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 Summer & Training Camp thoughts.

June

During the first few weeks of June you’ll find the Maas family busy at work cultivating flower and vegetable gardens. For the he-man reading this article and thinking he’s about to be turned off by the thought of gardening, keep this in mind: the more gardens you have, the less you’ll have to mow.

The structure of landscaping gardens often evolves from practical needs: you may want to view a variety of hues as you sit under an ivy-covered terrace. You may want to put in wild grasses that you romped in as a youth or trees and climbing vines to block the putrid team colors of your non-Viking fan neighbor.

But, no matter how you satisfy it, even the most mundane requirement of gardening can add meaning to your life. My wife and I plant based on our family histories and the beloved colors of purple and gold. We have created contrasts of wild and cultivated scenery to offer an experience suggestive of the endless life cycle. Thus, memories and metaphor find expression in the earth.

One of the richest metaphors in planning a successful garden, and in building a successful football team, is the journey. Both need stopping points for observation and insight. In gardening, the ritual of walking a garden path acknowledges our life and its gifts. A garden path often wanders in and out of sunshine, uphill and down, past art-filled and empty spaces. The walk can have an air of mystery, obscuring views, then offering glimpses of brilliance through the hedges. The garden path can help you recount the things you’ve read and places you’ve been, and in the process, find inspiration for future possibilities. The best of gardeners is always in motion.

With free agency and the lack of player loyalty to any one football franchise, Dennis Green, the Viking gardener, found himself and his coaching staff in constant motion. His garden walks at Winter Park, home of the Minnesota Vikings, found him wandering in and out of sunshine as the team has a terrific regular season winning percentage but no playoff wins. There were the cloudy days of off-field allegations coupled with the sunny brilliance of the birth of a beautiful baby girl. The Vikings have had an uphill time against the bigger NFC East teams while thoroughly dominating the NFC Central with the result being two years of wild-card entries in hostile domains and two upsets at home, smacking of an air of mystery as to just how good this team can be.

Seasonal injuries to key players, which can obscure the view of the entire team, have often led to glimpses of brilliance yet to come, something I observed while peering from the sidelines at Winter Park. Scottie Graham, James Stewart and Leroy Hoard fertilized the need at running back as the injury bug infested Robert Smith’s knee. Brad Johnson, the seedling planted and cultivated by Green, had matured into a mighty oak, ready to be admired by the masses of football fans everywhere.

Walking the path to his office, Dennis Green must each day recount the things the Vikings have done and the places they’ve been, giving him inspiration for future possibilities. Team photos from the dominating seventies and late eighties, the Hall of Fame photos of Fran Tarkenton, Bud Grant and Alan Page, give constant reminders of a winning program. Everyday Green stopped along that path for observation and insight and to reflect on his coaching journey of cultivating a successful football team.

July

In July of 1997 I treated Jeff Dohn, head football coach at a Missoula, Montana high school, to a private tour of Winter Park, home of the Minnesota Vikings. As we waited in the lobby, Cris Carter’s wife Melanie, told the receptionist to let Cris know she was there to pick him up and joked that he should be out “within five minutes or take a taxi back to the hotel.” Well, guess what? Cris, liked any married man, obeyed and appeared in the lobby sooner than the five minute allotted by his beautiful wife. While waiting for Cris to appear, Melanie renewed an acquaintance with another football wife, Mrs. Randall Cunningham.

Jeff’s biggest thrill was to visit with Strength and Conditioning assistant coach Jeff Friday as we observed DT Jason Fisk and QB Todd Bouman go through a series of reps. Fisk looked to be in excellent shape as he moved through the various drills. Roger Headrick was hard at work behind his desk, but all of the coaching staff was on vacation except for retired head coach Bud Grant who made an appearance in one of the hallways

Training Camp

Training camp finally rolled around and it appeared that Lady Luck had finally swung back to the side of the Minnesota Vikings. She had been missing the past few years and had finally tired of wearing cheese on her head and opted instead to wear a more regal purple crown. Case in point during early preseason games: Moe Williams caught a 65-yard touchdown off the shoulder pads while Green Bay Packer (The Team Formerly Known As The Super Bowl Champions) lost its starting running back, Edgar Bennett, for the season.

While other teams were having trouble just attempting to bring players into camp, the Vikings had all its players reporting, including the rookie crop from the past two years. And what a crop it was.

The left side of the offensive line: Todd Steussie and Randall McDaniel would prove to be a formidable foe for the defense. Having worked together for four years, they had become one unit and would serve Brad Johnson well.

Cris Carter: One early football rag had said Cris was on the declining side of his career. Cris served up notice to that writer that he should do more research before putting pen to paper.

Leroy Hoard: Shades of Bill “Boom-Boom” Brown, the best north to south runner of all-time? The Vikings did well to resign Leroy as he would break many a linebacker’s resolve that season.

First down play calling: Brian Billick came to a game well-prepared, and it showed in the amount of turf the Vikings ate up on first down.

Brad Johnson: Brad had worked hard that off-season. He wanted to prove the previous year was not a fluke and that he deserved the millions he signed for.

Defensive Backs: Dennis Green was justifiably concerned about the state of his defensive backfield going into the season. With slight injuries to Corey Fuller (hamstring) and Dewayne “Toast” Washington (back), his fear was solid. But Fuller and Washington had several outstanding plays during the preseason to tell me that their play would be elevated that coming season.

Robert Tate: Qadry who? Tate was burning up the sidelines in training camp and in preseason games.

The drives: A 93-yard and a 98-yard drive, pre-season or not, is nothing to laugh at. These drives were sustained by key plays, and for the most part, penalty-free. It set the tone for a ball control offense in 1997.

Of course I would be remorse to not mention some problems the Vikings would worry about in 1997.

Right side of offensive line: Yeah, Korey Stringer and David Dixon are big, over 700 pounds of beef, but they only got passing grades on pass protection and failing grades on run blocking during preseason games. They both needed improvement by the time the regular season began.

Second down play calling: Every so often the Vikings failed to pick up ten yards on first down. Maybe it was just pre-season experimentation, but Billick’s play calling on second down was atrocious. Especially the use of David Palmer out of run formation. But Billick never shied away from using Palmer in the backfield and it actually worked during the ‘97and ’98 seasons.

Delay of games:. If the play or formation isn’t sent in fast enough, the result is delay of game. Billick and Special Teams Coach, Gary Zauner, still had some major work to do in this area.

Drive-stopping penalties: Johnson had several preseason drives stopped because of stupid penalties, especially inside the red zone. This was something that haunted the Vikes n 1996 and is something that Dennis Green would not tolerate again in 1997.

Place kickers: Anybody got Fuad Reveiz’s home phone number? Anytime that our place kickers took the field, I just shut my eyes. The 1997 season would end up with journeyman Eddie Murray kicking for the Vikings.

Preparing for the 1997 Season

Around the Minneapolis area and around the country many Vikings fans were gearing up for the coming season. There was the Second Annual Viking Fan Club Convention fast approaching. Jim Allgren of Youngstown, Ohio, reported a great Viking turnout at Canton for a preseason game as the Vikings participated in the Hall of Fame game to open the preseason. NFL Films caught the purple fans in action. It was one of the very last times ol’ Jim got to have that much fun as he was married on August 24. Viking Underground shirts went on sale with a portion of the proceeds going to the Viking Children’s Fund.

In 1997 the Vikings could actually go into the season with an air of cockiness at the quarterback position. You know all those pennies you saved and saved for a rainy day? Remember the feeling you got when those pennies paid off, and you finally obtained what you’d been thinking about for an extended length of time? Well, my Purple readers, Brad Johnson was starting to look like the pay off for all our savings.

Ask Viking fans to describe their emotions when Brad trots onto the field, and you hear many a splendored thing. As for myself, each time he took the field, I felt confidence.

Back in the early 90’s I knew Sean Salisbury was taking the field because my heart was pounding, my palms were sweaty, and my mouth was dry. I wasn’t confident. When Brad jogged to the huddle from the sidelines, my heart beats slowly, I have two thumbs up, and I wore a confident smirk on my face. This was not a random sensation.

During my first year in college I took a class in which I studied randomness. I learned that building a machine to generate truly random numbers is impossible. Most people probably feel that the universe is not only random; it is perversely so. Most football fans feel that acquiring a truly great NFL quarterback is also random, a roll of the dice. But serious mathematicians all know that there is no mathematical trick, no equation, capable of producing a truly random series of numbers. The current Viking coaching staff understood there was no draft day trick, no hope capable of producing the truly random discovery of an NFL quarterback who could dominate the league.

The birth of a great NFL quarterback isn’t a big machine built cunningly by the Cosmic Coach nor is it a roulette wheel where the atoms rattle around like white balls, settling each team’s fate by chance alone. No. The birth is something else, something in between, something weird, something completely numerical that remains quite unpredictable.

For example: Pour a glass of quarterback DNA into the ocean and wait a few years for that DNA to mix with all the other DNA in the ocean. Go down to the beach again and scoop a glass of DNA back from the sea. The water you scoop out will contain several molecules of DNA you poured in several years back.

Surprised?

The explanation is simple. There are far more DNA molecules in a single glass of water than there are glasses of water in the ocean. Brad Johnson was our single glass of DNA in a sea of Salisbury’s, Rich Gannon’s, Jim McMahon’s and Warren Moons. What the Viking coaching staff had done with that single glass was amazing.

The development of a great NFL quarterback can be looked at as a random event without cause. Think of it as a veil through which we, the fans, cannot pass, an ephemeral, flimsy veil, a barrier more mental than physical, yet totally impenetrable.

I can imagine this veil to be like a curtain blowing in an open window on a summer night. The Viking coaching staff is the warm breeze making the veil dance. The veil begins to whisper to us. It tells us something special is being born. All we have to do is listen with all our attention and the veil will tell us all we need to know.

The Viking coaching staff behind this veil was still at work, crafting the emerging Brad Johnson, solving for the first time the great puzzle of the offense. Just like us, they were eager to find out what will happen next.

Posted by maasx003 at October 15, 2004 08:55 AM