MINNEAPOLIS (Star Tribune; 9.13.1987) - Today is the first day of the rest of Wade Wilson's life. Today, the defensive line gets taller, the cornerbacks quicker and the ball a whole lot heavier. Today - at least for today - Wade Wilson is the Vikings' No. 1 quarterback.
"Everything changes Sunday," said Wilson.
Everything. There is no more popular man in town than the No. 2 quarterback - with the possible exception of the No. 3 quarterback. For seven long years as a Viking, Wilson always has been one or the other. When you're No. 2 - or No. 3 - you're everybody's darling, especially when No. 1 screws up. When you're No. 2, you are the best quarterback in the world because you have done no wrong. Of course, the reason you have done no wrong is because you haven't been on the field much, if at all. No matter.
That is what makes you so attractive. You're unsullied, unspoiled, perfect. No matter what number you wear, you're a 10. And you never get booed. Until you become No. 1 and overthrow a receiver in the end zone by 20 yards.
That is the nature of this game and Wilson knows it. Today, there will be no place to hide.
"Sunday, everything changes because it all goes from expectations to producing," he said. "People have been wanting me to play off and on the last couple years, but they really can't say I do good because I haven't really played that much when it counts. Now it's time to show that I can play."
Wilson knows he played very well during the preseason. He completed 63 percent of his passes, threw for five touchdowns and had a quarterback rating (128.1) that jumps right off the board. In the last game of last season, he passed for 339 yards and three touchdowns. He also knows that the real test starts today in the regular-season opener against the Detroit Lions. The preseason and the last game of the 1986 season, when the Vikings already were eliminated from the playoffs, don't mean a thing. "I look at this as an opportunity," he said.
An opportunity to start a quarterback controversy?
Wilson, a small-town boy from Commerce, Texas (pop. 11,000), son of a high school football coach turned elementary school principal, is too nice a guy to start one with words. In print, he says all the right things, that he knows the injured Tommy Kramer, coming off a Pro Bowl year, is supposed to be No. 1. But make no mistake: On the field, Wilson would like nothing better than to make it excruciatingly hard for coach Jerry Burns to pull the trigger and put Kramer back in the lineup. And if Wilson plays as splendidly as he did in the preseason, I'm not so sure Burns shouldn't leave well enough alone.
"If we were going like gangbusters and the club had a certain chemistry and success, I certainly wouldn't do anything to change it," said Burns. "There is nothing in my contract or Tommy's contract that says when Tommy is ready to go that he automatically steps into the breach."
There is a certain irony to the fact that the man Wilson backs up is named Tommy Kramer. Ten years ago a high school senior named Wade Wilson, looking for a place to go to college, visited Rice University, where a senior quarterback named Tommy Kramer was setting all sorts of passing records. Wilson probably would have loved to succeed Kramer. One problem. Rice never called back.
So Wilson attended tiny East Texas State, an NAIA school in his home town. As a senior, Wilson led the team to a third-place finish in the national playoffs. That was seven years ago. That also was the last time he started in a season opener.
The Vikings selected him in the eighth round of the 1981 draft and by rights, Wilson said, they should have cut him after his first training camp. "The way I was playing, I had no business making the team," he said. "That's the honest truth."
Wilson was smart and had great work habits, but he had the touch of a sumo wrestler. "When a back would come out of the backfield for a pass, he'd damn near knock 'em over," said Burns, who then was the offensive coordinator. Burns thought of Wilson in baseball terms: The kid had a big league arm but needed to learn how to control it.
The thing that may have saved him from the cutting block that first year was that he could punt in emergency situations. So the Vikings, who needed a No. 3 quarterback behind Kramer and Steve Dils, kept him, though for the first three years the coaches considered him very raw.
In time, Wilson developed his touch and impressed the coaches because he never stopped trying to improve, even though he played in only four games in his first three seasons. But once Wilson was ready to show what he could do, he had few opportunities because Kramer was ahead of him.
In six years, Wilson has started only 10 games, always because somebody else was hurt. He is a very young 28. But there have been moments. In 1985, he started against the Philadelphia Eagles. "I was pretty excited because this was my chance to do something," he said. "But I had a terrible first half and we did absolutely nothing. Nothing goes right and I get pulled out of the game. So I'm frustrated and now I'm mad because even though I played bad, this was my first game and I didn't think I deserved to get pulled after just one half.
"So then Steve comes in and he was just as bad and it was in the fourth quarter and kind of cold and raining and I'm sitting on the sidelines, pouting, and Bud (Grant) says, `You're going back in.' And I just looked at him like, I can't believe this. I was mad enough that he pulled me and I was real mad he was going to put me back in and embarrass me more."
Wilson went back in with the Vikings losing 23-0. Final score: Minnesota 28, Philadelphia 23. "That was a lot of fun," Wilson said.
He would like to have more fun today.
Burns has one worry about his No. 1 quarterback for the day. "He has a little bit more of a nervous nature than Tommy," Burns said. "I worry a little bit about that. When Tommy throws an interception, he walks off and says, what the hell? I'll get it next time. He knows the best of them make mistakes. But Wade's not yet buoyed by that kind of confidence. Wade's never had the total fame of a Tommy Kramer. He's never hit the home run."
Then again, he's never had the chance.
At the moment, Wilson can't even enjoy the traditional benefits of being the No. 2 quarterback. In Minnesota, understand, the current No. 3 quarterback may be even more popular than the No. 2 guy. The fact that Rich Gannon has not played one down in an NFL regular-season game doesn't seem to matter. He is shiny and new and the way he runs, he reminds people of Francis Tarkenton. Wilson shrugs. "Sometimes," he said, "you feel caught in a crunch. You've got a Pro Bowler in front of you and a wonder kid behind you."
But for today, and maybe longer, Wade Wilson is the man.# By Dan Barreiro
| September 13, 1987 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit Lions | 6 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 19 |
| Minnesota Vikings | 0 | 10 | 21 | 3 | 34 |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP; 9.13.1987) - Anthony Carter is the Minnesota Vikings' best receiver, even if he tried to prove otherwise during the first 36 1/2 minutes of Minnesota's 1987 season.
"You don't expect an Anthony Carter to drop two passes like that, that's for sure," Vikings quarterback Wade Wilson said Sunday after his 73-yard touchdown pass to Carter sparked a 21-point third quarter that lifted the Vikings to a 34-19 season-opening NFL victory over the Detroit Lions. "But he was the key in us turning the game around. He's a great athlete and he made a great comeback."
Wilson, starting in place of the injured Tommy Kramer, threw three first-half interceptions. But the first two went through Carter's hands before settling in the arms of Detroit defenders.
"It's something that's going to happen in a game," Carter said. "But it happened to me and that's something that doesn't usually happen.
"I just dropped them and Wade got two interceptions real quick. It was my fault."
The miscues helped Detroit build a 16-3 second-quarter lead. Minnesota still trailed 19-10 and had a third-and-18 on its own 27-yard line when Carter beat Duane Galloway _ who had two of Detroit's interceptions _ and Wilson hit Carter in stride.
"It was a blitz and they had man-to-man coverage on Anthony Carter," Wilson said. "You couldn't ask for anything more."
"I didn't play it well," Galloway said. "I should have used my head. I should have gotten a little farther off the ball. That touchdown turned the game around."
Added Lions Coach Darryl Rogers: "We took a chance on blitzing, but we couldn't get to Wilson and Carter beat us."
He said that the Lions played well in the first half, "but ... were unable to sustain it for the full game."
"The fourth-quarter momentum was totally with the Vikings," Rogers said. "It's amazing how well they controlled the ball, expecially after not doing it for 2 1/2 quarters."
Wilson finished with 12 completions in 22 attempts for 248 yards and three touchdowns to overshadow Chuck Long, the Lions' No. 1 draft choice in 1986.
Long was 24-for-38 for 195 yards and a touchdown but was intercepted by Neal Guggemos three plays after Wilson's bomb to Carter. Guggemos' 26-yard return set up D.J. Dozier's 1-yard touchdown run, which put the Vikings ahead for good with 6:30 left in the third.
Detroit failed to advance the football on its next possession and Wilson took advantage with a 24-yard touchdown pass to Leo Lewis, putting the Vikings up 31-19.
Eddie Murray kicked four field goals for Detroit, two of which were set up by interceptions that went through Carter's hands. Detroit's only touchdown, Long's 5-yard pass to Pete Mandley that put Detroit up 16-3 midway through the second quarter, came after Galloway went 30 yards with an interception of a Wilson overthrow.
Minnesota's other points came on field goals of 27 and 22 yards by Chuck Nelson.
In the second half, Wilson completed six of 10 passes for 143 yards. Kramer, who missed the first three weeks of training camp while in treatment for alcohol problems, suffered a pinched nerve in his neck in his first preseason game and is out on a game-to-game basis.
Detroit missed several opportunities to take command of the game in the opening half.
The Lions got inside the Vikings' 10-yard line three times but came up with only Murray field goals of 26, 27 and 24 yards.
After James Griffin's interception, tight end Rob Rubick dropped a pass that would have given the Lions a first down at the 1-yard line. And after Galloway's first interception, Minnesota cornerback Carl Lee wasn't called for interference even though he appeared to have hit Jeff Chadwick in the end zone before the football arrived.
Murray also missed a 54-yard field goal at the end of the first half. In addition, he punted twice, for 46 and 45 yards, after punter Russell Erxleben sustained a groin injury in the second quarter.
Mandley caught seven passes for 79 yards. Detroit fullback James Jones, who terrorized the Vikings for 174 yards in the Lions' season-opening victory last year, led all runners with 58 yards.
Dozier finished with 57 rushing yards and Alfred Anderson 53 for the Vikings.# By Mike Nadel
MINNEAPOLIS (AP; 9.13.1987) - Joey Browner said Monday that he has an agreement with Minnesota Vikings Coach Jerry Burns that he will not play on special teams unless his contract is improved.
Browner, who made the Pro Bowl as a special teams player two years ago and then made the NFL's all-star game again last year as a safety, missed 11 days of training camp in a contract dispute.
Saying he wanted to renegotiate his four-year, $1.375 million contract because it was signed before he became a Pro Bowler at two different spots, Browner threatened to sit out the regular-season opener.
However, Browner did play Sunday in Minnesota's 34-19 victory over the Detroit Lions and earned high marks from defensive coordinator Floyd Peters.
But he didn't play on any of the kicking teams.
"I just played strong safety," Browner said after Monday's practice. "It wasn't a request (not to play on special teams). It was just an understanding I have with Coach Burns. I'm doing what I'm paid to do. And that's play defensive back."
He said he would play on special teams in a crucial situation if Burns asked him to.
"If a game came down to one play and it was a special teams play, I would do it," said Browner, who made a name for himself in the NFL for the aggressive way he covered punts.
He said that contract talks haven't gone well. Vikings General Manager Mike Lynn steadfastly refuses to renegotiate contracts.
Burns didn't want to talk about the situation.
"There's no problem between me and Joey Browner relative to special teams," said the second-year coach, who is popular with most players including Browner. "That's all I'm going to say. Period."
He did add, however, that there are other Vikings who don't play on special teams. He also said that the coaching staff had talked in the offseason about lightening Browner's playing load _ even before the contract dispute began.
"Joey Browner is extremely critical to our defense and I would like to keep him as fresh as I can possibly keep him," Burns said. "If I can keep him fresh and ... keep his involvement in other areas minimal, it would make him a better player. I recognize that he's an excellent special teams player. But you can't take him out there and wear him out."
Neither Burns nor Browner worried about dissension on the team should a punt be returned for a touchdown while Browner was not in the game.
"They're paying other guys just like they're paying me," said Browner, whose spot on the punt coverage team has been taken by rookie Reggie Rutland.
"He's a team player in my book," Burns said. "Maybe we should have (quarterbacks Tommy Kramer and Wade Wilson) cover punts to alleviate any controversy."
Speaking of quarterbacks, Kramer threw lightly during the workout but said he is still far from ready to play unless the Vikings absolutely need him. Kramer, who has a pinched nerve in his neck, watched from the sideline Sunday as Wilson passed for 248 yards and three touchdowns against Detroit.
Kramer said he didn't know if he would feel any better by next Sunday, when the Vikings meet the Los Angeles Rams.
Running back Darrin Nelson, who missed the opener with a knee injury, said he felt better and might be back by Sunday. Cornerback Ike Holt is still doubtful.
Nelson's replacement, top draft choice D.J. Dozier, got a game ball for his performance against the Lions - 12 carries for 57 yards and a touchdown and another touchdown receiving. No. 3 draft choice Henry Thomas, the nose tackle, also received a game ball. Trainer Fred Zamberletti, who has been with the team since its inception in 1961, said he doubted whether two rookies have ever been so honored for one game.# By Mike Nadel
Notes:
Dan Barreiro, and Staff Writer. 1987. Today is D-day for Wilson :[METRO Edition]. Star Tribune, September 13, http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed July 1, 2010).
Mike Nadel. 1987. Sunday, AM cycle, Sports News. Associated Press, September 13.
Mike Nadel. 1987. Monday, AM cycle, Sports News. Associated Press, September 14.
