Daaaunteee - What if?

When it comes to the all-time what-if stories, we don’t talk much about Culpepper but it’s worth wondering what would have happened had the Vikings’ first-round pick in 1999 hadn’t gotten injured in 2005. Because it ended so quickly and the team did not have a great deal of success during his time, it’s easy to forget that he was one of the most exciting players to ever wear purple.

After the conversation with Monson, I couldn’t help but go down a Pro-Football Reference rabbit hole looking back at the start of his career. I came across a bunch of crazy statistics that put in context the crazy good start to his career (and some that show why the team didn’t win more with him).

Let’s start with this one: From the time the NFL and AFL merged until 2004, only two quarterbacks had higher quarterback ratings in the first six years of their careers: Kurt Warner and Chad Pennington. Culpepper threw more touchdowns in his first six years in the NFL than everyone except Dan Marino, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Jim Kelly. And Daunte didn’t even play his first year.

Here’s where Culpepper ranked among all starting QBs during his five-year run:



By Pro-Football Reference’s “Approximate Value” statistic, which is somewhat of a Wins Above Replacement type number that attempts to show a player’s contribution to offensive or defensive production, Culpepper ranked only behind Manning among all players during that five-year stretch.



It’s funny how football works sometimes. Terrell Davis is in the Hall of Fame and his career Approximate Value is below Culpepper’s for just the ‘00-’04 seasons.

If there was a Hall of Fame for entertainment value players, Culpepper would be inducted first ballot. Not only was it flat-out bizarre to see someone at 260 pounds taking off and having linebackers try to take him down by the legs but his deep accuracy combined with Randy Moss resulted in more big games and big plays than anyone else of the era. Of his 68 starts from ‘00-’04, nobody had a higher percentage of games with a 120 quarterback rating than Culpepper.



And nobody had more passes that went for 40 yards or more.

Crazy, right? So why did he only go 36-37 with two playoff wins in the era?

Few combined factors. He went 3-6 against Green Bay and all six losses were by one score. Turns out the Packers had some good quarterback play at that time. Culpepper even lost a game to the Packers in which he finished with a 151.3 rating.

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason. Nobody lost more fumbles from ‘00-’04 than Culpepper and he had the sixth most interceptions and most times sacked. His 2000 and 2004 seasons were MVP worthy but between 2001-2002 he had a 78.1 rating, 32 touchdowns and 36 picks. The Culpepper Coaster was certainly a thing.

But his ups and downs weren’t all to blame for the .500 record. We’ve gotten used to great Vikings defenses in the Mike Zimmer era but during the Culpepper days it was far from that. Only the Arizona Cardinals allowed more touchdowns on defense than the Vikings from ‘00-’04 and the Vikings gave up the highest passer rating against of any team during that stretch.

It speaks to the unfortunate breaks of Culpepper’s career. With peak Randy Moss, they couldn’t build a defense to help him. After he gets hurt, the Vikings stack up a monster team with Adrian Peterson, Jared Allen, Antoine Winfield Jr., the Williams Wall etc. and Favre becomes the beneficiary in 2009. Had Culpepper remained healthy, that’s probably him going to the NFC Championship game. Ah, the never-ending Vikings what-if game.