The NFL draft was held on April 28. The Star Tribune devoted 15 full pages to previewing the draft on the seven mornings leading to the Vikings' selection of Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson with the seventh overall pick.
Peterson was the 10th running back chosen in the first round by the Vikings in their 47-year history.
The first of those was Tulane's Tommy Mason before the 1961 season. There was somewhat less of a buildup for that draft, even though the Vikings would be making the No. 1 overall selection and it was their first draft ever.
The Minneapolis Tribune's preview ran on the morning of that draft. The hype consisted of four paragraphs on an inside page, along with 27 lines of agate (small) type, listing a few of the top players at various positions.
"No doubt, there has been an inflation in newspaper type devoted to the draft," Mason said. "But I would venture to say the inflation in money is greater than the inflation in type."
Oakland selected quarterback JaMarcus Russell with the first choice in the 2007 draft. The Raiders allegedly have offered more than $30 million in guaranteed money, and he has not yet signed.
"My first-year salary was $12,000," Mason said.
The running back was able to extract that ransom from the Vikings because he also had offers from Boston of the fledgling American Football League and Ottawa of the Canadian Football League.
"I wasn't sure the AFL was going to last, and Canada seemed a long way away for a Louisiana boy," he said. "There was some talk about an agent, but my dad, Bill, was a watchman at a chemical plant, and my mom, Mary, was a nurse, and they couldn't believe it ... that this team from Minnesota was willing to pay their boy $12,000 to play football."
Different time, different draft
The NFL draft was held on Dec. 27, 1960. The scouting was so rudimentary that teams sent information cards to players, asking for height, weight and a few other details.
"I received an information card from the Vikings during my senior season at Tulane," Mason said. "I didn't know anything about NFL expansion. As far as I knew, the Vikings were playing in some seven-man league in the Midwest."
There was not the same level of paranoia about injuries among front offices and coaching staffs as exists today. Teams spent six or seven weeks in training camp engaged in full contact. They played six exhibition games.
In Mason's case, here's the No. 1 overall draft choice, and he was on the roster for two all-star games that summer before reporting to the first Vikings' camp in Bemidji.
The College All-Star Game pitting top senior players from the previous fall against the defending NFL champion was played from 1934 through 1976 (with the exception of 1974) in late July or early August in Chicago.
There was also a Coaches All-American Game played in Buffalo, N.Y., in June in the early 1960s. Minnesota's Murray Warmath coached the West in the first game in 1961, and Mason was a running back for him.
Why would NFL teams allow a player in whom they had invested to play in two summer all-star games before he reported to camp?
"Because, as I said, the investment was only $12,000," Mason said. "If I got hurt, it wasn't going to put them out of business."
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