The Minnesota Star Tribune’s Ben Goessling on covering the 5-0 Vikings

The Minnesota Vikings are a huge surprise. No one could have predicted a team led by a journeyman quarterback would be the NFC’s last undefeated team.

With Minnesota on a bye last weekend, we thought it would be a perfect time to catch up with Ben Goessling of The Minnesota Star Tribune .

Goessling is as Minnesota as it gets. The Minnesota native attended the University of Minnesota, majoring in journalism and accounting. He has covered the Vikings for 13 seasons, first for The St. Paul Pioneer Press, then ESPN before joining the Star Tribune in 2017. We spoke to Goessling about chronicling one of the NFL’s best stories.

Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Awful Announcing: Have you covered a more surprising Vikings team?

Ben Goessling: “Probably not. 2022 was a surprise in the first year with Kevin O’Connell when they won all those one-score games. 2017 was probably a little bit of a surprise because they lost their starting quarterback in Week 1 and lost Dalvin Cook. They went on a run to the NFC title game with Case Keenum. Even in 2012, that was a team coming off of a three-win season a year before and got hot early. Adrian Peterson wins MVP. There have been a few I think that would be in the conversation. But this one being the last undefeated team in the NFC, being as dominant as they’ve been on defense, and then doing it with Sam Darnold on offense, is probably at the top of the list.”

What is Sam Darnold like?

“He’s not interested in getting into the past. He certainly doesn’t seem interested in dwelling on why it didn’t work for him in New York at the beginning of his career. He has opened up a little more in the last few weeks. As he has success, as he gets more comfortable with it, I think you’ll see that continue. He’ll talk to you and do the obligations that a quarterback has every week. We’ll see where it goes from there. He knows it’s been a story that he hasn’t been successful and is trying to reboot his career. I think he’s aware of those things but doesn’t seem interested in feeding into the narratives.”

How much access does the media get overall?

“Kevin O’Connell is good with us. He gives us a lot of time. He is forthright with things to the degree that an NFL coach is going to be. I think he understands the nature of our jobs. I think he works to build relationships. I think that is important to him. He has done TV and radio himself. So, he understands the nature of the give and take. He’ll have things that annoy him about daily coverage. But generally, he’s very generous with his time. I think that feeds into the locker room. We have players who are willing to sit down for longer interviews.”

How has Brian Flores been to deal with given his lawsuit and what Tua Tagovailoa said about him?

“Look, it’s been a crazy few years for him. I think he has been through quite a bit from the lawsuits. I’ve talked to him about the effects it had on his family and some of the things his kids would hear at school. I think he’s found a good fit here and he talks about that quite a bit. Where it’ll go from here for him, I don’t know. He didn’t get a single interview last year and their defense wasn’t as good as this has been. You wonder: is the lawsuit affecting his ability to get interviews? If they continue to do this well, and he doesn’t get interviews I think you’ll start to say ‘OK, there’s probably more to this story here.’ But he’s been good for us. He’s made time for one-on-ones and generally, our exchanges with him are typically pretty good and insightful.”

Why is locker room access important for your job?

“It allows you to form something of a relationship with players. Talking to more players, you get more complete stories, which I think is a good thing for fans. I’ve covered Harrison Smith. My first year on the beat was his first year in the NFL. So, we’ve kind of gone through our time in the NFL almost in parallel tracks in terms of him being a player and me being a reporter. That amount of time adds a depth and a level of, I hope, trust that allows me to do a better job and tell better stories in service to the fans.”

Which Vikings players might have a future media career?

“I could see Aaron Jones. He’s a guy who certainly has a lot of good relationships in the media already. I could see Camryn Bynum. I could see Josh Metellus. Both are sharp guys who are pretty comfortable in front of a microphone. I could even see a guy like C.J. Ham if he wanted to do it. Justin Jefferson, if he were to do it, everybody would be interested in hearing what he has to say. He’s pretty candid.”

Owner Zygi Wilf seems to stay out of the national media spotlight. Is that intentional?

“The Wilfs have not been people who like to be front and center on a lot of things. You’re not going to see them in front of a microphone like Jerry Jones. (Co-owner and team president) Mark Wilf talks to us about twice a year, typically at the owners’ meetings and then once in training camp. It’s typically more Mark than Zygi, who is doing the media. You hear Zygi do it once in a while, but not often. I don’t think they like a lot of attention.”

Are the Vikings the most important beat at the paper?

“We’ve got three beat writers at the Star Tribune who cover the Vikings, and we are adding a fourth. There’s no other beat we have that has more than two. So, it is the 800-pound gorilla in the market. There’s no question about it. I think that’s true everywhere, from radio to TV to print. It’s certainly a Vikings town first.”

What was it like covering the Vikings in London?

“It’s the fourth time I’ve done it, which is surprising. Every time the Vikings have gone, I’ve gone with them to London. It has changed a lot over the years. The first time the Vikings went was in 2013, and they have kind of made a thing of going over there fairly regularly. This was the second time they’ve given up a home game, but you can see the fan base starting to grow over there. We did a couple of events at a pub they had taken over for the week. There was a line out the door to get in. The place was so packed. The crowd for the game was predominantly purple. From a beat writer’s perspective, it’s an exhausting week. It’s a long trip, and getting around London is not easy. But those games are always a lot of fun. It’s just a cool atmosphere.”

The crowd sang Don’t Look Back in Anger by Oasis. Is that a regular thing for these London games?

“It was the first time I heard it there. I think they polled the crowd on which song they wanted to hear. Oasis is huge in London. Oasis is one of my favorite bands from my childhood. Mike Rand , who works for the Star Tribune, and I are on the Access Vikings podcast together. We have a running feud about Oasis versus Blur. He was at the game, too. As soon as that song came on, I let him know. ‘Hey, they’re playing Oasis, not Blur. There are not enough Blur songs for everybody to sing at the top of their lungs. Nobody else would know any of them.’ It was cool to hear that.”

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