"Honestly," [coach Mike] Tice said afterwards, "we were a 3-10 team. What did you have to lose? let's go for the win. Why not?"
On third down, [Daunte] Culpepper threw toward [Randy] Moss for the fourth time in five plays ... "A sandlot play," Tice said ... Culpepper found Moss between defenders Dale Carter and Sammy Knight for the touchdown and Tice immediately held up two fingers ... Culpepper, showing poise and savvy rarely displayed in his four-year career, barked dummy route calls ... Culpepper dropped Birk's snap and bobbled the ball twice on the ground before picking it up and diving into the end zone.
Columnist Patrick Reusse: The view that Mike Tice had become an NFL head coach before his time had gained momentum in the previous two weeks ... his cartoonish behavior following the loss to Atlanta, when he attempted to claim the officials had given him permission to run a trick play from an illegal formation [and] followed by the amateur antics last week after the Green Bay loss calling his complaining about officials "loser's lament." Now, Tice the Overmatched was going for is third giant swing-and-miss in three weeks. Suddenly ... the crowd snapped to attention. An excited murmur went through the [Superdome's] huge expanse. The change in tone of that murmur was perceptible, as the Saints' partisans went from one thought ("What's dat fool coach doin'?") to the next ("If dey make it, da Saints lost to da dog-breathed Vikings").
Tice made the right decision because he had the right play - one for which no diagram to flash at the officials was required.
From reporter Kent Youngblood: Around the Vikings locker room players were saying the same thing in different ways. Tight end Byron Chamberlain: "I remember telling the offensive linemen this was for the championship of the world. Matt Birk: "We talked about 'don't be denied.' It was kind of like, enough's enough." Guard Corbin Lacina, perhaps, put it best: Losing? Not an option. "It was, 'To hell with this.'"
It wasn't the championship of the free world, and to be honest the Vikings came a play or two away from being denied. But in the end, they weren't ... "I had to go to my money guy," Culpepper said. "In the clutch, you have to go to the money guy."
