Why they didn’t pack it in

The assignment seemed straightforward enough: Re­create the scene in the visitor’s locker room Nov. 11 at Lambeau Field, where the Vikings had just absorbed one of the worst regular-­season defeats in team history. Detail how the team catapulted from a game that should have ended its season to its current position in the NFC’s wild card playoff race.

Who made the speeches? Why did anyone listen? Why didn’t the Vikings just fall in line with most 3-6 teams and play out the string?

What motivated them, after squeaking by the Oakland Raiders the following week, to defeat their next three opponents by a combined score of 110-34 entering tonight’s game against Chicago?

Questions were asked. Opinions were offered. The names of two players were mentioned prominently. Their voices had been heard.

Their advice was valued and proved prophetic. And so a story was being prepared about the key roles they played in maintaining their teammates’ interest in what appeared to be a lost season.

And then Dwight Smith was cited Thursday night for possession of marijuana and obstruction of traffic in downtown Minneapolis. Pat Williams was with him at the scene, although by all accounts Williams had no role in the incident. And after a few anguished moments, it all made sense. Who else, in a most unpredictable season, would be responsible for preserving the Vikings’ competitive fires than two players who ultimately would show up in a police report?

According to interviews in the past week, Smith and Williams made mini-speeches in the Lambeau Field locker room.

Moving around in small groups then furthering their points later in the week, Williams challenged teammates’ pride and suggested they get back to enjoying the game. Meanwhile, Smith recounted his experience with playoff teams in Tampa Bay (including Super Bowl XXXVII), stressed that the Vikings had playoff-caliber talent and set a goal of going 1-0 every week the rest of the season.

While players and coaches from every corner of Winter Park have made contributions to the Vikings’ four-game winning streak, the themes Williams and Smith propagated in Green Bay on that day and the ones that followed have flowed most noticeably during the past month.

“The feeling in that locker room was just one of embarrassment,” linebacker Ben Leber said. “Everybody just took that loss personally.”

Speaking quietly among themselves
According to Leber, Smith circulated the room as players headed for the team bus.

“Dwight Smith just kind of came out and said, 'Hey, everybody needs to buy into this one-game per week kind of season,’ ” Leber said. “It wasn’t a rah-rah speech or anything. We just kind of heard him say it, and we’ve approached each week like it’s the last game of the year. We put all of our eggs in that basket each week, and it’s really helped.”

Smith, of course, spent much of the fourth quarter of that game laughing on the sideline and entertaining his teammates as if he were leading off a Night at the Improv. However, Leber said that perception was “a misunderstanding of body language.”

“I’m telling you what,” Leber said, “[Smith is] a true professional who really does care about his performance. He’s really one of the smartest guys we have on this defense. It’s unfortunate that people got that perception, because he was just making fun of himself. He was talking about a play that he didn’t play very well on. At that point, I think he was like, 'What else are you going to do but laugh at yourself?’ ”

The anecdote helps explain the mystery of Smith, who has held an NFL job for seven years despite criminal infractions ranging from public indecency to guns to marijuana. He not only has the ability to play safety at an NFL level, but he also has a salesman’s touch in galvanizing a locker room.

He also makes a sport of public contrarianism. Speaking to reporters Thursday afternoon, Smith said he saw nothing significant about the team’s post-Packers approach and suggested it was a revisionist notion meant to fit a neat story of redemption.

“What could that game mean to us other than getting the crap beat out of us?” Smith said.

He added: “Who knows why we’ve won four in a row? I don’t feel like we’ve done anything different. It’s just that when you stink, stinky stuff happens to you. When you don’t, it doesn’t.”

Smith made one allowance: Yes, players formed a closer bond in early November. But the catalyst was not the Packers game, but player outrage over the team’s decision the previous week to dock receiver Troy Williamson a game check after he left the team for nine days following the death of his grandmother in South Carolina.

“The issue with Troy’s family, that brought this team together,” Smith said. “It had nothing to do with a game or nothing like that. When you start winning, guys start trying to say, 'This is the reason’ or 'That is the reason.’ I guess you’ve got to talk to the guys that believe it was that game. I’m not one of those guys.”

The Vikings eventually returned Williamson’s wages, but Leber agreed that the issue gave players an opportunity to bond in a way that paid dividends after the Packers game.

“It was a situation where we took our attention and focused it on a personal level,” Leber said. “Whenever you can break down the barriers of football players and take it to a personal level, and start to open up to each other and understand one another, that all helps, and helps us learn how each other plays and really start to care about one another.”

Recognize the talent
Like Smith, Williams was also upset about his play in Green Bay. Williams considers himself the guardian of the Vikings’ usually stifling run defense and was embarrassed the Packers had rushed for 81 yards in the first quarter and 120 in the game.

“That’s not the way we play around here,” Williams said. “We’re better than that.”

Williams has been a part of eight non-playoff teams in his 10 full NFL seasons in Buffalo and Minnesota. Smith hasn’t been to the playoffs since the 2002 Buccaneers won the championship. Both players have seen plenty of subpar collections of talent.

This Vikings group, they contended, wasn’t one of them.

“You have a lot of veterans from a lot of different places,” receiver Bobby Wade said. “They were kind of like, 'Look, you should appreciate the value of the players that you have here, compared to some … you might have had in the past. This is a good team.
“On average, it will be very few times that you will get guys to come along that has this much quality. We all realize this is too good an opportunity to pass up.”

Seems straightforward enough.