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Strange things happen when the Vikings play the Bears at Soldier Field, and those odd things often are unpleasant for the Vikings. Between 2001 and 2014, Minnesota won just one road game in 14 tries in Chicago. The Vikings are 3-3 since then, so perhaps the momentum has shifted.
On the Access Vikings podcast this week and then again on Friday's Daily Delivery podcast, we spent a decent amount of time recounting the strange things that seem to happen at Soldier Field.
I have witnessed three of those games, and all three were peculiar in their own way. It wasn't until this week that I realized they followed an odd-year pattern a couple decades ago.
1999: A friend and I drove down the morning of the game from Minneapolis for a noon game, which is ridiculous to begin with. I remember being deliriously tired. And then the game started.
It was the Bears' first home game since Walter Payton's death, and Soldier Field was filled with emotion. It was ridiculously windy — so much so that former Vikings coach Dennis Green elected to kick off in both halves (the problem was that meant the Vikings were going into the wind in the fourth quarter, but more on that in a minute).
After a back-and-forth game, Gary Anderson missed a 20-yard field goal at the end of regulation. The game went into overtime, where Anderson redeemed himself with a 38-yard game winner that barely made it over the crossbar into the wind — but only after Bears kicker Chris Boniol had missed a 41-yarder.
2001: The game itself wasn't that strange, a 17-10 Bears win. But it was delayed a week and was the first Vikings' game after 9/11. I rode down with Kevin Seifert, the Star Tribune beat writer at the time, and helped cover the game for the Star Tribune. For some reason, we drove back after all the writing was done — arriving in Minneapolis in the wee hours, late/early enough to buy a copy of that day's Star Tribune at a gas station.
2003: Charles Tillman intercepted Daunte Culpepper in the end zone in the closing moments, snatching the ball away from Randy Moss in the process.
It cemented a 13-10 Bears win and was part of the Vikings' epic collapse that season. After the game, an obnoxious Bears fan kept yelling "Peanut!" (Tillman's nickname) as we walked to the car.
