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Over at NFL.com, since they apparently have as much time to kill leading up to the 2014 NFL season as we do, they have gone to the effort of declaring the greatest player in the history of every NFL team. Their choice for the Minnesota Vikings might seem a bit familiar.
If you pore over the pages of the NFL encyclopedia -- or, more realistically, cruise around ProFootballReference.com -- you might find that it's a tad bit difficult to find a defensive player who earned the AP's NFL MVP honor. In fact, there have been just two: Lawrence Taylor (arguably the premier defensive player in the history of the NFL) and Page. This guy was that dominant. He could knife through blocking schemes and make hay seemingly before the play even started. Page performed at the highest level over 11 full seasons in Minnesota, making the Pro Bowl in nine of those years. We'll see where Adrian Peterson falls in NFL Network's "Top 100 Players of 2014," but for this list, he just hasn't had a long enough tenure (yet).
NFL.com's declaration of Alan Page as the greatest player in the history of the Minnesota Vikings comes a mere nine months after we reached the exact same conclusion here at The Daily Norseman. I'm quite certain that it required a lot more thought that NFL.com's process, considering the Vikings are nothing more than an afterthought over there.
No word on where Joe Webb or Matt Cassel ranked on NFL.com's list of the greatest Minnesota Vikings, but I'm sure they were both right there with Page, Peterson, Tarkenton, and the rest of the all-time greats in purple and gold.