On Sunday November 28th the Vikings beat the Jags when Kevin Williams recovered a fumble and returned if 77 yards for a touchdown with under two minutes to play. The game was at the Metrodome, where the Vikings should never ever lose a game. A day or so after the game I talked to Jeff on the phone and said these words: "It's nice to be on the winning end of a game like this when we have gotten so used to losing them." In other words: lightning has struck. And lightning can't strike the same team twice can it? Certainly not in one season. Right?
I called Jeff again yesterday after the Vikings went up 14-0 just five minutes into their Wild Card Game with the Packers. "Hey, who are the Packers playing today? Cause it sure doesn't look like the Vikings." Apparently I was wrong because they were playing the Vikings, and roughly three hours later the second lightning strike of the season was complete.
Were ya like me? Did you have that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach everytime the Vikings did something right? Everytime they had a long play, did you do like I did and look to the upper right hand corner of the TV screen for that familiar little yellow box and the world "FLAG"? Were you surprised everytime you didn't see it? Did you shake your head in utter disbelief all FOUR TIMES (!!!!!) that Favre threw an interception? Did you get a little nausous when you noticed that the Vikings had scored 31 points? The same number that they had scored in their previous regular season losses to the Pack?
Watching the Vikings game for me brought on one old emotion and one new emotion that I haven't felt in awhile. The old emotion was: we've been here before, Favre is still leading the Packers, there's bound to be penalties, I just don't trust this team. The new emotion, the one I haven't felt in awhile was: we are playing with heart, I'm confident that we can score everytime we have the ball, our defense isn't going to beat us today.
I don't think that I was wrong to feel the first emotion. As a life-long fan of this team they've really given me no reason to believe anything other than that. But you knew, you just felt something different, the moment Daunte scrambled and found Mo Williams who rambled down the sideline for the opening drive touchdown. That second emotion was valid too. We were excited, we had come to play, and we had done exactly what everyone in the world said we had to do to win this game: we got on them early. And we kept getting on them.
For the second time this season I can say it: it's nice to be on the winning end of a game like this.
Suddenly the Vikings are the sexy choice in the NFC. My favorite NFL analyst, Sean Salisbury, (sensing any sarcasm?) took about .0743 seconds to jump back on the Vikings bandwagon and choose them to beat the Eagles next week and go to the NFC championship game. I'm not ready to go quite that far, but I will say this: if they Vikings play next Sunday like they played on this Sunday, they will not lose. But do we suddenly have a chance to go to the Super Bowl? Um, I think not.
Look, I'm just like any other Viking fan: the world is certainly a better place the Monday after a win. But we've got to be realistic here. Don't we?
Or do we?
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