Coping with lowered expectations has made people commit batshit acts of desperation through the years -- compete in a dance marathon for cash, vote for Ronald Reagan, try to develop a personal code based on Nirvana lyrics, et cetera.
Being a Minnesota Vikings fan -- true, they beat Atlanta in the opener and Purple Jesus, Adrian Peterson, ran all over the place, but the defence outscored the offence so it wasn't that different from '06 -- is right up that (6-10 or 7-9) alley. So what? So, yesterday was a paradigm football Sunday for the NFC North division should be this year, if yours truly is going to get any enjoyment from it.
- The Chicago Bears lost ugly. Their 14-3 loss to San Diego might have been the most unwatchable 4 p.m. interconference showdown in recent memory. The winning touchdown came on a high school play (the halfback pass), which fit in a high schoolish game.
Did you see Adrian Peterson who plays for the Bears react quickly to recover the ball after Rex Grossman fumbled while being sacked? It looks like Lovie Smith had Lonnie Smith in at training camp to teach defensive recovery and cost containment.
For instances, some teams panic when their QB doesn't get the ball out early against a blitz, gets hit and spits the ball out like a cough drop. The Bears are so used to it with Sexy Rexy that they have a sixth sense about knowing what direction the ball will sail when Grossman fails to see the pass rusher coming, or how far the ball will roll when he muffs the snap and then kicks the ball behind him.
Grossman was bad, his running game was worse, and the pre-season talk the Bears are on borrowed time when it comes to the defence and special teams bailing out a bad offence was spot-on for one day. Their safety Mike Brown is hurt again, too. - The Packers won despite Brett Favre playing poorly. A Vikings fan pulling for Green Bay to win the division is desperation. Green Bay, 16-13 winners over Philly (thanks to 10 points off fumble points), has enough D to get to 10 or 11 wins it will take to win this division before Favre throws it away in the playoffs.
- The Lions won, but ... it was the Raiders. (As Yahoo! Sports put it, "Maybe, just maybe, there's a reason why the Raiders are 15-50 since getting spanked by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl 37.") By the way, John Bowie, the cornerback the Raiders took with the pick they got for Randy Moss, failed to make a tackle.
Detroit's top draft pick, Calvin Johnson, scored in his NFL debut. See, if you let Matt Millen take a wideout six or seven times in the first 10 picks of the draft, he's bound to get it right eventually. 
Randy Moss is Superbad (spoiler alert). Remember that scene at the end, where Evan (the character played by Michael Cera, the kid from Arrested Development) goes off with Becca, Seth (Jonah Hill) goes off with Jules, and they share that look of knowing what they had is over? It was a chill-bump scene since it did such a good job of showing without telling and commenting on the homosocial nature of teen-male friendships.
It was kind of like that seeing Moss burn it up for Nouvelle-Angleterre yesterday. There's no excuses for him now unless something should happen to Tom Brady. All those years of arguing that he was getting a bad rap and that the Vikings had problems that prevented him being the best receiver in the game all has to be put away now. Having the 84 jersey, trying to get him a 2,500-yard season in Madden, that's all gone too.
That's just how it looks after drinking the Purple Jesus juice. It's all meant to be for giggles, but seriously, the Bears are going 8-8. The Vikes will win 10 games, in just might take well into the 2008 season.
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