On January 17, 1999, the Minnesota Vikings were aiming for a Super Bowl showdown in Miami, and the NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons was supposed to be a stepping stone to that. But when placekicker Gary Anderson missed that fourth-quarter 39-yard field goal, everything came crashing down.

For more than two decades, the blame for that loss fell squarely on the leg of Anderson, who had not missed a single kick in two years. But when Cris Carter went fishing with Randy Moss and Jake Reed recently, a whole new story came out – one that had Moss blaming Carter for something that happened long before Anderson’s kick sailed wide left of the uprights.

On a recent episode of Chasing 10 with Randy Moss, Reed suggested that they could have taken a knee at halftime instead of trying to put more points on the board. But on the field, 28 years ago, Carter had other plans.

“I recommended going for it because the coach always asked me, Brian Billick [offensive coordinator at the time] asked me. I was like, ‘Yeah, we got them on the run. Let’s take a couple of plays. See if we can get a couple of first downs and attack them. Cause that was the mode of the season. We had [broken] the NFL record.”

Moss had to double-check because he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. When Reed asked Carter if they could blame that loss on Carter, Moss didn’t even wait for Carter to defend himself.

“Yeah, you’re the reason we damn lost,” Moss shouted. “What the hell are you talking about? You told Brian Billick to go with it, and Chuck Smith stripped a man.”

Now, the ‘98 Vikings were just built differently. Through a 15-1 regular season, they scored an NFL-record 556 points, and Moss caught the most touchdown passes ever by a rookie (17) that year. 12 of those 15 wins came with at least a 10-point lead over their opponents. So, in the NFC Championship, even when the Vikings had a 13-point lead over Atlanta in the second quarter, Carter expected to put more points on the board.

With just 1:17 left on the clock, Coach Billick decided to listen to Carter’s suggestion. Quarterback Randall Cunningham couldn’t connect with Matthew Hatchette or Carter in the first two downs. Then, on the 3rd-and-10, with less than a minute left in the half, as Cunningham stepped back and looked downfield, Falcons defensive end Chuck Smith beat left tackle Todd Stuessie, barrelled towards Cunningham, and forced a fumble. The Falcons, smelling blood, landed a 14-yard touchdown to cut Minnesota’s lead to just 6 points.

Instead of going for it, if the Vikings had taken a knee before the half, they might have reached the Super Bowl. Instead, the Vikings ended up losing 30-27 in overtime. 28 years later, on Moss’ boat, as Moss kept pointing to Carter, the HOFer shifted the blame to the offensive line.

“Moss, you guys were terrified,” Carter said. “So, I thought we could put the game out of reach the same way we had attacked people all season. I didn’t know Todd Stuessie, the left tackle, was going to not block a guy. I can recommend plays. I can do something with personnel. But guess what? I can’t do your job for you. We all got work to do. Block your f*****g man. How about that?”

Whatever the reason, the postseason slipped away from their fingers that year. Gary Anderson’s missed kick became the easy villain because it was a fourth-quarter blunder, from a man his team called their “automatic kicker.” But Randy Moss, Jake Reed, and Cris Carter’s boat conversation revealed the real fracture came earlier – through a fumble that never should have happened with a 13-point lead.

Twenty-eight years later, the argument still hasn’t been settled. Moss blames Carter’s playcall, and Carter blames Stuessie’s blocking. Nobody on that boat believes Anderson was the reason they lost that game. That’s the part that stings for a team that broke the NFL scoring record, and still watched a potential Super Bowl trip die on its own aggression.