The Huntdown

Name: Todd Steussie

Nickname: “False start, offense, number 73, 5-yard penalty, remains 2nd down.”

Claim to Fame, Minnesota: was the Vikings’ first-round pick in the 1994 draft, and killed drives for the Purple from 1994 through 2000. He did earn Pro Bowl honors in 1997 and 1998, so it wasn’t like it was all bad. However, his Wikipedia page also claims [note: or at least once claimed] that “he holds the record for most false starts in one drive with 13 for the Vikings,” which is both clearly a joke and potentially correct.

Claim to Fame, Everywhere Else: he did end up playing in a Super Bowl for Carolina, but that’s perhaps not the most noteworthy aspect of his tenure with the Panthers:

“Steussie was prescribed anti-estrogen drugs usually reserved for female breast cancer and infertility patients but also used by male steroid users to prevent breast growth…less than a week before the Panthers left for the Super Bowl, Steussie and Williams were given prescriptions for a combined five NFL-banned substances, including two forms of testosterone.”

There was also the 60 Minutes report that mentioned his “11 prescriptions of testosterone cream over an eight-month period.” So, yeah. Pity there wasn’t something you could take that would make you PAY ATTENTION TO THE SNAP COUNT, TODD.

Where He Is Now: hopefully not reading this. The Wiki does say he had ankle surgery prior to the 2008 season and reached an injury settlement with the Rams, so take that for what it’s worth.

Glorious Randomness: the World Book Encyclopedia I grew up with would have been so much more entertaining had random “facts” been inserted into its pages. “Besides the cotton gin, Eli Whitney also invented paper towels, gravity, and a belt sander that could read minds. He died penniless while clutching a bewildered Pam Dawber.”

Proprietor question for discussion: Can you name some other Minnesota athletes as generally highly proficient as Steussie, but so ultimately maddening because of one glaring deficiency (in his case, the false starts)? [And just to make it more interesting, we are taking Daunte and his “small hands” out of play].

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Hunt Down. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.