Judging the Star Tribune’s Minnesota Vikings’ All-Time Top-10 List

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I don’t want to date myself. Despite the cash I’d save on Valentines Day, being my own significant other wouldn’t be a good look. (That was a play on the two different meanings of the word “date”, in case you missed it.)

As for how old I am, with the Minnesota Vikings being founded in 1960, the organization is more than twice my elder. With the first several years of my life being almost as much of a blur as college, my memories of the Purple prior to the 1998 season are few and far between. If the topic of conversation relates to events that occurred before number 84 hit the NFL scene, I’m as uneducated as certain Philadelphia Eagles’ fans.

Well, maybe not that uneducated, but still. If I had to breakdown the Top 10 Vikings of all time, it would be a disservice to those I either never saw, or don’t remember seeing, play. Rather than crash my proverbial car while trying to navigate down that bumpy ass road, let’s dissect the results of those who already made the voyage.

Per the link in the above Tweet, 12 Star Tribune staffers ranked, in order, their top 10 Vikings of all time. With my brain telling me that’s a total of 120 selections, here’s my brain telling you how said selections break down:

This shows how many of the 12 writers voted for each player (Only 3 players received votes from every writer):

Out of the dozen participants, half had Alan Page as their top Viking of all time, while four had Fran Tarkenton. In regards to the two outliers, Jim Souhan gave his top spot to Randall McDaniel, while Michael Rand went with Carl Eller.

On top of that, as you can see, Page, Randy Moss, and Randall McDaniel were the only ones who made all of the top 10 rankings. I know I’m a novice on a the first 35+ years of Vikings history, but shouldn’t those three be joined by Fran Tarkenton and Carl Eller? What did the fans think?

That’s what I thought. The above is comprised from over 5,000 lists submitted by members of Skol Nation.

The most glaring difference between the fan’s G.O.A.T. Vikings and the Star Tribune’s version is that the fans omitted Mick Tingelhoff. On the opposite side of the fence, the HOF center made all but two of the Star Tribunes’ lists. Whoops! Our bad. It could have been worse. At least we didn’t pull a Souhan and leave out Carl Eller.

When someone completes this exercise twenty years from now, which current Vikings have the best chance of bumping Chuck Foreman from the fans top 10? Harry the Hitman? #RhodesClosed? One of our UCLA LBs?

Hell, maybe Stefon Diggs or Adam Thielen can join Moss and Cris Carter as the only WRs to make the cut. In order for that to occur, we’re going to need John DeFilippo to live up to all the hype surrounding his hiring as the Vikes’ offensive coordinator.

Johnny Minnesota @TheJohnnyMN
Minnesota Sports Fan MinnesotaSportsFan.com

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