DAMN VIKINGS: A RANDY REUNION, AND DEFENDING DAUNTE

Just another week in the whole durned human comedy that is the Minnesota Vikings: Vilified former franchise receiver may be headed back, former franchise QB gets slandered on Monday Night Football, the only good receiver still around gets cut.

All of this comes in the wake of a loss to Green goddamn Bay (the less said the better) that extinguished, with a nod to Jim Lahey on Trailer Park Boys, the shit flame of the Vikes' 2006 playoff hopes.

(For good measure, Fred Smoot has a broken jaw and won't play in Sunday's finale against St. Louis. So the final image of his days as a Viking will be of Green Bay fans pouring beer on him after his interception-return touchdown last Thursday. Deadspin is all over this, as you might imagine.)

It's not a shock that there wasn't much of an uproar over Steve Young slandering -- and that's what is was, slander -- Daunte Culpepper during the Jets-Dolphins Monday nighter on Christmas Day. The way things work in pro sports is that if you're not producing, which Culpepper hasn't for two years due to his knee injury, no one sticks up for you.

Suppose that it was any veteran white QB -- not Peyton Manning, but some average veteran starter such as Trent Green or Marc Bulger -- who was out for the season. There's no way that Young goes on TV and accuses him of missing meetings without getting his side first, which is exactly what he did with Daunte. The spin about Culpepper needing to show more leadership while he's injured would change. It'd be like, Oh, it's hard when you're injured, it's not your team, you need to step back and let the other guy take over. By the way, strange that Young would say that an injured quarterback needs to be a leader -- did he feel that way in 1991 and '92 in San Francisco when Joe Montana was trying to return from a back problem?

Don't go crying race card; that's the way it is. Young can be absolved; some producer whose name we'll never know probably encouraged him to take that line, knowing that an African-American quarterback who's earning millions and isn't playing due to a major knee injury is hardly a sympathetic figure to about 75% of the fans. That's the crap Culpepper, Mike Vick, Vince Young have to take.

This is a day old and can be plausibly denied, but there's a rumour that the Oakland Raiders are willing to trade Randy Moss back to Minnesota for a third-round pick. Sounds strange considering Marcus Robinson was cut for apparent insubordination. This may be the egg nog talking, but it could work: Moss might have matured enough to play in Brad Childress' regimented system; the flip side is that growing up is might have robbed him of the fire that made him the game's best receiver west of Marvin Harrison for most of his time with the Vikes.

There's likely little to the Moss rumour, but the way things have gone since he left, how can you blame any Vikes fan for believing it? This season's been nothing shy of a disaster (kudos to my friend Jeff Dertinger, who predicted a 6-10 record for them way back in August), but in hindsight, as much could have been expected with the personnel and how the new coaching staff chose to employ it. There's really not much else to say at this point.

Oh, and the thought of Brett Favre in the playoffs, and having to listen to even more of the malarkey that is spread about Brett Favre, does make us heartsick. An impartial voice, Sports Illustrated's Paul Zimmerman, did nail down what it is that irks so many otherwise rational people about No. 4.

"I think what it amounts to is a rebellion against the constant hammering of blind hype. Favre is having fun. He throws a pick. He's still wonderful. He throws another. It's the receiver's fault. Still another. Why can't they give him more help? And on and on, until I'm ready to scream for just a little honesty, and to make up for it, I lean the other way. Too much so."

One last Vikes note: Access Vikings notes a couple prominent CFLers were in for workouts this week, including Montreal Alouettes d-back Chip Cox and Saskatchewan tailback Kenton Keith.

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