The 1997 Season

Note: 1997 was the first season that I wrote down thoughts the entire year. Therefore, the 1997 season summary will come in multiple additions to my blog. Today's 1997 entry will be Key Draft Picks and Off-Season thoughts.

1997 (9-7): Fourth in NFC Central
Head Coach: Dennis Green
8/31 W 34-13 @ Buffalo 79,139
9/7 W 27-24 @ Chicago 59,263
9/14 L 14-28 Tampa Bay 63,697
9/21 L 32-38 @ Green Bay 60,115
9/28 W 28-19 Philadelphia 55,149
10/5 W 20-19 @ Arizona 45,550
10/12 W 21-14 Carolina 62,625
10/26 W 10-6 @ Tampa Bay 66,815
11/2 W 23-18 New England 62,917
11/9 W 29-22 Chicago 63,443
11/16 L 15-38 @ Detroit 68,910
11/23 L 21-23 @ N.Y. Jets 77,716
12/1 L 11-27 Green Bay 64,001
12/7 L 17-28 @ San Francisco 55,761
12/14 L 13-14 Detroit 60,982
12/21 W 39-28 Indianapolis 54,107
NFC First-Round Playoffs
12/27 W 23-22 @ N.Y. Giants 77,170
NFC Divisional Playoffs
1/3/98 L 22-38 @ San Francisco 65,018

Key Draft Picks

The first day of the draft for 1997 found yours truly sitting in the VIP section of the Minnesota Viking Draft Party at the Mall Of America. While everyone and their mother, and grandmother, gave their two-cents on who was drafted, I attempted to build a story on how Viking alumni and current players spent the day behind the scenes at the Draft Party.

I must briefly touch on the satellite Draft Party held in Fargo, North Dakota, in one of the few dry establishments to be found because of the massive flooding by the Red River that spring. On the Saturday morning of the draft a weary sandbagger could look up to see the likes of Dave Osborn, Carl Eller, Mick Tinglehoff and Bud Grant filling hundreds of sandbags in a effort to save an already devastated town. Ed McDaniel visited local hospitals to help spread smiles all around. A bone weary Bud Grant called into the Minneapolis radio station WCCO late in the day to talk draft but instead spoke on the hearts and courage of the local residents in Fargo and nearby Grand Forks.

At the Draft Party locally, I found myself alone in the VIP section at 9 a.m. The main doors had yet to open so I decided to catch up on reading the expert opinions. But halfway into the first paragraph, in walked former Viking great Bill Brown and current Viking center Jeff Christy. After exchanging pleasantries, Jeff and I found ourselves in the middle of another of those great Bill Brown stories that only he could tell.

The subject of training camp had come up and Bill told us that the ride down to Mankato could be an exceptionally exciting one if you happened to find yourself sitting shotgun with one Jim Marshall. Seems Marshall had a penchant for driving fast and his car had a dashboard full of every radar detector known to mankind. Brown remembered one such drive, speeding along at 85 mph himself when he spied a fast moving car quickly approaching him from behind. It was Marshall. Going about 130 mph according to Brown. Marshall always took back roads because Bud Grant would have had a fit if Marshall would have been caught. Another player, according to Brown, had purchased a Jaguar just to outrun Marshall. The player was picked up one night returning to the Twin Cities, the Jag alongside the road, both rear tires blown out, trying to keep up with Marshall, the unnamed player muttering to himself.

I asked Jeff Christy which position he wanted the Vikings to draft for, which position was the greatest need. “Guard”, replied the young center. Christy had talked with fellow offensive lineman Everett Lindsay the night before about his play in the WLAF. Lindsay had been player of the week for his outstanding play. Lindsay had reported back that the league was somewhat of a joke but that he was getting into great shape and was awaiting training camp with much enthusiasm.

The draft started and Viking players and former greats filtered in and out of the VIP area all day long. James Manley, Duane Clemons, Jeff Brady, Greg DeLong, Brown, Christy, Leo Lewis, Ricky Young and Mike Morris to name a few. When the Vikings announced their first pick, Dewayne Rudd, Morris looked up from his table and muttered, “Who?” and when told it was an outstanding linebacker from Alabama he proclaimed that it was a great pick for the Vikings. Meanwhile, starting middle linebacker Jeff Brady quickly left the VIP area with his agent, which I was unable to confirm. Brady was later on WCCO radio touting the pick as a great one for the Vikings and that Rudd would be an outstanding addition to the team.

Off-Season

Ownership

After the 1996 season ended the Viking board of directors submitted a proposal to the NFL laying forth their plan to comply with the NFL’s request that at least one member of the ten member Viking board own at least 30% of the team. The plan stated that the end of 1997 would complete the process. The NFL agreed, and everyone started to look for a real power struggle between Roger Headrick and the team of Wheelock Whitney and Jaye Dyer for that 30% ownership.

Questions About The Coach

During the off-season much of the discussion amongst Viking Fans On-Line members was focused on Dennis Green as the head coach. This topic has annually popped up after each season and it usually signifies the midway point of the off-season when Viking fans look for anything to talk about. This topic usually lasts two weeks until the focus then turns to the NFL draft, traditionally one of Green’s strengths.

By the 1997 draft Green had proven that he knew talent as proved by the players his coaching staff had developed since 1992. The names were many: Brad Johnson, Robert Smith, Jake Reed, Hunter Goodwin, Andrew Jordan, Todd Steussie, Korey Stringer, Jeff Christy, David Dixon, Fernando Smith, Derrick Alexander, Corey Fuller, Robert Griffith, Orlando Thomas, Dewayne Washington and Mitch Berger.

I wrote in 1997 that I was hard pressed to come up with a Denny bust unless you looked at the loss of Gilbert Brown who the Vikings lost when they tried to slip him through the waiver wire.

It had already been established that the players loved playing for Green. Cris Carter, R. Smith and F. Smith had all been quoted as saying they’d play for no other team as long as Denny was coaching the Vikings.

So why were the message boards filling up with any debate whatsoever about Denny? It boiled down to the team having a great wealth of young talent and veteran leadership, dedication to a coach and not a single playoff win. How could this be corrected? I met with Stew Widdess, Viking VP of Marketing, in early January and the topic came up. The problems, which were clearly evident, included the lack of revenue for signing bonuses to bring in those one or two big name free agents that could bring the right mix for playoff victories. It also had lead to the decrease in ticket sales over the past two seasons.

In 1997 the Vikings lease agreement with the Metrodome ranked thirtieth in the league for income and only two teams were worse off financially than the Vikings. The Vikings lost money in 1996 so how could they compete financially with Dallas and Carolina who seemed to have deeper pockets? Person A off the street says in order to plunk down forty dollars to see a game at the Dome, the team must first win. But the team can’t win unless it has the income to sign more talented football players and keep the young talent it has. Do we put the horse before the cart or the cart before the horse?

In spite of the small decrease in season ticket sales the Vikings were doing everything possible to accommodate ticket purchasers. Five thousand season tickets were upgraded to better locations in 1996. Roger Headrick had installed a budget into the organization, which benefited front office expenditures. Before that, Mike Lynn had to approve everything from the Herschel Walker signing to a new light bulb for the broom closet that served as Bud Grant’s office. Widdess had become more aggressive in selling corporate sponsorships and ticket sales. He would have liked to see more media control through production of their own radio broadcasts and implementing phase two of his marketing plan to increase suite sales. Prior to Widdess, the Vikings had no such marketing strategy.

In a follow-up meeting with Gina Dillon, Viking Ticket Manager, I found out that season ticket sales were ahead of 1996 despite the modest increase in price amongst the higher priced seats. The implementation of partial season ticket packages was announced when the schedule rolled out in April. This added to an increasing revenue stream and kept the number of television blackouts to a bare minimum or none at all.

So let’s return to our original topic, Dennis Green. We had young, playoff-experienced talent. We had a coach committed to a winning program. We had office personnel aggressively marketing the Vikings to stimulate ticket sales and fan interest. We had an owner aggressively pursuing $140 million to renovate the Dome in the face of the Twins’ proposed stadium plan. All that was needed for the mix were wins, and Minneapolis would be purple crazy once again. The feeling at Winter Park was when that first game rolled around in September, the Metrodome doors won’t be able to open up fast enough.

Free Agents

There are many games in which a professional sports player can go from hero to scapegoat and back again faster than slicing a piece of mozzarella. Ask a Minnesota Viking fan to name such a player in the ‘90s and the unanimous name you’ll hear in return is that of the speedster out of Syracuse: the Missile, Qadry Ismail.

Fans in purple can recall the games in which Qadry played to the crowd as he awaited the kick-off, only to fumble it moments later and turn the ball over. Then, when the game was on the line, Qadry would make a miraculous play to win the game. Such was the case on November 6, 1994, when the Vikings beat New Orleans at the Metrodome with five seconds left after Warren Moon threw a eleven yard touchdown reception to Ismail. The hero.

But there were also those times when Ismail was to be found riding the pine. Ismail was an elite member of Dennis Green’s doghouse, the result of too many ill-timed fumbles, dropped passes, and pass routes run incorrectly. The goat.

This off-season found Ismail shopping his wares around the League, another victim of a team unable or unwilling to meet his salary demands. This is something not uncommon to football fans over the last decade. A marginal player with some impact abilities packing his bags and shuffling off to another team. In fact, it wasn’t all that uncommon in the good old days. But the one thing you hardly every saw in the good old days was a player switching allegiances to play for the hated opposition.

Had Ismail gone to the New Orleans Saints as was initially rumored, I wouldn’t have had a problem with it. In fact, the Q-Man most likely would have been welcomed warmly on a return visit back to the Metrodome.

Had Ismail gone to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which was also reportedly in the works, I would have winced slightly, thinking that Qadry would have had better fashion sense than to be seen playing professional football in the obtrusive colors of the Bucs. On a return visit, he most certainly would have heard a smattering of the boos expected for a player jumping to another team in the Central Division, albeit the Hapless Buccaneers.

But on Friday, May 30, Qadry Ismail committed a capital crime. He signed with the Green Bay Packers. Ismail must have understood what he was doing and that he would get what was coming to him on September 21 and December 1 of the coming season when the two teams collide. Being crazy enough to sign with the most hated rival in Viking history is considered a sickness. And they shoot mad dogs right? But it was not meant to be as the Packers cut Ismail before the season even started.

Posted by maasx003 at October 14, 2004 11:21 AM