Return of the ‘Aints--Carter, Vikings Bury New Orleans, 44-10

It took the New Orleans Saints 21 years to get into the National Football League playoffs and another 21 minutes or so to get out.

A presumed victory party on Poydras Street, perhaps staged in memory of Dewey beats Truman, had begun hours before Sunday’s game at the Superdome but crashed midway through the second quarter, when the Minnesota Vikings were already well on their way to a 44-10 wild-card win.

This is the same Viking team that in recent weeks couldn’t stand to read its own fan mail.

“They were sending us letters saying that we didn’t deserve to be here,” Viking tailback Darrin Nelson said of their devoted. “Some fans were calling us cowards.”

Today, Minnesota fans are no doubt calling for tickets. The Vikings, who had lost three of their last four games and needed a Dallas win over St. Louis last week just to qualify for the last wild-card spot, are going to San Francisco on Saturday to face the 49ers.

The Saints, 12-3 in the regular season, winners of nine straight games, sayers of “Who ‘Dat?” are left to plan river-boat cruises.

Who da’ Thought?

“Yes, I’m surprised at the lopsided score,” Nelson said.

For a while, the Saints and their 106-decibel fans were plenty charged up, but someone on the Saints forgot to plug DC (double coverage) into AC (Anthony Carter).

Carter is the Vikings’ sterling wide receiver, so good in fact that the team seems to bring him out only for special occasions.

He led the league in average-yards-per-catch with 24.3, but had only 38 receptions all season, or about half as many as he would have liked.

Carter voiced his displeasure recently, and apparently somebody in the Vikings’ organization, a head coach perhaps, was listening.

Sunday, the Vikings all but unleashed Carter on the Saints. He finished with 6 catches for 79 yards and a touchdown, and that’s not counting his backbreaking 84-yard punt return for a touchdown in the first quarter, which wiped out an early 7-3 lead and sent the Saints reeling.

It’s also not bad for a guy who doesn’t like to return punts.

Carter, in fact, had returned only three all season. But, so the story goes, Viking Coach Jerry Burns, a Michigan alum, was in Ann Arbor recently and saw a poster of Carter hanging on a wall. Carter, of course, was an All-American with the Wolverines.

Burns told Carter about the picture, and two weeks ago Carter sent his coach a copy of the print, which listed Carter’s career statistics, including some amazing punt-return numbers.

Last Thursday, Burns asked Carter if he would return punts against the Saints. Carter said yes.

“If I got to do it, I will,” Carter said. “It it’s going to help the team win, I’ll sure as hell do it.”

The Saints sure as hell wished he hadn’t. Carter’s return took the heart out of the Saints, with body and soul soon to follow.

Burns, afterward, shocked the football world with a pronouncement.

“We’ll use him on punt returns in our next playoff game,” Burns said. It was 24-10 at the half and a mess after that. The Vikings gained 417 yards in offense, shuffling quarterbacks Tommy Kramer and Wade Wilson in and out of the lineup, as usual. Kramer started the game and finished it, but it was Wilson who filled the middle and emerged the star, throwing for 189 yards and 2 touchdowns.

The Viking defense, the front four in particular, hounded and pounded Saint quarterback Bobby Hebert from the beginning, Hebert finally giving way in the second half to smelling salts and a reliever, Dave Wilson.

The Saints’ were held to 53 yards rushing, and could not attribute it to the loss of Rueben Mayes (knee ligament strain) late in the first half. Mayes had been held to 11 yards to that point, and probably alone wouldn’t have been the difference in a comeback.

The Saints also crippled themselves by throwing four interceptions and fumbling twice, preventing New Orleans from perhaps putting the game away early.

New Orleans could not have asked for a better beginning. On the game’s first play, linebacker Rickey Jackson sacked Kramer for an eight-yard loss.

On the second play, Kramer fumbled a center snap with linebacker Vaughan Johnson recovering at the Minnesota 11. That led to a 10-yard scoring pass, Hebert to Eric Martin, and a 7-0 lead.

The Vikings couldn’t have written a worse start.

But then came Carter’s thunder and a Saints’ blunder.

First, Mel Gray fumbled a punt to the Vikings, who turned it into a 42-yard Chuck Nelson field goal.

Then came Carter’s punt return.

Then came the second quarter. After an apparent interception by Saints’ safety Johnnie Poe was overruled by replay officials, the Vikings moved in for the kill.

A great 37-yard catch and run by Nelson set up a 5-yard scoring pass from Wilson to Steve Jordan to make it 17-7 with 11:41 left in the half.

On the Vikings’ next drive, Wilson went to Carter three times for 43 yards to get Minnesota down to the 10.

Kramer, watching from the sideline at this point, said the Vikings were catching the Saints in single coverage on Carter.

“If he doesn’t get double coverage, we expect him to win every time,” Kramer said. “(The Saints) just played the same defense that got them here, and we just took advantage of it.”

From the 10, Wilson pitched to Allen Rice on an apparent sweep. But Rice, a former option quarterback at Baylor, stopped and threw to Carter for the touchdown.

The Vikings had wanted to use the play last week against Washington, but apparently news of the trick play was leaked to the Redskins and the Vikings scrapped it.

Down 24-10 just before the half, the Saints’ agony seemed all but over. Of course, it wasn’t.

Viking safety John Harris intercepted a Hebert pass at the New Orleans’ 35 with 45 seconds left in the half.

It appeared the Saints would escape. Wilson was knocked silly on an 11-yard sack by Bruce Clark and left after he got up and walked toward the wrong sideline.

Kramer came in, and seemed intent on running out the clock.

Nelson lost a yard on a third-down run, but the Vikings got a second chance when officials spotted 12 Saint defenders on the play, one over the limit.

From the 44-yard line and Kramer’s arm ailing again, Wilson was rushed back into the lineup for one last desperation pass.

Vikings’ receivers Carter, Leo Lewis and Hassan Jones lined up on the left and sprinted to the end zone.

Several Saint defenders joined the crowd. Jones said it was his job to tip the ball to someone if he couldn’t catch it himself.

Well, Jones did tip it--to himself. He came down on his back, with the ball in his hands. Touchdown. Forty-four yards. It put the Vikings up, 31-10. And the Saints were through.

“I didn’t catch it cleanly,” Jones said of the play, “It bobbled up, no one else took a swipe at it or knocked it down or anything. I was able to get it. It gave us a little momentum coming out for the second half. All year, the Saints have been behind and been able to come back and win football games.”

Afterward, Viking tackle David Huffman, knowing this game would not have been possible if not for a Cowboy win last week, looked skyward and thanked those lucky stars.

“Thank you, Dallas,” Huffman said. “You’re my favorite team. I hope you get a good pick in the draft.”

The rest of the Vikings thanked Anthony Carter.

NFC Playoff Notes

This wasn’t the first time Anthony Carter has beaten Coach Jim Mora. In the 1983 United States Football League championship game in Denver, Carter caught the winning touchdown pass for the Michigan Panthers to beat Mora’s Philadelphia Stars. . . . Who threw the game-winning pass in that game? Bobby Hebert, Mora’s losing quarterback on Sunday.