This week, the Vikings again tower over their opponents in search popularity with the homeboys getting 3,895 team-related searches (an uptick of nearly 200 from last week) and the Titans getting only 1,797. (Read my methodology here.)
With seven Vikings or former Vikings making the list of 2005 Hall of Fame nominees on Thursday, I thought I’d check on their search popularity. Three of the seven–Jim Marshall, Matt Blair, and Gary Zimmerman–played all or the majority of their careers with the Vikings. The rest (Chris Hinton, Darryl Talley, Herschel Walker, Roger Craig) and played three or fewer years with the Vikings. The following are their searches by popularity:
- Herschel Walker, RB, [Played for Vikings from 1992-1994]: 273
- Jim Marshall, DE, [Played for the Vikings from 1961-1979]: 67
- Roger Craig, RB, [Played for the Vikings from 1992-1993]: 41
- Matt Blair, LB, [Played for the Vikings from 1974-1985]: 29
- Gary Zimmerman, OT, [Played for the Vikings from 1986-1992]: 25
- Chris Hinton, OG/OT, [Played for the Vikings from 1994-1995]: 5
- Darryl Talley, LB, [Played for the Vikings in 1996]: 0
Chris Hovan searches (71) edge out Titans defensive end Kevin Carter (42). Daunte Culpepper‘s amazing play has begun to pique interest online; his 273 searches are nearly double the number of searches he had last week and outnumber his Titans counterpart, Steve McNair, who has 251. People may be anticipating Michael Bennett‘s return, as his searches continue to increase from week to week, this time with 133. Both Onterrio Smith (83) and Mwelde Moore (54) saw slight increases from last week, while searches for the Titans new running back Chris Brown are a robust (194) for a relative newcomer. You need to keep in mind, though, that Chris Brown is a common name, so searches on his name are likely artificially high.
Randy Moss continues to blow by everyone, breaking the 1,000 search mark this week with 1,040. While Marcus Robinson is a fine complement to Moss on-field, he’s got a lot of field to make up online with a mere 12 searches this week. The Titans most popularly-search reciever, meanwhile, is Drew Bennett with 69.
The match-up of first-round picks falls, finally, in the Vikings’ favor, with rookie defensive end Kenechi Udeze‘s 10 (which has remained at that number for awhile) outpacing the Titans’ first pick, tight end Ben Troupe‘s 5 seaches. Kenechi has a bit of an advantage though, because the Titans actually didn’t have a first-round pick: Troupe was taken in the second round.
Finally, the much-touted matchup of future Hall of Fame Anderso/en kickers–former Viking and current Titan Gary Anderson vs. current Viking Morten Andersen isn’t even close, with Gary winning hands down. Gary gets 62 searches versus zero for Morton Andersen. Only Morton’s last name is misspelt as Anderson does he get any searches, and then only 13.
