A page from Orwell? Sure, go with that

Norm Van Brocklin motivated his players with threats, Bud Grant with glares. Les Steckel hollered, Jerry Burns cussed, Denny Green sermonized, Mike Tice growled.

Before this week, though, no Vikings coach had ever inspired his team with a bogus reference to a dead author.

"We talked about George Orwell and the field full of diamonds," Brad Childress said after the Vikings beat Carolina 20-10. "That the diamonds were right here in the room, a guy didn't have to sell his farm and go to a foreign land to look for diamonds when they were right there in the stream in his back yard.

"It took George Orwell to write that. I'm sure you could look that up."

No, you can't.

After hours of scrambling to find the story in Orwell's collection, I Googled "Diamonds in your back yard," and found it to be the work of a Baptist minister named Russell Conwell in the 1800s.

Anyway, if Childress wanted to reference Orwell, he should have chosen "Nineteen Eighty-Four."

This part is not fiction: For all of the obsessing over the Vikings offense -- Adrian Peterson's health and workload, Gus Frerotte replacing Tarvaris Jackson at quarterback, the continued inefficiency of the passing game -- this team must win games with defense.

That's what happened Sunday. Cornerback Antoine Winfield scored as many touchdowns as either offense (one), and the Vikings "D" limited the Panthers to 47 yards rushing and sacked quarterback Jake Delhomme five times.

On the key play of the game, near the end of the first half, Winfield blitzed and sacked Delhomme, stripped the ball and scored. The Vikings defense pitched a shutout the rest of the way, obviously drawing strength from Orwell. "I had no idea who that guy was," Winfield said. "That's my first time ever hearing his name."

Vikings coaches did provide meaningful motivation this week, but it had nothing to do with jewelry. Several defenders said their coaches praised the Carolina running game so often that the front seven felt insulted. This led to the best defensive performance of the year, including defensive end Jared Allen displaying his "calf roping" sack celebration and middle linebacker E.J. Henderson smashing several ballcarriers as if he were a professional wrestler leaping off the top rope.

Henderson paused while devouring "Animal Farm" to say, "Our coaches really pumped up their running game at the beginning of the week, like Jim Brown was coming in here. ... I'm looking forward to going in to work tomorrow, looking at the tape, looking at how many rushing yards they had and telling the coaches, 'I told you so.' "

Safety Darren Sharper, putting his finger on page 23 of "The Road to Wigan Pier," said of Allen, "He's from North Dakota or something, and that's what they do there."

Actually, Allen grew up in California and played college ball in Idaho.

This is what makes postgame interviews so interesting, especially in Childress' locker room. Nobody really knows what they're talking about, but we write it all down, anyway, even when the head coach is just making stuff up.

Sunday it was Orwell and the blitz. Next week at Tennessee it might just be Shakespeare and the double reverse.