The Manipulation of Daunte Culpepper

Here is the distorted story which every one will hear and repeat: Daunte Culpepper, disgruntled and selfish player, arrogantly asks to be traded, in the process letting down his teammates and forcing the Vikings' hands. Want to hear what really happened?

Daunte Culpepper, before the start of last season, was promised a renegotiated contract at the end of the season. Zygi Wilf and others in the organization said that they would definitely reward Culpepper with a new contract, no matter what happened during the season because Daunte had put in many years of high-level service and that Daunte deserved a reward.

The whole team went into a funk in the early part of the season. There were numerous injuries at key positions and Daunte had no protection and no receivers open to throw to. Of course Daunte did not play well and a huge number of fans and media types in Minnesota asked for his head.

A seeming majority of Minnesota sports fans have hated Daunte Culpepper for a long time(informal polls on KFAN radio and the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press have confirmed this), even when he was going to Pro Bowls and putting up the 4th best stats ever for a quarterback in 2004. The hatred of Daunte has been a mystery to most outside observers for a long time. Some people think it probably has to do with race.

Last season Daunte severely injured his knee(to the secret glee of many), but with modern rehabilitation techniques he will be back next season. When he first got injured, he was privately assured my Zygi and others in the organization that the injury would not affect his contract renegotiations. His years of service to the Vikings would be rewarded and sudden misfortune would not be used to negate what he deserves.

When the off-season rolled around, Daunte sincerely believed that he had been promised a new contract and therefore he inquired about renegotiating with the team. Suddenly the shit hit the fan: Daunte was villified as 'crazy' by vitually all the local press and the vast majority of the fans calling into the sports radio stations. The story went around that Daunte was an uncooperative jerk. He supposedly would not meet with the new coach, Brad Childress, and refused to do his rehabilitation in Minnesota.

Of course, all of that was an incredibly unfair distortion of the truth. The real story is that the team was terribly manipulating Daunte through its connections with the media and poisoning everyone's mind about what was really happening. After the season, Daunte did everything he could to have private meetings with the team about his contract. Daunte knew there was a possibility he would not get a raise. But he thought the new organization and Zygi Wilf would gladly meet with him right away after the season and at least re-structure his contract for better incentives.


Behind the scenes, Daunte was privately shocked that the team refused to meet with him. He could not even get a casual conversation with the owner! After several months of quiet, Daunte, feeling betrayed, got frustrated, and let his agent speak up. The agent used business-speak to tell the media that Daunte felt that he was promised a new contract by the team. The strategy horribly back-fired.

The team portrayed Daunte, through its connections with crucial media outlets, as an uncooperative jerk who was not being a team player. The stories about not meeting with the new coach and the the locale of his rehabilitation in Florida instead of Minnesota were stressed in the media. In truth, the team was releasing those stories through contacts in the media only because the team knew that they had already decided to get rid of Daunte. It had nothing to do with Daunte's supposedly bad behavior. In fact, the organiztion told Daunte many times that rehabilatation in Florida was totally fine, especially since Daunte could get first-rate treatment there, even better than what he could get in Minnesota. That is the only reason why Daunte chose Florida. Not to get away from the team.

As for the coach, Daunte sincerely wanted to meet with the new coach. He said so in telephone conversations with Brad Childress. However, when he went to Vikings' headquarters to discuss his contract situation with the express intent of meeting with the new coach, the team pulled a fast one. They said, "No Daunte, we will not meet with you. First you must talk to the coach." But Daunte had gone there with the promise of working out exactly where the team stood on his contract. The team had manipulated him to come to the Vikings' headquarters under that pretext, then when Daunte felt manipulated and refused to see Childress, the team used that refusal against Daunte and spread the poison to the media.

Sad to say the media did not need much more poisoning. Most local scribes and radio guys have wanted Daunte out for years. It has nothing to do with his playing ability; they just hate him for unknown reasons. Numerous media guys have hounded Zygi Wilf for months about Daunte's roster bonus due this month. They are desperately trying to get Zygi to renege on the roster bonus. So far, Zygi has resisted, knowing full well that roster bonuses are linked to a player's whole career and that a player should not be punished for an untimely injury. But virtually all the media guys say over and over again that Daunte does not deserve the money because he is injured.

In recent weeks, the team, still refusing to meet with Daunte, secretly began shopping him around to other teams. The media began slyly reporting this and when Daunte got the word he could not believe it. Daunte actually refused to believe it and considered it just vicious rumor. Zygi Wilf and the other top brass had not talked to him in months and now they suddenly were deciding to trade him? The media and many fans loved it, firmly convincing themselves that Daunte is a cancer.

Daunte finally did the research and discovered that the team was in fact trying to trade him. Daunte was very hurt, but business is business, and he accepted the fact and asked the team if he could talk to any of the teams that the Vikings had contacted. This is not unheard of: when teams really respect a long-time player, they sometimes give the player the courtesy of allowing them to contact other teams. Zygi Wilf and the Vikings refused and would not talk directly to Daunte either about his contract, his bonus or the impending trade.

Daunte naturally was forced into contacting the media who hates him. He sent some e-mails to newspapers stating that he wanted to be traded or released. Now the most wicked thing of all happens: Zygi Wilf and the press conspire to betray Daunte as the terrible guy who is selfishly demanding a trade. The poor Vikings have to trade Daunte because he demands it. What a wicked lie! Daunte only asked to be traded because the Vikings already were secretly trying to trade him behind his back!


What is amazing is that in every article I read today no one mentions any more that the team initiated the trade talks. Every writer and radio guy only talk about Daunte's demand: they twist every thing around to make it all his fault. Now, to add insult to injury, Zygi Wilf tells the media today how he firmly was sticking behind Daunte as his number one guy, but now with Daunte's trade demands, poor Zygi has his hands tied. What a crock! Zygi has wickedly manipulated this whole situation from the beginning. Basically, Zygi set Daunte up into making this demand so that Zygi would have an excuse for getting rid of him. Zygi now praises Daunte after he knows Daunte's goose is cooked. Zygi was stone-cold silent about Daunte when Daunte was trying to contact Zygi about the contract. The press has totally conspired with Zygi to give a horribly distorted perspective on this whole debacle.



E-ranting: That’s all I do all day long. It is a hard long road to freedom.

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