John Randle shared a hilarious story about Tony Dungy

John Randle has the best Tony Dungy story from their time together on the Minnesota Vikings.

Tony Dungy had a big impact on John Randle‘s career when they were on the Minnesota Vikings.

Dungy served as the Vikings defensive coordinator from 1992-95. This coincided with Randle’s first few years with Minnesota out of Texas A&M-Kingsville. Dungy went on to be a Hall of Fame head coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Indianapolis Colts, while Randle became a hall of fame defensive tackle with the Vikings and later on with the Seattle Seahawks.

On this week’s episode of Stacking the Box with FanSided‘s Matt Verderame and Mark Carman, Randle revealed an amazing story about how low-key hilarious the soft-spoken Dungy was as an on-the-rise defensive coordinator with the Vikings in the early 1990s.

“We had a guy who was one of our DBs who was from Louisiana,” said Randle on behalf of Sleep Number.” And he used to always scream, ‘Ah, Killah!’ whenever he made a big play. So in ’92, we started out like 5-0 or something. And this DB was in a meeting room with Tony and said, ‘You know what, guys? I’m going to put this highlight reel on of all our best plays.’”

“So we were watching it and you could hear this DB hollering, ‘Ah, Killah!, Ah, Killah!’. Then all of the sudden. he gets done and Tony takes the tape out, back when we had tapes, throws in this tape of bad plays, and this DB happened to be on it. And without missing a beat, Tony Dungy would say, “Ah, Killah!” That right there was Tony Dungy.”

This is a prime example of how Dungy was a one-of-a-kind defensive-minded coach in the NFL.

Minnesota Vikings: John Randle has an incredible story about Tony Dungy

Randle emphasized how unique Dungy’s coaching philosophy was at the time. In a world full of screamers, Dungy was never the type of coach to embarrass his players publicly. If a guy performed poorly, he would get to stand next to him on the sidelines and “help him coach.” His soft-spoken nature found a way to cut through all the chaos to change the lives of so many.

Dungy left the Vikings to be the next head coach of the awful Buccaneers in 1996. Though he never won a Super Bowl in Tampa Bay, he is widely seen as the best coach in franchise history. The Tampa 2 Defense sent players like Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp and now John Lynch into Canton. Not too bad for a guy that used to put “Ah, Killah!” in his place on the regular in Minnesota.

Without Dungy’s early influence on him, who knows how Randle’s NFL career would have gone.

Quality sleep is one of the easiest ways John continues to take care of his body. Sleep Number is the leader in sleep health and is the sleep and wellness partner of the NFL. That’s why John’s excited to be partnering with Sleep Number to kick off the Sleep30 Challenge, a month-long program that is working NFL Legends, to continue teaching them about the importance of sleep.

The goal is to create lasting sleeping habits as well as a better understanding of how sleep contributes to overall wellness. The challenge is split into four different areas and starts this week.