As soon as Kerry Collins showed he wouldn’t beat himself, the outcome was predictable. This NFC Championship game quickly turned into an exaggerated example of what happens to Dennis Green teams in the playoffs. He builds Ferraris without brakes or bumpers. The gas tank is small but flammable.
Especially on the road, Green’s teams flash, crash and trash each other. Through the regular season, the made-for-MTV offense always overshadows and overrides one of the league’s leakiest defenses. Then, without its Thunderdome crowd jamming communications for the opposing offense, that defense gets exposed like the blokes in “The Full Monty.”
Minnesota falls behind quickly. Its front-runner’s offense loses interest. This time the Vikings called it quits after the first quarter. Collins already had thrown for 187 yards. Yes, this Comedy Channel defense had done the near impossible, turning Kerry Collins into Joe Namath.
The rest of a long, dull afternoon–unless you were a Giants fan–was all about stat-padding against pass defenders who don’t belong on any NFL roster. The numbers are as staggering as they are fraudulent. They deserve an asterisk: Against Vikings in playoffs.
Giants, 518 yards to 114, 42:22 of clock to 17:38, 41 points to none. Yes, the same Giants whose 13th-ranked NFL offense managed only 14 points in beating the Bears.
Vintage Green. Another Denny’s defense. The pattern began in the 1994 playoffs when the Bears’ Steve Walsh beat the Vikings 35-18 in Minnesota. In subsequent postseason losses Green’s teams gave up 40 to Dallas, 38 to San Francisco, 30 to Atlanta and 49 last year to St. Louis.
Green has won more regular-season games than any active NFL coach because he is the master of offensive illusion. A Las Vegas source said more money was bet on the Vikings–2 1/2-point favorites–than on any game this season. When the weather turned unseasonably warm and calm, bettors figured it favored Minnesota’s bomb squad.
Stars get in your eyes. Defense gets in your Super Bowl.
Green’s rare eye for rare firepower–he saw Randy Moss and Daunte Culpepper before anyone else did–becomes a blind spot on defense. He’s 4-8 in the playoffs because he forever fails to address his defensive deficiencies during off-seasons.
The Vikings can’t rush the passer. Culpepper rarely had a N.Y. second to let his many downfield routes develop. This home-run offense is also made for the regular season. Think Ravens coach Brian Billick misses being the “genius” who called plays for the Vikings?
All of the above is why Moss stunned reporters by saying Minnesota “will never win a Super Bowl” and that he probably won’t be a Viking in “a couple of years.” His wounded pride or greed might have been speaking. He wants to renegotiate a contract that has one year left. If he does, he had better leave some cap room for defensive help.
This was a team that signed washed-up cornerback Cris Dishman just before the season opener and put him in the lineup. This was a team that ended up in the conference title game with defensive backs named Wasswa Serwanga (a Bears reject), Keith Thibodeaux, Don Morgan and Tyrone Carter, who couldn’t cover the moss that grows. The Vikings were missing the injured Orlando Thomas and Kenny Wright, but neither should be confused with a difference-maker like the Giants’ Jason Sehorn.
“Sit and watch” was the way Giants receiver Ike Hilliard described the Vikings’ coverage. Coordinator Sean Payton took one look at the tapes–Minnesota ranked 28th on defense, allowing 356.3 yards a shootout–and told Collins he would throw more passes than Culpepper.
Yes, the same Collins who let alcohol abuse and racist accusations ruin him in Carolina and wound up auditioning for the Bears midway through Dave Wannstedt’s final season. Wannstedt and Mark Hatley didn’t like what they saw. I didn’t blame them.
But should Collins’ record-setting day be such a shock? Cade McNown’s offense rolled up 425 yards at Minnesota on opening day. As the Vikings’ Robert Griffith said after Sunday’s surrender: “Who’d have thought we’d ever be in the championship game?”
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Green deserved some coach-of-the-year consideration for going 11-5 with this defense and a QB who had never taken an NFL snap. He deserves the blame for building defective scoring machines doomed to lose big in the playoffs.