In 52 seasons the Minnesota Vikings have had eight head coaches. Seven if you take out Les Steckel's lone forgettable 1984 season. But that sad season is in the record books. Half of the eight is in the last decade. The fairly small number of coaches is due mostly to the magical 18 years of the legendary Bud Grant. So many Flickers can be written about that man. Many will. For now, I'm looking at the puzzling, almost ten years of Dennis Green. In particular, his drafts.
Dennis Green was an incredibly successful head coach for the Vikings. If you measure success by making the playoffs, he was one of the best. In ten years his team missed the playoffs twice. Once in the middle and that last horrible 2001 season. So many things went wrong that year for everyone. The problem that Green's teams had with those frequent playoff appearances is that they frequently left the party early. In 1998, they made it to the Conference Championship game with one of the most explosive offenses the NFL had ever seen. An incredible football team. Seeing as they didn't get to and win the Super Bowl, they left that party early as well. Green routinely put good to great teams on the football field. That part was fun. Leaving the playoffs early was never fun. The best expanation that I can find for those frustrating, too brief playoff appearances is the drafts that Green, as decision maker and coach, put together. He was an incredible judge of offensive talent. That was his area and his focus. In Green's ten drafts, he drafted one defensive player that went on to gain a Pro Bowl nod, linebacker Ed McDainel. On the offensive side, Green kept his job for ten years. Brad Johnson, Robert Smith, Todd Steussie, Korey Stringer, Randy Moss, Matt Birk and Daunte Culpepper all made Pro Bowl appearances. David Palmer, Moe Williams and Jim Kleinsasser may not have made it to Hawaii but were impact players in Minnesota. All were draft picks of Green. The offense/defense imbalance kept the Vikings from playoff success. It wasn't like Green simply ignored the defensive side of the ball. He simply missed on all his picks. He kept making stabs at a pass rusher but first rounders Derrick Alexander and Duane Clemons did pretty much nothing. Alexander was even selected over Warren Sapp. I don't think that Green ever really got over that one. Some picks looked great at first. 1997 first round selection Dwayne Rudd was great early but soon showed himself to be more of an ass than a football player. He ended up in Cleveland. Bad luck was a factor too. Safety Orlando Thomas could have been a star but injuries stole his career just as it was getting started. Another first rounder, DeWayne Washington spent his best years in Pittsburgh. The were some solid role players but none kept the defense on par with the offense.
Dennis Green inherited some defensive talent when he was hired in 1992. The Vikings had closed the '80s with one of the best defenses in the league. For some reason, Green traded some of that talent away. Future Hall of Famer Chris Doleman was one. Former Defensive Player of the Year Keith Millard was another. An incredible defensive line was taken apart. Fortunately, defensive tackle John Randle remained but Green added little to help him. Defensive coordinator Tony Dungy made up for some of the gaps in talent but he soon left to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If Dennis Green had hit on even a quarter of his defensive draft selections that 1998 team would have had such better balance. That team had to outscore everyone because the defense couldn't stop much. In 18 games that season the Vikings failed to outscore their opponents only twice by a total of six points. Even a decent defense would have covered that margin. Just slightly better defensive drafts would have provided that defense. Who knows, maybe the Vikings win that 1998 Super Bowl. Maybe more.
You can debate "what if" sports topics forever. It never changes what actually happened. It's just rare to find such continued defensive draft deficiencies. Green's offensive selections allowed him to keep his job. Usually poor drafting is seen on both sides of the ball and results in a short NFL career. If Dennis Green had any kind of defensive success he'd have had an even longer career. Maybe even approached Bud Grant's legendary status in Minnesota. He'd likely have some championships as well.
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