Vikings' kicker drama nothing new, but now is self-imposed

JIM SOUHAN @Souhanstrib

In the fall of 1990, I stood near the loading dock at the Vikings' Winter Park facility in Eden Prairie, watching a few players pack Donald Igwebuike into the trunk of a car so they could smuggle him past the television cameras gathered on the front driveway.

Igwebuike, formerly an accomplished kicker for the Tampa Bay Bucs, was spending his first and only season with the Vikings. He had been indicted on drug-smuggling charges. He was acquitted the following spring.

Igwebuike's worries didn't harm his kicking. He converted 14 of his 16 field-goal attempts and all 19 of his extra points that season, proving that even effective Vikings kickers wind up hiding in trunks, or…