Thirty years later, Vikings can aspire to be like the 1992 team
There is one coach in Minnesota Vikings history to take over the team and reach the playoffs in his first season.
Don’t think too hard — it’s Denny Green.
The most successful coach the Vikings have had post-Bud Grant inherited a 1992 team in a similar predicament to the 2022 team, which is coming off two straight seasons without a playoff appearance.
After a conference title game appearance in 1987, the Vikings regressed under veteran coach Jerry Burns (much like the Vikings slowly faded after their 2017 conference title game). In 1990, they missed the playoffs at 6-10. In 1991, they faltered again at 8-8. Then Burns retired just before his 65th birthday, setting up a pivot point for the Vikings organization.
Faced with an aging defense and a quarterback that hadn’t shown a lot in the last two seasons, the 1992 team threw its chips into the middle and went for it. We could consider them the original “competitive rebuild,” as Kwesi Adofo-Mensah coined in March, but Dennis Green’s Vikings never truly had to hit the rebuild button. They started out as winners and hardly slowed down.
Coming close to Green’s success would be a dream for Kevin O’Connell, who is tasked with coaching up the 2022 team that also said goodbye to its 65-year-old coach after last season. Mike Zimmer’s defense aged out, the offense couldn’t quite do enough, and Zimmer’s stern approach wore thin on the roster. Zimmer was fired, whereas Burns retired.
Purple Insider spoke with longtime Vikings executive Jeff Diamond, the GM of the 1992 team, to get his take on the new culture that Green ushered in 30 years ago. While some of the dynamics of that time match up with the Vikings’ current changing of the guard — old coach to younger coach, talk of new culture, etc. — the Green vs. O’Connell comparison may not be as close as you’d assume.
“In '92, there was a definite move to kind of change the culture a little bit in terms of how things had been the previous couple of seasons,” Diamond said. “Not that it was a loose atmosphere with Burnsy there because he did an excellent job, but the move to Denny was certainly a difference, and there was a culture change to some extent, kind of similar to Kevin coming in, but maybe in this case it's kind of opposite.
“When we went from Burnsy to Denny, it got a little -- I don't want to say tougher or stricter -- but just a little more tense atmosphere and a little more fear for jobs, whereas now I think it's kind of a reverse culture going from the atmosphere under Zim to more of the inclusive atmosphere that they're trying to foster now, so it's a little bit different, but similar in the respect of trying to make a change but yet utilize the talent base that was there in '91 going into '92. Similar to now trying to utilize a really good talent base and just trying to augment.”
Using the phrase “fear for jobs” isn’t quite the same as Eric Kendricks calling Zimmer’s regime a “fear-based organization,” but Green and Co. were comfortable shaking things up, perhaps moreso than O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah have done in 2022, where the goal has largely been keeping the group together.
Green was described as a disciplinarian and made it clear in his introductory press conference.
“There’s a new sheriff in town,” he said.
Not quite the same verbiage used by O’Connell in February.
Early in 1992, the Vikings made a pair of surprise moves. One, they cut ties with running back Herschel Walker after trading the farm for him three years earlier. Two, they shipped off defensive tackle Keith Millard, who was two seasons removed from an 18-sack campaign but had missed the 1991 season with a knee injury. Minnesota got a second-round pick for Millard and transitioned to an up-and-comer named John Randle, who was coming off a breakthrough 1991 season in a part-time role.
There was a changing in the winds on the Vikings defense.
“There was some turnover going on that, I would say, got the attention of everybody, the fans, the media, the players,” Diamond said, “that some of those guys that had been kind of the stalwarts in the late ‘80s were no longer there, but they were being replaced by guys like John Randle.”
Some of the defensive changes were voluntary. Some not. Three-time All-Pro and six-time Pro Bowler Joey Browner became a training camp cut at age 32. Thirty-five-year-old defensive tackle Ken Clarke retired. Minnesota let linebacker Jimmy Williams walk. Cornerback Najee Mustafaa missed the season with a bulging disk.
The Vikings suddenly had more 20-somethings than 30-somethings on their defense, and they were better off for it. Minnesota’s front four — Randle, Henry Thomas, Al Noga and Chris Doleman — combined for 41 sacks, and Minnesota’s defense leapt from 16th to seventh.
But the real fuel for that 1992 team was a smashmouth offense that ran the ball well to cover up the limitations of Rich Gannon, in his third year as a starter. Gannon was a famous late bloomer in his 30s with the Raiders, but his Vikings career was considerably more modest. He threw 12 touchdowns and 13 interceptions in 12 starts during the 1992 season and was eventually benched in favor of Sean Salisbury.
Of course, Gannon needed to be graded on a curve on somewhat of a curve. His 12-touchdown, 13-interception season wouldn’t fly today — and still didn’t in 1992 — but that season he ranked 19th in touchdown passes and had 13 quarterbacks that threw more interceptions than he did. The Vikings surrounded Gannon with a stacked coaching staff under Green that included Peyton Manning’s future offensive coordinator Tom Moore, future Super Bowl winning head coaches Tony Dungy and Brian Billick, and longtime coaching icon Monte Kiffin.
The Vikings would rank fourth in offense that year, foreshadowed by a 140-6 steamrolling of their four opponents in the preseason.
“We were wiping everybody out,” Diamond said. “You can look up the numbers, blowing teams out, and blowing out some pretty good teams. Then we get to the opener, and it wasn't a great Green Bay team at that time, they take us to overtime in Lambeau and we finally beat them in that opening game, and I remember sitting there watching that game, thinking, ‘Wow, we just blew out four teams, I would've liked to have had some of the points that we had in all those games and put them toward this game because we're in trouble.’”
They weren’t in too much trouble. Green’s team would start out 5-1 and roll comfortably to a division title, two games better than the Packers. Their offense ranked 18th in passing, seventh in rushing, fourth in scoring.
A better passing game might’ve allowed those Vikings to be a true Super Bowl contender rather than a regrettable one-and-done in the playoffs, losing to a good Washington team. Still, it kicked off the Green Era on a winning note.
“In that particular '92 season Rich played pretty well,” Diamond said. “He was 8-4 as a starter and then Sean Salisbury came in and won several games toward the end. … We were really more of a running team that year anyway with Terry Allen, had a big season on the ground, and Roger Craig was there that year, he was such a class guy, and so was Terry. We had Cris and Anthony Carter and Steve Jordan, so it was really a very good offense.”
The way the Vikings got to 11 wins in 1992 may be different than how they’ll have to do it under O’Connell. But revitalizing a defense, getting younger, changing the culture, maximizing an offense — all those aspects apply to O’Connell’s job in Minnesota.
So far, he and Adofo-Mensah have resisted a youth movement, but there is still a palpable feeling that TCO Performance Center has a new sheriff in town, even if he’s not as iron-handed.
“It was an exciting year because of the change in direction,” Diamond said of 1992, “and I kind of feel that same kind of excitement this year with the new coaching staff and just kind of a new energy even though the players aren't in the building yet. But I think that they'll all see a difference and I think the players that came in in '92 saw a difference, too.
“I think also sometimes it can reenergize a team as happened with Matt LaFleur got to Green Bay, Sean McVay in L.A. When these younger coaches come in, it really is a whole different culture, whatever you want to call it, but just a different feel to what's going on and that's what's really going to be interesting to see with Kevin O'Connell and his staff.”
