FOR THE BRIEFEST of moments, the Minnesota Vikings’ 2003 draft room swelled with aid. A frenzied effort to commerce their No. 7 choose had seemingly concluded with a last-minute deal. Rob Brzezinski, Minnesota’s vp of soccer operations on the time, had reported the phrases to the NFL’s draft desk in New York with 32 seconds remaining of their 15-minute time allotment. The Vikings would swap picks with the Baltimore Ravens at No. 10 in trade for the Ravens’ fourth- and sixth-round draft choices.
Brzezinski, coach Mike Tice and the remainder of management sat again to look at the Ravens make their choice, all of the whereas hoping their very own goal — Oklahoma State defensive sort out Kevin Williams — remained on the board by way of No. 10. Inside seconds, they observed one thing unusual: The workforce emblem on the ESPN broadcast hadn’t modified.
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“We had referred to as within the commerce, and we thought it was performed,” Brzezinski mentioned. “We’re all sitting there within the draft room, simply watching on TV, and all hell broke unfastened.”
It turned one of many wildest scenes in fashionable NFL draft historical past. The league by no means executed the commerce — for causes the league by no means totally defined — and the Vikings’ time expired.
Within the ensuing confusion, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers jumped forward to make choices earlier than the Vikings regrouped and drafted Williams at No. 9.
The gaffe subjected the Vikings to nationwide embarrassment in actual time. ESPN anchor Chris Berman buried his face in his palms on the dwell broadcast, and former coach Dennis Inexperienced, a part of the published workforce, ridiculed them. A draft occasion crowd again in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, of almost 5,000 followers booed Tice when he arrived to handle them. Within the subsequent months, the NFL quietly labored to implement a sequence of protocol modifications to make sure it might by no means occur once more.
As humorous because it may need been to the general public, the episode minimize deeply on the folks concerned. Twenty years later, they will reveal a fuller story of how the misstep unfolded and why. It includes hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, an unanswered telephone and a senior citizen hurling profanities at a 6-foot-8 head coach.
Then-owner Crimson McCombs blamed the Vikings’ entrance workplace for a disorganized draft course of. However in separate interviews this spring, Brzezinski and Tice disclosed a vital reality: McCombs had demanded a commerce down earlier than the draft began, including a singular degree of stress to the circumstances. Brzezinski, at the moment the Vikings’ government vp of soccer operations, declined to invest on why. Tice, who retired from teaching in 2018, mentioned the rationale was obvious to anybody who understood the workforce’s cash-strapped place on the time.
“We had been left to imagine the apparent,” Tice mentioned, “which was the distinction within the contract at [a lower spot in the draft].”
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McCombs died in February at age 95. Tice mentioned he didn’t need to communicate unwell of the previous proprietor, and Brzezinski emphasised “this isn’t to absolve ourselves from accountability, make excuses or blame others.” Nevertheless it’s clear that with out the mandate, the Vikings would have chosen Williams at No. 7 fairly than maintain pushing for a weak commerce with a accomplice that was lukewarm at greatest. Williams’ signing bonus alone was about $3 million much less at No. 9 than it will have been at No. 7, based mostly on the NFL’s rookie pay scale on the time.
“In the end, Crimson obtained what he wished,” a Vikings worker from that period mentioned. “He obtained Kevin Williams at a less expensive value — however all of us obtained embarrassed.”
ONE OF THE commonest misconceptions of NFL draft lore is that the Vikings missed their choose two years in a row. In truth, it was the Dallas Cowboys whose time expired in 2002 at No. 6. The Vikings’ mistake that 12 months was not being fast sufficient to leap forward of the Cowboys in line from their spot at No. 7.
That 12 months, Tice had acknowledged publicly that the Vikings wished to draft North Carolina defensive lineman Ryan Sims. The Kansas Metropolis Chiefs additionally coveted Sims and had been finishing a commerce with the Cowboys to get Sims at No. 6 when time expired.
In these days, the NFL held its drafts in New York Metropolis, at Madison Sq. Backyard or Radio Metropolis Music Corridor. Groups chosen gamers by instructing an on-site consultant to put in writing the identify on a card and ship it to an NFL official close to the stage. Upon realizing the Cowboys’ time had expired, the Vikings tried to get their card to the stage first, however the Chiefs’ consultant beat him to the stage, in line with then-Chiefs president Carl Peterson.
The Vikings drafted Miami left sort out Bryant McKinnie as an alternative. After the draft, McCombs reorganized the workforce’s entrance workplace, placing Brzezinski and director of school scouting Scott Studwell in command of the draft, forward of vp of participant personnel Frank Gilliam, with Tice sustaining a big voice.
In 2003, the Vikings had been decided to maintain their draft plans a secret. After Williams’ dominant efficiency within the Senior Bowl, the Vikings’ management workforce — Brzezinski, Tice and Studwell — agreed he could be their prime goal at No. 7. Then they went to nice lengths to attenuate their possibilities of a repeat of 2002.
“I did not speak to the Vikings one bit,” Williams mentioned just lately from his dwelling in Arkansas. “I used to be considering I might get drafted within the prime 15, however I did not know the place.”
If all went properly, the Vikings’ stealth plan would internet them a prospect they coveted greater than every other. Then, on the morning of the primary spherical, a knock got here from exterior the draft room door.
McCOMBS HAD PURCHASED the Vikings in 1998 for $206 million. Three years into his tenure, he grew annoyed with the restricted native revenues he obtained from taking part in dwelling video games on the Metrodome, which had restricted inventories of the sort of membership seats and luxurious packing containers that drive stadium income. State authorities officers had made clear they would not assist substitute the stadium till after the workforce’s lease expired in 2011.
In a 2001 interview with the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, McCombs mentioned he had lined income shortfalls for 2 consecutive seasons and wouldn’t proceed. Requested whether or not that call would affect soccer budgets, he mentioned: “I believe we’re into that mode now. I believe it will be apparent that it will.”
Indicators of that funds reducing had been in all places by 2002, when McCombs fired Inexperienced and changed him with Tice, the workforce’s offensive line coach, who agreed to turn into the lowest-paid coach within the NFL. The payroll for assistant coaches was additionally the NFL’s lowest, Tice mentioned on the time. McCombs didn’t rent a basic supervisor after Inexperienced departed, and earlier than the top of the 12 months, McCombs instructed his bankers at JP Morgan Chase to solicit buy provides for the franchise.
That was the backdrop for the 2003 debacle. As Tice remembers it, Vikings president Gary Woods pulled the workforce’s prime officers from the draft room right into a hallway to tell them of McCombs’ mandate. Nobody was stunned.
“We figured that was par for the course,” Tice mentioned. “There may need been some buzzing a number of days earlier than that we had been going to get ‘nudged’ to commerce the choose, if you’ll. However I do know that within the morning, proper on the time when the draft began, we had been instructed to commerce the choose.”
Woods, who stays an officer of McCombs Enterprises in San Antonio, didn’t return a number of telephone calls and emails.
Brzezinski started working the telephones however discovered comparatively mild curiosity for the No. 7 spot. ESPN reported on the time that the Vikings spoke with the Jaguars and the New England Patriots, however the Ravens had been all the time the likeliest goal, given their presumed curiosity in drafting Marshall quarterback Byron Leftwich, who was thought of the second-best quarterback within the draft after USC’s Carson Palmer. Brzezinski saved pushing, however the Ravens’ greatest provide — fourth- and sixth-rounders — was a big loss on the Jimmy Johnson commerce worth chart, a well-liked instrument on the time.
The value for risking the lack of a coveted participant ought to have been a lot increased. In the end, although, the Vikings had no selection. They reported the deal by telephone to Joel Bussert, the NFL’s vp of participant personnel, and assumed the Ravens had been doing the identical.
They by no means did. In accordance with the Ravens, their name to Bussert went unanswered.
“The deal was not consummated,” basic supervisor Ozzie Newsome mentioned on the time. “A deal shouldn’t be a deal till I speak to Joel Bussert, and I by no means talked to Joel Bussert.”
Newsome repeated that rationalization to Brzezinski throughout a subsequent telephone name.
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Flashback: Vikings’ delay shakes up 1st spherical of 2003 draft
Through the 2003 NFL draft, the Vikings initially missed their probability to draft within the first spherical, permitting the Jaguars and Panthers to make choices earlier than Minnesota made one.
“Ozzie mentioned he could not get by way of,” Brzezinski mentioned. Newsome, who stepped down as GM in 2018 however is now the Ravens’ government vp, declined to remark.
Requested whether or not he believed the Ravens’ account, Tice mentioned: “Most likely not 100% in perception of it. However it’s what it’s. It is what we had been instructed, and the way are you going to say that is B.S.? We simply moved on.”
Bussert, who retired in 2015, declined to remark by way of an NFL spokesperson.
“It had by no means occurred in historical past,” Brzezinski mentioned, “but it surely might have been a malfunction with the league of their course of.”
Within the ensuing moments, nevertheless, the Jaguars (No. 8) and Panthers (No. 9) sprang into motion.
One of many jobs of the onsite workforce consultant was to look at the official draft clock, which isn’t seen to groups of their draft rooms. Jaguars video director Mike Perkins was in New York and commenced alerting workforce officers when the Vikings’ time allotment was down to twenty seconds.
“Minnesota’s desk was proper to my left, like 5 toes from me,” mentioned Perkins, now the Jaguars’ senior director of soccer know-how. “And I am them they usually do not have a card crammed out.”
Perkins urged his superiors in Jacksonville to provide him a reputation he might submit if the Vikings’ time expired.
“[They said], ‘OK, fill this card out: Byron Leftwich,'” he mentioned.
Jackie Miles, then the Panthers’ tools supervisor, had been watching each the clock and Bussert from his perch in New York.
“When it obtained all the way down to about two minutes,” Miles mentioned, “I am telling our folks again within the battle room. They requested if there was any exercise on the [NFL] desk. I am watching the commerce telephone. … They weren’t selecting up the telephone. Minnesota wasn’t doing something at their desk. There was no exercise. I mentioned, ‘Guys, get one thing prepared for me.'”
Seconds after the Jaguars drafted Leftwich, the Panthers turned of their card for Utah offensive sort out Jordan Gross. Within the meantime, the Vikings had urgently instructed Leo Lewis, their director of participant improvement, to hurry a card with Williams’ identify on it. They obtained Williams at No. 9, simply earlier than the Ravens chosen Arizona State linebacker Terrell Suggs.
Williams was unaware of the sequence of occasions. He was attending a cookout in Arkansas, ready for his telephone to ring, when his brother’s girlfriend observed his identify on the published. That was the primary signal of bother.
“Normally they name you earlier than the choose is introduced to let you recognize,” Williams mentioned. “I came upon later that it had been a debacle, however actually, I by no means even cared to ask Tice or Studwell or anybody about it. It by no means mattered to me. If I used to be drafted ninth general or No. 7 or no matter you need to name it, I wished to do my job. I assumed I used to be ok. I wished to point out it and be all I might be for the Minnesota Vikings.”
When it was over, the Vikings’ draft room burst into celebration, Tice mentioned.
“Our greatest worry was that one way or the other we might lose Kevin Williams,” Tice mentioned. “He was our man. We had been in celebratory temper after we obtained Kevin. Consider me.”
After which, Tice emerged from the draft room. He walked to the workforce’s indoor facility to handle what he assumed could be a pleasant crowd, one that might share within the celebration.
He was mistaken.
THE PARTY WAS hosted by two members of the Vikings’ radio workforce on the time, play-by-play announcer Paul Allen and analyst Mike Morris. Unaware of the Vikings’ curiosity in Williams, Allen had been main the gang in cheers for Suggs throughout the hours main as much as the Vikings’ choose.
“I believe partially due to the Suggs stuff we obtained going,” Allen mentioned, “and likewise due to the truth that folks had been confused and a few had been inebriated and had no thought what occurred, they only booed the entire state of affairs vociferously. Then Mike Tice got here out and he was going to be interviewed by me and [Morris.]”
As Tice arrived, his 6-foot-8 body decked out in a pinstriped swimsuit, a lady approached him on the stage.
“She was standing proper there MF-ing me, man,” Tice mentioned. “I am getting heckled and yelled at by Granny Smith.”
Addressing her and making an attempt to be heard over the din, Tice mentioned, “OK, OK. Relax.” KFAN-100.3 FM, the Vikings’ flagship station, nonetheless makes use of that sound chew as a bit on its each day speak reveals.
“I am getting heckled and yelled at by Granny Smith.”
Vikings coach Mike Tice
“It is humorous — now,” Tice mentioned, however Allen remembers considering Tice was deeply damage within the second.
“I haven’t got any affirmation on this,” Allen mentioned, “however in understanding Mike in addition to I do and so long as I’ve, Mike genuinely cared about public opinion. He cared about what the general public mentioned, positively and negatively. I might should imagine the expertise he had with these boos and that woman cussing at him in all probability caught with him for fairly a while.”
Some proof: For his ultimate two drafts throughout his tenure as head coach, Tice invited Allen into his workplace earlier than the draft to share particulars of the workforce’s draft board.
“He would say, ‘So we have no Suggs chants, here is how our board lays out within the first 20, and do not inform anyone,” Allen mentioned. “So there was serendipity for me. We knew who the Vikings wished to select, and it helped us form the setting [during draft parties].”
It was additionally a lucky second for the Vikings. Though the missed choose by no means bothered Williams, he discovered the Suggs chants insulting.
“That sort of caught with me,” Williams mentioned. “It was a kind of, ‘I will present you’ kind of offers. I discovered motivation in it. I used to be out to show I used to be among the finest gamers within the draft anyway, and it solely added extra self-motivation.”
SUGGS WENT ON to a possible Corridor of Fame profession, recording 139 sacks in 16 seasons. However Williams joined him on a brief record of the most effective gamers of the 2003 draft. He recorded 10.5 sacks as a rookie, earned All-Professional honors 5 instances, was named to 6 Professional Bowl groups and was inducted into the Vikings’ Ring of Honor in 2021.
“I believe on the finish of the day, Minnesota nonetheless obtained the higher finish of the stick, in my view,” Williams mentioned. “If I turned out to be an insufficient participant, I believe everyone would nonetheless be speaking about it.”
Mentioned Tice: “I wager you nobody is heckling that choose now.”
The Vikings additionally took solace in the truth that each Williams and McKinnie, their fallback choose in 2002, had been starters on the 2009 workforce that performed within the NFC Championship Recreation. And regardless of the first-round fiasco, the 2003 draft class was in all probability the Vikings’ better of the last decade. All seven gamers appeared in video games as rookies. Second-round choose E.J. Henderson began 105 video games over 9 seasons at center linebacker. Third-round receiver Nate Burleson produced a 1,000-yard season in 2004 and went on to an 11-year profession.
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The Vikings sought however by no means obtained a complete response from the NFL in regards to the telephone line, Brzezinski mentioned. However Bussert confirmed by way of an NFL spokesperson that, starting in 2004, the league added a number of telephones and extra staffing to its soccer operations desk on the draft, modifications that appeared to handle the Ravens’ rationalization. As of late, groups submit their decisions electronically by way of league software program.
Can a fuller set of info alter the controversy’s template?
“It was embarrassing, however I believe what’s most essential is that we obtained the man that we wished,” Brzezinski mentioned. “I am actually happy with our scouts and coaches for figuring out Kevin. He is in our Ring of Honor and is doubtlessly a Corridor of Fame participant. We ended up reaching the objective that we wished to attain. However might now we have performed it with out the embarrassment and the circus? After all.”
ESPN’s Michael DiRocco and David Newton contributed to this report.
