You know the drill. Stu?

Name: Darrin Nelson

Nickname: Darrin “Well, It’s a Good Thing We Passed On Marcus Allen For This” Nelson.

Claim to Fame, Minnesota: The Drop. The NFC Championship Game following the 1987 season, at Washington. Vikings trail 17-10, less than a minute to go, 4th & Goal, Purple ball. Wilson fades to fire, there’s Nelson open in the flat, Wilson guns the ball into his waiting ha— CLANG! Season over. One young lad named Rocket claims to have “dropped to the floor of my grandparents’ living room and almost started to cry.” He is not alone.

Claim to Fame, Everywhere Else: have I mentioned that he was drafted ahead of Marcus Allen yet? I did? Okay. Um, let’s see. Oh, his voice is exactly the same as The Family Guy’s Cleveland. Listen to it at some point. The lilting, sing-song cadence. It’s haunting you now, isn’t it? Good.

Where He Is Now: according to the Wikipedia, he’s a Senior Associate Athletic Director at Stanford, his alma mater.

Glorious Randomness: his middle name is Milo. How the (redacted) did that slip past the Vikings braintrust in 1982? You passed on Marcus Allen for a guy’s whose middle (redacted) name is Milo! When did this seem like a good idea? When?

Talk Amongst Yourselves:
1. Biggest Vikings Draft Missed Opportunity. By this, I mean the player we drafted wasn’t a complete Williamson, but his career paled next to someone taken almost immediately afterwards. It’s either Nelson over Allen, or Derrick Alexander over Warren Sapp, right? Who am I forgetting? Don’t say Adrian Peterson over Brady Quinn, or your IP address will be traced and the appropriate measures taken.
2. The 1987 Vikings postseason run was much more entertaining than the RandBall-banned postseason run that’s alleged to have occurred between the 1997 and 1999 seasons. Although they both ended in soul-crushing failure, the ‘87 squad wasn’t expected to do anything, while the Team That Shall Not Be Named had expectations on top of expectations. Agree or disagree? (That road thumping of San Francisco is my favorite Vikings playoff game ever, and it’s yours, too. Don’t even lie, jerks.)
3. Did something happen with the Twins or MP109 last night that supercedes the bitter nostalgia of an old, sad man? Talk about it in comments, won’t you?

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