Vikings Mt. Rushmore

Pro Football Talk announced the Minnesota Vikings Mt. Rushmore yesterday. And the winners are:

Fran Tarkenton
Adrian Peterson
Bud Grant
Cris Carter

According to Mike Florio and the PFT guys, the Vikings had the greatest voter turnout of any team so far. Nice. Apparently there was also a great deal of debate among the Viking voters. Despite making it, many questioned the worthiness of Carter. They shouldn't. They were likely huge Randy Moss fans upset over his omission.

The voting of the top 12 broke down like this:
1. Tarkenton 72%
2. Peterson  68%
3. Grant 52%
4. Carter 48%
5. Alan Page 44%
6. John Randle 36%
7. Randy Moss 28%
8. Jim Marshall 20%
9. Carl Eller 16%
10. Chris Doleman 8%
11. Paul Krause 4%
12. Ron Yary 4%

The biggest surprise to me was that Randall McDaniel didn't make the cut to 12 players. He was tough to leave off of my final four as he was one of the greatest guards to ever play the game. Perhaps the greatest guard to ever play. He was selected to twelve straight Pro Bowls. He was named All-Pro nine consecutive seasons. Hall of Fame. It's a damn shame that guards just don't get the recognition. I'm to blame too. He wasn't part of my Mt. Rushmore. He'd be on mine if there was room for six.

For the record, my Minnesota Vikings Mt. Rushmore looked like this:

Bud Grant
Alan Page
Cris Carter
Adrian Peterson

So, I left off the consensus #1 among the Vikings voters. Leaving Tarkenton off my mountain was painful. He and McDaniel would fill out my six. Grant was an automatic. After that, I wanted players from different generations. Page from the late '60s and the '70s. Carter from the late '80s and the '90s. Peterson from the recent teams. No matter how you do it, this is tough call. I took Page over Tarkenton mostly because I feel that Page was a better football player. He was the first defensive player to ever be named NFL MVP. He's in any discussion as on the best defensive tackle to ever play the game. Tarkenton was a terrific quarterback. Even if he had won one of the three Super Bowls in which he played, I don't think that he's in a similar quarterback discussion. Picking Carter over McDaniel or even Randle might have been a more difficult decision and Carter is probably my favorite Vikings player. This is a tough task. It's not as tough as picking four from the Green Bay Packers or the Chicago Bears. But, it was tough. I would understand a Minnesota Vikings Mt. Rushmore of Tarkenton, McDaniel, John Randle, and Jim Marshall. Marshall might not have the accolades of some of his fellow Vikings players but he was the captain and face of the team for most of his twenty years of football. Incredible player and leader. Tarkenton said that Marshall should have made the mountain.

PFT's Florio is a Vikings fan so it was interesting to see his Mt. Rushmore:

Alan Page
Adrian Peterson
Fran Tarkenton
Cris Carter

Fun stuff.