The other 20 worst things to happen to the Vikings

Brett Favre's signing with the Minnesota Vikings is supposed to go down on Friday, July 3, according to the unimpeachable Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. Other oracles are chiming in. The production of No. 4 jerseys has already been green-lit (how unfortunate that phrase evokes the colours of a certain rival in Wisconsin). Some even wonder if this is the canary in the coal mine, that owner Zygi Wilf has resorted to a desperation play because he wants to unload the team since it has zero chance of getting a modern stadium.

The indispensable Daily Norseman has tried to counsel Minnesota Vikings fan through this. As it put it in a piece titled The Favre Stages Of Grief.

"As a group, we've been through way more than this, and we've been through way worse than this ... and we've managed to persevere for this long. To be honest, I'm not even sure if 'signing Brett Favre' would crack a list of the Top 20 most disappointing things to ever happen to the Minnesota Vikings."

Twenty most disappointing things to ever happen to the Vikings, eh? Consider that gauntlet picked up, even if the author is unaware it was even thrown down. If nothing else, it's way to build a a forcefield for Favregeddon, starting right after the jump.

First off, there need to be ground rules, which the author reserves the right to make up off the top of his head.

Randy Moss' mock-mooning at Lambeau Field during the 2004 playoffs does not count. It came in a game where the Vikings beat the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field. Moss came off better in that fiasco than FOX Sports' Joe Buck did. Scratch perennial 1,000-yard running back Robert Smith retiring from football in 2001 when he still had a few good seasons left, since that was his personal decision. Mocking former running back Onterrio Smith for getting busted at the airport with something called an Original Whizzinator is also out since that incident was symptomatic with his problems with addiction (read this post by one of Smith's one-time teammates, NFL tight end George Wrighster, and then say Onterrio Smith is fair game).

The rest is in play, as far as anyone knows.

20. Starting quarterback, Spergon Wynn

Spergon Wynn III was hardly cut out to be a CFL quarterback, let alone a NFL quarterback. The epitaph for his career in Canada came courtesy of one-time B.C. Lions teammate, Carl Kidd, who once said, "Spergon can be a good quarterback at times." The rub is none of those times involved the two starts he made for the Vikings late in 2001. He went 48-for-98 for passing with one touchdown and six interceptions and never started another game. He is the answer to a great trivia question: Who started at QB in the Vikings' last game under Dennis Green and the first under Mike Tice?

19. Drafting Troy Williamson

He's open deep and ... oh, he can't hang on! There is another NFC North team which is synonymous with spending first-round draft choices on wide receivers whose 40-yard dash times turn out to be fool's gold, but Williamson's ignominy ranks with any of the approximately 72 receivers Matt Millen drafted when he was doing to the Lions what a bunch of dopes in suits did to the U.S. auto industry.

Williamson, the No. 7 pick in 2006, was expected to give the Vikings the deep threat they had lacked since Moss left. Three years later, his name is mostly a punchline and he's an entry in Worst Man Drafted tournaments. Some of his drops were so bad that the director of a cheesy football comedy wouldn't have even included them, for lack of believability.



18. Paul Ferraro's special teams unit (2008)

Seven return touchdowns allowed in one season, a NFL record. The crazy part is Ferraro moved up the coaching ladder after that showing, since he was hired by the St. Louis Rams to coach their linebackers. Granted, that means worrying about three players, not all 11 on the field at one time.

17. Tony Dorsett runs 99½ yards (Jan. 3, 1983)

Perhaps it was not disappointing in the classic sense. It's just that the NFL Network seems bound by policy to have to air the clip of Dorsett's dash at least once every 24 hours. No one remembers that the Vikings actually won that 1982 Monday nighter, no mean feat when you allow a running back to go 99 yards on a play when his team lined up with only 10 guys. True story.

16. Vikadontis Rex (1995-2000)

There is only room for one lame dinosaur mascot in the four major sports. The Toronto Raptors totally called this one. Vikadontis was introduced in the wake of the Jurassic Park phenomenon in the early '90s, probably as a way to appeal to the kids. Of course, the Vikings already had a mascot, Ragnar, played by a guy who holds the world record for shaving with an ax, so it just ended up muddying the brand.

15. Antonio Freeman's catch (Nov. 6, 2000)

A semi-legitimate sports journalist is conditioned to eschew using the word fluke. However, what happened on the night of Nov. 6, 2000 was nothing but a damn fluke. The Vikings and Packers never should have been in overtime in the first place, but in a driving rainstorm, the Vikings botched the hold on a last-second field goal try.

In OT, Freeman slipped on the wet field while running a deep route and Dishman appeared to bat it to turf. However, it hit Freeman, who managed to complete the catch, get to his feet without being tackled and cut inside a defender to score and give Green Bay an ill-gotten 26-20 win. It also cost the Vikings home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.



14. Dennis Green tries to sue the team (1997)

To be fair, you might call a lawyer too if you had coached a perennial playoff team and found out the highers-up tried to replace you with a rah-rah college coach like Lou Holtz who was a failure in his one shot in the NFL.

13. Randy Moss' long goodbye (about 2002 to '04)

There are reasons Randy Moss is great and wonderful beyond him being in the picture when people talk about the greatest pass receivers in NFL history (after Jerry Rice and somewhere in there with Marvin Harrison and Lance Alworth from the AFL and if you include Terrell Owens in there, you're asking to get punched in the balls).

Moss showed an outcast could make it in an American team sport. That point was generally lost amid the "I play when I want to play," the meter-maid bumping and leaving the field before the game was over. No one really got that at the time, except perhaps for Karl Taro Greenfeld, but he didn't profile Moss until after he been traded to the Oakland Raiders for next to nothing. Meantime, there was so much lost potential left back in Minnesota, even though it's hard to begrudge Moss on NFL Sundays when he's catching touchdown passes from Tom Brady and polishing his application to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

12. Daunte Culpepper's knee injury (2005)

When pro football historians (how do you get that job? Is there a test, like the foreign service exam?) talk about the great passing combos whose first names need not be mentioned, they'll talk about Montana-to-Rice, Manning-to-Harrison, Unitas-to-Berry, and Brady-to-Moss. It will ignore Culpepper, who threw to Moss during his prime years, from the time he was 23 until he was 27.

It went so well for long, then one day it did not anymore. Since '05, Culpepper has played for the Dolphins, Raiders and the Detroit Lions, so you could say the injury was career-ending.

11. Pass not intended for Darrin Nelson (Jan. 17, 1988)

Plenty of teams have seen their Super Bowl dreams dashed in the final minute of the conference championship game, just yards from a tying or winning touchdown. The killer is that the final play of the 1987 NFC championship vs. Washington, the underdog Vikings ended up with Anthony Carter and running back Darrin Nelson in the same area of the field. That made it easier for Hall of Famer Darrell Green, who was covering Carter, to break up the pass. It was intended for Nelson, but considering that Carter had set a playoff receiving record the week before, it's hard to perish the thought Wade Wilson was throwing for him.



In hindsight, the other kicker two decades later is the Vikings, as a blue state team, could have won on the field and on principle. That was the season when the NFL used scab players for three games during a players' strike. The fake Vikings went 0-3, but they still made the playoffs and were six yards from victory.

10. Super Bowl IV (January 11, 1970)

The first of the Vikings' four Super Bowl losses might not be well-remembered. The fact remains is they were 12-point favourites going in against the Kansas City Chiefs and lost by 16. No team ever favoured by such a large spread ever lost again until 1998, when a certain bunch of Cheeseheads, thanks to a couple key turnovers by a quarterback wearing No. 4, lost to Denver after being favoured by 13.



9. Smoot boat scandal (Oct. 6, 2005)

Easy enough to laugh this off now, but the general mood was less tolerant in 2005. Between Moss leaving and Culpepper suffering a thermonuclear knee injury, it was a rough few months.

8. Jim Marshall's wrong-way run (1964)

Marshall's record of playing in 282 consecutive games across 20 seasons basically makes him the NFL's answer to Cal Ripken Jr., except Ripken did not have to get cut-blocked or leg-whipped on a semi-regular basis. However, there's a belief the member of the Purple People Eaters is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame all because of one boner he pulled in 1964.



7. Nooooo! Nooooooo! (Dec. 28, 2003)

Six years later, the question how? remains unanswered. An 11-point fourth-quarter lead against the worst team in the NFL should have been safe. Somehow, the Arizona Cardinals, led by depth-chart fillers such as Josh McCown and Nathan Poole, scored two touchdowns inside of the two-minute warning, helping Favre and the Green Bay Packers get into the playoffs, keeping the Vikings out after they had started the season 6-0. It also inspired an epic rant. Of course, since the best a Vikings fan can usually hope for is justice delayed, several years later the NFL changed the so-called force-out rule, so Nathan Poole's end-zone catch would not count if they were playing the game today. Of course, they're not playing the game today, even if some of us are just replaying it over and over.

6. Metrodome opens (April 3, 1982)

Let's get this straight: You gave up the best home-field advantage in the NFL? How did that work out? Baseball's Twins, the NBA's Timberwolves and the University of Minnesota football team have each scored swankier digs, but only the Vikings remain unable to score a modern stadium.

5. Korey Stringer's death (Aug. 1, 2001)

As a fan, there is a lot you-don't-wanna-know when it comes to the sacrifices pro athletes have to make. Springer's death due to complications from heat stroke uncovered the dark side of the sport. Pushing someone that far was so needless, so unnecessary that it hardly seemed like a game.

4. 41-doughnut (Jan. 14, 2001)

Have you ever sat there as a sports fan after your team lost by a slim margin and wondered if it would have been easier to take if they had never been in the game? Losing 41-0 in the NFC championship game to the New York Giants, getting shut out by a defence which had Jason Sehorn on it, well, there's your answer.

3. Drew Pearson pushes off (Dec. 28, 1975)

Pass interference is like obscenity. There is no definition of it, but everyone knows it when they see it. Pearson's look of restrained jubilation after catching the Hail Mary pass from Roger Staubach to beat the Vikings in the '75 playoffs is all the proof one needs to know he pushed off on Hall of Fame defensive back Paul Krause, even if the replays are actually inconclusive.



2. Herschel Walker trade (Oct. 12, 1989)

The trade was so bad the temptation is to believe it was a conspiracy to restore the Dallas Cowboys to NFL prominence and help the league's TV ratings recover in the wake of the 1987 strike. It's easier to accept that

1. Almost perfect (Jan. 17, 1999)

All together now: Damn! One can finally laugh a little about it now that has been spoofed by an Emmy-nominated sitcom. It's a burn, not a serious one mind you since this is just football, to never know how Randall Cunningham and Cris Carter might have done in a Super Bowl. It is clear the Vikings might have been headed for a fall, having flown to close to the sun on the wings of bad song parodies.



(It was the end of the 20th century. You try to forget, but booze only helps so much.)

Of course, there was more to it than Gary Anderson (who, as Marshall Eriksen/Jason Segel has noted, is now retired and owns a fly-fishing business ... in Canada), missing a 38-yard field goal that would have wrapped up the NFC title when he had not missed all season. There was more to it than the irony that the Atlanta Falcons' winning field goal was also from 38 yards and it was kicked by Morten Andersen, a Dane, meaning the Vikings' fate was sealed by an actual Viking.

It was the aftermath. In this case, it meant having to go out afterward to cover a hockey game for The Queen's Journal while wearing a Moss jersey (going home to change was not an option) and being asked, "So, who won? Last I checked Minnesota was way ahead."

The point is the obvious. Vikings fans have been through much. After reading the magic words, "Top 20 most disappointing things," it took maybe forty-five seconds to come up with about 18 of the items on this list. Put all of it together and we're Brett-proofed. Bring him in, already.

Top 5: Splendid spliffers...

It is 4/20, so apropos of that, there should be a Top 5 of sports' greatest stoners.

Few are taken aback by pot-smoking anymore, and paraphrasing North Dallas Forty, which came out in 1979, players take much stronger stuff just to get out of the locker room. Even conservative judges think it's totally bogus the U.S. government won't allow for medicinal purposes, which raises the question why the hell it was front-page news when a picture surfaced of the Olympic swimmer of Michael Phelps sucking on a bong. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

Any athlete who breaks this fourth wall always ends up taking heat from his bosses and having to put up with ridicule from dealers in the small joke trade.

The point is, there have been a more than a few athletes who were partial to the wacky tabaccy. Maybe a few kids read this and realize, hey, pro athletes are human, they have vices too. We're all a little screwed-up. Robert Parish, the erstwhile Chief of Boston Celtics fame, was left off this list, but there's plenty of others.

MARK STEPNOSKI, NFL offensive lineman

The five-time Pro Bowl centre enjoyed a long and productive NFL career with the Houston Oilers and Dallas Cowboys, and upon his retirement in 2001, became head of the Texas chapter of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He said he'd started smoking in high school, often to help him relax after games. Stepnoski's explanation was as straightforward as the Cowboys' famed lead draw play to Emmitt Smith: "I'd rather smoke than take painkillers."

FERRIS FAIN, baseball player

An oldie but a goodie. Fain was a two-time American League batting champion, winning in 1951 and '52 with the old Philadelphia Athletics. He didn't hit very many home runs, but his numbers suggest he had plate discipline out the yin-yang, since his career on-base percentage was .424 (he even led the league in OBP one season, when Ted Williams was off flying planes in the Korean War).

Thirty years after leaving baseball, though, Fain, was twice arrested for growing marijuana and eventually did 18 months in a California state prison. He played the moral-relativism card, though, telling reporters in 1994:

"I never abused or shot anyone. I was just trying to make a buck. What I did was far less harmful than a bartender getting you boozed up and then letting you out on a highway where you might kill someone. I know how bad that stuff can be."

JOSH HOWARD, NBA forward

Granted, some would say, "The Entire NBA" should get a spot on its list. That's more of a commentary on how we tend to believe the worst about public figures. They show less and less of their true personalities and have a legion of professionals paid to highlight their good qualifies, so it's only human nature.

Howard broke a fourth wall a while ago when he straight-up told Michael Irvin, then of ESPN, that he smoked marijuana. He didn't even act like it was a big deal: "I just let him know that most of the players in the league use marijuana and I have and do partake in smoking weed in the off-season." In other words, Josh Howard should be rewarded for his honesty. It's like something Bryant Gumbel once said, We complain about guys giving cookie cutter answers to questions, and then there is outrage when someone speaks his mind

Estimates of how many players smoke range from 30 per cent (2005 Rocky Mountain News survey) to 60 per cent (2001, then-Raptor Charles Oakley).

RICKY WILLIAMS, NFL running back

Many fans have felt a kinship to Williams, the walking contradiction who projects a blissed-out hippie mien even though he's one of the top power runners in NFL history. It's a good reminder that people can't be put into small boxes, although any time before about 2005 or '06, you would have got your ass kicked for suggesting it.

Williams was said to have tested positive for marijuana four times, which ultimately led to him being suspended by the NFL and having to come up to Canada for a one-season sojourn with the Toronto Argonauts. The fact the NFL considers weed a banned substance is kind of strange. No This is the league where fans and media react to a player getting a four-game ban for steroid use pretty much the same way they do when someone's out a month with an injury.

RANDY MOSS, NFL wide receiver

Being a New England Patriot and catching touchdown passes from Tom Brady has helped erase the rough edges around the most prominent graduate of Rand University. At the end of the day, if you win, people look at you differently. That's what is.

Moss, who's been this ass-talker's favourite football player since 1996, his freshman year at Marshall, had the exact opposite of the Midas touch during his years as a Minnesota Viking. There was the squirting of an official with a water bottle, bumping a meter maid with his car, the mock mooning, the "I play when I want to play" and last but not least, being honest with Gumbel during a 2005 interview.

"I have used, you know, marijuana ... since I've been in the league….But as far as abusing it and, you know, letting it take control over me, I don't do that, no ... hopefully ... I won't get into any trouble by the NFL by saying that, you know. I have had fun throughout my years and, you know, predominantly in the offseason."

That's pretty much forgotten now, as Moss has image-rehabbed his way to a bust at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Point being, he smoked weed and he's still considered a consummate professional, one of the best to ever play the game.

So, to all you kids out there, now that you know you can do it and still take care of business, please, don't do it.

Snark break ...

As you were getting ready for the big derby between the Manchester I Don't Give a Craps and the London Not A Real Sports.*

David Shoalts is reporting that the NHL would give Jim Balsillie an expansion team in Toronto. Richard Peddie is quoted the Leafs board would do what's best for hockey, which raises the question of which tropical island they all plan to move to.

(If the team can be called the Toronto Toros, even better.)

You know how guys who work in construction get the winter months off? It's looking like that will be the case for Barry Melrose (you're surprised, why?).

A fan in full Vikings regalia congratulating Randy Moss for a scoring a touchdown for the New England Patriots ... it makes Brad Childress' coaching seem almost tolerable.

More great headlines that can never be written: "Anaheim Dick takes on Toronto."

One benefit to the National League refusing to play by modern baseball rules ... getting a kick from reading that Padres ace Jake Peavy, who is going to be traded, doesn't want to switch leagues because "he is a pretty good hitter, and he views that as an advantage."

Peavy's career average is .243. Not batting average -- slugging average. Leave the hitting to the professionals, Jake.

Mike Singletary, the newly installed 49ers coach, will probably be asking LensCrafters to make him a set of blinders after he sees J.T. Sullivan's efforts.



Last but not least, Minka Kelly has the sickly taint of the Jeter.

(For the future of humanity, Ms. Kelly ... as one of North America's sexiest southpaws, you should be dating David Price. Two left-handed parents have a 4-in-10 chance of southpaw offspring.)

Twenty people died for this joke ... and it's not even that good. A man writes a letter to Health Canada, "A while ago, the Stanley Cup came to my town and I kissed it ... I just want to know if this means there's any chance I could get listeriosis?" ... "No, the Cup has not come in contact with any Maple Leaf products since 1967."

You're all sick, you know that?

This post is worth nothing, this is worth noting:

• Our man at the Merc, Greg Layson, is reporting he has it on "very good authority" that Mike Morencie is out as head football coach of the Windsor Lancers. Whether it is university football or major junior hockey, it's about the wins and losses — well, except with the Kingston Frontenacs.

Daunte Culpepper and some inconvenient truths

Daunte Culpepper kind of proved that the weakest link in a would-be cause célèbre is usually the célèbre.

There should be outrage (well, not as much as Culpepper would like to see, but some) that the NFL season is starting tonight without a quarterback who could be starting for a few teams and helping out a few more as a backup. Instead, there's this:

"I would rather shut the door to such 'opportunity' than continue to wait for one of my fellow quarterbacks to suffer a serious injury. Since I was not given a fair chance to come in and compete for a job, I would rather move on and win in other arenas of life."

The most that's going to get is some self-righteous snickers and a string quartet of very small violins.

So be it. Culpepper and Randy Moss, and not just to someone who drank the Purple Kool-Aid, coulda-shoulda been this generation's Montana-to-Rice. Laugh all you want, but they were that good.

Instead, we're supposed to believe that no NFL team could use a 31-year-old quarterback who's one of the top-10 rated passers in league history, and had the fifth-best single-season rating in 2004, a year when Moss was limited by an injury.

The Kansas City Chiefs are starting Brodie Croyle. The Chicago Bears have Kyle Orton and Rex Grossman. The 49ers are seriously going to start J.T. O'Sullivan, who was the Vikings'' fourth-stringer two pre-seasons ago. What a joke.

Who knows, maybe it's possible that Culpepper will have a change of heart and try a comeback. The Vikings quarterback before him, Randall Cunningham (OK, there was Jeff George in between, but that memory's been mostly suppressed, thank you, Electroshock Therapy), had a year out of football. He returned and ended up being the NFL MVP.

Not to veer straight in to Bill Simmons-style gushing fanboyism, but it's almost like the 2000 Vikings were cursed. There was 41-donut in the 2000 NFC title game, Robert Smith walking away from football, Korey Stringer's tragic and unnecessary death and the break-up of Culpepper and Moss.

They should have been a combination for the ages. Instead, it's as if they paid the price because for good and ill, Culpepper and Moss, where they came from, how they carried themselves, represented what America is really like, maybe a little too much. By some stroke of luck, they each landed on the Vikings -- after other teams with higher draft picks had decided the likes of Curtis Enis and Cade McNown were superior offensive talents.

Granted, it's not for nothing that 41-donut happened right around the profoundly depressing 2000 Florida recount. It's taken eight years, but with Adrian Peterson and Jared Allen, Vikings fans are finally saying Yes We Can, albeit in typical understated fashion.

Now the quarterback is out of football at 31 years old and Moss is catching passes from darling-of-corporate-America, supermodel-schtupping Tom Brady with the New England Patriots. It would be infuriating, if it wasn't helping Moss win over Pro Football Hall of Fame voters and the Patriots passing game wasn't so gosh-darn entertaining to watch every week.

They always said the devil would assume many forms that are pleasing to the eye.

No doubt everyone has seen the Vikings/Obama video by now, but what the hell. It's too funny that Sen. Obama is actually a Bears fan.



Related:
Culpepper announces retirement (Access Vikings)
Daunte Culpepper Retires, Cites Unfairness in League (Sports On My Mind)
Culpepper, unable to catch on as free agent, retires at age 31 (John Clayton, ESPN.com)

Daunte Culpepper and Douglas Coupland have the same initials; odd, that

The New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers can have their Super Bowl trophies and Joe Buck man-love. The Patriots can have the best part of Randy Moss' Hall of Fame career.

The Minnesota Vikings will always be first in post-modern tragicomedy.

"Daunte Culpepper persevered and established a new Guinness World Record for 'Highest Score in the Two-Minute Drill on Madden NFL 2002" with a staggering 14,500 points. Playing the same game that featured him on the cover, Culpepper played as himself with the Minnesota Vikings and made some serious connections to then-teammate Randy Moss. He earned the record at EA's 20th Anniversary Premiere Party for Madden NFL 09, and if unbeaten, will be included in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2009, scheduled for release next February."
-- IGN.com

The joke's on the guy who spent way too many late nights from about, oh, 2000 from well into 2006 -- long after the magic act had broken up -- vicariously plugging into the Culpepper-to-Moss combination via the Madden franchise (while mixing in plenty of short stuff to a tight end named Neate Sager who was like Kellen Winslow and Magnus Samuelsson all rolled into one) .

What a postscript to the Culpepper-Moss years. It's not for nothing that Daunte Culpepper and Douglas Coupland have the same initials, or that each has 15 letters in his name.

(Seriously, if you haven't read JPod already, do so tout suite. Link via Pro Football Talk.)

HEAD FAKE 'EM WITH A FAVRE STORY, AND THE CHEESEHEADS GO FOR IT

Here's the college newspaper prank that removed all doubt that Green Bay Packers fans, not individually but collectively, are the dimmest fanbase in existence, not that the Cheeseheads weren't a good first clue.

A college newspaper comes out on March 27, complete with an altered front-page banner (Fourth Estate altered to Fourth Mistake) and a story that Brett Favre held a press conference on March 23, four days earlier, to say he was returning to the Packers. The first quote -- right after a line about "thanking everyone from the old man who sleeps behind his daughter's high school to the man who washes his balls when he goes golfing " -- was a dead giveaway.

"I know all the fans will be happy that I'm coming back next year," Favre said. "I knew they were always behind me, but the big difference was all the groups on Facebook telling me to stay. That really swayed me to come back next year."

Well played, sirs, editor Dan Whelan and sportswriter Josh Brewer.

It's more of a commentary on how much students are cut-off from the outside world that some of these bright young scholars at the U of Wisconsin-Green Bay got gulled, but then again, it was always surprising when NFL linebackers followed those exaggerated pass fakes that Favre used to do after handing off to a running back. Shame on CNN for siding with the half-wits instead of appreciating the joke.

A Vikings fan would never go for it a student newspaper said Randy Moss was returning to Minnesota. No way.

A.J. BURNETT WAS BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN, THAT'S IT

This column from the other day about that refers to A.J. Burnett having "the reputation of being aloof and a loner" explains so, so much about why he's a magnet for the haters.

Burnett's trials and tribulations can all be traced to astrology. Don't laugh. Burnett was born Jan. 3, 1977 (one day before me), which makes him a Capricorn, one of those negative signs who "prefer to draw upon personal resources to achieve their lives' goals and tend to be reserved, cautious and often retiring -- in extreme cases standoffish. They are seen as likely to want and have only a small, but very loyal, group of acquaintances ... They are sometimes termed 'past-oriented' because it is supposed negative signs will focus on the past and be more resistant to change than positive signs."

Cautious, standoffish, resistant to change -- that's what you want in an ace pitcher. Conversely, Roy Halladay, with his Aug. 14 birthday, is a Leo, which is a positive sign that seems to belong to the winningest kind of winners. No wonder the Jays always have bad things happen to them -- the stars aren't in alignment. Plus they're in the AL East.

Likely to want and have only a small, but very loyal, group of acquaintances? Sounds like the kind of guy who spends most of his days writing a blog about sports. Randy Moss (Jan. 13, 1977), a personal hero who's pushed the bile with reactionaries, was born under the same sign.

It all makes sense now. No wonder the three of us have such rotten luck at finding favour, although A.J. and Randy do well enough to swing multiple swankier residences.

Related:
A.J. and B.J. are luckless Blue Jays (Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports)

SUPER BOWL: MEASURE PLEASURE BY THE PATS' PAIN

The Super Bowl was last night, Eli Manning and the Giants won ... the form calls for a post.

• KSK took care of business: "The biggest choke job of all time."
• The parallels between Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll are just irresistible.
  
  Carroll is the anti-Belichick, the overmatched previous coach in New England who eventually found his own level coaching college football at Southern California. (This is more or less straight from the gospel of Bill Simmons.) He was the touchy-feely, rah-rah California guy whose failure with the Pats in the late '90s was the prologue for Coach Hoodie building his legend.
  
  The Patriots' gag job duplicated several elements of USC's loss to Texas in the 2006 Rose Bowl. They lost by three points on a last-minute touchdown after going unbeaten all season and having their glamour-boy QB reduced to a mere mortal.
  
  Tom Brady wasn't that bad, really. It was his turnstile of an offensive line, who easily had those worst performance by any group of five men at a Super Bowl since N*Sync performed at halftime in 2001.
  
  The big parallel to the Pats' duplicating USC's Rose Bowl loss was a failed fourth-down gamble. Belichick's decision to go for it on fourth-and-13 from the Giants 32 in the third quarter instead having Stephen Gostkowski try a long field goal probably won't stick in memory like the two failed fourth-and-1 gambles that Carroll and USC had in that bowl game, but it loomed just as large. (The second, for those of you who don't remember or could give a shit about college football, gave Vince Young with a short field for Texas' winning drive.)
  
  Like King Kaufman of Salon.com wrote about USC back in 2006, there might be a "cause and effect" with Belichick not being able to trust Gostkowski from 49 yards indoors. The Patriots frequently go for it on the fourth-down situations when a field goal would be dodgy, which is fine against the Bills or the Dolphins in October, but they couldn't get away with it against the New York Giants. It just begs the question of whether Gostkowski couldn't be trusted from 49, since he's used to the Pats going for it all the time.
  
  The Pats would have stood a much better chance if they had gone to the fourth quarter leading 10-3 instead of 7-3.
• Pride goeth before the fall: Howie Long pulling out the Red Sox hat during Fox's pre-game show was the first sign something was about to go dreadfully wrong. With a coif like this, Howie Long probably doesn't wear a hat too often.
• The Mighty MJD already has the takedown on Belichick leaving the field early.
• Eli Manning's scramble and David Tyree's catch, one more time:
  
  
  
• Some idiot went on the record -- tongue-in-cheek -- saying Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel would be the game MVP. Naturally, he dropped a potential interception on the Giants' winning drive. "DB hands," remarked a work colleague who played some wide receiver in his day.
• The wicked burns on Bill Simmons just keep on coming. (Former) readers of The Sports Guy know he hates Steve Nash (or is it just projecting?) and slagged his selection as NBA MVP, especially when he won in 2006. That couldn't have had anything to do with Nash telling NBC Sports before the game that he was taking the Giants, could it? Again, Steve Nash could rule the world.
• Obvious analog for the Giants? The 1993 Montreal Canadiens. Neither was very good, but ended up doing something that's statistically remote (winning 10 straight road games, winning 10 straight overtime playoff games).
• Randy Moss clearly just wasn't meant to earn a Super Bowl ring. Once a Vikings, always a Vikings.
• How did the 20th anniversary of Doug Williams becoming the first black quarterback to win the Super Bowl seemingly pass without any notice?

SUPER, THANKS FOR ASKING

A Super Bowl-related post, a couple days late and a couple dollars short (he typed, enveloped in self-loathing):

• A new word has to be coined to describe the experience, as a Minnesota Vikings fan, of watching Brett Favre blow it big-time: Schadenfreulicious.
  
  It was easily the biggest flop in a conference championship game by a heavily favoured home team (non-Bill Cowher division) since the 1998 Vikings. It's a pain that never ends.
  
  Hey, it was said here, after Week 1, that Green Bay "has enough D to get to (the) 10 or 11 wins it will take to win this division before Favre throws it away in the playoffs." Even with the typo, there's proof if you put it vaguely enough, eventually you'll look like a prophet.
  
  Basically, that meant a long season of being Coach Kilmer from Varsity Blues to Favre's Jonathan Moxon: "Keep it up, a--hole." Obviously, there's more to it than Favre (Mike McCarthy forgot to put running plays in the game plan, the Packers couldn't complete any of those crossing routes like they had all year and it was really too cold to play).
  
  Still, who knew it would all come together? Favre and the Packers lose to a team that the Vikes destroyed in the regular season. OK, so it means the Giants are playing in their second Super Bowl since 41-doughnut, but Vikings fans can handle the irony, especially since Randy Moss should surpass his numbers from the 2000 NFC title game (two catches, 18 yards) on the Patriots first drive.
  
• The irony of spending much of yesterday pointing out the errors and omissions of one Ottawa media outlet was that it pushed back pointing out the errors and omissions of another Ottawa media outlet by a day.
  
  CTV Ottawa did a fine job with the simulcast of the conference championship games, so long as you didn't expect to be able to see every play of a game or the New England Patriots locker room celebration after becoming the first NFL team to be 18-0 during a season.
  
  This actually happened: The clowns tried to jam in a newsbreak when CBS went to a commercial after the third Patriots touchdown. That meant viewers got to see a bunch of workers flooding the Rideau Canal instead of the ensuing kickoff, which for all we knew, could have been returned for a touchdown. When they returned to the game, the Chargers offence was already at the line of scrimmage for the next play.
  
  After the Pats won, CTV immediately cut away from CBS -- without showing the trophy presentation or getting any post-game reaction -- to go to Fox's pre-game for the Packers-Giants NFC game.
  
  You'll remember, of course, that at the two-minute warning the Giants had the ball and were trying to get in range to kick the winning field goal. CTV Ottawa came back late from the commercial break -- just had in a promo for one of those 250 spin-offs of CSI or Law & Order that had already been shown 63 times that day -- and missed a 14-yard pass play that got the Giants closer to field-goal range.
  
  It might be moot since the drive ended with a Tynes miss. Still, it's infuriating that year after year that something so simple gets screwed up by the Canadian rights-holders for the NFL, who reap huge profits from simulcasting the games while creating nothing of value.
  
  On a related tangent, Greg Layson of the Guelph Mercury points this out: What are Canada's three sports networks airing on Saturday night, when Carleton and the U of O will be playing in front of perhaps the largest crowd ever to watch a university basketball game in this country?
  
  Poker and UFC on Sportsnet, some X games-like thingy on TSN and a NBA game on The Score.
  
  That said, you can't blame 'em for being small-town-cheap. Canadians tend to look down on watching our own compete against each other, with the exception of the NHL, CFL and curling.
  

• Nice of Fox anchor Curt Menefee to diss the CFL when discussing Giants hero Lawrence Tynes, saying, "he went to the CFL, then he went to NFL Europe." Not only was it incorrect (Tynes played in NFL Europe before joining the Ottawa Renegades), but implied the CFL is a poorer brand of football than the since-discontinued developmental league.
  
• No word of a lie: Eli Manning's quarterback rating in the regular season was exactly the same as Rex Grossman's in 2006. Try not act too surprised if he regresses badly next season.
• You can't make this up: Brett Favre's wife's maiden name? Tynes.

(How's this for synchronicity? On Sunday, Favre messes up the playoff game, which is great to watch as a Vikings fan. Monday, Rob Neyer from ESPN.com links to a post here. Tuesday, upon finally getting around to writing a post about it, a Google search reveals an article where Neyer, a baseball guy, professes that he too is a Vikings fan, even though he didn't grow up in Minnesota.)

NFC NORRIS: A CHILDRESS CATASTROPHE

Hey, it's not like we depend on this for our self-worth. Good thing, too.

• Brett Favre setting a career record on the Vikings home field, one can live with. It's harder to get past feeling like Vikes coach Brad Childress, with Fox showing the game, must have intended his gameplan to be a homage to Joe Buck, since he blew it worse than Buck ever has while talking about Ol' No. 4. (Or Derek Jeter, might as well feed two birds with one scone.)
  
  (UPDATE: And, on cue, Sports Illustrated's Peter King is touting Favre for MVP, because, Ol' No. 4's wife suggested it. Is it just cruel to point out Favre is 17th in the league in yards-per-pass?)
  
  Adrian Peterson might as well have gone and joined his namesake on the Bears for all the Vikes used him in the second half. Quoth Kissing Suzy Kolber:
  
  

  "You see the big strong kid wearing #28 over there on the bench? You know, the one who averaged 11 yards a carry on the afternoon? The guy who only got 2 carries in the second half? The only good player on your offense? The one you apparently assume is made of peanut brittle? The only thing about this season that's keeping me from drinking a gallon of rubber cement? THE ONE YOU HAD RETURNING KICKS LIKE HE WAS DAVID F---ING PALMER? Here's a wild idea for you: GIVE PURPLE JESUS THE F---ING ROCK, YOU STUPID BALD F---!"

• The most dangerous place in the Metrodome during the Packers' win over the Vikings was between Favre and a Fox cameraman after either of his TD passes. Relax. He's only keeping this record warm for six, maybe seven years until Peyton Manning obliterates it, probably in a lot fewer attempts and with fewer interceptions.
• The Vikings offence has run 250 plays this season and scored four touchdowns. Daunte Culpepper passed or ran the ball 19 times in his first start for the Raiders and accounted for five TDs. You know there's guys in Minneapolis calling lawyers to see if your wife saying, "Isn't that the guy who used to be the quarterback for the Vikings?" is grounds for divorce.
• Throw in Culpepper, Childress and the anticipation of Randy Moss probably ending up with something like eight catches for 155 yards and three touchdowns (two receiving, one as a passer or ballcarrier on some trick play) in the Monday nighter and it was impossible to enjoy the Bears giving up 34 points in the fourth quarter and losing the Lions. Chicago columnist Steve Rosenbloom's sum-it-all-up for how bad it is for a Chicago Bears fan: "Chianti, and forget the glass."

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

NFC NORRIS: NO LION, BEARS ARE BACK TO THE PACK

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.

1. 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.


2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.