It's a good thing bail money doesn't count against the salary cap.

The Vikings have been receiving a lot of attention for their league-leading arrest streak. When Adrian Peterson got pinched in Houston last weekend, it marked the team's 10th arrest since January 2011 and the 39th arrest or citation since 2000. Ever wonder what that little block of print says at the base of their football helmets? It's a copy of their Miranda rights.

No other team can match that. But it's puzzling as to why people point to the turn of the century as sort of a ready, set, go to start counting these infractions. Trouble has been a Vikings hallmark for many, many years and not just a 21st-century problem. For a little slice of the 1990s, for example, look at the two-year period smack in the middle of the decade.

During that time, the Vikings had three allegations of sexual harassment, two charges of domestic battery, one possession of an unauthorized handgun, one failure to pay child support and one reported case of bigamy. We're not even counting DUIs here. And all that was with the new sheriff in town, Dennis Green.

But there was plenty of trouble before that, too, which is why the team needed a new sheriff in the first place. The 1980s were one big swirl of litigation. When Keith Millard was pulled over in January 1990 for driving 73 mph in a 40-mph zone at 1 a.m. and then refusing a breathalyzer test, the incident marked the Vikings' 13th drinking-related offense in just four years.

I still can remember the jokes from that period: What do you say to a Viking in a three-piece suit? Will the defendant please rise. Four Vikings are in a car at midnight. Who's driving? A cop. Those were belly laughs back then. Now they're worn out from overuse.