Blair Walsh received an encouraging phone call from former Vikings kicker/symbol-of-failure Gary Anderson.
They will live together in Vikings infamy, and apparently as phone buddies.
Their names are Blair Walsh and Gary Anderson and they both know what it feels like to shoot Vikings’ fans hopes right in the heart by missing a big postseason field goal.
Anderson’s epic fail happened late in the 1998 NFC championship game. After not missing a single kick all season, the veteran yanked the field goal that would have given the Vikings a commanding 10-point lead over the Falcons.
The Vikings saw the Falcons tie the game in regulation and win in overtime.
Walsh experienced his own wide-left nightmare last year when he pulled a chip-shot field goal against the Seahawks in the playoffs.
With Walsh’s miss, the Vikings went home and Seattle went on.
Both Walsh and Anderson experienced their fair share of derision in the wake of their respective shanks. The current Vikings kicker seems grateful to have received a pep-talk from the old grizzled former kicker (via St. Paul Pioneer-Press):
"“We talked (in May),” Walsh told the Pioneer Press on Wednesday. “Gary was so successful in the league for so long. He just kind of had some good advice on how to handle everything. It means a lot that somebody as qualified, and as one of the league’s all-time greats, would reach out to me, and it was nice. … Gary, he’s all class.”"
This offseason Walsh has been focused on getting back his confidence. According to Mike Priefer and Mike Zimmer, Walsh was dead-on in OTAs and minicamp and continues to be locked in down in Mankato.
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Evidently Walsh is doing a good job of putting himself in a positive mind-set, with a little help from Gary Anderson.
Let’s hope that carries over to when he actually has to make another kick in a pressure situation. Facing the crowd with a game on the line is a little different than booting balls through the uprights off a tee in practice.