Week one of the NFL season was full of strong debuts. But the best rookie quote came, to no one's surprise, from the Vikings kicking unit. Blair Walsh nailed the first four field goal attempts of his career on Sunday, all of them coming after the third quarter. His third was a 55-yarder as time expired, sending the game into OT, and his fourth, from 38 yards, allowed Minnesota to walk off with a win.
Vikings owner Zygi Wilf was impressed. He went to the locker room, took off his necktie, and tossed it to Walsh. Wilf has a tradition of giving his ties away to players who perform especially well—the owner's equivalent of Mean Joe Greene. Walsh was appreciative, but given the oddity of the gesture and the pressure of his first postgame press conference, he was also a bit confused:
"Literally off his neck and he threw it at me," Walsh said. "I was like, 'All right.' It's a nice tie. I couldn't even read whatever the brand was, that's usually a good sign. I didn't want to touch it, or smell it or anything like that. I just sort of put it in the locker."
Wilf is probably too classy to own a scratch-and-sniff tie, so it all worked out.
h/t Charlie C.