The 2009 Minnesota Vikings: One Pass Short of Glory

year to remember. It was Brett Farve his best year post post Green Bay rather and we'll get into the Jets in a little bit, because you know, I got Jets a little bit away station. This is one of those memorable teams that did not win a championship. And look, as we do things on special teams, that's kind of where we go. Sometimes it teams that win it all. Sometimes it teams that don't win but are incredibly memorable.

And we saw an NFL rule change because of the two thousand nine Minnesota Vikings that we still have today rule changes. The craziness of Brett Farve, which is the overriding topic for the season, The way this roster was assembled, some stars that as you and I sit and talk about this, uh, this team looking back a decade, you still had many guys still traversing the sidelines of NFL rosters.

I mean, pretty pretty exciting stuff that, you know. I just remember the Brett farrv himming and hawing really infuriated a lot of people, including me. So and and since it's all about me, that's really what it comes down. Because he couldn't get out of the bleeping NFC North. You know, Well, here's the thing he goes through before the two thousand and eight season, yet another I think

I want to retire. And the Packers had had it with him, and we talked about Brett Farve because it's back when I was doing All Night on ESPN Radio, and we had talked about Brett Farve every day and it was great because it was about something on the field. It was a controversy on the field. Should the Packers let Brett Farve play, should they let him go, should they trade him? And it was different, which what's what

made it fun. They finally decided to move on. They trade him to the Jets in two thousand and eight. He plays two thousand and eight, He has a great year until he tears his bicep. The Jets can't win in December and he moves on, he quote retires again and you think this is it for Brett Farve. But then again, it's never it for Brett Farve. I mean, look, I think in two thousand twenty one, he's gonna come back at fifty three years old. He looks like he

yoked up Santa Clause running around. I mean, come on, But Farv decides in two thousand and nine after he retires from the Jets at the end of two thousand eight. I mean, phase were great. For when he was a quarterback with the Jet was phenomenal. He beat the Patriots in a big Thursday night game in New England. He beat the Titans when they were undefeated. The Jets were eight and three, and I thought, they're gonna win the division. We're going to the playoff. It's far far, far far

of my whole life was Bred Farve. I was doing things in fours just because his number was four. It was incredible. And then he tears his bicep and he can't throw the football anymore. The Jets don't win, and then okay, Bred Farve has done. The Jets realize we have to move on, we have to get to somebody else.

But then slowly you start to hear the rumors as the winter turns into spring bred Farv, who had wanted to go to the Minnesota Vikings when he first was let go from the Packers, but the Packers weren't gonna let him go to an NFC North foe. He decides to come out of retirement and sign with the Minnesota Vikings.

With ten years to look back at this, you can easily see bread Farve and the long game he played, whereas I want you to let me go with the Packers, and I wanted to let me go to the Vikings. Packers said we're not gonna do that because it came down to trade to him to either Tampa Bay or

the Jets, and they picked the Jets. But I guarantee you the long play with Farv was, you know what, I'll go play someplace else for a year, I'll retire again, then I'll get to Minnesota because I can't get to Minnesota now, but I want to go play for Brad Children's we had a relationship with before Brad Children's was the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, and you knew that's what he was gonna do. He comes out of retirement and suddenly he gets where he wanted to be.

He went somewhere else for a year, and then he gets the Minnesota Vikings and he wants to exact revenge on the Green Bay Packers, and it becomes the story again. Far for the Jets was a huge story, and now hey,

it's continuing his first year with the Vikings. I just don't know that he's ever gotten the proper credit for the mcinvelian genius and being able to come right back into the division, or enough blame for something that right now, players get absolutely brutalized on social media and throughout all media when they orchestrate a power play of getting out Anthony Davis wanting to go to the Lakers, Lebron James holding everybody how much everybody universally loved bread Farm outside

of Tames in the NFC North, everybody loved bread But see that he was always the funny scenario of you know that guy that you respect, right and see all right, he keeps beating us a man. He's fun to watch because it's so unconventional and the arm strength and the gambler style throws whatever. As a guy growing up in Chicago Bears fan, you just watch and you'd marvel at what he'd do. And then of course he passes the baton to Aaron Rodgers, and it's more of the same.

What is its seventeen and four in the last twenty one games against the Bears. But it's it's just the idea that you know, you're you're terrorized by this guy. You kept waiting from to maybe put your uniform on, and and and the cycle, but instead you you appreciated the talent. But I don't think he ever got one

or the other right. Even elway from not not coming into the Colts or Eli Manning for forcing the trade out of San Diego, they at least there's blips on there and stains on the it was are you gonna retire? And that was the whole thing, is that that's where the only backlash he had came from was again, you're not We don't know if you're gonna retire again. Really, you don't know if you want to play again. I was trying to punish for fantasy magazines. Man, I needed

that information. But now, well this is back when fantasy magazines, oh we gotta publish in March. Well, I have to because that's when the magazine is publishing. I don't know, I gotta, I gotta get it in before the draft. But that was now. Now when in retrospect you look back at things a decade ago, a decade in in the rear view mirror, and it was okay, this was just a strategy to get to the Minnesota Vikings. He only retired from the Jets because he had to retire

so he could then get to the Vikings. And he really didn't want to be a Jet. No, he didn't, He didn't him. He was a great for a little while, but that there are reports out of New York that that even the players got a little sick and tired of him because he would have like his own office, like Eric Mangini, who was a coach, would give him his own office. He didn't really hang out with the guys as much. He wasn't quite the the guy they expected him to be when he joined the team. Well,

but that's just it. The difference between and and we watch it now, the old quarterback, right, the difference between how Tom Brady is with his teammates that are half his age and what Brad Farve was right because essentially you had the same dynamic. But all you ever hear is how integrated Brady is with the team and wanting to know the guys. Hi, I'm Tom Brady. Is how he welcomes them to camp. Right, he goes and finds and seeks them out versus Farv and you know, it's

his world. Here's a pair of wranglers here you go. What what what? What? What do you like? A thirty? Here you go? Yeah, let let met you those right there. You know, if they just cut him off into George, they can recreate the top gun volleyball. You know, if your beard is getting a little gray, I can give you that. You know, you can kind of brush it through and then you can kind of look younger. No one can tell. So Farve joins the Minnesota Vikings, and

he joins the head coach. He wanted to join in Brad Children's You're a guy. I like this because I was one of the few people in the world with a Brad Children's impressure. You may be the only guy with a Brad Childrens impression. I can't say I've ever heard another. Ah. We have to make sure on offense that we uh throw the ball down field a little bit more and uh put more points on the board. Uh, and that's a pretty good Brad Childrens senior offensive assistant

your Chicago Bears. So Farve joins the team and it becomes the story in the NFL. The Minnesota Vikings become page one news. And this is a team that is already loaded and ready to go. This is a team with Adrian Peterson in his prime, Sydney Rice who became a star receiver with the with the Minnesota Vikings that year. That's the guy that five turned into a star receiver. Visanthe Shanko, who well had the speaking of big in the locker room. He had that, but we won't talk

about that. Uh, that's a film After Dark. Brian McKinney, Steve Hutchinson, Jared Allen, Kevin Williams, all Pro Bowlers. This was a star studded team who drafted Percy Harvin in the same year and then he became a weapon. And so this was everything far of ever one. And I have the big receivers, I got the fast receivers. I have the running back I always wanted. This is it. This is everything he ever had in Green Bay and now He's got everything all at once, all rolled into one.

I mean you look at that defensive front, which has been the trademark of the Minnesota Vikings for as long as I can remember. At this point, it's that same build from the inside out. And then this, you know they drafted load Hold load Load load Hold. Yes, so he becomes a starter and as a rookie top top pick alongside Percy Harvin guys, and like Harvin, goes on to win the Rookie of the Year award when it's all said and done, but for far of orchestrated, perfectly

finds himself in a beautiful situation. And I always like the name load Holt that I would want to be Jason Loadholt. Yeah. I mean there's there's a lot of ways you can go, a lot of careers. The Minnesota Vikings are now paid one news. How is Brett Farve going to fit in? Is he going to get revenge against the Green Bay Packers? Can he bring the Vikings to the Super Bowl? So while this is happening, what

else was happening in two thousand and nine? It was the Miracle on the Hudson as Sully was able to save everybody's life. The plane that was attacked by birds and the engine was able to land in the Hudson. Everybody gets out. Years later, Tom Hanks plays him in a movie. Kind of a surreal kind of experience. I'm sure for him. Every time I go to the Universal Studios back line, there it is. There's this grade. We filled that up with water and Sully, and let me

show you a picture of Sully. Bernie made Off played guilty. Surely after that, I realized, Oh, now I know why the Mets can't sign anybody. Oh because they were in on the Ponzi scheme with Bernie made Off, never forced to sell the team, but going away, you know, you know money. Now it's we're still struggling. You know, you made you made it to the World Series. I know, despite that, It's like, despite all their efforts, the Mets made it to the kind of deal on Jacob deGrom

this offseason. I mean, come on, if you remember, it was Thanksgiving weekend when Tiger Woods car hit a fire. Hydrinton Allen Nordegren came out with a golf club and suddenly tiger Woods world turned upside down. He admitted to many affairs and his life has never been the same. Ten years ago. Uh, you know, I remember him. He was in a onesie posing for a photo with you with the international team that you know, well, I mean,

he's trying to humanize himself, you know. I remember going to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo very shortly after, because that's came out. And there's a scene in Girl the Dragon Tattoo. Sorry spoiler alert, there's a scene in which character is getting chased out of a house, gets into a car, and another character grabs a golf club on the way out and bashes in the rear window, which is the story what happen with Ellen order going

to talk? So that happens, and it's a very tensely like A Girl the Dragon Tattoo is a really great movie, and it's very silence of the lamb's escates, and this is a really tense scene. And I just laugh in the theater. I look at my wife and we laughed to each other. Nobody else has left, and look at me like, what are you laughing at dude? What's wrong with you? I go, this is the Tiger Woods thing? Wait, oh my god. Ripped from the headlines Modern Family debut

that year sweets has did Farmville? I still get requests? Blank blank blank do you invite you to play Farmville? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I never got I never went down that dude, just maybe want to get off Facebook. It was also the year that Kanye West told Taylor Swift, I'm gonna let you finish but Beyonce and one of the best videos of all time, which is still a surreal moment. You got a lot of run for Kanye West. Yeah, I would say in his life that's one of the three

biggest things they'll ever be known for. That's probably true. He got gold Digger was one of the best hip hop songs ever, and then you have them I'm Gonna let you finish well. I like the fact that at the end of twenty nine he's running around like painted like the silver guy you would pose for a picture with Hollywood. Tell me I'm wrong. So that's the magical year of two thousand and nine ahead for the Minnesota Vikings. Two games that had the world's attention. A playoff game

that has ramifications even ten years out. That's coming up more right here on Special Teams Week one of the NFL Season one thing was on the minds of every football fan. How is my local team going to do? And how was Brett Farve going to play his first game with the Minnesota Vikings. All kinds of hype on the team he's wanted to. He looked looser, he was happier. His first game against Cleveland, he just threw for a hundred and ten yards, I mean, very underwhelming, but did

throw for a touchdown. They win. Week two, just a hundred and fifty five yards, two touchdowns, but they're two and oh so far. Brett Farve is a little underwhelming throw in the football, but they win a couple of games. However, Week three, things changed for Farv and the Vikings. Immediately he launches a thirty two yard touchdown pass with two seconds left to play to Greg Lewis to win and really launch the Vikings legend to beat the San Francisco forty nine and wind up winning the sp for Best

Football Play. Far jumping around in everybody's arms after it was one of those passes that you see far throwing. You go no, no, no, no, no, oh yes, wow, what a great play. Because Greg Lewis is running along the back of the end zone. There's players there you know that you still want to make sure there's enough time because maybe you can get one more play, but instead, thirty two yards out, Farve completes it. Now he's a

legend in Minnesota after just three weeks. But said, it's it always takes that one big play to get your role in and and because you do have Adrian Peterson, you don't have to be the forty passes the game Brett Farve that you were towards the end of the run in Green Bay, right, you can move on and change the structure. And you're still learning these young receivers because he didn't sign with them still fairly late, right right as camp began, so you didn't have the offseason workouts.

So you build from there. But for for Brett Farve, it's it became one of the signatures because you knew he was gonna keep gunning. Right. We celebrate guys like at least you know you and I, as as we do our show on Fox Sports Radio, we celebrate guys like Jamis Winston. You don't know what the next pass is gonna look like, And that was Brett Farve, Right,

that was Brett Farve. He's gonna win or he's gonna lose because he's gotta try to find that guy and needle in the haystack and and try to gun it through two defenders. He'd make for a good video game or horror film, I think, or maybe like an action film where he's like throwing footballs through guys. But I still remember what was the the NFC championship game he threw seven picks against against the Was it the falcon

taking through seven interceptions? Yeah, that's dude. Come on, man, stop trying to throw a football over that mountain, Uncle Rico. Stop doing it. No time to rest for Bret fog, however, as the next week was his rematch or first game against the Green Bay Packers. When he joined the Jets, the Jets did not play the Packers. But now he gets the Packers. He gets his old team. But this is at home. Things are going to be okay, And things were okay. Packers win the game thirty to twenty three.

Bret Farve has a good game. He gets booed by fans in Green Bay that traveled all the way up to see the game. He winds up throwing for two yards and three touched sounds and now far of his four and oh he wins his first game against the Packers. It's like he's winning the divorce. He's winning the breakup. He had a very fun interview after the game was over on National TV. Was a Sunday night game and it was all right, Packers, you thought they were gonna

come through. They couldn't they win the game and now far of his winning the breakup, and Packers fans are just incensed, well because the thing about it was, you know, owing to the competitor, and what he meant to that city and that franchise is how he'd go and celebrate

after a touchdown. Right, He's slapping the offensive lineman upside the head, he's sprinting down the field and pointing at the wide receiver, all those things that if they're the opponent, normally you're you're ticked off, and now if you're the Packers, you're really ticked off, because not only did he go away and even if he said all right, he finally got where he wanted to, but he had a torn bicep, and then he comes in and he shreds you like

he did to the efficiency of seventies seven completion rate, which he never touched uh and three touchdowns. So for the path for the for the Packers, for the Vikings, it's three and oh four and oh five and oh and it's boy, they could go undefeated, they could challenge the Dolphins. Market was it was all Brett Farv all the time. And this is you know, in the middle of my run at all night and at ESPN, and it really was far of overload. Look, we're talking about

the Vikings so far. We talked about some of the players on the team and how well they played, and I get that, but I want people to remember that it was about one person. This this season and this entire incarnation of the Minnesota Vikings was about Brett Farve. We didn't talk about Adrian Peterson, but we didn't talk about other players. Peterson in two thousand and nine ran for yards. He had a big season eighteen touchdowns, which is his career high. And it was oh ye had

Adrian Peterson. Yeah, he's pretty good. He was. He was coming off a great rookie year. Zoia's second year in the league too, so it's like, what's he gonna do for an end care that doesn't matter old number. Their third year in the league, form where Pin during the rookie card. He was coming off the sevred yard season, which was his best one up until that point, and it was we've never been talked about it because it

was all about Brett Farve. Far far far. So the Vikings wind up dropping one to the Pittsburgh Steelers, maybe in a look ahead game because Week eight was the big show down when they played at Green Bay and this was all the hate for Brett Farve out in spades. The signs at the game were insane. You saw signs that called him trader, that called him Judas. It was everybody hating Brett Farve. It was now, we're gonna beat this guy. And there's not many times in my life

where I felt afraid for a player on a football field. Know, it's a football game and there's security there and everything else, but I said, boy, something could happen to Brett. I could see somebody running on the field try to add, Brett, you think you're so good that it was that kind of atmosphere at Green Bay. Well, we just look at in the decades since, how much different in basketball and in the NFL, Guys changing teams all the time, right,

normally it was especially for a quarterback. You didn't last that long for one, I mean the whole iron Man things, the other legend of farv, but just the idea that you'd still be well enough to come back after such a long career there and and become the villain. People conveniently forget the ownership and general manager's side of things, because eventually, you know, you've got Aaron Rodgers and mothballs.

You've got to do something with it. Oh, they were happy at this point because okay, well but they still it wasn't that things are bad for us, because they had Aaron Rodgers who would go on to have an incredible career, win a super Bowl. But it was still you wanted to leave us. We loved you for so long and we all, oh, all the way back to or rookie year or either you're in the mid nineteen nineties and now you were sure you wanted to play,

and then you wanted out and then you wanted away. No, no, no, we we we can hate you now. Yeah, the saltiness that that rolls up of you still want to be viable And for him, he must have felt. I'm sure it's documented in a million interviews by now of where he was at psychologically, because obviously he'd had some other issues, you know, off the field that he was trying to work through. But when we we look at the forty niners, they've eventually parted ways with Joe Montana and it wasn't

in the same division. He didn't come back to haunt them by becoming a member of the NFC West. But you have you know, farv had an opportunity and a plan, plan the work, work the plan, and he came back and you had Aaron Rodgers. And by that point Aaron Rodgers had already shown himself even in just a year plus. All Right, we got a guy that's gonna be able

to play some football here. Yet you know that natural fan reaction short for fanatic, as we talk about all the time, you're gonna get salty as the guy comes back as long as it's only the one time, right is if it's you know, year five on the return going, that guy's still it's over. It's over. Let it go. And not getting enough credit for the Vikings is the offensive line because it was after this game where the storylines and how good the Vikings were got to more

than just Bred Farv. This is the second time they played the Packers and they didn't sack bred Farve, not once. I mean, that was really something. And the Vikings defense is able to get to Aaron Rodgers as many times as they could. This lost dropped the Packers to four and three, and suddenly their playoff possibilities were up in the air, and everything was great for the Minnesota Vikings. You got a big kickoff return by Percy Harvin which

helped this out. Farve winds up in this game, throwing for two forty four yards and four touchdowns, and the Vikings win this game thirty eight to twenty six in a game that wasn't really that close. They you go into the bye week at seven and one, and everything looks awesome and you're thinking Super Bowl for the Minnesota Vikings, just cruising on because they're putting up big point totals, defense is playing well, even giving up the twenty six

against Green Bay. And you've already run four road games in this process, right, You only lost the the one game to Pittsburgh on the road, but otherwise you're cruising along and just setting it up and knocking it down and still learning those wide receivers in the process because they were a bunch of young, kind of journeyman guys as you talk about I mean Sydney, and he never was the player he was after Bret Farvley, so he

had blipped on the radar, you know. He he had a couple of years and then he went to Seattle and the same thing with Percy Harvin, and Percy Harvi never became the full weapon you expected him and Percy have off field. In a prior episode of Special Teams talking about the Gators and Percy Harvin and with the Seattle Seahawks, he's a frequent contributor to Special teams, but I talked about Percy Harvin on Special Teams more than

any other players so far. On him. Yeah, But I mean it shows the impact that he had though, right if you when we look at players over the last ten to fifteen years in college and pro football, he's a guy that stands out of if he had been able to just stay right right and between some some mental health concerns and his love of the weed that he still talks about in his post career. I know you like the way I say that I talk about the weed like I'm eighty five years old, that you know.

I get on the internets and then I look up the weed and that's what it tells me. Derailed, Yes, and now I'm s a for it him like, harmon, you want to look up the weed on the interwebs. Hey, that's a dangerous search and could get you fired. Don't do it at work, don't do it at home. And that's one to know. I don't like tell me some just trying to come to some kind of old man, old man type voice where it's like, hey, let me tell you about something, kids, let me tell you I

got I got almost five decades on this planet. Let me But what's helping far of along at this At this time, he didn't have the greatest wide receivers. But when you can't stack and you can't sell out because Adrian Peterson is going to kill you, that helps immensely. Look far, it had pretty decent running games on and off in Green Bay, but he never had a guy like Adrian Peterson that teams had to is that what we gotta we gotta sell out for one guy. We

either got to sell out to stop Adrian Peterson. We gotta sell it to stop Red Farve. We can't stop both of them, And with the way the offensive line played and the way in Adrian Peterson ran the football,

you couldn't do it. And even though you don't have great wide receivers, well, hey, Fars gonna find the right guy, and he's gonna find the right guy in his progression, and maybe Sidney Rice and maybe Vasanta Shanko, it could be anybody else, but he's gonna fund it because you can't just slant your coverage or try to sell out like you normally do when a team is one dimensional.

Look Far's Packers teams. They won their fair share of games, but you could still game plan for them, because in the end, it was, well, we're gonna stop Red five. If Dorsey Levins beats us, Dorsey Levins beats us, you can't say that's well if we at Adrian, well we can'didate in Peterson pet us. So it became really really hard to defend. And there's no no surprise why the Vikings were running through the NFL this way. Why are you talking about the balance? Fo sixty seven rushing attempts

for the team over the course of the year. Peterson at three four teen Chester Taylor very effective as the number two options both as a runner and receiver. Sydney Rice had eighty three receptions, nobody else with more than sixty, and obviously in the red zone. Shanko was an absolute monster for that year, finishing with eleven touchdowns. But trying to pick your poison on it on a given day, and even Adrian Peterson a decade later, still gets a

little bit of daylight can still break away. You know, I missed Chester Taylor because I felt like he played in the nineties seventies as well. They sounds he played for the Colts in the seventies at Chester Taylor, he was really good. I just remember when he was brought in Chicago, he was going to be a short yardage

back and then couldn't run short yardage place. That makes it tough, struggled miserably, makes it very difficult that multiple years trying to bring in a guy to be the short yardage man, and they just it's not about the Bears. The second half of the season. I'll help you out, but here. The second half of the season went very well for the Minnesota Vikings. They did lose back to back games late in December, but still finished off the season with a big thrashing of the New York Giants.

They go onto the playoffs with a record of twelve and four, and Brett Farve turns out having his best year that he had had in quite a long time. Thirty three touchdowns that year for the Vikings. That's the most he had thrown since nineteen. Seven interceptions for Brett folk about that number when usually he's at like thirty seven interceptions. He did have a twenty ninety seven picks. He had never thrown those few interceptions outside of his first year in the league with Atlanta when he only

appeared in two games. Seven interceptions for this full year, every other year the best he had ever done thirteen picks. But this tells you this type of team he was on. He didn't have to be the big gun slinger. He was in a big, well balanced offense, and everything looked great for them getting out of the regular season and into the playoffs. Operational efficiency, perfect home record, eight No the Bears get lost in in Week sixteen and overtime

defeat with thirty six thirty is your final. So you got some fireworks down the stretch. Jake Cutler led well, that's the thing about that game. That Week sixteen game we talked. They lost two in a row, and that second one was to the Bears and overtime. Uh far'v actually forced overtime by throwing a touchdown pass on fourth and goal with no time left to Sydney Rice. But in overtime Adrian Peterson fumbles, Bears recover. Jake Cutler throws a touchdown pass to a guy that I will always

have good things to say about. Hopefully he stays, you know, as devon a Roma Show do, because I won a fantasy league that year because he scored a couple of big touchdowns late. He had like a good four games for the Bears. He did at the end of that year, and because of that loss, the New Orleans Saints jumped into the lead for home field advantage. So while the Vikings go into the playoffs, they go win as the number two seed with a date in New Orleans, as

long as they won that first week. Den he was He was great for a couple of guys. I mean it four. I started him in my fantasy semifinals and and he was great, and I was like, oh my god, I love this guy. One of those guys that you watched, and he had a decent role in Miami, came to Chicago, had a bit of success, and then flamed out as quickly as he arrived. So for the Vikings, it was now the playoffs that had two games away from the Super Bowl. Coming up. Next, we relive one of the

biggest games in NFL history. Jason Smith Mike Harmon, Special Teams Podcast. We continue on reliving the two thousand nine season for the Minnesota Vikings here on the Special Teams Podcast Jason Smith, Mike Harmon, your genial hosts. You can hear us Monday through Friday on Fox Sports Radio ten pm to two am on the East Coast, seven to eleven on the West Coast. And as we can tinue want here, I'm thinking, Hey, as the playoffs are happening, I could see the Jets and the Vikings and the

Super Bowl against each other. This is gonna be awesome. The Jets and want a big playoff game in San Diego. I was in attendance for that game. They're in the a f C Championship game and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, Jets, Vikings, it's coming. Jets, Vikings it's coming. You get your revenge on Brett far from me. We lost the we lost to the cults, and we lost the cults, lost the cults. We lost the cults and and we lost the cults.

We lost. It was very difficult. It was it was Peyton Manning, it was you know, you know, it was you know what we're talking about the Vikings. This is this is not not making about the Jets. This is about the have your sad sag the Jets history episode. What season can we look back at the Jets besides Super What are you talking about? Here's a talk co tight, Here's a crappy as season the Jets have had. We're

gonna relive all of them. We'll give you nine minutes on your love Affair of Curtis Martin shaking his hand and the Vikings first playoff game, after having a week to sit back and kick back, they play the Dallas Cowboys, and this was a high flying Cowboys offense led by Tony Romo, and they came into Minnesota and had no chance. The Vikings just blow the doors off the Cowboys thirty four to three. Romo couldn't do anything. It was very difficult to watch the Cowboys just lay a complete egg.

But this was more about the excellence of the Minnesota Vikings, and they win a game we expected and they're in the NFC Championship Game and not a lot of drama. Now you look at what that Dallas team was, I mean, they scored three hundred sixty one points on the years, certainly no slouch. I mean, you've got other teams that were rolling up some really ridiculous pinball numbers. But to go in and get absolutely decimated. And we talked about

the front seven and how effective they were earlier. When you look at Jared Allen leading the way, I mean, there's just not a lot of a lot of room for Tony Romo, and and it's game was never in doubt, and this was not a nice walk in the park. Everybody sits down and let's get ready for the next one.

And the next one was the NFC Championship Game at the New Orleans Saints, a game where the Vikings were thinking Super Bowl and a great future, and instead it turned out to be the final playoff game of Brett Farve's career, a game that in later years were turned out to be the beginning of bounty gate. But first the game in and of itself, before we get to the long lasting ramifications of the NFC Championship game. This was a classic back and forth battle, right the Vikings

would score, the Saints would score. It was far up and down the field. It was Drew Brees up and down the field. The Vikings should have won this game. So many times they commit five turnovers in the game, and it's amazing it actually went to overtime. Because you commit five turnovers, you're on the road in the NFC Championship game. You're not gonna win. But somehow five turnovers, three fumbles, two interceptions, one big reception in a minute.

But that should be enough for that should be you know what, we shot ourselves in the foot and still they had a chance to go. There's no doubt in my mind the Vikings were the better team. But you go in and you make that many mistakes, you cut those turnovers from five down to two. Let's say you turn over a couple of times, you're winning this game and the Vikings are in the Super Bowl. Well, it goes back to the old predictor of success in the NFL.

I mean, it's obvious and common sense, but the math bears it out. It's if you win the turnover battle. I mean, that's that's it. Because you look at statistically, thirty one first downs toft hundred, sixty five rushing yards to sixty eight passing yards to a D seven. Just go on down the line. I mean, it's just absolute obliteration until you add the turnovers, half, the penalties, win,

time of possession, everything all the way through. But fumbles Percy Harvin, UH and Bernard Burying help with what Farv did individually, and down you go. You know, one of the biggest turnovers in this game that's not talked about because obviously the interception Uh late in the fourth quarter is that right before the end of the first half. Its fourteen fourteen and Reggie Bush back when he was boy, Reggie Bush is gonna be a great player in the NFL.

He's gonna run for yards a year and catch fifteen hundred yards and passes. He muffs the punt that the Vikings recover on the ten yard line, but two plays later, Farv and Peterson screw up the handoff and Scott Fagitta recovers the fumble and the game goes into the halftime tied when clearly this should have been a field goal

lead or a touchdown lead for the Minnesota Vikings. And I know it's it's hard to say, well, you had one turnover, they turned it back over, but this ball is on the ten yard line, and you screw up a handoff. Little exchanges, I mean, we see it so often NFL where you've got a quarterback trying to look off a wide receiver, you know, the little nod in the wink, and they get the ball snapped because the center thought he saw a movement of a hand or whatever it is. And that's the one thing that you

want to watch coaches blow a gasket. I mean, that's what you always want, the picture and picture of the replay of the how the head coach or offensive coordinator respond to a play like that. And we're talking a title game. This isn't Week one, this isn't Week two. We're talking big time football and winning time. In the second half. You had the turnovers, you said by Bernard Berrying, this turns into a game. With two forty two left, the Vikings get the football and they drive to the

Saints thirty three yard line. Now this is in Ryan Longwell's range for a field goal. Ryan long was a really good field goal kicker. He has been. He's kicking in yours by Packer now with the right. Yeah, I gotta you want a great story, Ryan Longwell. You want a great Ryan Longwell story. So when I was at NFL Network, uh, we did a lot of stuff with Steve Mariuchi and Ryan Longwell was in the forty Niners camp as a rookie and he was great, and mary

Uchi was Maryuchi is the best. He tells stories that are just so entertaining. And he's like, oh my god, this guy's gonna be our kicker. We found him. He's a rookie's great, and I forget who he said he had on the team already and they went in for the final cuts. He was like all right, you know, talking to the GM and all right, and we're and we're keeping long Well because he's great. They go, no, no, no, we're paying our kicker the X amount of dollars. We're

not keeping it. We're not We're not gonna cut him. And he was like wait, wait what. He was like, no, We're we're paying our kicker already. So we had to cut Ryan Longwell, who then went on to have a huge career with the Green Bay Packers. And he would say that was the first time I looked and I said, okay, so money is a big deal. He was like, all right, I get the money part. He thought talent one out. No no, no, no, no, Well, I mean it's yeah, And he's still on the hook for some part of it.

And you're talking about cap implications a whole other other the ball game. So they're on the thirty three yard line and they run two running plays and Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor get tackled for no game. Now think for a second with the super Bowl on the line, Chester Taylor is getting a carry. Okay, I get it. But Chester Taylor is getting a carry with the super

Bowl on the line. Yeah. It's kind of funny because as you were earlier in the possession, you had a couple of runs from Adrian Peterson, but then you had several pass plays before you got back to the Chester Taylor and now he did run for fourteen yards to play before he got stuffed first. But it's like, oh boy, this is the Super bowls coming here. Man, this is Super Bowl. So let's start criticizing Adrian Peterson for not being able to suck it up. That's it hot take.

So they call a time out with nineteen seconds left, and this is a very often overlooked development. Minnesota gets flagged for having twelve men in the huddle. So now they're penalized five yards. So now it's the thirty eight yard line and it's third and fifteen. Now maybe you're out of Ryan Longwell's range, and maybe you change things up and say, well, now we've got to get some yards. You know, we don't want to trot Ryan Longwell out

there for ds out. That's a long one. So they decided to throw the football, a pass which will forever live in Minnesota Vikings infamy. Brett Farve rolls out to one side, tries to turn back against his body and throw it all the way back across the side of the field, which we've seen Brett Farve do hundreds of times during his career. Throw it over the mountains. Sometimes it results in a in a catch and oh my goodness, look at the vision Brett Farve. As sometimes it results

in a bad play. It is picked off by Tracy Porter and instead of a game winning field goal, attempt. We wind up going to overtime and you get the famous call by Vikings play by play man Paul Allen, you could take a knee and try to kick a fifty five yard field goal. He was hot on the air.

He's the play by play guy and he is so pissed that Brett Farve does a typical Brett Farve play and throws it back across his body, which is you never turned back and throw across the middle to the other side of the field, because that gives so many players on the back side. They're already looking at the football and they can get to it. And that's what happened. Tracy Porter got to it, and now we wind up going to overtime and Paul Allen is incense and Vikings

fans are going that's life with Brett Farve. Yet now and now I get it. It was a great magic carpet ride. But now we're getting the Brett Farve. You got him on that play, which is what Packers fans and the Jets for one year had for him. Since this was Brett Farve, where you live with him. But boys, sometimes you gotta die with those passes and they wind up dying with that pass. Now you still had football

to play at the moment. But if you're a Vikings fan, that was everything you'd ever seen, right, because you've been to the Promised Land a few times and then the door got slammed in your face. Right, No no entry here, right. And the past Super Bowl appearances, past championship games, there's

been a lot of occasions for the opportunity, uh. And sorry to our boss as this is UH, is that you had a lot of opportunities to get your big signature win and and etch name on the side of the trophy, and and everybody gets a ticker tape raid instead. It's all falling apart, and in that moment, like shades of every bit of anguish for Vikings fans, for their lives. The coin toss goes the way of the New Orleans Saints in overtime, and this incredibly great game, dripping with drama,

ends pretty quick. The Saints go down the field without too much difficulty, a big pass interference call against Ben Lieber helping the Saints, and Garrett Hartley comes out kicks the game winning field goal. The Saints win. They go on to the Super Bowl and for the Vikings, it's what just happened to us? What just happened? And the Saints go on they beat the Indianapolis Colts to win it all. Sean Payton Drew Brees finally get to the top of the mountain, and the Vikings are left asking

what if? But this didn't and the drama for the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints. In the immediate aftermath after the game was over, a couple of things happened. The first thing was this game because of the way it ended. Right, you get to overtime, the Saints get the football, they drive down the field and kick a field goal. The NFL changed its rules the following off season about overtime. It allowed the team who got the ball first and overtime if they kicked the field goal.

The opposing team then got a possession to try to score as well. And this is morphed into the NFL overtime rule that we have now. And make no mistake about it, this change was made clearly because everybody felt bad Brett Farve didn't get the football in overtime. How unfair was it that a legend like Brett Farve didn't get a chance to go down the field and win

a football game. We've seen so many overtime games decided in playoffs, regular season, but it didn't matter because Brett Farve, who was it in the NFL this time, didn't get a chance to go down the field. The nflus, well, we want to change the rule now. Crazy thing is the Vikings voted against this rule change in the off season, but still it passed. And now we have the overtime rule we have because of this game, because of that development, all about the Saints. All we do is change rules

because of the Saints time and time again. We have the bounty gate that flows out of it, but we have multiple rule changes now impacted by Sean Payton, his position on the Competition Committee picking up for longtime Competition Committee hero Jeff Fisher, our friend here in Los Angeles. Uh. And it's just crazy that the backlash was so swift and severe to that it's like you played over time. It's like, sorry, Brett fav didn't get a chance to

have the ball. Defense didn't do their job period, give up a long kickoff return to Pierre Thomas and what twelve plays later, let's it get off the field too. Bad. After this game, I remember thinking, going, boy, they just beat the crap out of Farv in this game. The Saints gave him hit, twisting his ankle, hitting him, hitting him late. There was excessive roughness calls throughout the game, and it was just boy or either this is their game plan was to come and hit Bred Farve or

something else is going on. It was just a game, though. Boy. Farv got hit and I still think he's feeling some

of those hits from this game. And then in two thousand and twelve, this game took on a different light when bounty Gate was put into the American consciousness when a filmmaker shooting a documentary on Steve Gleason of the New Orleans Saints took video of the meeting that Greg Williams had with his defense the night before a playoff game, and he talked about hitting guys, making them realized that

they were gonna get hit, gonna get hit hard. That Kyle Williams, let's see what happens when you hit him in the chin. And we find out about bounty gate, and bounty Gate became the biggest story in the NFL. Albeit now it's three years later and we find out the Saints were paying out bonuses or bounties for injuring opposing team players. It was an operation from two thousand nine all the way to two thousand eleven. Greg Williams got suspended, Sean Payton was suspended for the entire two

thousand and twelve season. But this was the game where people look back and said, Okay, I get it. This this is really the beginning of bounty gate. The way they hit bred far, everything they did to him, this started bounty gate. Go back and look Ray Edwards, Um, you know for the vikings was having himself a game. But well we go through and look at the quarterback

hits on the other side. They were innumerable. And yeah, and then you watch some of the video highlights, like you know, the play through the whistle, No, no no, no, the reverberation of the whistle was really where we got to for for Greg Williams and that defense. And you know, the the idea of a defense is to punish opposed buddy. And we've seen rule changes. Now if you breathe on a quarterback after the balls out, it's different. Yeah, the

bounty scandal would never happened now. But but lea's a look at all these penalties. Okay, we gotta stop like the fact that five kept popping up like whack a mole. Yeah, I mean that becomes a difficult proposition, right right if he if he stays down, then maybe the officials are looking at each other going all right, do we miss something? What's going on? Not that you could have gone to review booth at that point to say, hey, please take a look at what's going on here, but you know,

you look at the way the game's officiated. Now, I mean, he'd be in bubble wrap compared to the way they have two hits. Somebody would get thrown out of the game, and there would be all right, we can't do this anymore. It's a new NFL look. But because of that game, really, in retrospect, two big rule change, two things happen. Not granted for the Saints, it was all the way through, But that was the game people look back to and said, Okay, that's the game I can really see starting because of

bred Farve. Now, normally at this time we do the where are they now? The segment of the podcast. However, I want to throw this head because I'm gonna tell you something I don't think you've known about me in the seven years nearly that we've been together. Okay, Yeah, So the filmmaker who shot this video of bounty Gate right that started bounty Gate whole thing with the vic alright filmmaker was my roommate at ESPN for about two years,

Sean Pamphalon. He was doing the Steve Gleason documentary. He got video of this and he said, listen, this is news. I have to come out with it. Many people were upset that that he decided to do this. The NFL tried to buy this video and everything. And I'll never forget this because when I found that it was Sean, I go, oh my god, Oh my god, Shawn's got this. And because Sean was a really fun dude, um big Yankee fan, so he and I always would go at

it with the Yankees and the Mets. But this was like his moment, and I go, what is he going to do? What's he gonna do? He's got this video? And so at this time, I'm an NFL network and I'm hosting NFL Fantasy Live and I wind up seeing that it's Shawnago. What's he gonna do? And I go, I don't know what he's gonna do, but he's very unpredictable. Sure and off. Right after this story gets out, the

NFL wants the video from him. He puts out this long missive on his own personal website about football and the NFL, and Goodell should meet with him before he turns over the video, and I go, oh my god, Sean, what are you doing? Dude? What are you doing? So the day after it comes out that Sean is the guy with the video, I go into my boss's NFL network. Now that this story gets really really cool, I shouldn't stay cool. It gets funny, and I I get a

sense of retribution, right, so retributions of strong word. Yeah, well so so here. So here's what happens. So I come in and they're trying to get in touch with Sean. So I come in and I tell my managers, Hey, you know this guy who has the video? I go, I know him really well. I mean we were roommates in ESPN for two years. I could get in touch with him and see if you'll give the video up. And my managers like, oh my god, yes, yeah yeah, yeah,

oh yeah, yeah yeah. Go talk to David Eaton, who was an executive at NFL Network, and he was because he was like the guy in charge of the news room, and he was, you know, the guy you would talk to. He was the one, you know, in charge of the daily shows. So I walk up to him and this is not the first time he didn't treat me the best when I was when I was at n i FOL Network. And we walk up and it's me and my manager and him, and we walk up and my managers, Hey, uh,

Jason wanted to tell you something. I said, Hey, um, so Sean Pamphalon who has this video? I know him and I can and he interested me. He goes, we were on it, we're on it. I said, yeah, no, no, I get it. But I'm saying I know him and I can get in contact. Was yeah, I know. We've we've reached out. We were reached out, were we we we got it. So I just said, okay, I said, all right, that's fine, and I backed away. I saidt you know what, you've blown me off right here twice

now and this happened. Okay, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine. So there you go. Now you know a little bit more about me. And I had a whole thing and where are they now? All right, you know what, give me your best one, give me your best one? Form right, well, you know what. I don't have any further information, but there was a great article about Chester Taylor watching the World Series of Poker and uh deciding, hey, I could

do that. So by the late you know, two thousand sixteen, two thousand seventeen, he was actually entering big time steaks pokers. I decided I could learn how to do this. So he was involved in that. I used to think I could learn how to do that and be a professional poker player. A couple of times I won when you know, friends would have a night and I'm going, hey, I could do this professionally. Yeah, I was good enough to play in a in a home game that I did. Okay,

Phil loadhold, I mean I had to pull. He actually is back with the Vikings and he was helping with as an intern in the nun Wooten Scouting Fellowship program. How about that? All like guys to come and give back. Hey, you the former second round pick got himself and there but are burying? Um? Is this development mentoring and management for athletes and entertain it not bad. Eric Frampton, financial

consultant for Fidelity, how about that? And he walks around and says, dude, you you have your representative, okay, teaching people how I should come? What else am I gonna say? Do you do you feel? Do you feel? You? Do you feel? Come on? The boy spots has always been the coolest thing. I mean we wait. I took my kids to go see Aerosmith, and as soon as they started doing that for sweet emotion, both my kids started cheering wildly. Do you do you have insurance? Do you

have insurance? All right? I think that's a good place to stop. So there it is our look back at the crazy season that involved the two thousand nine Minnesota Vikings. If you have any ideas you want to pitch us some teams you think we should spotlight here on special teams, hit us up on Twitter at how about a fresca Mike Swollen doubt. We'll see what we can do. Have a great week and we'll talk to you in a few days. Before you go, rate and review the show.

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