NFL SUNDAY: CRISIS OF FAITH IN THE CHURCH OF CHILDRESS

General rule: Your favourite teams almost never win on a day where you're emotionally depressed, with yours truly is for reasons that don't need to be aired in public. So it was with the Minnesota Vikings losing 23-17 yesterday to the hated (but respected) Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers -- or as they're known in certain circles, Green goddamn Bay.

Suffice to say, there's not too many true believers in the Gospel of Brad Childress today after the Vikes lost their third straight. This goes way beyond giving up 347 passing yards to Favre (as previously explained, Favre-carving is uncool, since everyone's doing it). The Vikes couldn't cover anyone with Fred Smoot out of the lineup, which means they should have been blitzing much more often. Instead, it was the, Hey, let's only rush with four guys, so Favre'll have all day to wait until someone inevitably breaks open. Pretty much any creditable NFL quarterback would have looked good under those circumstances.

Brilliant strategy, especially since as Patrick Reusse of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune pointed out, the Packers played three rookies and an inexperienced centre, Scott Walls, on the offensive line for much of the game. With a bunch of inexperienced linemen, playing in a dome, start stunting and bringing up safeties and linebackers -- that would've increased the chance of Old No. 4 making one his typically Favrian no-look passes into double coverage that get intercepted. Like, duh.

Reusse, by the way, was in rare form describing some of the, uh, idiosyncratic play-calling decisions Childress and his counterpart rookie head coach, Green Bay's Mike McCarthy, made all day long. Apparently some Vikings fans came dressed as Childress and had a "playbook" that consisted of only one play -- a Chester Taylor run to the left side. You don't say.

At the end of the day, you can't get too upset. It's the NFL, and 25 or 26 of the 32 teams are a sloppy mess most days.

NFL picks: Despite the Vikings losing and a brain-dead decision to take the Giants in the Sunday nighter against the Bears -- by the way, how long is Chicago going to keep getting these gift defensive and special teams touchdowns, it's almost supernatural -- I did manage to go 9-6 against the spread. Neil Acharya was 5-10, and after some of the weeks I've had, going 9-6 on a day where so many underdogs covered is like getting a glass of water after being out in the desert.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.