Daunte Culpepper: Daunte's Inferno

Daunte Culpepper: Daunte's Inferno

Nobody is balling like Daunte right now. He's on pace for 58 TD passes. Culpepper is 60 fantasy points ahead of Manning and McNabb right now in my fantasy league, and Manning and McNabb are each having fabulous seasons by all accounts. We witnessed Priest Holmes shatter the record for rushing TD's with 27 last year. Now Culpepper is tickling legendary status with this torrid start. Maybe this is just being barefaced, but at this rate Culpepper is going to single-handedly carry many a fantasy team to a championship title. Chalk one up for the fellas who went against the grain and burned an early-round pick on Daunte when conventional wisdom these days is to wait on the QB position until much later in the draft. But I shudder to think how high he will go next year. It's going to be laughable. Then again, who's laughing now?

Will he break Dan Marino's single-season 48 TD-pass record? I remember the Duper and Clayton era quite well. Marino was a master surgeon much like Peyton Manning is today. He could dissect and carve up pretty much any defense in the league in his prime. However, Culpepper has three massive advantages over Marino;

1. Feet. Culpepper's offensive line gives him plenty of time, as did Marino's. Marino used to get through many games with a clean uniform. But no matter how good your line is, sooner or later the pocket is going to breakdown. And no matter how good the defensive coverage talent is, nobody can cover a defender indefinitely. With Culpepper's unique combination of size and speed, he has the ability to buy extra time beyond the breaking point for any defensive coverage scheme. Marino had a quick release, and he needed it because he couldn't buy himself extra time the way Culpepper can. By buying himself more time to throw, Culpepper gets to see good defenses at their worst, most vulnerable and in a degraded state most QB's never get to experience throwing into.

2. Randy Moss. He's barely human. There has been no other player like him. The only person or player that was capable of beating Randy Moss was Randy Moss. He's now survived and passed through the rebellious phase of his career and has now emerged as a mature, hard-working, out-spoken leader. When he's on his game (and he pretty much has been every minute of this season) he's virtually uncoverable. Couple him with a QB who has a Herculean arm and it's a license to score touchdowns. Clayton and Duper were good, but they couldn't carry Moss's jock.

3. Running game. Sadly, this was something Marino was never blessed with during his entire career. The Vikings couldn't be more of a contrast to the Marino-era Dolphins in this fashion. I'd say with a high degree of confidence that you could take either of Minnesota's top-4 running backs on their roster right now and he'd be more talented than anyone Marino played with during his 17-year tenure. The fact that the Vikings can ram the ball down your throat on top of their sick vertical attack has to be the tipping point for most defenses.

The Vikings offense presents one of the ultimate defensive quagmires the NFL has ever seen, and it's pretty clear thus far that few coaches or co-ordinators in the league possess an adequate answer for their scoring prowess.

We'll see how Moss's hammy injury heals up. But I think it's time Dan sticks another pin or two or three into that Culpepper Bobblehead Doll he's got stashed away in the glove compartment of his golf cart. You think I'm joking? He really does have one in there. Ask him about it, he'll tell you.

Photo: [David Leeds: Getty Images]

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