ESPN’s “NFL Sunday Countdown” crew started talking about the alleged sex party the Minnesota Vikings threw on two charter cruises last week, and I immediately thought, “What the hell is Michael Irvin going to have to say about this?” Drugs, hookers, guns, arrest warrants…Irvin’s certainly no stranger to this type of depravity. Sure enough, Chris Berman tossed it to Tom Jackson first, then Steve Young chimed in, and every time they showed a wide-angle shot of the entire crew, Irvin was in the middle, grinning ever so slightly. At first, I thought we weren’t even going to hear from Irvin, which would’ve been disappointing but also would’ve made sense.
But kudos to the former receiver for stepping up and saying that, because of his history, he had no business criticizing anyone for their off-field choices. That’d be like Andy Reid offering Mike Holmgren some dieting suggestions. Irvin did say that the hardest part of the past week for those Vikings players involved was going home and facing their wives and kids. Yeah, that can’t be an easy conversation.
Of course, what Irvin (and perhaps Young and Jackson, for that matter) could’ve said was that these types of parties happen all the time in the NFL, but I’m sure ESPN, not to mention Paul Tagliabue, wouldn’t have been thrilled about that.
