Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Star Tribune's Patrick Reusse talks about his 5 favorite Vikings of all time to cover

Episode Date: January 19, 2021

Long-time Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse has covered the Vikings for four decades. Who are his favorite Vikings ever to cover? Patrick talks about why Wade Wilson was such a great story, what made John Randle such a terror, why Jerry Burns was underrated as a coach and a unique personality and why Mike Tice's honesty was the best. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and we are launching a series that will be going on all through the off-season in which I bring on a guest and have them make a list of five Vikings. And for every guest, the topic will be different. And to kick us off, the leadoff hitter, so to speak, from the Star Tribune, Patrick Royce, will be giving us his list of five favorite Vikings to cover. Patrick, what is going on? Not a heck of a lot. That's the problem with life,

isn't it? Not a heck of a lot. There's not much going on. I've told this story. I knew I was in trouble in the pandemic a couple of weeks ago when I was watching a 20-year-old documentary on a guy who had a fortune-telling TV show in Puerto Rico that was extremely popular. And I said, we need some new stuff here. Anyway, so not much going on. At least we had our football season. Yes. It did happen.

Maybe the results were not what a lot of people wanted, but I always wanted to stop throughout the year and say at least this happened because those of us who launched a business around covering the football team would have had things a little tight if the Minnesota Vikings had not played. Well, and the NFL, you know, they had some fiascos like making teams play without quarterbacks and stuff, but they got them all played. It's pretty miraculous when you consider college football, what you consider is going on with the NBA right now that they're out of their bubble.

It's pretty amazing that they played them all. No, it really is and to only have a couple of minor disasters with this considering how much it's been a problem for everybody else in the world uh i think it really speaks to them making a legitimate effort to form the tightest protocols that they possibly could and to i mean i don't like to give the NFL too much credit here, but like to actually enforce them. And it seemed like the coaches did a good job of that. The Vikings did a great job of not having any games where they were short

five or six players or something like that. So they do deserve the credit. So I know that you. Sorry, go ahead. There's 80 of them running around out there. Talk about guys. You know, this isn't a, this isn't a basketball team. There's 80 of them running around out there. We can talk about guys. This isn't a basketball team.

This is 80 guys running around that are between the injured list and the taxi squad and everything else. What I was thinking about is it's good that they didn't have to do it at Winter Park, that they had TCO Performance Center, which is mammoth. But at Winter Park, it was a little tighter for everybody. It would have been difficult. That old handball court that they had in there, that they turned into a press room at one time, would have been a little tight. Yes, it would have.

That's true. Yeah, that would have been a little bit difficult. But we got through it. So for your list, I know that you made more than five, and you have a couple of honorable mentions before we get into your five favorite vikings to cover um so maybe you want to start there with your honorable mentions before we get into my list i finished my list and you got to think this isn't just good guys you know this isn't just boy i really like this guy this guy. So yes, I like to cover him. And, and by the way, I did not, as old as I am, I did not cover him in the Super Bowl years.

I did the visiting locker rooms after the baseball season was over in the seventies. And that was, that was interesting, but I didn't really cover the Vikings until 79. So I missed the, I missed the Super Bowl game, so none of those guys would be on this list. But I thought I should mention Ahmad as one of my favorites to cover because he was, you know, the smoothest guy that ever lived. Mark Rosen had him on his TV show. He basically kicked off Rosen's Viking show.

He had the Sports Illustrated diary, four weeks of Ahmad's things. And I was writing columns for the little old St. Paul Dispatch. And virtually every week, I would take a little shot at him for never going over the middle. You know, he loved that he loved to catch that ball on the sidelines and step out of bounds. And right in the middle of all that diary stuff that he was doing in Sports Illustrated, Frank the Ford, for goodness sakes, wanting him, he comes up and starts barking at me one day in the uh in the uh locker room out there at winter park for having made some crack about him uh uh not going over the middle and i said

nobody in this side of the river ever sees the dispatch it's two sentences how did you find it i was uh you know i was always amazed that he was easy to agitate. And he was not hostile. You know, it was, what are you doing, man? And I'd say, what are you doing? You're having parades for you. What do you care? So I always thought he was a very interesting cat to cover.

That's for sure. And another one was Chris Carter. And and you know enough guys who are veteran Viking people now who will tell you that, you know, people who covered him who never were big fans of Carter because he was egomaniacal. And, you know, he was just really could be a complete jerk if he wanted to and did that rather routinely. But he was really an interesting cat, man. He was, you know, once in a while he would be, he would, you know, he would be effusive and talk and answer questions and do this and he was uh you know and he was sort of he and moss together one of the great combos ever yet they were always you never got the you know he everybody says boss didn't like him but moss spent a couple off seasons working out with him down there and the

the chris carter training camp and stuff but you know, when poor Culpepper was the quarterback, both Moss and Carter would come over and scream at him after every series saying they should have gotten the ball more. But I found Carter just really – I enjoyed having him around just because of his unpredictability, I guess. And there was always – if you went in that locker room after a game and, and he happened to this be one of his days when he was talking, there was always a story in Chris Carter. So I, I always liked that about him.

I wouldn't put either of those guys in my top five though. I would give them a strictly honorable mention. So I am jealous of people who got to cover Moss and Carter, not only because they were both really interesting dudes who always had storylines everywhere with them, but just also watching them play up close and personal too. I mean, Chris, Chris Carter, it's weird to say doesn't get enough credit because like, of course he's loved

and everything else, but I mean about the best pair of hands that history has ever created, right? And, you know, the middle-of-the-field 15-yard guy and the deep guy, there's never been better, right? I mean, as far as you can't call Carter a possession receiver, but, you know, you could throw the ball on the line 15 yards downfield and he was going to catch it he kind of invented that sign line tip the whole thing that everybody does now i i contend uh matthew that the biggest change in football well not the biggest change but one of the biggest change in the last 10 years is how amazing the wide receivers are they just you know they they make incredible catches but these guys were doing it 20 years ago you know so that you know

that's they were kind of the precursors to what we see routinely now from these monsters who i'd hate to be a d-back they say because you can't use your hands and stuff actually they let them be real physical this year. But even if you're holding them, they're going to reach up with one hand and catch the ball. It's amazing how good they are. But these guys were that good 20 years ago, as I say. Yeah, it's funny to watch college football and just see, like, balls bouncing off people and, you know, catching it with their chest or whatever. And then you go to the NFL and everybody has somebody who's like their chris carter who can catch absolutely

anything uh chris carter also responsible for my favorite coach quote of all time which was buddy ryan saying all he does is catch touchdowns yes in a negative way yes yes that's all he does like yeah well who would ever want that i I think they got him for $100. That helped dig him out of the Herschel Walker hole. They're not having any draft choices because they got him for $100. But you talk about receivers this year. That DeAndre Hopkins game winner might be the greatest catch I've ever seen. It's unbelievable.

I mean, there's three guys there clawing at him, and he goes thunk, and the ball doesn't move. It was unbelievable. The strength of the hands, like even with watching Justin Jefferson, where if it's anywhere near him, he's just going to grab it out of the air. Yeah. It's truly amazing. It is amazing.

So I'll give you a – Let's start with your list. Why don't we just start at the top of your list? I'll put out there, and then I'll tell you what I thought of them. Okay. And what I love about this is because, like you said, you didn't cover them like way, way back. So everyone on your list except for one I'm fairly familiar with just from

loving football as a kid. So Wade Wilson is where you wanted to start. And you know me. I mean, I love journeyman backup quarterbacks. I also love the day in the NFL where if they didn't like how the starter was playing, they'd just give him the hook. Be like, I don't know. He doesn't have it today. Let's throw in the other guy.

And Wade Wilson is the other guy all the time. And I love his 87, you know, run to the NFC championship. So why is Wade Wilson on your list? He is one guy that is on that list strictly because of accessibility. A great guy. You could call him at home if you got his number. He'd give you good stuff and he and he's also an amazing story i mean he's a nice round draft choice he just sat there and he was

he was uh tommy kramer's caddy heck he was a third teamer for a while and and kramer always kind of riddick you know was friendly to him, but he gave him the nickname whiskey, you know, and because he got him, I must've got out and tried to drink with Tommy once and failed miserably as everybody else. But, but, but somehow, you know, getting third team reps and, you know, being a ninth rounder out of East texas state or whatever round he was picked in he kept getting better and better and better and at the end burnsy had this incredible

loyalty to kramer but at the end he had to start playing you know kramer got hurt a couple times but wilson came in wilson threw a much better deep ball than tommy kramer and wilson you know, Kramer got hurt a couple times, but Wilson came in. Wilson threw a much better deep ball than Tommy Kramer, and Wilson, you know, got on that run. 87, he was great, and, you know, he was the guy when they made the 87 run, and then 88, they started him. Even though, if you look at that year, Bernsie went back to Kramer a couple, three times. Bernsie had this love of Kramer a couple three times Burns he had this love of Kramer but Wilson was just a an ex you know an

explosive player a really really unique guy and a great story and uh you know really sad the and a diabetic you know which ended up costing him his life at age 60 way too young after he became a you know a good coach a quarterback's coach with the cowboys i think at the end there yep but uh wade wilson whiskey wilson i just uh you know you could you could get him on a i think i got him on a phone one night before a championship game or something i mean he was he was just that kind of guy he was a a good guy. And I was, you know, that became a big thing for columnists. You were either, you know, Wilson or Kramer. You know, we turned that into a nice little, you know, this is way before your time,

but the Kilmer Sonny Jurgensen thing in Washington, you know. You were one side or the other. You couldn't be on both. And it became a Kramer-Wilson thing. And, of course, the disadvantage for both of them was, you know, if Kramer started and played lousy, everybody would leave the stadium saying they should have played Wilson. Wilson started and played lousy. They should have played Kramer.

But Wade Wilson was – I love that guy. He was, you know, just a good guy, great story. And, you know, had one of the most probably – you know, 09 was an extremely interesting run that they made because I don't think even with Favre here we expected it but there's never been a run this team made to compare with 87 you know the twins just won the world series right first time that's all we were worried about they lost their last two games of the regular season and it and on Saturday afternoon uh it didn't look like they were going to make

the playoffs they needed dallas which was terrible to beat st louis and they so they backed into the playoffs and we ridiculed them something serious and they go get the living hell out of new orleans and uh it got joe montana boot up the field in field in San Francisco and almost beat Washington. That would have been – you beat the New Orleans first good team and then the 49ers and then Washington on the road. If they would have done that, that would have been one of the great runs in football history, and Wilson was the quarterback. And he's maybe one catch from running back away from doing that.

Yes. What I love about Wade Wilson is that he averaged eight yards per attempt in 87 and 88, which is unheard of for the year. I mean, that means the dude was launching the ball. He was not checking down or throwing underneath. He was averaging in 87, 15 yards of completion. And to put that in context, the league-leading team this year is like 11. I mean, it did not happen that – or it does not happen these days

that teams throw it down the field like that. So you've got to love a journeyman backup guy who waited so long and then came out firing. Like, good for you, man. That's a great one. And he made full use of the, the number one missing person in the Vikings ring of honor, Anthony Carter. Yeah. Yeah. Anthony Carter was a better receiver here than Ahmad Rashad.

And people don't realize that because he was, you know, kind of a grumpy fella, but he was, you know, I mean, he was great. And look, that playoff run in 87. He was incredible in that one. Ahmad's going to hear that you said that, by the way, and he's going to come find you. Track me down, right. Last thing on Wade Wilson, good for him,

got a Super Bowl ring with the Cowboys as their backup. Yes, he did. Really cool for him, and part of also one of the cooler New Orleans Saints teams in the early 90s as well. So the next guy on your list, I know that Vikings fans are just looking back and thinking how great it would be if this guy could be a current viking because they have so many issues at guard and that is random mcdaniel and he's on there strictly because i'm of the opinion that the greatest viking ever was alan page okay i mean and you he never wins the the poll the the fan voting for 30-year teams and 40-year teams and that stuff because Randy Moss wins it. And he certainly was phenomenal.

Right. But I think longevity and dominant at their position, Randall McDaniel is number two behind Alan Page. Randall McDaniel, he was unbelievable as the left guard. And I remember Tice when he was the offensive line coach walking around the locker room one day, and, you know, we all got along with Tice. He was crazier than a hoodah, but he was fun. He says, I got to show you this.

I got to show you this. He comes over. He's got a piece of paper. And it's Randall McDaniel's grade for the last game, 100. 100. He was undefeated. And he told me, you know, as far as getting beat in that game. And Tice was talking like he had 10 or 11 games where he didn't get beat once. And that's not only on a pass protection, that's blocking the guy he's supposed to block and doing his job on the runs.

He was just phenomenal. And, you know, he taught school when he got done. He's just a – and the other thing I always loved about him was – I remember doing a long piece on him and this, and this came out, but, never missed a day of school. Really? From kindergarten to graduating from high school. And I talked, I talked to a couple, I talked to one of his parents. I talked to a couple of people who actually taught him down in arizona never missed

the day never missed a practice never missed uh you know with the vikings he never missed a he missed like he did something he screwed up his knee once but his first eight years or so he never missed a practice they didn't you know none of this wednesday not practicing stuff for the factory he was just the most reliable guy ever and a really you know a neat family man type of the clean cut but just a warrior and uh i think he was uh he was he was the uh you look him up in the dictionary he's the gentle giant you know because in the game he had a little nastier attitude than he had uh out out amongst people still around town here and uh again sort of gets overlooked because he's a guard right we're talking about the greatest players that ever played

in the team certainly the best offensive lineman this team ever had but really a classy guy and he you know he wouldn't go deep and break down a game for you, but he was always, he'd always give you a quote and he'd always, you know, he'd stand in front of the TV cameras and answer questions. And he was, he was, he was, is a great guy and a phenomenal player. He is, by pro football reference, approximate value, which is kind of like a wins above replacement for football. He is the fourth most valuable Viking of all time.

Now, I mean, Mick Tinglehoff played longer for the Vikings, so he's a little bit ahead of McDaniel, but it's Tinglehoff, Carl Eller, Alan Page, Randall McDaniel, Fran Tarkenton is the top five. So he is in the rarest of McDaniel, but it's Tinglehoff, Carl Eller, Alan Page, Randall McDaniel, Fran Tarkenton is the top five. So he is in the rarest of rare air, and it's not too often you see a guard among the all-time greats when it comes to that. No, it is. My favorite part about him is just that they would put him at fullback

sometimes, right? Like he would do things that were crazy. I was watching a game from the 90s, and I was like, what the hell did I just see? Well, they did that. They did that in college with him. In high school, they'd put him back. You know, he was always – he's fast.

You know, he was fast. He was a sprinter in high school. He ran – you know, it wasn't like he was winning the Arizona State Championship, but he would go to the state meet as a sprinter in high school. He ran, you know, it wasn't like he was winning the Arizona State Championship, but he would go to the state meet as a sprinter. And just an amazing athlete. And I got to wonder, where did they draft him? 19th overall. 19th, yeah, yeah.

I mean, if he's a tackle today, he'd be number one, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Imagine Vikings drafting linemen at the top sometimes. Anyway, not always, though. Next guy on your list, someone that is in my sort of golden age of growing up watching the NFL, and that is John Randall, who to me is so much fun because he – I didn't even realize when I was watching him as a kid on TV how small he was,

that that was the big story. But, you know, the thing that was the most fun for me is just he looked insane when he was playing. He just looked so out of his mind with the face paint and everything else. I was like, I'm cheering for that crazy man to sack the quarterback. And it wasn't an act insane when it came time to play he was insane i think he was what 240 when they drafted him or something like that and maybe less than that and they just built they didn't even know what they

were getting when they drafted him if they i think they thought they might turn him into a linebacker some i've spent the first year on the on the practice squad basically whatever we called it back then but he got to about what 270 max i think maybe not maybe not listed as 290 but i don't think he ever got never never made that he wasn't tall either, you know. He wasn't tall. He was 6'2", maybe. Let's say it's 6'1". Yeah, I'm sick. Okay. You know how you meet some guys and you're like, oh, my God. But I've seen John Randall up close.

You're like, that's John Randall? That's the guy who had 15 sacks? That guy who's like my size? He was an absolute – well, he was the closest thing to Paige. He was an absolute bullet off the, I mean, that how many times did he get to the quarterback or get to the running back by just one little, just one little slap of the hand and boom, the guy would go, okay, he's right there.

I know I'm going gonna lay a glove on him and he'd be gone but uh the quotes were you know while john randall while randall mcdaniel's quotes made sense one great thing about randall is rarely did his quotes make any sense especially especially after game right but he was uh you know he came up, he was the greatest guy ever. But there was a, the feud between the local press and the Vikings was at a high level there when he came up. And Henry Thomas, who was another guy who came up as a rookie and was great, but he then got mad at everybody. So he did his best to poison the whole, you know, defensive line.

So Randall was trying to be grumpy, you know, Randall. His nature was to be a good guy in the clubhouse, but he was, you know, Henry Thomas had been working on him. Don't talk to these bleepers, you know? Yeah. So one day I go in a locker room and he's got those little, like, charcoal drawings of Barrero and I with a columnist at the paper. Yeah. And he had them taped on his locker on the corner like on one of the

corners of his locker there the the railing in the locker he had he had me and then him because he wanted to know which of us was which and and i said i went over and said, it's not an issue, John. I'm this big tubby guy and Barrero looks like he's anorexic. He's the skinny guy. I'm the fat guy. It's not that hard, John. But, you know, he loosened up in his old age and, you know, and he was fun to cover because, you know, every time they played the Packers, it was a melodrama.

It was a play because of him and Favre and the rivalry and, you know, and I mean, it was – he sincerely – I mean, it was not an act. I think he sincerely is the most ferocious competitor in the 60 years of the franchise. Because it was, I mean, I can't imagine how long it took him to calm down after a game. I mean, because he was just enraged the whole game and fired up. And another amazing story,'s you shouldn't be that good at that size at that position and they could you know they could have kept him outside and played him in an end and he would have been fantastic too but they were smart when they saw

him inside and saw how quick he was he was it wasn't just rushing to pass he was a great run stuffer because nobody could block him i mean nobody could nobody could get a clean you know in that big mess in there nobody could get a clean hit on him and he just he just made great plays but interesting cat it's funny to me that he turned out to be a guy who loves golf yeah yeah he's tweeting about that all the time yep he certainly does not have the attitude right i would imagine the number of clubs that have been passed over his knee is uh is enormous but he was fun to cover there's no doubt about it because he was always interesting and uh and great you know i mean just well he he's, you got the Purple People Eaters, an amazing crew,

but I think I might put him ahead of Al. I think I might put him second all time behind Paige. I'd put him ahead of Al, I think. 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,

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You will love it. That's SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, original Minnesota sports inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. Six All-Pros in a row, by the way, for John Randall. I mean, that's really hard to do. Yeah, they weren't all great teams, you know. It was not like they were going to the Super Bowl every year.

Right, and his, if people want to check it out, his A Football Life documentary, I don't know if you've ever seen any of those, Patrick, but it's great. Like they sort of recreate his family home where he grew up and sort of the difficult circumstances he grew up under. And then they go through his career. It's a really good documentary for Vikings fans who haven't seen it. It's probably on YouTube. Now, Ian Wilson worked the same uh he was eight he was texas a and i right yeah yeah and wilson wilson was east texas they were two different places i believe yeah or uh well texas a and m kingsville is john ran yeah but it was texas a and i oh it's a oh okay yeah Yeah. And I don't even know what the I stands for.

Industrial, I think. Agricultural and industrial. Yeah. Well, you know, that's the model. That's who they should always go after, you know. But that always impresses you about the – you got somebody, whether it's Studwell or Jerry Rockow or Frank Gilliam or somebody, finding a guy like that at Texas A&I, that's pretty good stuff. That's pretty good stuff right there. I mean, that is one of the things that makes the sport great is that there's dudes at Alabama or at the time it might have been Miami or Notre Dame who are five-star recruits who, from the time they were 12 years old, were going to be the best players.

And here's a guy from absolutely nowhere who ends up being the Hall of Famer. So how about that? Yes. Next on your list. Now, you're going to have to tell me more about Jerry Burns because I was not old enough to really know Jerry Burns as a coach. So when you sent out the guidelines, you said coach or player. Yes, yes, yes. I just said Vikings. I didn't say has to be players.

See, Burns goes back all the way to being an assistant coach with the Iowa Hawkeyes when they were the Gophers arch rival in the 50s, right? I mean, the Gophers beating Iowa in 1960, the year they went to Rose Bowl for the first time, is the greatest Gopher game ever because Iowa was one and they were three. But Bernsie was an assistant coach on that team. And then he replaced the guy, the head coach there was Forrest Ebosheski,

who we always suspected Iowa, even though I was a kid, I'd heard that Iowa did, they were recruiting, we thought they were cheating. Sid used to always. Then Bernsie replaced Evoshevsky, Evy, as everybody called him, as the head coach. And according to Sid, it was always that Evy made Bernsie stop cheating because Evy didn't want anybody to be as. Evy became the AD and didn't want him to be as successful as he'd been.

That was sinister. But anyway, Bernsie got fired at Iowa, ended up with Lombardi in Green Bay for the first Super Bowl, yes, for the first Super Bowl, or maybe both of them. But he was the defensive backs coach there. And then when Bud came in from uh winnipeg in 1967 he hired burnsy as the offensive coordinator and what was funny is it was hard bud didn't let his assistants routinely talk and this was you know that's that's fairly common now

you know and they have set up interviews and stuff. Yeah. But you just couldn't go over and get Bernsie after the game to have him break the game down for you. Right, right. But fortunately for us at Met Stadium, when we were in the football press box, there was a Viking booth next to us. And we would hear every Sunday, if you were there, football press box, there was a Viking booth next to us.

And we would hear every Sunday, if you were there, the greatest litany of profanity being screamed out of the, out of the offensive when they had the ball. And it just right then, I didn't really know him well, but I said, you know, as a, as a guy who's fond of profanity, this was a clinic. This was a clinic. It was hilarious because he would just get so worked up. But, you know, he's kind of the inner, a lot of people think the inventor of the West Coast before Walsh,

you know, George, you know, Chuck Foreman, Ricky Young, all these guys catching 90 passes a year. And the Dinkins used the pass as a run, you know, type of system. And now Bud quits in 83, but they don't give Bernsie the job. They hired that Les Steckle. Right. That worked out. And it was a disaster. And then they went back and finally, you know, went back to Bernsie.

That was what happened. Bud quit after 84, was it, or 83? It must have been after 84 because Berns took over um burns took over no no less less coached 84 so okay burns he then oh they brought bud back for a year that's right that's right they bribed bud to come back for a year i'm forgetting that but basically i'd like to get a copy of bud's contract he had every his Mike Grant will tell you, Bud thought of everything in this contract. He basically blackmailed Lynn into giving him everything, including an office with a window. I was going to say, he still has an office.

Yes, right. I think that's part of that contract is that he still has an office at TCO Performance Center. Yes, well, and in the old place, it had to have a window even if he wasn't doing anything. So anyway, Bernstein finally takes over in 86, and we – I mean, guys had gotten to know him, but we really got to know him in those years. And it's funny, the locker room was like hostile to a degree. And Pergsy could be hostile as hell and he'd scream at people. Matthew, you've never seen this little tiny room that they have their the media in it's like that little place when you first came into you were at winter park for a couple years i've been in that room i did an interview

yeah i've done like one-on-one interviews in that room before and i don't know how you fit multiple there would be like six guys in there and and he'd get on one of his tirades and uh the famous one with birdsy was at in 87 after they lost on saturday sansevier was in there and there was about only about five or six of us there because they you know they'd lost and and that's when sansevier asked him about Killer Instinct, that they didn't have Killer Instinct. And the tirade that we hear about Schnaucher, the Killer Instinct one was just as good, except it's not on tape. Nobody had it on tape.

We don't have it on tape. But in that little room with Bergey screaming about Killer Instinct, it was just fabulous and he was he's just a great guy i had a chance to play a lot of golf with him later in life but he was always fun to cover because he had no ability to bs you you know yeah he just answered the question and if he that's the dumbest bleeping question i ever heard if it was a dumb it was a dumb question he'd tell you was it yeah the only thing that the only thing we miss really of these ages of the generation is we should have had thomason to ask bergy questions that would have been that would have as world-class as Thomason asking Zimmer questions is.

It would have been even better, Berzy. But Berzy didn't stay mad at you, you know, even if he did, you know, he'd yell at you. And he was an offensive genius for that age, too. Yeah. In this little, tiny, scrawny package of, you know, the skinniest guy ever. And I, you know, I wouldn't say there's a lot of hate because I always loved him. But there was a little hate on the other side. It didn't last too long.

But just everybody that ever covered Birdsy just thought he was the greatest. There's a famous story about Mike Linn gets, they get off to a lousy start one year. They're one and six, and then they win five in a row, and then they lose one, but they still have a chance to make a playoff and they're going to Tampa. I'd have to look

up, Testa Verde was the Tampa quarterback. They're going to Tampa, and if they win the last three, they can still make the playoffs. So he, Lynn decides to send everybody down to Orlando and you know,

so some of us scam our way to go down there with them, you know. They're down there, a couple you know, about three or four guys. Wong was there from St. Paul, and I was there, and I don't know who else was there, but three or four. But we end up with the media session with Bernsie,

and Merrill Swanson was the old PR guy. And we end up in Merrill Swanson's room with Bernsie for the post-game, post-practice thing. You know, we got to know what happened in practice today to write something. Right. And Merrill's got the bathtub full of beer. And I don't drink. Wanger had a couple, maybe. But basically, Bernsie must have drank 10

beers, and it was like three hours. Two and a half hours, and he started telling stories about Iowa and about Lombardi and about everything. I don't think anybody had a tape recorder going. It could have been a documentary, man. It was hysterical.

It was hysterical, and all of a sudden he gets up he goes to the boys room and he leaves he's going down the hall and we still haven't gotten a quote on what happened in practice today and we're yelling birdsy birdsy stop we got to get something he says boys when the beer runs out the bs stops he was uh, he is. He's still with us, and he's a, he just, I mean, we all just, I mean, Tice, everybody liked Tice, too, because he was goofy, and

he'd get, he'd get fired up about stuff, and but, but not as much fun as Burns he was, and we just, you know, Bud was, Bud was smart, you know, Bud was smart and calculating and would never give you anything he didn't want to give you. And who wants to cover a guy like that?

I'd rather have the guy that screamed at me once in a while, you know. Yep, yep, definitely. And those moments, unfortunately, are fewer and farther between as the NFL tries to build the tallest wall of all time. Zoom, Zoom, the Zoom era. Post pandemic is going to be the worst thing that ever happened to American sports writing, because this is we have seen the future and it ain't good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This year was not fun. Not fun at all. It's one of my favorite things to be in the locker room on a Friday where everyone's hanging out and you can sort of BS a little and learn a little bit more about the people that you're covering and just talk, whatever.

And that's about the most you get except for the NFL combine where you never know who you're going to run into and what kind of conversations you're going to have. But that's a great story. So the last guy on your list is Mike Tice. And, you know, another one where I am not super familiar with Mike Tice's time as the head coach with the Vikings. I mean, they certainly had some amazing offenses and terrible defenses and were entertaining as hell. But I don't know a ton about him as a head coach.

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Well, you know what? In 2004, they get one of the greatest years ever out of Deontay Culpepper, right? Yep. I mean, he was phenomenal that year. And Ticey ends up having a – they go down and beat the Packers in a playoff game. Yep. And then Red was trying to set it up to sell the team and didn't want to spend any money at all, you know.

So Red let Scott Linehan leave, who was Dante's guy. Right. And then they get rid of Moss, and they give him Steve Loney, who's the nicest guy ever, but hadn't even been a college offensive coordinator as their offensive coordinator. So he gave Tice no chance. And, of course, then Ziggy comes in that year. But by then, there was, you know, the ship had sailed

as far as the coaching staff was concerned. And Tice had no chance. Considering, you know, that Denny's last team 2001 he got he got zimmer got i mean uh green got fired basically with one game to go in the skate schedule tice tice coached the last game and they were in terrible shape then and you look back yeah i mean they had moss and really nothing else and you look back at their record and it wasn't that bad he was okay but my favorite ever is uh he goes to uh they go down to burn at green bay and they're terrible, and Green Bay's good, and they basically have them beat.

And they get a bunch of goofy calls and end up beating loads of the Packers. And Kevin Seifert was the main beat guy for the Snarch Review, and Bill Williamson was the main beat guy for the Pirate Press. Tyson would take walks with him around the practice field during lunch. That's the kind of access he had. If one of us guys was out there, he'd scream at us, but he was great.

I'll never forget that he was screaming about the lousy calls after the game in Green Bay. And then the NFL, like on Tuesday, sends the Vikings a letter that points out, yes, they made eight bad calls, right? I think it was eight bad calls. So he has the letter, and we're sitting

in that little room at the racquetball court that they turned into a room. And Tice comes up, comes in, waving that letter around, look at this, bleep it, bleep it all. You know, there's 15

of us in there, 12 of us in there, and, you know, the AP and everybody's know there's 15 of us in there 12 of us in there and you know the ap and then everybody's in there and and he's waving the letter you know he's screaming about everything next day's paper said blah blah blah they received a letter mike tice refused to comment he says don't he's leaving he says don't tell him i here's the here He said, don't, he's leaving. He says, don't tell him. Here's the, here's the letter. Don't tell him I gave it to you.

You know, but he was, that's great. He was an interesting, he was great as a player too. He was a great, great talker and, and, you know, would give you some insightful stuff. And he was, he. And he was fun. And I think, you know, you look back and he was, you know, he was in a tough situation. I don't think he was an incompetent coach. He probably was.

I mean, scalping tickets and the love boat and stuff like that didn't do any good. But he was, we all love ticey so and still do and you know a guy who has his own parking a coach who's got his own parking spot spot at bunny's sports bar out there in st louis park you gotta like him too yeah yeah yeah uh a real just like a football guy is the way you could, you know, like not, like you say, like he's not a salesman or not a BSer, but just a straight-up football guy. And he was a very good offensive line coach too,

and he worked those guys hard and he was, you know, he knew what he was doing, but he's, you know, probably not disciplined enough to be the disciplined leader of the team. But I, in fact, caught him. probably not disciplined enough to be the disciplined leader of the team. But I, in fact, caught him. Barrero has him on, I believe, on Saturdays. I ran into him. I was listening the other day, and I ran in. I said, who is that?

I turned it in and started it. And the guy was interested as hell. Then I said, oh, that's nice. That's why he's had him on. So he's allegedly retired. I always thought he'd end up as a college coach somewhere, you know, go back to Maryland or something. He's doing a YouTube broadcast, I think.

Oh, yeah, he does. Yeah, I watched something last year where he was doing a YouTube breakdown of all the offensive linemen in the draft. Yeah. Well, he would not pull any punches, that's for sure. He would be fun in that area. I mean, there's been, you know, it's kind of tough to say this player and that player, but there's been a lot of interesting cats.

I wouldn't put Moss on a list because, you know, he was – I'll never forgive him, really. And it didn't involve me, but the Vikings at first Thanksgiving, right, he's played. They go down to Dallas. Oh, yeah. You probably remember that game. I think he only caught three passes, but they're all touchdowns.

Right, yes. I mean, it was unbelievable. And this is when the whole national media came to the Thanksgiving game, and they all came to Mount because of my, you know, the guy that, when I be that, I mean, like the guy from the New York Times and the guy from the Chicago Tribune and the big papers around town, as well as, you know, the start of the websites and stuff like that, too. So there's 20 guys there who want to do nothing except go down and write about how great Randy Moss is, right?

And he basically MFs all of them and blows them off. And I thought, how can you be this stupid? Because, I mean, you could be for no particular reason because he'd only been praised by them locally, but you could blow the local guys off. That makes sense. But to blow these guys off for no reason just indicates to me that there's something wrong with you between the ears. Yeah, yeah.

And, I mean, there kind of was. Oh, yeah, there was. You, you know, he certainly matured, you know, post football, he did mature. And you know, he does this, he doesn't ever say anything on TV that people love him anyway. So you, you wanted to add one more bonus, which was Fred Zamberletti. um yes so go ahead with that the trainer for life and uh probably i used to uh make trips to mankato rarely because they don't have they standing around watching practice was not my deal. But what I did, I'd always go down.

The main reason to go down would be to see Zambi and listen to his pontification for like 40, 50 minutes. But I remember, you know, but he had not only team historian, but a great observer of football in general. And I remember I'd written something about Carter, Anthony Carter, that was negative about him. That kind of indicated, because he'd had a bad couple of games. And you were wondering, is he giving it his all? And, you know, I kind of wrote that suggesting that there was more to give than he was giving, you know.

Yeah. And only time of all the years we knew each other, Bernsie called me up and he got a hold of me at the office and said, I want to tell you, and he had a nickname for me that would be a little profane, so we won't mention it, but you're wrong about this one. You're wrong about this one. This guy is playing when he shouldn't be playing.

He's got all these problems. Nobody cares more than him. Nobody wants to be great by him. said he's he's a different kind of personality and he's not outgoing unlike chris carter he's not out selling himself he's not but he said you're wrong about this one and i said zambi if you tell me that i will 100% agree with it, and I will make up for it. So, I mean, he was a trustworthy guy, and he was not like everything the Vikings do is fantastic, you know. And he was – when I was – when we were doing our Super Bowl stuff –

no, not Super Bowl stuff before that. Maybe when they were making their, must have been an anniversary of the first Super Bowl loss. You know, I don't know when it was. It wasn't that long ago, though, but I remember we went out and had about a two-hour conversation with him. And we got to talking about that first Super Bowl. And I remember him saying, you know, we didn't know anything about the Chiefs.

We hadn't seen the Chiefs. You know, different league, different conference. We didn't see the Chiefs. And he said, I remember we were down there and did they, had they weaned themselves off Freddie Cox yet? Was he still kicking? I don't know if Freddie was kicking or Rick Danmeier, but Freddie, you know, kicking the ball straight ahead, you know, down there,

making half his field goals and being in love. And Jamby's saying, I saw Stenorode practicing his kickoffs. And I said, we're in trouble. He said it was a different breed of athlete that he had. And when you go back and look at that Kansas City team, the Vikings were 12 and a halfa-half-point favorites, but they weren't 12-and-a-half-point, only because of the AFL-NFL thing,

because I think they're up to eight Hall of Famers now, and that does not include Otis Taylor or the left tackle, who I ended up writing about a while back, Jim Tyree, who's not in the Hall of Fame because he killed his wife in the murder-suicide-mental-breakdown thing. But basically, they should have 10 Hall of Famers on that team. But Zambi was he would be candid about that stuff, which you don't get from everybody.

But he was probably the most famous trainer in the world, except maybe for George Toma, growing grass, you know. But Zabby was certainly the most quoted trainer in the history of Minnesota sports. That's for sure. Just because he was so quotable. But he was just a wonderful guy, too. So I got to have Zabby on my list. Well, that's great.

And I am so glad that you could kick this series off because that was everything I would hope it would be, Patrick. Like great, great stories and your thoughts on a lot of, you know, people that Vikings fans are interested in and love. And I hope that we can on this, continue to do it this way. And I also hope that you and I can catch up and talk about some other things as well at some point. I was thinking about an idea where you just ask me about football stuff because when we would be on the air together, that's how it used to be. It'd be like, why did I do this?

Yes, because you watched the 22-man and all that crap. Yes, all 22. Yes. That's going to be our next one is why do they do this? And I'll answer all your questions. I was raised to follow the football. And in hockey, I was raised to hope I could see the puck. There it is.

I see it. There it goes. Yep. All right. This was fun this was good good luck with your uh endeavors on this whole series here so i appreciate it patrick thanks for your time man all right matthew say hello to harold for me i will do that and everyone should read your column where you interviewed my dad because you did all right and gave him a thrill so thanks patrick all right matthew