If you’re like me and would rather jam a flaming cactus into your ear canal than listen to Joe Buck and Troy Aikman for extended periods of time, you may have been checking out the “Manningcast” broadcast of last night’s Monday Night Football game at Soldier Field between the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears. We know the Vikings struggled early, but their turnaround coincided with a familiar
face appearing on the set with Peyton and Eli.
After chatting with Chicago’s own Bill Murray and Philadelphia Eagles’ running back Saquon Barkley, the brothers Manning welcomed Hall of Famer and Vikings legend Randy Moss to the set. When Moss sat down at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Vikings were trailing 17-6 and Cairo Santos had just missed a 50-yard field goal attempt that would have extended the Bears’ lead to two touchdowns.
Well, a funny thing happened starting right at that point.
It’s a video from the NFL, so you’ll have to actually go to YouTube to watch it, but at least now you know where to find it.
In any case, after Moss sat down and started his interview, here’s what happened:
- First off, about four minutes into the video, J.J. McCarthy found Justin Jefferson for his first career NFL touchdown pass and the Vikings’ first touchdown of the night. Moss called for a TD pass to Jefferson, and McCarthy obliged to cut the lead to 17-12 after the two-point conversion failed.
- Next, at around the 14-minute mark of the video, the Vikings struck again, with McCarthy finding Aaron Jones for a 27-yard score to give the Vikings the lead at 20-17 with the two-point play to Adam Thielen.
- Then, at about the 28-minute mark, McCarthy added a 13-yard touchdown run to extend the Minnesota lead to 27-17 and cap the Vikings’ scoring for the night.
So, after a couple of hours of not really doing much, the Vikings’ offense came to life right around the time one of the team’s greatest of all time started talking about them live and turned a double-digit deficit into a double-digit lead in about half an hour of real time.
I’m not saying that Randy Moss needs to come to every Vikings game or cover them in some way, shape, or form. . .given his job with ESPN, he wouldn’t be able to do that anyway. . .but it is kind of nice that the Vikings’ comeback on Monday coincided with Moss analyzing what was going on down on the field.
