Friday, February 1, 2019 Vikings Quotes on Wade Wilson Vikings Head Coach Mike Zimmer “Wade was a terrific person. He got along with everybody, he had a really good nature about him, and he was a very smart coach and obviously was a good player. This is sad news. When he was a coach, that’s when I knew him the best, he was extremely smart. He had a really, really good way about him, a way with people. I think the biggest thing was that he had seen so many things and been able to talk about so many situations. He was a guy that always beat the odds.” Vikings Equipment Manager Dennis Ryan “He was a good guy and really humble. … He wasn’t given much of a chance to really even make the team, and then I remember kind of his big breakout game, where it was like, ‘Wow.’ It was 1987 against the Saints down in New Orleans, and he came in and relieved Tommy in that game. We were down 10-nothing when Wade entered the game, and we ended up winning that playoff game 44-10. He quieted the loudest crowd I’ve ever heard on a game day, and by halftime you could hear a pin drop in that place. The next week, he followed that up with a big game against the 49ers. His teammates liked him, and his teammates respected him. I think his teammates gave him a bigger chance of playing probably than some of the coaches. He was tight with the guys. It wasn’t the receivers and him and the quarterbacks, it was him and the O-line. … I think Tim Irwin was drafted the same year, and they were always close and tight for their whole career here. He would always have me carry a bag of M&Ms on the sideline, and I always had them handy for him. He never needed them, ever. Until the one game that I got hungry during the first half, and I ate the M&Ms. He came off the field and asked me for them, and I said, ‘Oh, crap’ and took off running. He laughed about it – he wasn’t the type of guy who was going to be upset, but I ran back into the locker room and got another bag for him.” Former Vikings Tackle Tim Irwin “Football-wise, we made a lot of yards and scored a lot of points together. But it was more than that. Our wives were great friends at the time, and we always roomed together from day one with the Vikings, until Wade left 11 years later. We were roommates constantly. We went through 11 years in Mankato together, we had a lot of fun. He was a great player, and he was self-made. He wasn’t even expected to make the team when he first got there. I remember the night we both found out that we made the Vikings [roster] for the first time and how excited we were. I remember the first time – you know, he’s from Texas and I’m from Tennessee, so there was no language barrier and no accent barrier. I remember when we had the first bad taste of winter, how we both reacted to it. He was a great guy to spend your career with. He was my closest friend on the team and one of my closest friends ever. I will miss him. I guess the highlight to me, of his career, was when we were playing at Philadelphia and were down 19-nothing, they put him in, and he threw three bombs to Anthony Carter. I’m not sure they were all to Anthony, but they were three bombs, and we came back and won the game. And they snowed us in, so we got to stay in Philadelphia and celebrate all night. We had some good times. Bob Schnelker, who could be pretty cross back then when Burnsy was the head coach, Bob Schnelker when this play that we’d run back and forth, and he said, ‘Wade, what was that play?’ And Wade said across the meeting room, ‘I just AC to haul ass and threw it to him.’ Days were different back then, but we had a lot of great times together. We were cribbage partners, and a lot of times the game would be me and Wade and Fred Zamberletti and somebody else… He was maybe the guy that Jerry Burns did the most work with. And we kept it light after practice. I remember one time, he threw a pick to the defense and we were back in the huddle, and I held up my jersey and said, ‘We’re in purple today.’ It kind of broke things up and made things lighter in the moment. I would have had to fight you for Wade Wilson. All my quarterbacks, but particularly him. He was majorly talented. He could really throw the deep ball, and he understood the game, and he didn’t get rattled back there. He was just a good player. That ’87 team was the best team I was ever on, and he was a big part of it. I’ve got a pair of boots that he bought all the linemen the year they went to the Pro Bowl, and every time I put them on, I’ll think about him. I mean, it’s a tremendous blow. You don’t want to omit the fact of how tough he was, because he played 17 years. And that’s pretty hard to do in the National Football League at that position. … He was a Bud Grant product. Bud expected you to be durable. As well as being a good player, you had to be durable or you weren’t going to stay around there. He was one of those guys that was. He was a great friend, great roommate, great cribbage player. He was a great cribbage partner.” .