Vikings winless but OK?

Teams that start 0-4 say the same things week after week after mind-numbing week.

"We have too much talent to be 0-4 ... if we just clean up the little mistakes ... we keep shooting ourselves in the foot ... it's just a matter of execution ... we're on the verge of turning this thing around."

They say it. We hear it. Eyes get rolled.

Right, Vikings fans?

But what if once upon a time in a mystical land far, far away, there were coaches and players who said all those same tired clichés and then actually followed through on it and made the playoffs?

Say hello to the 1992 San Diego Chargers.

In terms of historical NFL precedence, they're all the hope that's left for fans of the free-falling Vikings to cling to. The Chargers of 1992 started 0-4, finished 11-1, won the AFC West and beat the Kansas City Chiefs 17-0 in the opening round of the playoffs.

"It's two different teams, but the chemistry we had in '92 and the chemistry that I know is in that Vikings locker room are very similar," said Eric Bieniemy, the former Chargers running back who also served as Vikings running backs coach from 2006 to 2010. "And I know I shouldn't say this because it'll probably make my fellow Chargers angry, but the 2011 Minnesota Vikings have a lot more talent than we did in 1992."

Vikings special teams coach Mike Prieffer has told the story of the '92 Chargers a number of times the past two weeks. His father, Chuck, was special teams coach on that team.

"I was joking with [long snapper] Cullen Loeffler last week when we were 0-3," Prieffer said. "I said all we have to do is go down to Kansas City and lose, and we're in the playoffs. I was joking around, and obviously I didn't want us to lose. Now here we are at 0-4, but I also remember those '92 Chargers very well. That was a great job by guys who just kept plugging away and had one win led to another win and then another win and then ..."

A rare team

The Vikings are 6-14 since appearing in the 2009 NFC Championship Game, yet 14 of their starters today were starting back then. So there's still this feeling in the locker room that this is a good team.

The Vikings have lost four games by a combined 19 points. The '92 Chargers lost their first four by a combined 66 points, including a 27-0 loss to the Oilers in Houston in Week 4.

"The game in Houston was awful, just awful," said Bobby Ross, the Chargers' first-year coach at the time. "But we still knew we had good players."

The Chargers' problems began when they lost quarterback John Friesz to a season-ending knee injury in the preseason. General Manager Bobby Beathard made a trade with Washington for Stan Humphries, who was buried on the Redskins' depth chart.

"Bobby drafted Stan when he was GM with the Redskins," Ross said. "And the good thing for us was we ran the exact same offense the Redskins ran. I succeeded Dan Henning, and I didn't change the offense. And Dan brought Joe Gibbs' offense from Washington."

Ross had Humphries back up Bob Gagliano in the season opener. The Chargers lost 24-10 at home to the Chiefs.

Starting in Week 5, the Chargers actually did what the Vikings have only talked about so far: They played better football. A 17-6 victory at home over Seattle sent the Chargers into their bye at 1-4.

"The biggest thing we did wasn't X's and O's, it was just trying to stay very positive," Ross said. "There's so much negativity. When I showed the players game film or film from practice, I only showed the positive plays. And I'd say, 'If you can do it this way once, you can do it a lot more times like that.'"

Overcoming negativity

After the Chargers fell to 0-4, the Los Angeles Times wrote an in-depth article on Ross, a first-year NFL head coach who came from the college ranks at Georgia Tech. When a member of the Chargers' public relations staff handed it to Ross and suggested he read it, Ross threw it in the nearest garbage can.

"They told me the gist of it was 'college coach, not ready for the big time, in over his head,'" Ross said. "I knew it was bad. I didn't need to read it."

"We'd meet with the Charger Backer Club every Friday at noon before practice," Ross said. "We're 0-4 and Hacksaw introduces me by saying, 'And now the director of the "Laurel and Hardy Show," Bobby Ross.' I just blocked it out. But my wife didn't block it out."

By midseason, the Chargers were 4-4.

"When we got back to .500, that was the monkey jumping off the back," Swayne said. "When you're 0-4, things can snowball on you in a hurry. It's hard to turn it around and make the playoffs, but at the same time, I'm surprised it's only happened once with all the parity there is in the league. It can be done with the right group of guys."

The Chargers lost at Kansas City 16-14 to fall to 4-5. But an eight-game winning streak, including the wild-card victory over the Chiefs, sent them to Miami for a divisional playoff game. The Dolphins won 31-0, but the Chargers had already found their niche in NFL history.

Could it happen?

In describing how the '92 Chargers did what they did, Bieniemy repeated all the clichés one could have heard coming from Winter Park this week.

"It was a matter of every guy in our locker room being held accountable," said Bieniemy, who's now the offensive coordinator at the University of Colorado. "Guys not giving up, guys playing for one another. I remember [defensive end] Leslie O'Neal calling a team meeting when we were 0-4 and just demanding more from the guys. And in the end, it was that chemistry that got us through it."

Bieniemy said he was going to send running back Adrian Peterson a text message this week to encourage him and tell him he thinks the Vikings have what it takes to become the second 0-4 team to reach the playoffs.

Peterson hadn't gotten it as of Friday afternoon. He was in the locker room after practice when he was told that Bieniemy thinks the 2011 Vikings can join the 1992 Chargers in NFL history.

Peterson's three-word response: "It will happen."