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Saturday, January 13
Carter will wait to announce decision
By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com
NEW YORK -- It wasn't out of the ordinary for Cris Carter to be the last
Viking off the field after Minnesota clobbered the Saints last Saturday.
|  | | Cris Carter could be ready to call it a career. |
But what was unusual was the clear misty fluid that innocently dripped
down Carter's cheeks as he walked toward the home team's tunnel. A cast of
die-hard Vikings fans had gathered, and Carter, shortly after hugging team
owner Red McCombs, raised his arms to salute the purple-clad fanatics.
A cluster of faint tears ran down his face.
The reason? The game could have very well been Carter's last in front of
the hometown crowd. While rumors have been surrounding Carter's potential
retirement since November, on Friday at the NFC press conference,
the 14-year NFL veteran said the decision has been made and it will be
announced after the playoffs.
And a stealth reading between the lines would lead one to believe this
could be the end for the eight-time Pro-Bowler.
"I've already made up my mind on it," Carter said from the Astor Ballroom
of the Inter-Continental Hotel. "But you have to be real, real close to me
to know. Coach (Dennis) Green and I have discussed it, my wife Melanie and I have
discussed it and we pretty much know what we're going to do.
"I do believe that sometime very, very soon, someone else deserves the
opportunity to wear No. 80 and run out there and be part of the Vikings. I
don't want to prolong that."
So to say the least, the plot thickens for Sunday. Should the Vikings
lose to the Giants in the NFC Championship, Carter's career could very well
be over. Should they win, it could be Carter's first trip to the Super
Bowl. Talk about an emotional swing.
Yet with all this potentially hanging in the balance of the game, there wasn't a whole lot of talk about Carter this week. Instead, the focus has been
on Randy Moss. And Daunte Culpepper. And in smaller doses, Robert Smith.
Part of that was Carter's doing as he chose to speak minimally about his
future in hopes of not taking the attention away from his team.
"The story is not me and how long I'm going to play, because it doesn't
matter," Carter said. "It doesn't really matter. Fourteen or fifteen years,
it doesn't matter. One thousand or 1,100 catches, what difference does it
make? It doesn't make that much of a difference. When it's time for me to
quit, I will quit."
Carter, whose personality varies from articulate and polished off the
field to flamboyant and cocky on it, said Friday he brought a picture from
fifth-grade football with him this weekend to remind him of the
proper passion with which to play the game.
As he spoke Friday about the photo, which he said looks just like his
son, his eyes again drew a bit misty.
"It's something that one of my sisters gave me a few weeks ago," he said. "And I made a pact with
myself that I would play with the same energy in the playoffs that I did in
the fifth grade. If I can't do that, why play? And it reminds me so much of
my son. It's just something that I wanted to hold onto this weekend."
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I do believe that sometime very, very soon, someone else deserves the opportunity to wear No. 80 and run out there and be part of the Vikings. I don't want to prolong that. ” |
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— Cris Carter, Vikings wide receiver |
Since the arrival of the high-profile Moss in 1998, Carter, who has
caught more passes (1,200) and more touchdowns (123) than anyone but Jerry
Rice, has taken a backseat of sorts in the Vikings offense. After all, it
was a Moss jersey the Giants had draped across the center of their locker
room this week (already with a Super Bowl XXXV patch stitched in the sleeve)
to help psyche them up.
Yet you'd be in the dark completely if you didn't realize the Vikings
begin and end with Carter. Moss might make more highlight-reel catches, but Carter is the glue to this team.
"It's interesting that he's thinking about this because we were just
looking at film and talking about him," Giants defensive end Michael Strahan
said earlier this week. "I think he could go another five years. You look at
him, he's always open. He never drops the ball -- even if he gets just two
fingers on it.
"And you never talk trash to Cris Carter because you have so much respect
for him. He's been there and done everything."
And not just on the field. Away from the game, Carter is the one who took
a troubled Moss under his wings and educated him about the intricacies of
the NFL game. He did the same with Culpepper, forcing the second-year
quarterback to commit himself to greatness.
"The thing I've tried to teach them is the cost of being a great player
or even a good player in this league," Carter said. "And they've both
responded."
It's worked because rookies listen to Carter. He has been there. It was
Carter who nearly threw his career away in the late 1980s because of drug and
alcohol abuse. The problems got so bad that in 1990, the Philadelphia
Eagles, who drafted Carter out of Ohio State in 1987, cut the first-rounder.
But since joining the Vikings, Carter re-prioritized his life, put his
raucous, partying ways behind him and became one of the classiest
representatives of the NFL.
"If not for the grace of God, I probably still wouldn't be playing," he
admits now. "It took a lot of work, a lot of self-evaluation, really looking
at the parts of yourself that you really don't want people to know, the
parts that are ugly, trying to get rid of them, trying to better yourself."
It has worked. His success and longevity is largely attributed to his
well-documented off-season regimen, which includes a grueling 10-day boot
camp of lifting weights and running hills -- and that's just for starters. He
babies his silky soft hands by dipping them in a 126-degree bath of oil and
paraffin wax.
All of it has worked. And no matter what the outcome is Sunday, you can bet
there will be emotion in the eyes of Minnesota's No. 80.
Wayne Drehs is a staff writer at ESPN.com.
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