The 1998 Vikings were, and still are, legendary in the minds of Twin Cities sports fans.
They remain as much a part of the local zeitgeist as summer cabin commutes, the Blizzard of ’91 or Jesse Ventura’s election. One can’t properly give an overview of the state without the inclusion of arguably the greatest local team that failed to win a championship.
The mystique of those high-flying Vikings came from the fact that no other team had ever operated, aesthetically, the way they did on offense. The whole thing felt unprecedented — like the Vikings had unlocked some sort of cheat code that only they possessed.
With the help of now-Hall-of-Famer Randy Moss, the Vikings set the NFL scoring record, went 15-1 and missed out on the Super Bowl thanks to a Gary Anderson missed field goal.
But the path they took to get there remains a revered part of Minnesota sports lore.
The 1998 Vikings scored 18 touchdowns from 30 yards out or further (which we’ll arbitrarily deem as “explosive” touchdowns). A study of the last 20 years of passing data shows that no other team has usurped that total despite rising passing totals league-wide and more restrictions on the physicality of defenses.
Only the 2011 Packers, who had 16 30-plus yard touchdowns, come close over the last two decades. In 1998, the Atlanta Falcons — Minnesota’s eventual nemesis — came in second place with 13 explosive touchdowns.
Moss and Carter both gained over 1,000 yards that season as they helped the Vikings amass 37 passing plays that went for 30 yards or more. The “bomb” altered the landscape of the NFC Central as Green Bay notably drafted defensive backs in the first three rounds of the 1999 draft. It didn’t do much good, though, as Minnesota scored 10 or more explosive touchdowns in four of the next six seasons.
Minnesota hasn’t experienced a season with double-digit explosive touchdowns since Moss departed before the 2005 campaign — unlikely a coincidence.
To be clear, explosive passing plays have increased in the NFL thanks to a greater emphasis on tight ends catching the ball between the hash marks and running backs catching the ball in space. There were a record-setting number of 30-plus yard passing plays in 2015 with 679. As we’ll get to shortly, that season stands as the acme for passing offenses. But finding the end zone from distance is a different skill, one that many clubs began to master in the late 1990s.
A leaguewide trend
It wasn’t just the Vikings that were discovering the value of the deep ball in 1998. Almost out of nowhere, NFL teams began launching their own aerial displays, perhaps as a form of imitation. Sure, Minnesota helped elevate the league’s passing stats in 1998, but the 30-team NFL still produced 187 explosive touchdowns. Even though the NFL has since added the Cleveland Browns and Houston Texans as expansion teams to create 32 franchises, 1998 still stands a head above the rest two decades later.
Below you can see the number of explosive touchdowns league-wide each of the last 20 years.
Remarkably, yardage totals remained low in the ’98 season relative to anything you’d see today. The 30 NFL teams combined for over 107,000 passing yards that year — lower than any of the 19 years that would follow. For reference, the 2015 season saw over 137,000 yards passing, which stands as the league’s high-water mark.
(Note: The NFL saw regression in passing in 2017, hitting a seven-year low for yardage and tying a 20-year low for explosive touchdowns.)
So why was 1998 such an anomaly?
It was useful that six of the 27 receivers that are currently in the Hall of Fame had 1,000 yards that season. Moss, Tim Brown, Marvin Harrison, Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens and Michael Irvin all intersecting in the same season? That’s a recipe for fireworks.
It helped that Moss caught the league by surprise. Same, too, could be said of Eric Moulds, who came out of the nowhere for the Buffalo Bills and finished the season with more yards than Moss. Antonio Freeman, who beat both Moss and Moulds in yards, had his best career season. Same for Ed McCaffrey. Keyshawn Johnson and Rod Smith, both multi-time Pro Bowlers, had healthy, successful seasons as well.
The league had a plethora of wide receiver talent. It also had a historically strong group of luminary veteran quarterbacks. Hall of Famers Troy Aikman, Dan Marino, Steve Young, John Elway and Warren Moon were still playing. Brett Favre was fresh off two Super Bowl appearances. Peyton Manning and Steve McNair were stars on the rise. It was the perfect formula.
The bigger question might be: What sparked things in 1998? Three of the four previous seasons had seen explosive touchdown totals below 140. In 1996 there were just 122, which is the lowest total in the 24 years of Pro Football Reference’s touchdown log data.
Could Moss have been the catalyst?
That’s a tough question to answer with certainty. But keeping in mind the cliche that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it’s conceivable that teams saw what the Vikings were doing, identified the talent on their own rosters — in many cases Hall of Fame talent — and began airing the ball out more.
The data shows that the Moss Effect carried over into 1999. There are 17 teams that posted their first or second-highest explosive touchdown total over the last 20 years in 1998 or 1999.
That’s over half the league.
Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer was a defensive backs coach at that time in the league. He said Tuesday that he thought the surge in deep passing led to more two-high-safety looks rather than single-high safety.
He told a story in 2017 about practicing the week before a game against Moss.
“I remember that we had to line the receiver on scout team two yards offsides every time we played against him because he was going to get on us so fast,” Zimmer said.
Explosive notes
There are plenty more interesting nuggets from the last 20 years of passing data. Among them:
- The Vikings didn’t have any explosive touchdowns in 2012, the year Adrian Peterson surpassed 2,000 yards rushing while Christian Ponder struggled.
- The Chiefs led the league with 11 explosive touchdowns last year. The Bills had zero.
- The Moss-led 2007 Patriots who shattered many of the league’s offensive marks had 13 explosive touchdowns.
- The Indianapolis Colts have the most explosive touchdowns over the past 20 years with 141. The Dolphins have the fewest with 70 (Houston only has 69, but the Texans didn’t exist from 1998-2001).
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