Friday, Nov. 21, 2003 | 10:13 a.m.
All-time series -- Cowboys lead, 3-2.
Last time -- The Cowboys won, 14-13, in Dallas last season.
Notable -- Oddly, the only game of the weekend that pits two winning teams against each other ... Carolina RB Stephen Davis averages 120 yards a game, second-best in the league, and faces the NFL's second-best rush defense. Dallas allows only 83 ground yardage a game ... in his last four games, Dallas QB Quincy Carter has only two touchdowns to seven interceptions ... Panthers FG kicker John Kasay strikes again with a last-minute game winner.
Prediction (7-4) -- Carolina 17, Dallas 16.
-- Baltimore coach Brian Billick, making a coy reference to his plodding offense under third-string QB Anthony Wright.
Just when Vikings fans thought it was safe to harbor Super Bowl dreams, they get a kick in the gut that feels as if it were delivered by Morten Anderson.
The only figure in Winter Park who hasn't had a finger pointed at him lately is offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Scott Linehan, a UNLV assistant coach in 1991.
A former Idaho quarterback, Linehan, 40, joined the Vikings last season and has honed the team into an offensive juggernaut. Minnesota leads the league with an average of 385 yards a game
The defense, which started so well under new coordinator George O'Leary, has been a joke for a month. The Vikes let Oakland rattle off 375 yards of offense, San Diego 458, Green Bay 451 and the New York Giants 450 in their past four games.
They lost all four.
They were once 6-0.
Paxil, anyone? Memphis basketball coach John Calipari is one of the many long-suffering Vikings fans, easily the most-beleaguered of all NFL loyalists. He grew up in Moon, Pa., but somehow latched onto Fran Tarkenton and the Vikings at an early age.
(We also know better than to ring older brother Mike after a Minnesota defeat. Haven't talked with him in a month. Think he's still eating, showering and working, but not sure.)
Stop your whining, Buffalo. The Vikings lost their fourth Super Bowl 17 years before your lads pulled off the notorious feat.
It'd difficult to believe that almost 22 years have passed since the team played its final game at Metropolitan Stadium. Of course, Minnesota lost that one, 10-6, to Kansas City.
Five seasons ago, the Metrodome staged its first NFC title game. The Vikes lost in overtime, 30-27, to Atlanta. Then-coach Dennis Green's late-game blunders allowed Anderson to boot the game-tying field goal.
In overtime, Anderson kicked a 38-yarder through the uprights to propel the "Dirty Birds" into the Super Bowl.
It's time to hibernate in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. No doubt, pigskin teardrops have formed many of those ponds.
It all started so admirably, too, for Red McCombs, who bought the team for $246 million in July 1998. At that first training camp, he spent the night in a dorm room. He personally sells tickets to businesses in and around the Twin Cities. He returns fans' e-mails.
Those fans quickly took to him, and they have been responsible for 61 consecutive Metrodome sellouts.
McCombs, however, has said that his passion only goes so far. At 10, in the West Texas town of Spur, he sold bags of peanuts to farm workers. His father questioned his profit margin, then he shrewdly filled those bags only halfway, at the same price.
"This is not a hobby," McCombs told the Corpus Christi Caller Times after buying the Vikings. "It has to work financially, or I'll lose my passion."
He thinks he can fetch $600 million for the club. He lost his patience three weeks ago, when the Vikings lost to the Giants. McCombs told the players that they humiliated the franchise and themselves.
Minnesota then stretched that losing streak to four games. Sunday, in Oakland, quarterback Daunte Culpepper turned it over five of his team's six times.
Then tackle Kevin Williams and end Kenny Mixon were arrested on drunken driving charges within the same week. This season, the Vikes now have as many DUI charges as tackle Chris Hovan has sacks.
"It's always a lousy week," wrote Tom Powers of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, "when you have to buy electronic ankle bracelets in bulk."
Linehan has some decisions to make.
Culpepper has thrown 16 touchdown passes this season, but he's responsible for 11 turnovers. His 98.6 rating is third in the league. Backup Gus Frerotte has played in all 10 games and has a 119.9 rating, but not enough snaps to qualify among the leaders. He has seven TD passes with only two turnovers.
McCombs will have decisions of his own to make soon enough. He has softened his speeches. He gave coach Mike Tice a vote of confidence a year ago, recently said no staff changes are imminent and lately has supported the team with positive reinforcement.
Peanuts, anyone?
Deion Sanders, Dan Marino and Boomer Esiason agreed that it would be an old-school, bloody, bruising battle, and that's what ensued in the Dolphins' 9-6 overtime victory. Esiason was keen in saying that the Ravens defense would need to scored a TD for them to win.
To the uninitiated, nothing shows the chaos that is created up front and the mayhem that a quarterback must navigate, among linebackers and the secondary, better than that innovative feature, which made its NFL debut last season.
Division hits
NFC: West -- A local columnist calls Arizona coach Dave McGinnis "Dead Mac Walking." South -- Falcons CB Tod McBride got his first TD last week and has as many interceptions this season (three) as he nabbed in his first four seasons combined. North -- It was Vegas resident and guard Mike Wahle's helmet that Green Bay QB Brett Favre slammed his broken right thumb onto in Tampa. East -- The Cosmo Kid (Jeremy Shockey, knee) has told Giants teammates he could play Monday in Tampa.
AFC: West -- Nice timing. Denver QB Jake Plummer (95.4 rating) is having the best season of his career. South -- The Colts added WR JuJuan Dawson, who has helped out at the Manning Passing Academy in Louisiana, this week. North -- Pittsburgh QB Tommy Maddox has thrown for at least 300 yards three times, each in defeat, this season. East -- The Sunday night ratings for the Dallas shutout were boffo, but its punter isn't. New England out two this week in hopes of replacing Ken Walter, the worst in the league.
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