It is an understatement to say that things aren’t going well in Minnesota. The Vikings’ offensive line, missing veteran center Matt Birk, is in shambles. The team’s best receiver is gone, traded for a draft pick and a linebacker, Napolean Harris, who has already played his way out of the lineup. The expensive free agents brought in to fix the defense never gelled. To top it off, numerous players were implicated in a scandal involving a “sex party cruise” during the team’s bye week.

But of all the Vikings who have fallen on hard times, none had farther to fall than Daunte Culpepper. Last year, the superstar quarterback threw for an NFL best 4717 yards ran for 406 more, giving him the highest combined yardage total in NFL history. He threw 39 touchdowns with just 11 interceptions.

What a difference a year makes. Through five games, Culpepper has thrown 12 interceptions – more than all of last season – and just four touchdowns. His average yards-per-pass attempt has dropped from 8.6 to 6.9, and his completion percentage has fallen from 69% to 62%.

Of course, Culpepper’s problems are in large part Minnesota’s problems. Star receiver Randy Moss in suiting up in Oakland, and Nate Burleson, the receiver who was supposed to replace him, has only played two games due to injury. Culpepper is left with last year’s third wideout, Marcus Robinson, and three new unspectacular additions in Travis Taylor, Koren Robinson, and rookie Troy Williamson.

Sunday’s 28-3 loss to Chicago, which dropped the Vikings to 1-4, provided an example of how the receivers must share some of the blame for Culpepper’s misfortunes. On the first of Culpepper’s two interceptions, Bears cornerback Charles Tillman anticipated the pass route and jumped in front of Williamson, who stood there passively and did nothing to prevent Tillman from catching the ball. The second interception hit Taylor in the hands, ricocheted into the air, and landed in the arms of Bears safety Chris Harris.

The Vikings are also stuck in neutral thanks to a vanilla game plan from new offensive coordinator Steve Loney. Last year, under former coordinator Scott Linehan, the Vikings receivers mixed short, medium, and long routes, forcing safeties to commit one way or the other while Culpepper could hit whoever was left uncovered. But Loney’s offense seems to consist of “everybody run 10 yards and Daunte will throw to someone.” Williamson, drafted to be a deep threat, has just one catch over 25 yards, but seven of 10 yards or less.

Of course, it is hard to send receivers deep when the offensive line can’t block anyone. Birk is out for the year with a hip injury, and his replacement, Cory Withrow, has proven himself too slow to stop opponents from penetrating up the middle. In addition, without Birk to make adjustments before the snap, the rest of the line has had a harder time picking up opposing stunts and blitzes. The resulting pressure has Culpepper looking confused and unsure of himself, a dramatic change from the confident signal caller he has been in years past. It also explains why he’s on pace to be sacked an eye-popping 77 times this season.

It’s not likely that Culpepper will continue throwing three interceptions for every touchdown, but even if he improves moderately over the course of the season, the drop in his performance will be historic. No quarterback since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 has thrown twice as many touchdowns as interceptions one year, and then twice as many interceptions as touchdowns the next (minimum eight games each season). But Culpepper is on pace to go from a season with three times as many touchdowns as interceptions to a season with three times as many interceptions as touchdowns.

2005 has been written off, but can Culpepper rescue his career? Because his collapse is so unprecedented, it is impossible to find similar situations in NFL history for comparison. There are two players from the pre-merger NFL who had a decline to match Culpepper’s, but they don’t bear much resemblance to a 28-year-old superstar who should be in the prime of his career.

Rudy Bukich was a career backup who finished second in the NFL in passing yards when the Bears finally gave him a starting job in 1965.The following year, he averaged 6.0 yards per pass, with 10 touchdowns and 21 interceptions. He never started another game. Y.A. Tittle threw 36 touchdowns and 14 interceptions for the 1963 Giants, then regressed to 10 touchdowns and 22 interceptions. But 1964 was the 38-year-old Hall of Famer’s 15th and final season.

Perhaps the best comparison to Culpepper is Steve McNair, who had a co-MVP season with Tennessee 2003 before seeing his numbers collapse in 2004 when one receiver was traded and another retired. McNair missed half the season with injuries, but wasn’t playing well even when healthy; his yards per pass attempt fell from 8.0 to 6.2, and he threw twice as many interceptions per game.

This year, McNair is back, but more of the players who surrounded him during his best years have left. While he’s playing better than he did last year, his numbers are nowhere close to what they were two years ago. This will likely be Culpepper’s fate as well. He can’t play this poorly forever, but the Vikings are about embark on a major rebuilding project that could take years. Nobody ever expected him to duplicate his historic 2004 season, but it may be a long time before Culpepper’s performance can approach the standard he set in the years before that.

Mr. Schatz is the editor in chief of FootballOutsiders.com.