Jay Fiedler Becomes the Sports Talk of the Jewish World (almost)
By Mordecai Specktor
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - In the cozy press room next to the players' locker room at Winter Park, the Minnesota Vikings' purple-splattered headquarters and practice facility in suburban Eden Prairie, Jay Fiedler discussed his dream of being a starting quarterback in the NFL.
The Jewish native of Oceanside, N.Y., who helped lead Dartmouth University to three Ivy League football championships, was cut by the Vikings just before the start of the regular season. When starting quarterback Brad Johnson broke his leg early in the season, Fiedler got the call to return to the team.
Before the Vikings' Nov. 8 game with New Orleans, Johnson had mended and returned to the No. 2 QB slot - behind Randall Cunningham, a veteran NFL quarterback who has been having a sensational season. Fiedler waxed philosophical about being back in the third-string spot.
"Every time you're on a roster and dressing for a game there's always a chance that you're going to be out there," he said. "When that time comes for me - unfortunately, injuries happen in the league, guys do go down - and I get a chance to play in regular action, I've got to go out and prove that I can play."
Fiedler allowed that every player wants to be in the starting lineup, "but not everyone gets that chance. Right now I'm kind of biding my time. If I ever get that chance - which is what I'd love to have happen - I just want to make the most of it." The 26-year-old quarterback noted that "anything can happen" on the brutal NFL gridirons - and two days later, as the Vikings battled the New Orleans Saints at the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, it did. When the dust had cleared that Sunday, the Vikings had another victory - they were 8-1 - but starting QB Cunningham (who Fiedler had played behind in Philadelphia in 1994-95) injured his knee on the third play of the game. Brad Johnson came in and played a great game, but fractured his right thumb, on his throwing hand.
Suddenly, Jay Fiedler - whose grandfather was a second cousin of the late Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler - was the Vikings ostensible starting quarterback, and topic number one among the Twin Cities sports writers and mavens. ESPN featured him on their early morning show.
The fate of the rampaging Vikings rested on the shoulders of the 6-foot, 1-inch, 214-lb. quarterback, who had thrown only four passes in his NFL career (he never got into a game while with the Eagles and played briefly this year against Washington and Detroit).
"It's a fairly tale," Fiedler (pronounced FEED-lur) told the reporters now crowding around. "I've had a lot of ups and downs. Right now, my roller coaster is riding to the top."
But, alas, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Sid Luckman was tuned into another game: Randall Cunningham bounced back from arthroscopic knee surgery on Monday and was tapped for the following Sunday's start against the Cincinnati Bengals. Fiedler was back to QB No. 2. / But it's not like this turn of events devastated the persistent Fiedler, who started his athletic career at age five when he won the national cross-country championship for his age bracket. The intelligent and personable quarterback was out of the NFL for two years before signing up with the Vikings in the spring. Last year he played for the Amsterdam Admirals of the World League ("A fun experience...a good excuse to travel through Europe and see some sights, and play football as well," he commented), and then coached wide receivers at Hofstra University on Long Island, N.Y.
"Things have been going great for me," Fiedler said during the chat at Winter Park (named after sports impresario Max Winter, the late Jewish businessman who brought the NFL franchise to Minnesota in 1961). "It's been a great year, hooking on with the team and making it back into the NFL, and to come back on a team like this is a little icing on the cake."
From a Reform Jewish family heavily into sports, Fiedler has "always been a serious kid, and he's always known what he wants to do," noted his older brother, Scott Fiedler, an assistant basketball coach at Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y. Ken Fiedler, their father, was a high school basketball coach for 30 years, and took a number of young athletes under his wing, including Anthony Mason, the NBA star now with the Charlotte Hornets.
The Fiedler brothers' mom, Donna, also gets credit. "Not all Jewish mothers are going to let their sons play football," offered Scott Fiedler. "She let us do whatever we wanted, she's been there for everything."
Although Randall Cunningham played most of the game against New Orleans on Nov. 15, with a 24-3 Vikings lead and 7:54 remaining, Fiedler came in. He hit receiver Jake Reed with a pass for a first down, but the offensive series ended when Fiedler under threw a pass to rookie sensation Randy Moss that was picked off.
On his next series, Fiedler skillfully engineered a ground attack and moved the Vikings downfield; then it was time to run out the clock and trot off the field with a 9-1 record for the season.
"Jay was solid," declared Vikings coach Dennis Green after the game. "It was kind of nice that he had that action."
In the Vikings locker room, Fiedler wore a towel around his waist and a smile.
"It was a crazy week, that's for sure," he said in regard to all the press attention. "It ended up in a win and that's the most important thing."
As for his third chance to play in an NFL game, Fiedler remarked, "It felt good. I went out there and felt like I made a couple good plays - it was fun out there."
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