Sunday Bloody Sunday

The planets in the sports universe always seem to align this time of year. Especially on Sundays.

I enjoyed my first Sunday off during NFL season today, and it wasn't all peaches and cream for Minnesota sports fans.

When talking about today, you have to start with the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings were expected to have a pretty good season, but fell to 0-2 after a 14-10 defeat to the Miami Dolphins at Mall of America Field...sigh.

Well, if we want to talk about problems, I think you have to point to the offense. In two games, the Vikings offense, the kick ass offense, has scored 19 points. Not acceptable.

A lot of people have pointed to injuries as the cause for the offensive collapse in the first two games, and that's partially right. Losing a receiver like Sidney Rice for an extended period of time will hurt any offense, but it's also the nagging injuries such as Percy Harvin's constant trips to the training table. (Harvin exited Sunday's game with a hip injury and is scheduled to have a MRI Monday morning.)

However, Brett Favre has also cost this team two games. Through theses games, Favre has hucked 4 interceptions. Remember, Favre threw 7 all of last season. At times, Favre looked confused and unsure of what to do. Also looked like a 7 year old playing "500". You know, the game where you hucked it up into a crowd and screamed "200!!!!" and watched people destroy each other to get the ball?

It's apparent that Favre did indeed need the preseason to get ready for 2010. He probably needed training camp last year, but the Vikings opened with Cleveland and Detroit, rather than New Orleans and Miami. It's too late to fix it now, but the Vikings still could have won this game.

This is Childress' fault. Not because he should have thrown near the goal line towards the end of the game, but because he went for it on fourth down in field goal range four times. If he had went for 3 on fourth and goal with about 2:00 left, the Vikings would have only needed a field goal to get the win, and they wound up in Ryan Longwell's range.

So now the Vikings are looking at Vincent Jackson. My question is...would this really help? I'm assuming that the Chargers are going to try and gouge the Vikings by asking for a first round pick, and the Vikings would have to give Jackson 30 million in guaranteed money.

In the big picture, if the Vikings do wind up trading for Jackson, the Vikings are paying the price of their future because Favre wasn't ready for training camp.

On the other side of town, the Minnesota Twins had a chance to take another home series against the Oakland Athletics.

Ron Gardenhire decided to march out the B lineup, and it cost the Twins again in a 6-2 loss at Target Field.

Francisco Liriano lost his first start since the All-Star break, and what's more concerning is that Joe Mauer left the game with a jammed knee. He's day-to-day, but I assume the Twins will have Mauer take an MRI tomorrow, meaning he'll be out for the opener against the Cleveland Indians.

I understand the need to rest players, however, why does Gardy insist on doing it all at once? Orlando Hudson was given the day off, but instead of putting Alexi Casilla in, he put his favorite Twin, Nick Punto in at second. Also, Jason Kubel and Denard Span got the day off due to injury, so more automatic outs were inserted with Jason Repko and Ben Revere.

The Twins are going to win the AL Central, probably sometime next week. However, Gardy doesn't see the importance of gaining home field advantage throughout the AL playoffs. Even if the Twins win the division, home field in the ALCS (they'll already have it for the ALDS so saying they win...) would be very beneficial. And now that the Twins will be without Mauer and Morneau for a couple days, the Twins can't afford to take any more offense out of their lineup.

In other quick news, the Gophers still suck. Please fire Brewster soon...

Randy Orton won the WWE Championship at Night of Champions tonight, but I want to know where is Triple H. Triple H has been out since April as he went to film a movie. HHH hurt his shoulder while filming, so his return has been delayed, but he was supposed to be back in September. The next pay-per-view is Hell In A Cell, and a HHH vs. Sheamus (the man who "injured" HHH) Hell in A Cell match would be delightful. We'll have to see what happens on Raw on Monday.