Culpepper confident about Vikings future

By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 05/25/2005

“I think we’re taking the right steps into the right direction,” said Vikings MVP and Pro Bowl quarterback Daunte Culpepper of his team’s future during an interview last Friday, May 20. Last year, the Vikings made the playoffs for the first time in three years and won a playoff game at Green Bay. This year, they are looking for bigger things, like Minnesota’s first-ever Super Bowl Championship.

 

“We have a revamped defense,” said Culpepper. “We have guys like Pat Williams. We drafted a huge pick in the first round, defensive end Erasmus James, who I think will open up a lot of eyes.

 

“And, we have two lock-down corners in Fred Smoot and Antoine Winfield, and we have Darren Sharper and Corey Chavous back there in the back, and the linebacking core is going to be very competitive. So, I feel very good about our defense, and I’m very happy that our offense, mainly the core, is still here.

 

“Randy’s not here, but we still have guys that can make big plays. Like Nate Burleson being one, Marcus Robinson, Kelly Campbell and James Taylor. In the backfield we have five solid backs. I think as long as we keep everything in perspective and keep our eye on the prize and never feel like we’re getting ahead of ourselves, we’re going to be a good football team and win a lot of football games.”  

 

Last year, the Vikings lost tight end Jimmy Kliensasser for the entire season; he’s back now, and healthy. The off-season has been one of the most controversial ones in team history. The team has been sold by Red McCombs, awaiting NFL approval maybe as soon as this week in Washington, D.C., to a group that still includes Reggie Fowler.

Fowler’s personal legal problems with his ex-wife and subsequent divorce kept him from divulging his financial and personal wealth to the NFL, allowing partner Zygi Wilf to take the lead as majority owner or partner of the ownership group.

 

Head Coach Mike Tice is under investigation by the league for scalping Super Bowl tickets. Randy Moss, maybe the game’s greatest receiver ever with 90 touchdowns in seven years, was traded to Oakland. Running back Onterrio Smith, stopped at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport security with a fake penis, was suspended by the NFL for one year for refusing to take a mandated drug test. And 24-year employee, former player, and Director of Player Development Leo Lewis has been fired.

 

“The responsibility that I have being the quarterback of a football team in the National Football League,” says Culpepper, “[is that] sometimes things come out of left field that you don’t know anything about. But that’s my job, and I have to make sure that I come in here with the right attitude and frame of mind every day to work and get better to make myself and the guys around me better.”

 

The business of football dictated that the Vikings trade Moss. I asked Culpepper, because he and Moss are close friends and had a strong relationship as teammates, to explain where that relationship is today in view of the things that Moss expressed in last week’s Sports Illustrated story.

 

Culpepper responded, “All I can say is [that] if someone is such a good friend of yours, they would call you before they get to talking to people and saying that they thought that I was a friend. But that’s water under the bridge now. My phone number has not changed, and if somebody feels that we’re so close, then they would have called me.

 

“It’s crazy for him to say that, and I don’t have any beef with Randy. But at the same time, I have a job to do here. I’m not going to focus on the stuff with him. I’m focusing on what I have here now and what I have to do. And that’s to be a world champion. And that’s what I was born to do. I played football before I became a Viking, and I was successful. For all the people that think that I’m going to be average without Randy, I think they’re crazy. Because I’ve never been average my whole life.”

 

I asked Culpepper if he feels like there’s more on his shoulders now. “No, I don’t!” he said. “And, I really appreciate the organization for bringing in the defensive players they did, because that showed me that they want to win a championship by bringing in the defensive players and making our defense better.

 

“Because our offense is going to be good,” he said. “Because I won’t let us not be good, because I have that work ethic that I want to be the best that I can be.”