Throwback Thursday: Mt. Rushmore

I heard that the website Pro Football Talk is going to do a "Mt. Rushmore" for each NFL team. Picking four people, carved in stone, to represent the best of a team's history. That's an interesting idea. I wish that I'd thought of it. It's also a very difficult project. Especially for the teams that have been around the longest. For the newer teams like the Houston Texans, Carolina Panthers, and Jacksonville Jaguars, you'll be forcing some people into that stone mountain.

I really like this idea. I'll take a stab at an NFL Mt. Rushmore first.

George Halas
Joe Carr
Bert Bell
Pete Rozelle

The NFL likely wouldn't be a thing without George Halas. He was a player, coach, general manager, ticket printer, ticket taker, etc. for the Chicago Bears. In the early days of the league he did everything for his team. He was also the backbone of the league. He's up there on that league mountain. League president and commissioners Joe Carr, Ber Bell, and Pete Rozelle are up there as well. I question whether the league would have survived without these four men. Each played critical roles at critical times in the life of the league. They were perfect for their times and their tasks.

While it was the owners and the league officials that kept the NFL alive, the fans care about the players most of all. It's a tough chore to pick only four players from the entire history of the game to put up on our Mt. Rushmore but I'll give it a shot.

Don Hutson
Sammy Baugh
Jim Brown
Lawrence Taylor

Hutson, Baugh, and Taylor simply changed how the game was played. They did things at their positions that had never been done before. Jim Brown was just too good to leave off of that mountain.

Now, I'll take a run at my team, the Minnesota Vikings. My choices might be different from those of most Vikings fans.

Bud Grant
Jim Marshall
Cris Carter
Adrian Peterson

It all starts with the coach, Bud Grant. I will always consider this man the face of the Minnesota Vikings franchise. I can still see him in the snow of frigid Metropolitan Stadium. Defensive end Jim Marshall is the surprise of my Mt. Rushmore. Fran Tarkenton and Alan Page are the more logical and more likely choices. As great as those two Hall of Famers were, it was Marshall that was the captain and leader of those great Vikings teams of the late '60s and '70s. Marshall was a very good football player but he was a fantastic leader. If Grant was the face of those teams, Marshall may have been the heart. Cris Carter was the Vikings leader a generation later. He was also the greatest pass catcher that ever stepped on a football field. Adrian Peterson might be on the NFL Mt. Rushmore one day.

I'm looking forward to Pro Football Talk's stab at this.