A Purple Christmas

Some Minnesota Vikings trivia:

What was NOT a professional football team in Minneapolis?
a. Minneapolis Millers
b. Minnesota Red Jackets
c. Minneapolis Marines
d. Minnesota Vikings

-the answer can be found below

The 2014 edition of the Minnesota Vikings can end up with as many as seven wins and as few as six. That might not be the win total that many hoped but it might be more than most expected. For the Vikings players and coaches and the more optimistic of fans anything short of the playoffs is a disappointment. Despite the lack of wins everyone involved with the Vikings have reasons to be excited. A lot of good can be found in this season. Call the good Christmas gifts. Gifts that give great hope for the future.

Mike Zimmer

Teddy Bridgewater

Anthony Barr

Charles Johnson

Bud Grant is a Minnesota icon. He speaks and the entire state looks his way. Even if he really doesn't want them to. No other Vikings coach comes close to Grant. In appreciation or wins. Norm Van Brocklin, Les Steckel, Jerry Burns, Dennis Green, Mike Tice, Brad Childress, Leslie Frazier. In their first 23 years the Vikings employed two coaches. Van Brocklin for the first six. Grant for the rest. In the last 30 years, the Vikings employed seven coaches. That includes one more year from Grant when he came back for the 1985 season to fix the mess the Steckel made in 1984. Grant is in a great room and no other Vikings coach has come close to touching the door for it. The Vikings have finally found a coach that might. Mike Zimmer. It's a major Minnesota miracle that no football team was smart enough to hire Zimmer as head coach before the Vikings did so last January. Zimmer has been coaching football since 1979. He was at the college level for 14 years. He's been in the NFL for 20 years. He was never a head coach until the Vikings gave him his first shot. He's been a legitimate head coaching candidate for more than a decade. A handful of interviews were always followed by a handful of rejections. Some say that he's abrasive. Too direct. Actually, he's just honest. Asked in his introductory press conference if honesty isn't always the best policy, Zimmer said that honesty is always the best policy. Players love him even if they don't always like what he has to say. When he arrived in Mobile for the Senior Bowl last year as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings he was applauded by his coaching peers. He finally got his first head coaching gig and the Minnesota Vikings are damn lucky to have him.

The Vikings have been looking for a franchise quarterback since Fran Tarkenton retired in 1978. Tommy Kramer could never stay healthy long enough to carry a team. There was an insanely long line of quarterbacks that thrust their hands under the anxious tushies of Kirk Lowdermilk, Jeff Christy, Matt Birk, and John Sullivan. Wade Wilson, Sean Salisbury, Rich Gannon, Jim McMahon, Warren Moon, Brad Johnson, Randall Cunningham, Jeff George, Daunte Culpepper, Kelly Holcomb, Brooks Bollinger, Gus Frerotte, Tarvaris Jackson, Brett Favre, Donovan McNabb, Christian Ponder, and Matt Cassel. That quarterback to center ratio is ridiculous. Some old farts had insane seasons. Even at 40, Moon threw one of the most beautiful passes ever. Cunningham was magnificent in 1998. Brett Favre in 2009, oh my. Culpepper was the only quarterback that was young enough and talented enough to be considered "the quarterback of the future." "The franchise quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings." A knee injury in 2004 zapped him of his incredible natural talent. He was never the same and the Vikings traded him away before it was evident that he was never the same. The most successful NFL teams of any generation often rise to the top with an incredible pairing of coach and quarterback. Lambeau-Herber, Halas-Luckman, Parker-Layne, Ewbank-Unitas/Namath, Lombardi-Starr, Landry-Staubach, Shula-Griese, Noll-Bradshaw, Walsh-Montana, Holmgren-Favre, Shanahan-Elway, Belichick-Brady, McCarthy-Rodgers, Payton-Brees. It goes on. The Vikings might have found that special pairing. Mike Zimmer and Teddy Bridgewater. About the only thing that Bridgewater doesn't possess is a cannon of an arm. He makes up for that with work, work, work, smarts, awareness, work and timing. He's started twelve NFL games. His last four look like he's been starting for 12 NFL seasons. Well, not quite but he's playing at a level now like he's going to be around for a very long time. With Zimmer.

Bridgewater has gotten so much attention that many forget that the Vikings drafted a player in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft before the quarterback. That's the nature of the quarterback position in today's NFL. The Vikings selected UCLA linebacker Anthony Barr with the ninth pick. Until a knee injury slowed and then ended his first NFL season Barr was a defensive force. Big, fast, incredibly athletic. He's the physical model of today's NFL linebacker.

Barr and Bridgewater are likely the football playing face of the Vikings for the next decade.

Then there's the gift that no one saw coming. Charles Johnson. Plucked off of the Cleveland Browns practice squad early in the season, Johnson was Bridgewater's most reliable target by the end of the season. His route running is terrific. A example for the rest of the receivers on the roster. Cordarrelle Patterson in particular. Johnson seemed to get open, wide open, on every snap. At 6'3" and 215 lbs, he has very good size and terrific speed. He was a great and fortunate find.

The wins might not have come this season but a lot of good has. Mike Zimmer is a great football coach. Teddy Bridgewater looks like the quarterback of the present and future. Every team needs a franchise quarterback these days and it looks like the Vikings finally have one. Anthony Barr is a defensive dynamo. And Charles Johnson will be catching passes from Bridgewater for a long time.

A very nice Purple Christmas. The next one hopefully involves in playoff appearance.

Trivia answer: a. The Minneapolis Miller were a professional sports team in Minneapolis but they played baseball. Willie Mays, Ted Williams, and Carl Yastrzemski played for the baseball playing Millers. The Red Jackets and Marines were NFL teams that played 30-40 years before the Vikings.