DAMN VIKINGS: ROLLICKING RALLY, BUT...

Hard to make head or tail out of the news out of Minnesota that my Vikings rallied for 23 points in the final quarter to beat the Detroit Lions 26-17 yesterday.

Why the muted enthusiasm? First off, it's the Lions, who are only loosely affiliated with the NFL these days, and are so banged-up that they're scouring Monster.com to find offensive linemen, assuming that Matt Millen actually knows how to use the Internet. Secondly, the Vikes overdid it: Linebacker E.J. Henderson's 45-yard interception-return touchdown in the final two minutes enabled them to beat the 7.5-point spread, and I only had them winning outright, not covering.

It was fourth down, E.J.; knock the damn ball down next time. Please try to put all the sensible Minnesota-nice types who bet on the Lions since they could never conceive of this Vikes team ever winning a game by more than a touchdown ahead of your own face time on Sportscenter (or Sportscentre in Canada).

The Vikes are 3-2 headed into their bye week, and are a handful of plays from being 5-0 or 0-5, take your pick. Rookie head coach Brad Childress, though, seems to be get the whole philosopher-king deal. At least with Childress you get the idea that he has idea of what the job's about. Ex-coach Mike Tice left the impression that he spent at least 10 hours a week either trying to remember where he'd parked his car, or banging on the door of the closet he'd accidentally locked himself in.

(DIGRESSION: Somehow Tice is in Jacksonville as an assistant head coach with a playoff-bound team. Perhaps Jags head coach Jack Del Rio has him around so he'll look smart in comparision.)

The Vikes' new broom is converting some members of the Vikings Nation to the Church of Childress, since we believe his balding, unassuming persona masks some great genius for figuring out ways to win football games with only minimal offence. The nice thing about the Church of Childress is that you can wear a hat during the service, since our founder presumably knows the sting of male pattern baldness.

(Not to be a total killjoy, but Dennis Green's first season, 1992, was a lot like that. If memory serves, the Vikes had eight defensive or special-teams touchdowns that season; this crew already has four if you count the TD pass Ryan Longwell completed off a fake field goal game three weeks ago against Carolina.)

Cool Standings still projects the Vikes as only a 9-7 team, with a slightly lesst than a 50/50 chance of making the playoffs. The offence is in the bottom third of the NFL. Longwell's on pace to have 38 field goals and 16 converts. (Any time the kicker has more FGs than converts, there's a problem.)

Eight of the last 11 games are clearly winnable -- Seattle and New England back-to-back later this month and the return game with the Bears on Dec. 3 are the exceptions -- but with the Vikes offence, they're bound to get outscored some week since they have such a slim margin for error. They could end up 11-5, they could be 5-11. That's par for the course in today's NFL.

Related:
Vikings defense launches a major offensive (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)