FOR THE BRIEFEST of moments, the Minnesota Vikings‘ 2003 draft room swelled with bliss. A frenzied attempt to business their Incorrect. 7 total select had apparently concluded with a last-minute offer. Rob Brzezinski, the Vikings vice chairman of soccer operations on the while, had reported the phrases to the NFL’s draft desk in Pristine York with 32 seconds extra of their 15-minute while allotment. The Vikings would change selections with the Baltimore Ravens at Incorrect. 10 in trade for the Ravens’ fourth- and sixth-round draft picks.
Brzezinski, tutor Mike Tice and the remains of management sat again to look at the Ravens assemble their variety, all of the pace hoping their very own goal — Oklahoma Environment defensive take on Kevin Williams — remained at the board thru Incorrect. 10. Inside of seconds, they spotted one thing ordinary: The group brand at the ESPN broadcast hadn’t modified.
“We had called in the trade and we thought it was done,” Brzezinski mentioned. “We’re all sitting there in the draft room, just watching on TV, and all hell broke loose.”
It turned into some of the wildest scenes in trendy NFL draft historical past. The league by no means achieved the business — for causes the league by no means absolutely defined — and the Vikings’ while expired.
Within the resulting hesitation, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers jumped forward to assemble picks earlier than the Vikings regrouped and drafted Williams at Incorrect. 9 total.
The gaffe subjected the Vikings to national embarrassment in real time. ESPN anchor Chris Berman buried his face in his arms at the reside broadcast and previous tutor Dennis Inexperienced, a part of the printed group, ridiculed them. A draft birthday party community again in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, of just about 5,000 fanatics booed Tice when he arrived to handle them. Within the next months, the NFL quietly labored to enforce a sequence of protocol adjustments to assure it might by no means occur once more.
As humorous as it will were to the people, the episode trim deeply at the nation concerned. Two decades nearest, they may be able to expose a fuller tale of the way the misstep opened up and why. It comes to tens of millions of bucks, an unanswered telephone and a senior citizen hurling profanities at a 6-foot-8 head tutor.
Later-owner Purple McCombs blamed the Vikings’ entrance place of work for a disorganized draft procedure. However in detached interviews this spring, Brzezinski and Tice disclosed a the most important reality: McCombs had demanded a business unwell earlier than the draft began, including a singular stage of power to the cases. Brzezinski, lately the Vikings’ govt vice chairman of soccer operations, declined to take a position on why. Tice, who retired from training in 2018, mentioned the rationale used to be obvious to any person who understood the group’s cash-strapped place on the while.
“We were left to assume the obvious,” Tice mentioned, “which was the difference in the contract at [a lower spot in the draft].”
McCombs died in February at presen 95. Tice mentioned he didn’t wish to discuss unwell of the previous proprietor, and Brzezinski emphasised “this is not to absolve ourselves from responsibility, make excuses or blame others.” However it’s sunny that with out the mandate, the Vikings would have decided on Williams at Incorrect. 7 in lieu than store pushing for a susceptible business with a spouse that used to be lukewarm at ideal. Williams’ signing bonus unloved used to be about $3 million much less at Incorrect. 9 than it could were at Incorrect. 7, in line with the NFL’s rookie pay scale on the while.
“Ultimately, Red got what he wanted,” a Vikings worker from that occasion mentioned. “He got Kevin Williams at a cheaper price — but we all got embarrassed.”
ONE OF THE maximum usual misconceptions of NFL draft lore is the Vikings overlooked their select two years in a row. Actually, it used to be the Dallas Cowboys whose while expired in 2002 at Incorrect. 6 total. The Vikings’ mistake that 12 months used to be now not being fast enough quantity to leap forward of the Cowboys in sequence from their spot at Incorrect. 7.
That 12 months, Tice had said publicly the Vikings sought after to draft North Carolina defensive lineman Ryan Sims. The Kansas City Chiefs additionally coveted Sims and had been finishing a business with the Cowboys to get Sims at Incorrect. 6 when while expired.
In the ones days, the NFL held its drafts in Pristine York Town, both at Madison Sq. Grassland or Radio Town Track Corridor. Groups decided on avid gamers via educating an on-site consultant to jot down the identify on a card and ship it to an NFL authentic alike the level. Upon figuring out the Cowboys’ while had expired, the Vikings attempted to get their card to the level first, however the Chiefs’ consultant beat him to the stage, consistent with then-Chiefs president Carl Peterson.
The Vikings drafted Miami left take on Bryant McKinnie rather. Nearest the draft, McCombs reorganized the group’s entrance place of work, placing Brzezinski and director of school scouting Scott Studwell in command of the draft, forward of vice chairman of participant workforce Frank Gilliam, with Tice keeping up an important resonance.
In 2003, the Vikings had been motivated to store their draft plans a unrevealed. Following his dominant efficiency within the Senior Bowl, the Vikings’ management group — Brzezinski, Tice and Studwell — affirmative Williams can be their lead goal at Incorrect. 7. Later, they was at admirable lengths to reduce their possibilities of a repeat of 2002.
“I didn’t talk to the Vikings one bit,” Williams mentioned not too long ago from his house in Arkansas. “I was thinking I would get drafted in the top 15, but I didn’t know where.”
If all went neatly, the Vikings’ stealth plan would internet them a probability they coveted greater than any alternative. Later, at the morning of the 1st around, a knock got here from out of doors the draft room door.
McCOMBS HAD PURCHASED the Vikings in 1998 for $206 million. 3 years into his tenure, he grew pissed off with the restricted native revenues he won from taking part in house video games on the Metrodome, which had restricted inventories of the type of membership seats and comfort subjects that pressure stadium earnings. Environment govt officers had made sunny they wouldn’t assistance substitute the stadium till next the group’s rent expired in 2011.
In a 2001 interview with the Big name Tribune of Minneapolis, McCombs mentioned he had coated earnings shortfalls for 2 consecutive seasons and would now not proceed. Requested if that call would have an effect on soccer budgets, he mentioned: “I think we’re into that mode now. I think it would be obvious that it would.”
Indicators of that finances reducing had been all over the place via 2002, when McCombs fired Inexperienced and changed him with Tice, the group’s offensive sequence tutor who affirmative to transform the lowest-paid tutor within the NFL. The payroll for colleague coaches used to be additionally the NFL’s lowest, Tice mentioned on the while. McCombs didn’t rent a normal supervisor next Inexperienced departed, and earlier than the tip of the 12 months, McCombs suggested his bankers at JP Morgan Chase to solicit acquire offer for the franchise.
That used to be the backdrop for the 2003 debacle. As Tice recalls it, Vikings president Gary Timbers pulled the group’s lead officers from the draft room right into a hallway to tell them of McCombs’ mandate. No person used to be stunned.
“We figured that was par for the course,” Tice mentioned. “There might have been some humming a few days before that we were going to get ‘nudged’ to trade the pick, if you will. But I do know that in the morning, right at the time when the draft started, we were told to trade the pick.”
Timbers, who extra an officer of McCombs Enterprises in San Antonio, didn’t go back a couple of telephone yelps and emails.
Brzezinski started running the telephones however discovered reasonably sunny hobby for the Incorrect. 7 spot. ESPN reported on the while that the Vikings spoke with each the Jaguars and the New England Patriots, however the Ravens had been all the time the likeliest goal, given their presumed hobby in drafting Marshall quarterback Byron Leftwich, who used to be thought to be the second-best quarterback within the draft next USC’s Carson Palmer. Brzezinski stored pushing, however the Ravens’ ideal trade in — fourth- and sixth-rounders — used to be an important loss at the Jimmy Johnson trade value chart, a customery software on the while.
The associated fee for risking the lack of a coveted participant must were a lot upper. In the long run, regardless that, the Vikings had refuse selection. They reported the offer via telephone to Joel Bussert, the NFL’s vice chairman of participant workforce, and assumed the Ravens had been doing the similar.
They by no means did. In keeping with the Ravens, their name to Bussert went unanswered.
“The deal was not consummated,” normal supervisor Ozzie Newsome mentioned on the while. “A deal is not a deal until I talk to Joel Bussert, and I never talked to Joel Bussert.”
Newsome repeated that clarification to Brzezinski all over a next telephone name.
“Ozzie said he couldn’t get through,” Brzezinski mentioned. Newsome, who stepped unwell as GM in 2018 however is now the Ravens’ govt vice chairman, declined to remark.
Requested if he believed the Ravens’ account, Tice mentioned: “Probably not 100% in belief of it. But it is what it is. It’s what we were told, and how are you going to say that’s B.S.? We just moved on.”
Bussert, who retired in 2015, declined to remark thru an NFL spokesman.
“It had never happened in history,” Brzezinski mentioned, “but it could have been a malfunction with the league in their process.”
Within the resulting moments, on the other hand, the Jaguars (Incorrect. 8) and Panthers (Incorrect. 9) sprang into motion.
Probably the most jobs of the onsite group consultant used to be to look at the authentic draft clock, which isn’t visual to groups of their draft rooms. Jaguars video director Mike Perkins used to be in Pristine York and started alerting group officers when the Vikings’ while allotment used to be unwell to twenty seconds.
“Minnesota’s table was right to my left, like 5 feet from me,” mentioned Perkins, now the Jaguars’ senior director of soccer generation. “And I’m looking at them and they don’t have a card filled out.”
Perkins prompt his superiors in Jacksonville to provide him a reputation he may just put up if the Vikings’ while expired.
“[They said], ‘OK fill this card out: Byron Leftwich,'” he mentioned.
Jackie Miles, upcoming the Panthers’ apparatus supervisor, were looking at each the clock and Bussert from his perch in Pristine York.
“When it got down to about two minutes,” Miles mentioned, “I’m telling our people back in the war room. They asked if there was any activity at the [NFL] table. I’m watching the trade phone. … They weren’t picking up the phone. Minnesota wasn’t doing anything at their table. There was no activity. I said, ‘Guys, get something ready for me.'”
Seconds next the Jaguars drafted Leftwich, the Panthers grew to become of their card for Utah offensive take on Jordan Gross. Within the intervening time, the Vikings had urgently suggested Leo Lewis, their director of participant building, to hurry a card with Williams’ identify on it. They were given Williams at Incorrect. 9, simply earlier than the Ravens decided on Arizona Environment linebacker Terrell Suggs.
Williams used to be blind to the layout of occasions. He used to be attending a cookout in Arkansas, looking forward to his telephone to ring, when his brother’s female friend spotted his identify at the broadcast. That used to be the 1st signal of hassle.
“Usually they call you before the pick is announced to let you know,” Williams mentioned. “I found out later that it had been a debacle, but honestly, I never even cared to ask Tice or Studwell or anyone about it. It never mattered to me. If I was drafted ninth overall or No. 7 or whatever you want to call it, I wanted to do my job. I thought I was good enough. I wanted to show it and be all I could be for the Minnesota Vikings.”
When it used to be over, the Vikings’ draft room break out into party, Tice mentioned.
“Our biggest fear was that somehow we would lose Kevin Williams,” Tice mentioned. “He was our guy. We were in celebratory mood when we got Kevin. Believe me.”
And upcoming, Tice emerged from the draft room. He walked to the group’s indoor facility to handle what he assumed can be a pleasant community, one that might percentage within the party.
He used to be incorrect.
THE PARTY WAS hosted via two contributors of the Vikings’ radio group on the while, play-by-play announcer Paul Allen and analyst Mike Morris. Ignorant of the Vikings’ hobby in Williams, Allen were important the community in much appreciated for Suggs all over the hours important as much as the Vikings’ select.
“I think partially because of the Suggs stuff we got going,” Allen mentioned, “and also because of the fact that people were confused and some were inebriated and had no idea what happened, they just booed the whole situation vociferously. Then Mike Tice came 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 at the level.
“She was standing right there m-fing me, man,” Tice mentioned. “I’m getting heckled and yelled at by Granny Smith.”
Addressing her and seeking to be heard over the din, Tice mentioned, “OK, OK. Calm down.” KFAN-100.3 FM, the Vikings’ flagship station, nonetheless makes use of that pitch chew as a little on its day-to-day communicate displays.
“I’m getting heckled and yelled at by Granny Smith.”
Vikings tutor Mike Tice
“It’s funny — now,” Tice mentioned, however Allen recalls pondering Tice used to be deeply harm within the life.
“I don’t have any confirmation on this,” Allen mentioned, “but in knowing Mike as well as I do and as long as I have, Mike genuinely cared about public opinion. He cared about what the public said, positively and negatively. I’d have to believe the experience he had with those boos and that lady cussing at him probably stuck with him for quite some time.”
Some proof: For his ultimate two drafts all over his tenure as head tutor, Tice invited Allen into his place of work earlier than the draft to percentage main points of the group’s draft board.
“He would say, ‘So we don’t have any Suggs chants, here’s how our board lays out in the first 20, and don’t tell anybody,” Allen mentioned. “So there was serendipity for me. We knew who the Vikings wanted to pick, and it helped us shape the environment [during draft parties].”
It used to be additionally a lucky life for the Vikings. Despite the fact that the overlooked select by no means afflicted Williams, he discovered the Suggs chants insulting.
“That kind of stuck with me,” Williams mentioned. “It was one of those, ‘I’ll show you’ type of deals. I found motivation in it. I was out to prove I was one of the best players in the draft anyway, and it only added more self-motivation.”
SUGGS WENT ON to a most likely Corridor of Reputation occupation, recording 139 sacks in 16 seasons. However Williams joined him on a decrease checklist of the most efficient avid gamers of the 2003 draft. He recorded 10.5 sacks as a rookie, earned All-Professional honors 5 occasions, used to be named to 6 Professional Bowl groups and used to be inducted into the Vikings’ Ring of Honor in 2021.
“I think at the end of the day, Minnesota still got the better end of the stick, in my opinion,” Williams mentioned. “If I turned out to be an inadequate player, I think everybody would still be talking about it.”
Mentioned Tice: “I bet you no one is heckling that pick now.”
The Vikings additionally took solace in the truth that each Williams and McKinnie, their fallback select in 2002, had been starters at the 2009 group that performed within the NFC Championship Recreation. And regardless of the first-round fiasco, the 2003 draft elegance used to be almost definitely the Vikings’ ideal of the last decade. All seven avid gamers gave the impression in video games as newcomers. 2nd-round select E.J. Henderson began 105 video games over 9 seasons at heart linebacker. 3rd-round receiver Nate Burleson produced a 1,000-yard season in 2004 and went directly to an 11-year occupation.
The Vikings sought however by no means won a complete reaction from the NFL in regards to the telephone sequence, Brzezinski mentioned. However Bussert showed thru an NFL spokesman that starting in 2004, the league added a couple of telephones and extra staffing to its soccer operations desk on the draft, adjustments that looked as if it would deal with the Ravens’ clarification. This present day, groups put up their alternatives electronically thru league tool.
Can a fuller eager of info adjust the talk’s template?
“It was embarrassing, but I think what’s most important is that we got the guy that we wanted,” Brzezinski mentioned. “I’m really proud of our scouts and coaches for identifying Kevin. He’s in our Ring of Honor and is potentially a Hall of Fame player. We ended up achieving the goal that we wanted to achieve. But could we have done it without the embarrassment and the circus? Of course.”
ESPN’s Michael DiRocco and David Newton contributed to this record.
