Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse talks about the greatest Viking defenses and Warren Sapp

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Matthew Coller and Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse get together for What Coulda Been week to talk about why Patrick loved Daunte Culpepper, how the Vikings botched the franchise's very first trade and how they left two of the greatest defenses in NFL history on the table because they couldn't find a quarterback. Patrick also talks about what the Vikings would have been like had they selected Warren Sapp and the Minnesota Gopher player who could have made the Vikings even more insanely good on defense in the 70s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether you own a bustling hair salon or a hot new bakery, you need business insurance that can keep up with your evolving needs. With flexible coverage options from TD Insurance, you only pay for what you need. TD. Ready for you. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here as we continue What Could Have Been Weak. And if we were going to do it, we had to have Patrick Royce join What Could Have Been Weak for some very historical perspective. What is going on, Patrick? How are you?

I'm down here at the Star Trombone office. They're still empty, by the way, but you know, you got a lot of elbow room down here. But outside of that, everything's fine. I wonder what you were doing there. Are you researching What Could Have Been Weak? You had to go into the supercomputers. Is that why? I did actually go through some of these things for about 45 minutes this morning. Now I'm trying to write a column and we'll see if that gets accomplished or not.

Well, that's impressive. So there's a couple of guys that come up all the time through what could have been weak that I want to ask you about first. And then you have some absolute gems of your own to discuss, but Percy Harvin, Dante Culpepper, Teddy Bridgewater, the quarterbacks, you know, just to have come and gone and popped in and popped out. Certainly, you know, really come up all the time when we're talking about what could have been, but the one that I can't get over is Culpepper because of how good he was in 2003 and 2004 and even though his 2005 didn't start out great I can't help but think about some of the

defenses they put together after that and then the 2009 team that peaked on both sides of the ball and what that would have been like with him maturing as a quarterback if he had never got hurt but but I wonder like what you sort of feel about that, you know, that, that particular subject with Dante Culpepper and what he could have become had he not gotten hurt. Well, I was a big, a huge fan of Dante and I, I don't know, I'd have to go back and check my, my stuff that I wrote at the time when he got drafted, you know, in 99 with the 11th pick, the Vikings were pretty desperate for a pass rusher and Javon Kirsch was available. And we all assumed they would take Javon Kirsch. And they had a quarterback, Randall Cunningham,

coming back from a great season. And when Dennis took Dante, a lot of people were upset, sort of like the Aaron Rod taking Jordan Love, right? The results of that. But, you know, I was not, I think when you're finishing fairly high in the standings and you have a chance to take a quarterback and this kid was uh an amazing athlete for sure i i couldn't join in the the whole the drumbeat about denny being a dummy what always and he sat the entire uh 1999 season and then uh uh was it what it was 99 was the first season he played right 98 was when he sat right he sat 90

99 they drafted him after 98 sat 99 yeah you had it right he sat the entire season he got in to take a couple of snaps and then uh that's because they had jeff george and uh and cunningham right and then uh you know they and they were looking around, trying to get bring Marino in, you know, after he got after he was down in Miami and he finally said, no, thank you. And so they went to Cunningham and he was dang good as a rookie. I, I really gained a lot of admiration for him, believe it or not, in the 41 donut game, because he's the only guy who tried, you know, in the second half, he was, you know, Randy was pouting, wouldn't run his routes. The defense was incredibly rotten. And Danny, you know, Dante kept trying to make plays. I think he ended up throwing three interceptions, but he was a competitor and got banged up a couple of times.

But 2004, without Randy being healthy, he was as good a quarterback as the Vikings have ever had, probably better than Tarkington in his best day. He made an incredible number of plays. If they'd won a few more games, he could have been the MVP. And now they let Moss go. And as it turned out, the worst thing about letting Moss go was thinking you had to have a replacement for him

and taking a guy who had the minor problem of not being able to judge a football when it was in the air. That was a problem. But Troy Williamson. But Cunningham, I remember him showing up in Mankato that year for the first day of camp and the excitement level that, hey, this guy can win for us. You know, this guy can, the Viking fans down there, this was the man Dante. They need finally won them over after all this stuff about his fumbles and his small hands and all that stuff, which they love to talk about.

And yet what I think we didn't know behind the scenes, what was going on with him was he'd found out that the contract he negotiated didn't include money you know didn't include guaranteed money because he was he had that upbringing where you know he had no money and he didn't want to pay an agent 10 or something so he was gonna get some lawyer and negotiate this thing uh so he got there that kind of knocked things off the rails right a bit. But the worst thing that happened was Red, knowing he was getting ready the team to sell and being trying to keep expenses as low as possible because he wanted to make the profit as high as possible, didn't keep Scott Linehan as the offensive coordinator. And Linehan was Dante's guy, man. Linehan, the legend was that as long as the microphone could be live, Linehan would, and he'd be walking to the line,

Linehan would read the defense for him, tell him what, look for this, look for that. And then, of course, they have to cut it off. But they made offensive line coach Steve Loney, of course, they have to cut it off. But they've made offensive line coach Steve Loney. Great guy. Competent offensive line coach. This would be like naming, you know, the assistant coach at Northfield High School as the offensive coordinator. They didn't give him an offensive coordinator.

Halfway through the year, they brought in somebody as a consultant, Jerry Rome or somebody like that, but it was too late. I mean, I think maybe a month into the season, they brought in Jerry Rome to help him, but it was too late. He started off playing terrible. And Chris Carter once gave me a quote about him. He said, when Chris was doing media down at a Super Bowl someplace that I was covering,

he said, he's the most insecure great athlete he's ever been around, Dante Culpepper. And when things went bad, he got those insecurities. We showed those insecurities. But I agree with you. He had a chance

to end up in a situation where he could, you know, could have signed a contract here, had a competent coaching staff, and taken him. He could have been the answer for the next six, seven years when he came back from that knee injury. I think one thing, Chili gets a lot of heat about it, but Chili wanted him to get in better shape. You know, Childress, I mean, he was playing at 270 like Miguel Sano, you know, lose 20,

right? And, you know, get yourself in better shape. But by then, Dante was so upset about the money situation that he wasn't going to do anything the Vikings wanted him to do. And the combination of money, the injury, ruined the guy that I consider to be the second-best quarterback in Viking history, behind Tuckington. Yeah, no, I think so too. And the 03 and 04 seasons, I looked at this. If you compare his adjusted yards per attempt,

so adjust for sacks and for interceptions, the only quarterback better in 03 and 04 is Peyton Manning yeah then Culpepper and and the other thing too was the defenses were just a bus fire in those couple of years so it was just like all on Dante to guide those teams and the other thing that I think deserves to be in the like court sort of what could have been too is how much fun it could have been to is how much fun it could have been to go you know go forward with him you think about the quarterbacks who have been a lot of fun just in their careers like Mahomes is super fun now Cunningham back in his days with

the Eagles Michael Vick when he was at his best put Culpepper there that knee injury robbed Vikings fans of so much entertainment that that guy had. I mean, between the arm strength and the fact that he would run over linebackers, there's no other quarterback in history where linebackers would brace for the contact other than Dante Culpepper. I just think from an entertainment standpoint, even if they didn't win a Super Bowl with Culpepper, it would have been super fun having him as your quarterback for another 10 years. Yeah, and the other thing is what people don't ever concede to him because he did have the fumble turnovers. He was an extremely accurate passer.

He was a tremendously accurate passer. Look at some of his – didn't he push 70% one year, didn't he? He was like high 60s and stuff. And, you know, he was – you know, he was an incredible talent. And he had to be nurtured because, you know, because his background was he was, you know, played at Central Florida, which was not a big operation then. And, you know, he was coming in very raw.

And he was not sophisticated, as we found out with the whole contract situation. And they should have mentored this guy a lot better than they did, in my opinion. And Denny just kind of took him, and I don't think anybody really took him under their grasp and said, hey, you can really be great do this this this and this but uh man he's he played some great games uh when you when you remember the one he was a you know we see kirk cousins now in the second half garbage time this guy in the second halves was uh not garbage time though i mean he was a monster in the second half because he can make the plays with his legs, his big, giant legs.

So he was yeah, he was I think there was some might have been with him not only because of the injury, but because of the way they handled him. I think it was he was they they never took full advantage of the talent that was there. Which is sort of crazy to say, considering the numbers that he put up. But I think if he played today, we would talk about these things a lot differently, especially, you know, even just with his playing style, like he threw the ball down the field all the time, but the offenses are now sort of designed to give quarterbacks a lot more easy answers instead of just, Hey, stand in the shotgun and run around and just launch it down the field when you can. I mean, that was a lot of those offenses in the early two thousands were really just resting on

the quarterback. And now that you've got a lot of play action, you got a lot of easy completions, short throws are, are much more prevalent now. So I, I think that he would be a top three quarterback in the league. If he was playing today, if he had the chubby guy in kansas city coaching him when he was a kid you know i can guarantee you deep in his heart uh andy reed would take uh young dante culpepper over donovan mcnabb what he had you know and he won a lot of games with donovan mcnabb who was much more limited as a quarterback than was d Culpepper. Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree. Okay, let's get into some of your favorites, because that's my favorite to talk about Dante, especially because I was such a fan of playing video games

and would always use Dante Culpepper. I mean, just the best. Anyone who had like Sega Dreamcast, you could basically take Dante Culpepper, throw it as far as you want to Randy Moss and score a touchdown every time. So let's get into some of yours. Let's start with early and work our way back. What might have been can't actually mean a prediction of championships.

Right. But one that still reminds me of how people ignored draft choices in the early years. The Vikings came in. They were the 14th team in the early years. The Vikings came in. They were the 14th team in the NFL, right? So their draft was only 14 deep, right? And they came in in 1961. The Dallas came in as the 13th team a year earlier, and they came in as the 13th team a year earlier and they came in as the 14th and norm van brocklin was the mvp of the league in 1960 uh loved stationary quarterbacks right he dropped back with his pot belly and stood in the pocket he always made plays with his arm and so 1961 they're getting ready to play their first season and he trades for a veteran quarterback who was the backup uh with uh who had been i think the backup with the colts for a while

but they he's with the new york giants george shaw and he trades the number of the first pick. This is for an expansion team that you know ain't going to run the table. You know, he trades for George Shaw, who's 30 years old, and at the height of his skills was mediocre. He's trading the pick. And the opening game, and then he drafts Tarkington in the third round out of Georgia, and Tarkington in the third round out of Georgia, and Tarkington runs around like a lunatic, and he don't like him right away, Van Brocklin. But first game of the season, they go 0-5 in exhibition games.

I think they got whopped by the Bears in an exhibition game, and this was when more regular players played in the exhibition games because the rosters were so small. So the week before the season, they made a trade with Cleveland, and they brought in six players. The guys that were going to make the Cleveland team, they gave up a second and a sixth, and that was Jim Marshall and Jim Prestel and stuff like that.

But George Shaw starts against the Bears, and they kick a field goal. And in the first three possessions, that's all they do. At the end of the first quarter, he puts Tarkington in the game. So George's tenure as your starting quarterback basically lasted the first quarter. And Tarkington took over, although during the year when he was mad at Tarkington for running around too much. By the way, Tarkington came in, they beat the Bears 37 to 13. That's when George Hallis, the Bears coach, famously got on the bus

and the team was heading for the airport, and they could all fit in one bus then, referred to them as a bunch of short C words and sat down. I know, so, but 37-13. But during the year, Van Brocklin started Shaw three more times, but didn't, you know, Tarkington, at the end of the year, Van Brocklin started Shaw three more times, but didn't, you know, Tarkington at the end of the year, Tarkington gave, Tarkington had thrown, Tarkington, by the way, in that game was 17 for 23 for 250 yards that first game.

And anyway, during the year, Tarkington threw like 250 passes and George Shaw threw 40 or something. Well, then came the draft. The draft choice turned out to be number two. The number two draft choice, right? In the 1962 draft. The Los Angeles Rams made a trade with the Giants to get the number two, and they took Roman Gabriel, the quarterback, the great quarterback, and very good Rams quarterback. But having Tarkington, the Vikings probably would not have taken a quarterback.

They would have had to go down to the number three choice, also the Rams, but that was Merlin Olsen, the Hall of Fame defensive tackle. So basically, we start off right away as a franchise, trading a me, because Merlin, by the time, now, you wouldn't have been bad enough probably to get Page, right? You wouldn't have been bad enough to get Page years later. But anyway, they, you know, they could have had Merlin Olson in 1962 instead of George Shaw. So that's one of my first, I've always thought that one was hysterical. But when I talked to you about this the other day, Matt, I told you about, you know, 1969, they go to the Super Bowl with Joe Capp, 40 for 60. Joe Capp was the MVP.

They give him the MVP award, and he says, there's no MVP on this team. We're 40 for 60, and boy, we loved him. And, you know, we thought he's the greatest thing that ever happened. And then he gets in that contract dispute and they let him go. And so they don't have a quarterback. They already had Gary Quazo. And had already traded for Gary Quazo, who they gave up two number ones for. But Cap took over for him in 1969 in the second game.

Gary lost the opener in 69. The second game, they decided to play Joe Cap. And against Baltimore, it was here at the Met Stadium, and he threw seven touchdown passes. Jumped, leaped over a guy famously, and God, we went crazy. We loved him. And that team, even with Cap having a fantastic year, was, of course, defensive monsters, right?

The 1969 team. Well, 1970 and 1971, they got beaten. They didn't have Cap because he ended up in New England and was never worth a damn. And then so they their basic quarterback in 1970 was Quazo. And then in 71, it was Quazo, Norm Sneed and Bobby Lee. They used all of them. But 1970 Vikings. I was telling you, they wasted the best defensive years of their lives, right?

1970 Vikings, 14 games, gave up 2,803 yards, 200 yards a game. They gave up 1,438 yards passing and 1,365 rushing. They also committed the fewest defensive penalties in the league, like 58. And the opponents were, let's see, the opponents threw six touchdown passes. And the Vikings had 28. The Vikings had 28 interceptions. Oh, I've got to look this up what that quarterback rating is. Well, it was, you know, somewhere in the 50s. But they lost twice. They lost at Green Bay 13 to 10.

And then they lost in the Jets 20-10, not against Namath, but against a quarterback named Al Woodall, who lit them up by going four for eight. No, eight for 12. Eight for 12. Eight for 12. But they ran the ball against the Vikings. They beat them.

Those were the only two losses, right? So then they – and they lost to the Packers. Quazza was eight for 15 for 69 yards. And then he was, he was similar to that. I can't read my own notes, but he was similar to that when they lost their other game. So now they go into a conference championship game. I mean, not the conference.

They lost the first round conference game against San Francisco. And they got John Brody, right? They got John Brody. And we got Quazo. And Quazo that year ended up by 12 games, 1,720 yards passing, seven touchdowns. Drew for seven touchdowns. These games must have been horrible to watch so they lose to the 49ers 17 to 14 and john brody ends up throwing for 201 yards against

them which was amazing quasos nine for 27 for 146 yards passing efficiency one TD, two interceptions And passing efficiency Of 33.9 They lose 17-14 And their first touchdown was Paul Kraus running in a fumble recovery So That is a wasted Defense, 1970

Because they were number one in the league They gave up I figured out, they gave up 202 and the next team gave up, no wait, it was, yeah, it was 600 yards. It was, they gave up 2,800 and the next team gave up 3,400, right? So now the next year, they're not quite as good defensively, but Alan Page is the MVP, the first defensive player to ever be the MVP. And they're 11 and three. And this time they play the Cowboys at home on Christmas day.

What you have to remember is the ethic that existed in this state, in this country, basically about Christmas, you know, you couldn't play on Christmas Eve. You couldn't play on Christmas. And people were mortified that there was going to be a Christmas day game. It's a good thing my mother was still not alive because she would have keeled over, right? But they played that Christmas day game. And the idea of 40,000 people being drunk at Met Stadium was really offensive to Minnesota. They lost that one 20 to 12. They were behind 20 to 3 in the fourth quarter versus the Cowboys. And Page sacked Staubach for his safety.

And then they scored a late touchdown. Quazzo was 12 for 22 for 124 yards. Bobby Lee came in and he threw for 80 yards, but between the two of them, they threw for four interceptions. Dallas won that game with 183 yards of offense against the Vikings because of the four interceptions and the inept quarterback play. Once again, the number one defense in the league. And that year, 10 TD passes against them and 27 interceptions. So in two years, let's figure this out, Matt, 16 TDs allowed and how many interceptions here?

16 TDs allowed and I got it down here. What did I say 27 and 55 interceptions Two years The first round At home both years When they decided to get Tarkington back they went and traded

For Tarkington and One of the quarterbacks they gave up The Giants took Norm Snead Off their hands because they had traded for Norm Snead to come in. He's been a backup. He started for a while in Philly and he was a backup. And then he was here in 71 as part of that quarterback shuffle. But they went to four Super Bowls.

They could have gone to six. Yeah. At any competent quarterback play back then we weren't quite as paranoid about quarterback play you know i mean because the bears won one year with billy wade who couldn't throw a ball out of the room and stuff like that but uh early on but but that's wasted opportunity those two defenses 70 and 71 incredible so i pulled i pulled this up and uh the quarterback rating against the the vikings in 1970 was 40.4 which is which is close to what the rating is if you incomplete every pass that was against them in 70 yeah yeah yep yep it was against them in 70. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

71 against them. 45 or 40. They were not quite as good. They gave up 600 more yards. But, you know, as I said, Page was – Page, by the way, in 1970, he recovered seven fumbles for 70-some yards. And in, as I said, in 71, he had three safeties, counting the one in the playoffs. And they didn't keep stats then.

You know, sack wasn't an official stat. Somebody came up with 148 for him by looking at the tape, but I can't find the number that he had in 71, but it had to be in the 20s you know he was unblockable there was one game against the Packers at Memorial Stadium for some reason they weren't oh because of the baseball playoffs so that had to be 70

because the Twins were in the playoffs they moved the game to Memorial Stadium they called holding on him against the Packers they called him for defensive holding or slapping a guy in the head or some damn thing, penalty. He got irate because he could lose his temper. And the next three times, like either Sacks or the quarterback

running down to the other end of the field trying to stay alive. I think Starr was still in in 71. But, yeah, he was, you know, people who vote on the greatest Vikings of all time are missing their bet when they don't have him. A defensive MVP who basically, he was now by 76. None of them were as good as they used to be. But he took them to four Super Bowls and played well enough to take them to six. And then Francis

came in in 72 and they went seven and seven. They had a bunch of guys hurt and they weren't good. By the way, another, what's always interesting, Matthew, is to look back at the stupid trades. Like, the Saints, the Saints,

they traded Norm Snead to the Saints, I believe. And the Saints gave them John Gilliam back as a wide receiver who's, you know, kind of forgotten in Viking history because of the great wide receivers that the team has had. But he was like the first guy they had that could run by everybody and get the long touchdown pass, and he was Tarkington's. Tarkington, you know, twice a game when Tarkington would air it out, he'd be trying to throw it to John Gilliam. But, yeah, the trades back then were idiotic, and the use of draft choices.

I mean, there's only 14 teams drafting, and you still don't give a damn if you give up a draft. It's just incredible. And now a team gives up a third rounder, and we're screaming, how could they do that? So anyway, and then the other one that, of course, that we cannot forget. I can't forget this one because I was there to see how agitated Coach Green was. We're talking 1995, right? And they need a defensive lineman very bad. They always need a defensive lineman very bad. They always need a defensive lineman. And Warren Sapp of the Miami Hurricanes, a hurricane through and through,

just what you want in a hurricane, right? Crazy. It's insane like the rest of them. My favorite football team, college football teams ever, you were probably too young to appreciate full scale hurricane ism, but you've seen the 30 for thirties. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I, and that's when I first started really like understanding sports is the early

nineties. So I, enough to remember the Warren Sapp team. Yeah. Yes. And Warren, I think what tested positive for marijuana, right? It wasn't that the deal or, you know, might've been coke down in Miami. Who gives a damn? He was, but he slid, he should have been the first or second overall pick, right? So he's these pompous NFL jackasses. He's sliding down the board. Denny's drafted 11th that year. And there is no way in

God's green earth, Denny didn't want to take Warren Sapp as he proved a few years later when he took Moss. He was always going to err on the side of talent, right? And Warren Sapp was the defense, what Randy Moss was the offense. For five, six years, he was unblockable. I think it was Hedrick, Roger Hedrick, Mike Lynn's successor. Mike Lynn would have waved it and said, go ahead and take him. But I think Hedrick was being pompous. For some reason, Denny was not allowed to take Warren Sapp because he tested positive for marijuana, I think, or had some drug. And we took, the Vikings took Derek Alexander, who was a defensive end tackle from Florida State, and was an ordinary player. And the next pick went to Sapp. The next pick, Tampa took Sapp.

You put Sapp on that defense in 98, you couldn't lose if you wanted to. You could, because, you know, the vulnerability in that team was defense, right? And you take the, you know, best defensive lineman in the world and put him with a couple other fantastic defensive linemen, they would have been – that's a – there is it.

That's a no chance that they could have lost that game to the Falcons if they drafted Warren Sapp. And Dennis could always be a little prickly when we asked him questions about the draft choices they took. But he was beyond prickly that day. So anyway, I guess those are my what could have beens. And certainly two Super Bowl victories in 70-71 were imaginable. And a guaranteed Super Bowl in 98 if Warren Sapp had been drafted. So that year in 98, John Randall had 10.5 sacks,

and Derek Alexander is decent with 7.5 sacks. But after that, not a whole lot. I mean, Ed McDaniel as a linebacker, Dwayne Clemens wasn't all that good. Someone named Jason Fisk seemed to have played a lot on that team. I mean, you've – That chubby little white guy was okay. He kind of tried hard, but as they do, but you throw Warren Sapp into the mix with John Randall. Yeah. And you don't think you'd,

you would have gotten Randall cause he was undrafted, right? You still get Randall. You still get Randall, Randall and Warren Sapp. Look out. Chris Chandler would not have had as an efficient of a day as he did in the Metrodome that day if Warren Sapp had been playing for the Vikings. No, definitely not. So there was one more that you brought up to me, Bobby Bell. Do you want to talk about Bobby Bell? Oh, yeah.

Bobby Bell is my, to me, the greatest gopher ever. But, you know, he was the, the gophers had in 1960, 61 and 62, Matthew, they had the Outland Trophy winner in Tom Brown in 1960. They had the Outland Trophy winner in Bobby Bell in 1961, or 60, was it 62? And they had the Outland Trophy runner-up in Carl Eller. And so in a three-year, you know, they had these three defensive linemen, but they also played offense back then, who were the linemen of the year, right? I mean, Eller was the runner-up. And might have been

to Merlin Olsen, as a matter of fact. But anyway, it's, you know, and Bobby Bell, the Vikings end up, there were rumors that the Chiefs had signed him, right? They already had a deal with the AFL because the things were playing.

But the Vikings ended up drafting him. And when you look back at the papers, the Tribune and the Star, the Vikings still felt as though they had a chance to sign him. And I think they took him in the second round or something. So there had to be a reason that he was not drafted, you know, in the top three or four because of the rumors of the AFL thing. But he ended up, even though he played here for the Gophers for four years, including a little basketball, but just an amazing athlete, an amazing defensive lineman more than anything.

And, you know, helped us to two Super Bowl, two Rose Bowls and would have gotten a third if the referees in Wisconsin hadn't been so crooked in 1962 and called the roughing the passer penalty on me. That's back when I was a Gopher fan. So I took the refereeing cheat, the cheating referees seriously back then. But he ended up signing with the Chiefs. And, of course, when the Vikings went to the first Super Bowl, he was on the other side. If he'd been on the Vikings side, the result would have been different. Turned into one of eight Chiefs that were Hall of Famers. We always look back at that game as the big upset because the Vikings were 12 and a half point favorites. You look at the talent on the field uh it was pretty equal and they had and they had they were doing much better in the integration department than we were too because

most of their great players the chiefs players were black guys some of them from uh historically black colleges and uh you know that's eight eight hall of famers on that team without Otis Taylor is not in yet. And a great receiver. And there's one other guy that's, oh, Jim Tyree, the wonderful offensive tackle is probably maybe their best player from Ohio State. I did something on him. He had mental issues and murdered his wife and him saying he had a murder-suicide when he was out of football like five, six years. And that has kept him out of the, you know, it was a mental issue

and it kept him out of the Hall of Fame. But he was one of the great offensive tackles of all time. So Bobby was part of that great Chiefs team that beat the Vikings. But I should bring this up to bring it all back to Gary Quazo. The Gary Quazo started the 1970 rematch with the Chiefs, right? At Met Stadium. The Chiefs,s the NFL they were prancers back then they put the Chiefs

at Met Stadium for the season opener it wasn't a Monday night game because we didn't have Monday night yet but then the Vikings beat the Chiefs rather handily and if you go back and read Sid and the fellas then this was

retribution for the Super Bowl loss. You know, this showed those Chiefs, the Vikings won a regular season opener. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl. But anyway, that was and Quaso, I just read, was named the NFL player of the week. Well, the next week they went to cap and he threw seven touchdown passes. So that was the end of Gary's tenure as the quarterback. Well, the next week they went to cap and he threw seven touchdown passes. So that was the end of Gary's tenure as the quarterback. But obviously didn't agree with Gary being the player of the week. Benched him, basically, and went to Joe Cap.

Bobby Bell, by the way, six-time All-Pro, nine-time Pro Bowler. So just slightly missed out there on him. Although, I mean, I don't know how the Vikings could have had better defenses, but I guess they would have, even with Bobby Bell. Not only that, Matthew, are you an appreciator of barbecue? Very much so, barbecue uh very much so yes very much long time owner of gates barbecue in kansas city i did not know that bobby bell i think he sold it now but he uh and some other guy gates had been around they bought gates and that's that's is you know the best barbecue in the world there but they and the Gates is kind of a chain.

But there's like six of them down there. But it's still damn fine. So, you know, I still recall my one trip to Kansas City for a Final Four when we managed to eat barbecue three times at Arthur Bryant's and three times at Gates in a four-day period. That was quite an accomplishment for even my wide girth. Well, I covered the 2019 Vikings loss to Matt Moore and stayed there for, I think I got in on Friday and did the same exact thing. Lunch and dinner every day was barbecue because you're like, I'm not getting this when I go home. No offense, Minnesota barbecues.

You're not getting that when you, when you return. So I'm going to enjoy it now. No, you're not. By the way, next time I found this a few years ago, Jack stacks, lamb ribs. Are those good? Jack Stacks, it's downtown. It was the one I'd never been to before because I always go to Arthur Bryant's in the middle of town. Let's say that. I mean, it's a neighborhood place, and it's famous, and there's only one.

In fact, they still have on the wall there the Kansas City Afternoon Paper. I can't remember what it was. I think it was the Times. And the old man died. And Arthur Bryant, the guy it's named after, sometime in the 70s. And they had a front page editorial cartoon of this little black man at the pearly gates being greeted.

And somebody's got his arm around him and said, did you bring the sauce? So anyway, Bobby Bell, greatest gopher ever. Great NFL player. Great guy. I know him pretty well. And a contributor to the Kansas City barbecue scene. So what more could a man do in life? So in terms of what could have been, what could have been for our barbecue?

Yes, that's right. I never even thought of that part. I never even thought. That's right. That was the worst thing about the barbecue. Yeah. You know, Vikings didn't sign him, leading to 50 years of lousy bourbon so anyway all righty we can't top that we can't top that all right oh man well patrick i and i

love this this is so good and this is why i needed you for what could have been weak and i greatly appreciate you taking the time to do this. And well, we'll, we'll keep seeking out future barbecue opportunities. So thanks a lot, man. Good luck.