Before a Monday Night Football game three years ago, then-ESPN play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico was asked for a reason fans should watch the 1-4 Vikings face the 0-6 New York Giants.

Tirico was able to come up with one.

“You have a bunch of fantasy owners who need this game for their win or loss,” Tirico said.

Suffice to say, whoever had Josh Freeman on their team then probably didn’t win.

It was Oct. 21, 2013, and Freeman played the only game he ever would as Minnesota’s quarterback. It was a complete disaster. Related Articles Vikings’ Tajae Sharpe excited about facing former Titans teammates

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Freeman, who had been signed Oct. 7 and was thrust into the lineup for the nationally televised game, completed just 20 of 53 passes for 190 yards with an interception. He had a microscopic passer rating of 40.6, and the Vikings lost 23-7 at MetLife Stadium.

Entering Monday, when the Vikings play host to the Giants at U.S. Bank Stadium, that was the last time they have appeared in the sole game on Monday Night Football. The Vikings did play in the nightcap of an ESPN doubleheader in Week 1 last season, losing 20-3 at San Francisco.

“We got beat up pretty good,” Minnesota center Joe Berger said about the 2013 game. “I guess it’s a game you try not to remember.”

Like it or not, the Freeman game has become infamous in Vikings history. Minnesota, which had started Christian Ponder for two games earlier that season and Matt Cassel for two, was desperate for a quarterback and had signed Freeman to a one-year, $3 million deal after Tampa Bay let him go.

After seven practices, then-Vikings coach Leslie Frazier inserted Freeman, and he clearly wasn’t ready. His performance was one of the worst by a quarterback in recent NFL history.

“He was the wild thing that night,” said Vikings wide receiver Jarius Wright, who did manage to catch one Freeman pass for 13 yards.

Freeman became just the fifth NFL quarterback since 1960, and the first since 2007 to throw 50 or more passes without reaching 200 yards. His completion percentage of 37.7 was the lowest for a quarterback with 40 or more attempts since 2007.

Freeman overthrew his receivers 16 times, which was the most since ESPN had begun tracking that statistic eight years earlier. He was the second quarterback in league history to throw 30 or more incompletions in a debut with a team.

“He was put in a really, really tough situation,” said tight end Kyle Rudolph, who caught three passes for 27 yards that night. “It’s hard to not only learn the offense, but to get used to receivers, being on the same page with guys you’ve never played with.”

Jon Gruden will serve as ESPN’s analyst on Monday and will be paired with Sean McDonough, who replaced Tirico this season. It will be the first Vikings game Gruden has broadcast since the Freeman debacle.

“It wasn’t fair to Josh or to the rest of the team, but it wasn’t like they had a lot of options,” Gruden said. “It was a very difficult time for the Vikings. They were struggling to find a quarterback and they rolled the dice. I can’t say I blamed them. At least they tried. But to have him throw (53) passes, that was probably a little bit too much to ask.”

The game did no favors to Freeman’s career. He didn’t play again for the Vikings the rest of that season.

Freeman has spent time since 2014 with the Giants, Miami and Indianapolis, and has been on an NFL roster for only one regular-season game. That was when the injury-plagued Colts picked him up for the 2015 finale and he started.

At least the Vikings have had better recent luck with a quarterback quickly thrown into action. After Teddy Bridgewater suffered a season-ending knee injury in an Aug. 30 practice, the Vikings acquired Sam Bradford from Philadelphia on Sept. 3, and he made his first start Sept. 18.

Bradford is 2-0 as a starter and has looked good for the 3-0 Vikings. His first practice was 14 days before his debut, two days longer than Freeman had after his initial practice.

“Only Sam Bradford can pull that off,” Rudolph said of a quarterback quickly learning the offense.

Freeman sure didn’t.