Last January, I was at a local bar at River Falls watching the NFC Championship game. The Vikings were driving and it was looking great that the Vikings would make their first Super Bowl appearance in my lifetime, not counting dream after dream of them choking in the game, but regardless, the Vikings were driving.
We all know the story. 10 men in the huddle. Favre INT. This isn't Detroit, man! Game over and I'm laying face down in the local establishment. (I still think I got sick from that, by the way.) But, there was some hope for me.
First, I knew Favre was coming back. There's no way he wants his last pass as an interception. There have been two precedents of this and he'll go through hell and back to get another Super Bowl ring.
Second, the Vikings had a bunch of players returning. Sure, there were gray areas, such as E.J. Henderson's leg and Cedric Griffin's knee, but the core was still intact.
Third, the Vikings had an offseason to fix the problems that plagued them last season.
However, all that hope has soon devolved (Thank you, Joe Buck) into despair. The Minnesota Vikings are going to suck next season.
Yes, you heard me. The only acceptable outcome for a Vikings season is to win a Super Bowl with the roster they have, and right now, I don't see it happening with this team.
I talked about an entire offseason to get better, but at the time of the Vikings choke job, I didn't know that because of the lack of a collective bargaining agreement, the Vikings could not sign a free agent until they had lost one. With that, the Vikings were severely crippled in any move they could make.
The NFL Draft came and the Vikings had the 30th pick in the first round. However, the Vikings traded that pick to a team in their division, and the Detroit Lions got a potential Viking-killer in Javid Best. So who did the Vikings want to trade down for? Chris Cook: a mediocre cornerback. Note to the Vikings: last time you reached for a Cook in the second round, he was awful. I smell a repeat.
The Vikings then made another bonehead move in trading up for Stanford RB Toby "Don't Call Me Mike Alstott" Gerhardt to make up for Chester Taylor. Hey, coach! Peterson can run for power! Why are we getting another power back to "compliment" Adrian Peterson? Maybe they were thinking that one guy can hold onto the ball, and the other can't. That's a complimentary move.
So after the Vikings had a terrible draft, they signed an aging cornerback in Lito Sheppard. Hell, there was talk of adding JaMarcus "Sippin' on that Sizzurp" Russell to the team!
But that's not even the half of it. Has anyone noticed the drama on this team lately?
Visthante Shiancoe and Darren Sharper are in a Twitter War. Usually this type of things is reserved for Hollywood socialites that I could care less about, but these two are brawling to the point where Shiancoe took a picture of Bin Laden and added a 42 to it. Stay classy, Minnesota.
Then there's Adrian Peterson, who not only has the fumbling problem with him, and the speeding ticket, etc. But Peterson didn't show up for an OTA practice because his hometown was holding "Adrian Peterson Day." Peterson had an excuse to skip one practice for this occasion. After all, he's being a better hometown hero than say...LeBron James? However Brad "Captain Blood" Childress wanted Peterson there for whatever reason and the elephant in the room appears.
"Well if Favre isn't there why should Peterson be there?"
Ugh...then Jared Allen didn't help matters.
"If I were in [Peterson's] shoes, I wouldn't be here either.]
Great...so the Favre drama is already spicing things up for a wonderful 6-10 season...but wait there's more.
There's a new report that Peterson is unhappy with his contract. So the rioting going on between the players union and the NFL continues! Peterson is going to make a meek 10 million dollars next season, not including contract incentives. To quote Mr. Sprewell, how is he supposed to feed his family on that?
On Peterson's part, what the hell is he doing? What is he going to go in there and say?
"Alright Zygi, I know I fumbled 10 times in the biggest game in recent franchise history, but I deserve to get paid! What's that? Oh yeah, I know I only ran for 100 yards three times last year. Yeah, I fumbled 7 times and lost 5 of them...but everyone else is doing it. Can you blame me?"
So there's another distraction on top of Peterson fumbling anytime someone takes a breath in the Metrodome. His timing can not be worse.
By the way, after the Vikings brilliant moves, every team in the division has gotten better. The Bears signed Julius Peppers, who made Bryant McFatAss look like his personal whipping boy last December. The Packers improved their offensive line, so don't expect Aaron Rodgers to be tossed around like a rag doll this year. You can expect that to happen when the Lions unleash Ndmukong Suh on John Sullivan. Oh and the Lions got a solid addition with Best and Nate Burleson (Don't laugh. Remember what Burleson did when he played with Randy Moss? That would be 68 catches, 1,006 yards, and 9 TD.)
Mix in the fact that the Vikings aren't playing the pitiful NFC West and AFC North and you can see this disasterous car wreck of a season coming to fruition.
I know what you're thinking. Another stupid Viking fan with no faith in his team. You don't understand. Being a Viking fan is like being in a trailer park trash relationship. The woman gets beat around and thinks about leaving, but then the guy gets on his knees and begs her to come back...and she does...just to get abused some more.
Want more analogies? It's like stabbing yourself in the face with a rusty knife. It's like cooking with Lorena Bobbit. It's as useful as EMT training with Gary Coleman's wife. It's like being Tombstoned by the Undertaker over and over again. It's like cheating on Tiger Woods wife. THERES MORE PAIN INVOLVED THAN PREGNANCY. (Have I offended anyone yet?)
The Vikings need to get things together, or else this one last chance for redemption is going to once again fall just short.
No comments:
Post a Comment