Winning, but Wary

The Minnesota Vikings are missing their best tight end and starting right tackle, they’re down to their fourth-string running back, and star receiver Randy Moss is nursing a hamstring pull that last Sunday left him without a catch for the first time in his seven-year career.

Oh, yes, and things haven’t looked this good in years.

Despite a slew of key injuries that could have put them in a deep hole, the Vikings (5-1) have the league’s No. 1 offense and a quarterback so hot the club might not bother heating the Metrodome this winter.

Daunte Culpepper leads the league in touchdown passes (19), completion percentage (73.3%) and passer rating (124.0), and could take a wrecking ball to six NFL passing records.

The single-season marks in jeopardy are Dan Marino’s 48 touchdown passes and 5,084 yards; Rich Gannon’s 418 completions and 10 300-yard passing games; Ken Anderson’s completion percentage of 70.6%; and Steve Young’s 112.8 quarterback rating.

But the records can wait.

“It’s all about the W,” Culpepper said. “It’s all about the wins.”

And that’s where today’s home game against the New York Giants comes in. It was the Giants who rolled into Minneapolis last season, stunned the 6-0 Vikings and sent them into a tailspin from which they never recovered. They became only the second NFL team in that situation to miss the playoffs, joining the 1978 Washington Redskins.

If there is an explanation for the epic collapse, Viking Coach Mike Tice either doesn’t have it or won’t share it. In a conference call with New York writers last week, he was asked right off the bat what happened last season.

“Geez, I don’t know,” said Tice, normally one of the league’s more talkative coaches. “We lost a whole lot of games.”

Maybe that’s why Culpepper and the rest of his team consider today’s Giant game a giant game.

“Last year, we were 6-0 and everybody was saying we were so good and everything, but right now, it’s kind of the same thing,” he said. “People are saying this and that and everything pointing toward the playoffs, but we’re not worried about it. We’re worried about the New York Giants and the next game because we feel we haven’t done anything. We haven’t done anything other than what we’re supposed to do and that’s win games early in the season.”

There’s no denying, though, that Culpepper has caught skeptics flat-footed with his astounding start. He has thrown five touchdown passes in a game three times this season. Only three times before this season had a Viking quarterback thrown five or more touchdown passes in a game: Joe Kapp threw seven in 1969; and Tommy Kramer threw five in 1982 and six in 1986.

Culpepper is directing an offense that has rolled up 300 yards in 35 consecutive games, an NFL record, and he has made a remarkable transition from a human turnover to a touchdown machine. In 2002, he led the league with a total of 32 interceptions and fumbles lost. He has fumbled six times this season, but the Vikings have only lost one of those. His ratio of 6.33 touchdowns to every interception is best in the league.

“It’s just me realizing that I don’t have to go out and make big plays all of the time,” said the quarterback who three times won NFC offensive player of the week honors in his first five games of the season. “I let it happen, let it come to me and when it’s there I’m very opportunistic and try to make a play, but when it’s not there, I have to be smart and just take the ball down and sometimes throw it away. Sometimes a thrown away ball can be one of the best plays of the game, because you didn’t give the other team anything and you didn’t put yourself in a bad position.”

Marino, who visited Culpepper recently to tape a story for the CBS pregame show, said he could see some of his records teetering.

“I said at the start of the year that Daunte and Peyton Manning had a chance to throw 40 [touchdowns] apiece,” Marino told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I love to watch guys play well, especially at that position. But I won’t lie to you. I wouldn’t be human if I wanted guys to break my records. I remember when I was on kind of the same pace Daunte is now.”

Not only has Culpepper matured, but those around him, relative unknowns before this season, have stepped up in a big way.

Among the emerging big-play threats are receiver Marcus Robertson and rookie running back Mewelde Moore, who today has a chance to become the fourth Viking player to rush for 100 yards or more in three consecutive games. Moore, a fourth-round pick, leads all rookies with 559 yards from scrimmage.

Take Moss out of the equation, and the other Viking wideouts have eight touchdown catches. That’s one more than they had in 2003.

Moss is expected back today. He participated in only two plays last Sunday because of his hamstring pull and didn’t catch a pass.

“Obviously Randy poses a huge threat to the other teams in the passing game and in the running game because he has been blocking very well down the field,” Culpepper said, “but when he is not out there we still have some other guys who can step up and make plays.”*

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*--* Quarterback Peaks Most touchdown passes through six games, 1970-2004: PLAYER TEAM YEAR AFTER 6 TOTAL Brett Favre Green Bay 1996 20 39 Daunte Culpepper Minnesota 2004 19 -- Kurt Warner St. Louis 1999 18 41 Dan Marino Miami 1984 17 48* Steve Young San Francisco 1998 17 36 Kurt Warner St. Louis 2000 17 21 Peyton Manning Indianapolis 2004 17 --

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* NFL record; Marino (1984 and 1986) and Warner (1999) are the only quarterbacks to throw at least 40 touchdown passes in a season. In 1986, when Marino threw 44 scoring passes, he had 13 through six games. Source: STATS Inc.