love watching this gigantic human being. And there's no other way to describe Pat Williams than just a sheerly gigantic human being

just rumbling down the line and making a tackle. Like, I just love watching, like you said, he sucked the middle in such a way. He was Linval Joseph before Linval Joseph. It was, um, he was, uh, he was Linval Joseph before Linval Joseph. Like just, it was like, you're going to run and get this guy. Okay, sir. Good luck. Like, I just, I loved watching someone that big, but also that athletic, right?

Like also that athletic. It just, it just amazes me. It was just, he was, he was fun. He's athletic. And it just, he was athletic, and just like I said, he was so dominant, you know. Want to remind you about our friends at SodaStick. If you use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER, you can get free shipping at SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. There's so many great designs, including Chuck Foreman's Spin Doctor shirts,

Skull Hats, Straight Cash Homie shirts, and much, much more. And if you are a hockey fan without getting going soon, or a basketball fan, make sure you check out all sorts of great designs. Their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies. You will love it. That's SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, original Minnesota sports-inspired goods, code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. It was really incredible to see him when the other team would throw a screen or would run to the outside,

and you would be watching Pat Williams at 300 and question marks, you know, running down the line to take somebody down. It's like, I actually talked with Rick Spielman once about Linval Joseph for a story. And he said that Linval reminded him of Pat Williams because Linval had that quickness element to it. And Pat Williams had the same part. And I think that any guy like that is a lovable character to his fan base, right? And the fact that they had the Williams wall with Kevin Williams just being dominant as well,

they played off of each other. Sometimes we don't, you know, give people enough credit for that, like, you know, the circumstances and the teammates and how they impact each other. Go ahead. Yeah, you're good. You're good if you want to let your dog out. No, no, no, no. That's okay they impact each other. Go ahead. Yeah, you're good. You're good if you want to let your dog out. No, no, no, no. It's okay.

Oh, okay. All right. They can wait a second. They don't get to demand and dominate this world. Okay. All right. Well, I was going to say, this is not the first appearance of a dog on the podcast.

Ah, oh, very good. Oh, okay. Excellent. No, I think you're totally right about Pat Williams. And just, yeah, like you said, that he seemed to just embody something about those teams, right? He just was this big, epic, just presence. I just, yeah, I just, I don't know. I don't know why I have this fascination with massive athletes, but I think it's so cool, right?

Like you don't see massive human beings like anywhere else, you know? It's like, where else would Pat Williams be? Could you imagine if you went to like, get a bank loan and there was Pat Williams on you? You'd just be like, you'd be like, uh, hello? Right. What else would Pat Williams be than a nose tackle

in the NFL? What else could he be? And again, you know, my favorite players are often unfairly or fairly linked to really good times of their era. And Pat Williams was on the team when they were a really good, really fun, you know, bunch of guys to look at. And back when, you know, obviously it's always been passing. But back when defense could, you know, it felt like could impact more on that team with him and Jared Allen and just all those guys. Antoine Winfield, shout out to that guy.

He just missed my list, by the way. I should note. He was like, you know, like first off. I love to watch Antoine. Another Buffalo, right? Yeah, yep. And one of the reasons that I, as a young child, did not trust the Bills organization for letting Antoine Winfield go,

I remember specifically my rage about Pat Williams and Antoine Winfield go I remember specifically my rage about Pat Williams and Antoine Winfield playing for another team and every time they would be on TV with the Vikings I would be saying to my dad look at how good they are look what they're doing why did the Bills let them go and of course Vikings fans were enjoying the heck out of how good they were and that was that's a good point that there are some defenses in that era with these guys that are just dominant. And in 2009, it's not talked about because of Favre how great the defense was, but it really was fantastic.

So the next guy on your list is just straight-up bizarre pick. I'm going to tell you the truth. This is shocking. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. Okay, Pat Williams. Okay, Matt Asiata is your next pick. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Did you hit your head playing wheelchair rugby when you were making the list? Matt Asiata, you just explain. I always love just sort of the guys who are you know I like unheralded guys and I think part of that actually comes from my background in basketball because I was it doesn't quite work the same as enabled by

basketball but I was basically the fifth man I wasn't going to shoot I wasn't going to score I was going to do the dirty work and work hard and kind of the unsung type stuff and so I love guys who are sort of unsung type players but i also like them when they're skill positions you know like i would love nothing more than mike boone to succeed i want mike boone to turn into like this rock star that would just give me so much

happiness when amir abdullah hit that screen pass this season i was like my man like let's go let's let's just i love it when people in that position succeed and And Matt Asiata, you know, he was the backup for AP for a couple years there. But then once the year AP was, I think it was the year he was suspended. I can't quite remember. Yeah. Matt, they were like, well, we don't have anybody else. So because Trisha Taylor was gone and I don't think they had, oh, Derek McKinnon yet.

I don't think they had McKinnon yet. So it was like, well. He was on the team at that time. They did play a duo of Asiata and McKinnon. Yeah, that's what it was. That's right. And I think Gerhardt was gone. Oh, Toby Gerhardt.

What a player. But so Asiata, he was like this little bowling ball. You know, he's that, like, bowling ball type mode of running back who just looked like you're like, man, that guy's another one. Like, that guy shouldn't be very good. He shouldn't be able to do stuff. But he would get the ball, and he would just rumble downhill, and suddenly he'd have three yards.

And it was like, okay, this guy's okay. And then my favorite part about him, though, is that he just racked up touchdowns in this one year. The dude had nine touchdowns in three games. He had three, three touchdown games. And I don't know why. I will admit this is a little weird on my end. I get it.

It just endeared him. He endeared himself to me in such a way that season that it's just hard to, I don't know, something about the combination of he was thrust into this unfair position. He's like, all right, you got to just go out and, you know, do your best. You got to go out there and work hard. You got to go out there and try to replace Adrian freaking Peterson. Right?

And he went out there. He was okay. You know, he wasn't great, but he did fine. And maybe it's also this affinity I have for backup running backs. Let's just – we should – let's make backup running backs the new backup quarterback, if you know what I mean. Oh, yeah. Everybody's favorite guy.

Everybody's favorite guy. Right. Let's just promote that guy all the time. Slight fact check. He had two three-touchdown games and one two-touchdown game. Oh, that's right. Okay. But how funny is that, though?

That has to be one of the weirdest – like, how many running backs in NFL and won two touchdown games. Oh, that's right. Okay. But how funny is that, though? That has to be one of the weirdest, like, how many running backs in NFL history have multiple three touchdown games in a single season? And Matt Asiana is on that list. Another thing that I thought. That's what I'm saying. So I got here in 2016, which was his last year in the NFL, and he was the same sort of thing with him and Jared McKinnon did not work as

well as 2014. They had not a great running game. But my favorite thing about Matt Asiata was that he averaged over eight yards a catch because it seemed like the team, the other team had no thought that he would catch a pass. He was actually a halfway decent pass catcher. And if there was a running back on this team recently who deserved a neck roll, it was Matt Asiyah.

He was built like a fullback. He looked like a fullback, but he was a running back. That could be like some sort of like credo or motto there. But, yeah, no, yeah, exactly. And I forgot about the pass catcher thing. He was also pretty good out of the back, really catching the ball, which, of course, any dedicated player of Madden knows that if you call the right plays, the running back and fullback is always open.

Yes, of course. It's that easy. Just dial it up. But, no, I forgot he wasn't a good pass catcher. Yeah, eight yards of carries, eight yards of catches, nothing to sniff at. No, that's – yeah, no, that's solid. so the uh i i'm gonna give you credit though because i think that every vikings fan has their guy that they're like hey that guy didn't get any credit and sometimes it's like pre-season guys as you know from where i'm sometimes having to be like guys look

alexander hollins is not the difference between you and a championship. Okay. Like I get it, but he's not. But I think that it's part of great, a great part of fandom is where you have guys that sort of show up on the team for a couple of years that are not big names, but they made it at the highest level and they scored touchdowns in the NFL and they contributed something positively.

And I've thought about this a lot with this team this year is it's one thing they were missing they were missing those guys where you're like man I never expected Anthony Harris to be really good and get six interceptions and all of a sudden he kind of came out of nowhere same thing with Matt Asiata you never expected him to score nine touchdowns in a season but good for you the next guy on your list, I wrote about last year, just a pure article of the appreciation of Dante Culpepper. Oh, yeah. For me growing up, now video games is a big part of this,

with Dante Culpepper, I just enjoyed watching the guy play. I mean, I think in terms of quarterback aesthetics, he has one of the greatest of all time. Like this tight end sized dude, who has weirdly little hands who can throw the ball like 7,000 yards. I mean, it just like, is there any more fun player to watch than Dante Culpepper? I, I, you know, I, they, we say this all the time. I wonder if Dante Culpepper had played, I, you know, I, they, we say this all the time. I wonder if Dante

Culpepper had played in a different era, like what, what, what he could have been. Now he got derailed by injuries. So, you know, that's always kind of hard to say how it is, but, but you're so right. He just had this aesthetic. It was Pep, man. It was Pep, Pep's getting your roll on, you know, like his celebrations, he did all this stuff. Oh, it's just, he just, yeah. He was, he's, you know, if Randy Moss was the first like kind of player, I really remember. He was the first quarterback. I mean, you know how important quarterback is. So that first one is really the one that sticks with you and just watching, just watching him just launch just bombs. And I mean,

we're talking a cannon of an art. I went back and watched some of those highlights the other day, because i was like you know i was thinking about this getting nostalgic and he could throw the football a very long way yes like a very long way that guy was and he's huge he's hard to bring down he was pretty fast like i said i i wonder in a in a slightly different era where maybe they would have let him do they could have called plays i just wonder if he could have been great, something better. But, yeah, no, he's the first quarterback I remember. And then, again, throwing the moss and just fun team, you know.

And it's too bad his career just kind of petered out, you know. But that's just the reality of the NFL, unfortunately, for a lot of guys. But, yeah, no, Culpepper just had this – yeah, this aesthetic was a great way to describe it. Why would I even try to reinvent that? But you make a great point just about how he might have been in this era where you see easier answers for quarterbacks in a lot of plays. I mean, we see an offense with play actions and rollouts. The play action percentage when he was playing might have been 1 in 10 dropbacks.

And now it's it's one in three drop backs for most quarterbacks I even went back and looked at this with play action from five or six years ago and the top quarterbacks weren't even at 30 percent now there's guys that are pushing 40 percent of their drop backs or play action and it's because everyone figured out that it works and it works with with Dante it was pretty much like stand back there in the shotgun and throw it down the field, 15, 20, 30, 50, 60 yards. And that's that or run. And that's pretty much it. And yeah, absolutely have to wonder if the guy had some easier answers.

One cool thing Gus Farratt told me about Dante Culpepper is that Gus would send in the plays and he would add things like they allowed him to send in the plays to Dante and he would add things for Dante to look for so he would say wow here's the play and hey by the way you know watch the blitzing safety or something like that and he would sort of give him like or you know remember to read the Sam linebacker on this play and things like that. So I thought that was kind of a cool little story that Gus told on the podcast. I don't know. That's so cool.

Yeah. That's so cool. They had some awesome quarterback rooms. Like, how about the arm strength of Gus – or not Gus. I mean, Jeff George and Dante Culpepper in the same quarterback room in 1999. It's crazy. That might be the strongest combined arm strength i mean like i can't off the top of my head i can't possibly think of two guys like

two guys a team having two guys who can both legit chuck it like what 60 plus yards second easily 70 plus yeah when they unreal um when they used to do the quarterback competitions in like florida on the week oh yeah i mean barb threw it i think 78 one time so yeah i think that george and call pepper are probably pushing it about that same sort of amount um so unreal the only thing other than i want to add about call pepper is it is kind of sad I mean you just like if that guy had a 10-year career I know he was a tank and he was not perfect but I think he I think he would have had a really long Vikings career and you think about it he would have been a fully matured player by the time they got to that roster in 2009 that was set to be great and you kind of have to think about like man if he doesn't get hurt he's probably their longtime franchise quarterback yeah i i think you're

right and i think it's a great point too that you know vikings history we haven't just been beset by poor decision making it's also just bad luck sometimes they they drafted dante saying all right this is our guy and he looked yes he had his ups and downs but he looked he looked legit you know he looked like the guy who could make those throws you had to, and then he tears his legaments. It's like, well, you know, that's it. There you go. See you later. And it's just, it's a, it's a good point. And it, which it is, it is just too, it is too bad. You're going to make me sad over here.

It's funny. Cause it doesn't even make like the top 20 list of Vikings tragedies, but I think it's in there. All right, your last guy, another unsung hero. And this player I have a ton of respect for, too, because you see in training camp 40 guys who don't have much of a chance to make the roster come in, and you're like, eh, you know, who cares about these guys?

The roster's set or whatever. And one, maybe one, every five years has a 10-year career in the NFL. And so it tells you how hard it is because those guys were all great players in college, and they all just get immediately cut pretty much. And Marcus Sherrills carved himself out a role as a punt returner, and he was the quietest guy out there, and he did the job, and when they needed him to play corner, he played corner. I mean, I think this is a great pick for your sort of unheralded type of guys with Marcus Sherrills.

Oh, yeah. Marcus, I mean, he's a Minnesota guy, which I think, as you probably learned now living in Minnesota long enough, we love our home-bred guy. We love our home homebred ones. You know, Adam Thielen is actually from Minnesota. Yeah. So much. I don't want to.

I didn't want to break too much news on this podcast. But, yeah, he is from Minnesota and was undrafted. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. We like our Minnesotans here. But, you know, Cheryl's. It was something about that, especially the last

sort of like three years of his career, two or three years, it was like, oh, you know, they're probably going to cut Sheryl's. But he always just, he did something

that I tell guys when guys are trying off and I asked him, I said, listen, you have to show up and make them take you. You can't just be, do whatever.

You have to say that you have to put yourself where they say, we got to have this guy on our team. You know, we've got to do it. We don't have a choice. And Sheryl, as you just said, every single year did that. Because I don't want to say he was one of the more replaceable positions,

but it's a pretty replaceable position in a lot of ways, right? I mean, punt returner, what was he like? He wasn't even the nickel, like the dime corner. He was the oh my god everyone got a disease and can't play and now he's right corner yeah he was way down to the but he kept making the team and he and the other part he was good at what he did he was pretty he's pretty good yeah you know like he wasn't devin hester but i mean literally no one is devin hester so but he was really good at what he did.

He worked his butt off every single year, and he just grinded. He just showed up, and every year it was like you felt confidence in the guy. And like you said, I have so much respect for somebody who just goes, who works super hard, shows up, he's undrafted, I think, just shows up. And you have to stand out to make it at that point too it's kind of like what you're saying is because i'm sure yeah they invite all these guys and like i'm in the media they'll say oh yeah we're pumped about all these guys we're excited to see what we have and like you said 90 it's like all right well we gotta have

bodies here because we know the starters don't want to do everything in camp so um but he just you know a guy who can continue to show up and show up and just make the team. I just, like you said, I have so much respect for him. And he was pretty talented at what he did, like I said. So people do not understand. Well, now you do after watching it this year, how hard it is to return punts. Like if you watched Percy do it or you watch Cheryl's do it, you're like, well, maybe these guys should just return punts and do a good job. And then Chad Beebe, go try it. And yeah, it's harder than it looks. KJ

Osborne, go try it. Harder than it looks. I have never tried to catch a punt. I'm sure you have. You've tried to catch an actual punt? No, I have not. I never have either. I have asked people about it though. And so I asked Amir Abdullah, because he's done some punt return. I was like, so do you think I could do it? Because they'll have like an intern out there when they're cracked when they're warming up and he'll catch some of them he'll catch maybe like two out of five or three out of five and it's just that's the intern's only job um it might be it might be football has jobs for everyone i i've joked before that eventually every player will have a position code, like, you know, left tackle coach is going to, like, run game coordinator.

I saw defensive run game coordinator. That's when it's like jump the shark. Okay. Sorry. So the intern's, like, catching every once in a while, so I thought, well, I'd be able to do that. And what Amir told me, though, is that's just the punter warming up. Like, he's just kicking it straight up near down.

They know how to kick like knuckleballs and everything else. And he said in a dome you might have a chance because it doesn't move around. But in the wind, you're probably not catching too many of them. In fact, you might get hurt. Is he saying you couldn't even get your hands on it? Or that you couldn't even get, like you would get to you couldn't even get like you would get to it but just forget about it she's gonna wobble too much so if he kicks a knuckleball in the wind at lambo or something you're gonna have a pretty tough time tracking even where it's coming down

right if he's warming up and just punting it high in the air and it's coming straight back down on a calm day at tco performance center you you probably get like three out of five or something like that. Okay. But if you're doing it in the real game with people running at you full speed who want to take your head off, probably not. Yeah. You're not making that play.

It's one of those underrated things that's like, as we see now, it's not easy to do. Like there's a reason they pick a guy and say, you are the guy who does this. And obviously you don't put who does this and obviously you don't put your most talented person because you don't want to get hurt out of stupid punt return but at the same time you can't just say all right uh who's up next like you know get out there uh i don't even know bc johnson doesn't return punts right yeah well that's you know and that's the thing is that there are so few people now who can do it um that it's almost like for some teams and the Vikings this year if you just got away from it and let it bounce where it's going to bounce you probably

would have been better off than trying to return it because you get penalties and you get you know fumbles and things like that so that's a great pick Marcus Sherrill's not only undrafted unrecruited also he was a walk-on forgot he was a walk-on too yeah right that's right like the double the double um the double thing adam phelan at least got a scholarship five hundred dollars scholarship yeah i've heard the story yes it's quite remarkable uh well chuck this is it's a great list um i really enjoyed the way that you break it down from an athlete perspective. And I just wanted to ask you before we wrap up. So what's kind of your thought on the future here with the Olympics? I mean, it's seems like it's up in the air.

There's some reports that they're considering, you know, Tokyo not doing it and then whatever, like, how is that just like affecting your mindset, man? Because this was something for you to really like train for every day. Yeah, it's, it's hard. Every little up and down affects it. You know, every change that the report came out that was quickly, they counted, look, we don't think there was nothing to this. We feel confident, but there was, you know, I, I, I was sitting in my room,

my girlfriend came in and said, what are you doing? You've been sitting here for an hour. I was like, Oh, this report came in and I was just trying to find more information. She's like, oh, okay, I get it. It's hard not to let it affect you. It really is. I think the mantra, though, that I've had to have over the last year, really at this point, almost a year, is just controlling what I can control, which is super cheesy, but it's just what you have to do. It's reality.

I can't control what's happening in the rest of the world. I can't control it, but i can go work out every day i can you know make sure i'm eating healthy stay on top of things and do my best but uh we're we're super optimistic i think that it's gonna happen you know they've got really good plans in place they've thought really hard about it uh they want it you know everyone wants it to happen i think the hope is that by that time and i know we were saying this last year but by that time things and I know we were saying this last year, but by that time, things will hopefully have improved and gotten better to the point where they'll say, you know what, we can go ahead and do this. It's going to be a little wonky. It's definitely going to be weird.

It's not going to be like the last year. But we can do it. It should be pretty safe. The challenge is they have to make that decision well in advance of that. All right, my flight's on October or August 24th, on October August 23rd, it's like, yeah, let's go ahead and do this $10 million event with 10,000 people. Yeah, we can just kick it off.

Just fly everybody into Tokyo, no big deal. Well, I am sure that you will compete again at some point soon. We'll get there. Sports has sort of figured out how to bubble things. I feel like the olympics are bubbleable if that's word it's a word now it's a word now for sure uh if you want to follow chuck

his story and his uh vikings fans vikings fan thoughts at aoki that's aoki5chuck on twitter at aoki5chuck on twitter Twitter. Great Twitter follow. Awesome. You are. And I'm really glad we could do this, man. I feel like we've been Twitter friends for a long time. Oh, yeah. And now we're like real Zoom friends. So that's like the next step. And eventually we'll be real friends when you're allowed to have real friends again. Exactly.

No, I appreciate the time, man. It was a lot of fun and appreciate all the work you're doing keeping us Vikings fans entertained during these dark days, but the light days are ahead at some point, I think. Maybe.