The Worst For The Vikings Part Two: The Train Wreck to LA

Posted by Anthony Schmidt on March 10, 2011   Jump To Comments

Before the 2010 season kicked off I pondered out loud what would be the worst thing that could happen to the Vikings. Those ponderings can be relived here: http://brentfavre.com/2010/08/03/the-worst-for-the-vikings/

I’ll admit at the time I was a bit obsessed with the Vikings. The idea of a Packers Legend leading the despised, pathetic, miserable Vikings (spit) to the Super Bowl is beyond comprehension. Thankfully after the 2010 season it is still beyond comprehension.

No really Ted, Thanks!

Just six short months ago the Vikings were the favorite to win the NFC North, Vikings fans were demanding that the division be renamed the NFC ‘Norse’, Jeff and his annoying Purple and Yellow Iron Man with Vikings horns avatar trolled Packers fan sites talking trash, and Favre seemed poised to exit the biggest stage in sports ala John Elway. The Vikings had all the pieces, they just needed to give it one more shot and try just a little harder and they would be Champions for sure (spit).

But it was not meant to be (cheer). The 2010 season has been one of the most forgettable seasons (for Vikings fans) in 50 years of Vikings football. The worst has happened and continues to happen. This season was like a train wreck that took 16 weeks. In the beginning I watched with a certain vindictive giddiness as the first few cars fell off the tracks and exploded into a fiery mess of football drama. As the carnage continued to pile up through the season, I began to feel slight twinges of indifference, if not full out sympathy. By the end I could only watch with a mild indifference, as my wildest fantasies nearly unimaginable a year ago became reality.

Now seems to be a good time to recap all that has happened these past glorious months.

For me it started last season when the Favre/Chili marriage showed cracks during the Panthers game. Childress wanted to pull Favre halfway through a game that saw the hapless Panthers expose the ineptitudes of the faltering Vikings. Favre refused to be pulled. Childress and Favre looked like lovers in a spat. A spat that played out in sports news for weeks.

Fast forward a month and we have the infamous back across the middle championship game interception versus the Saints, which sealed the fate of their 2009 season.

Before the 2010 season even started the Vikings drama was in mid season form. Favre couldn’t make up his mind and reportedly wouldn’t come back due to differences with Childress, differences that would later prove to be irreconcilable. Favre had to be begged off the Farm by his teammates who managed to convince him to return for one more run.

It was clear that the season would not be a repeat of the year before when their star receiver went out with a hip injury before the season even started and their number two receiver suffered from debilitating migraine headaches that kept him sidelined through the first weeks. Also, the ever-dependable Bernard Berrian seemed to be suffering from an acute case of the Dropsies. After starting the season 1-2 the Vikings traded a 3^rd round draft pick to New England in exchange for Randy Moss who was brought in to shore up the ailing receiving corps(e). Favre throwing his 500^th TD to Moss was to be the only remarkable accomplishment of the legendary receiver in his second stint with the Vikings. After expressing his love for the Pats and his dissatisfaction with the team’s choice in catering, Moss was abruptly released by Childress. A move that was wildly unpopular with the fans and seamed to have been completed with out the consent or even notification of the team’s ownership.

After the Packers soundly humiliated the Vikings in the teams second meeting, a game that ended with fans chanting “Fire Childress” the head coach was sacked. An accomplishment for the Packers who had caused the Cowboys to part ways with their head coach the week before.

Furthermore Favre sustained an ankle injury in the game, which spelled the beginning of the end to the 20-year veterans consecutive starts streak. Favre who added to the season’s drama with a ‘sexting’ scandal eventually found his end concussed in the Gofers stadium of all places.

The collective weight of embarrassment seemed to be more than even the Metro dome could sustain as it chose to collapse spectacularly rather than allow the Viking to play their final two home games. This was the point in the season where I felt karmic justice had been served. Lucky for us Packer fans, the cherry to top off the Vikings manure Sunday of a season was yet to come.

Vikings fans had yet to endure the unthinkable, another Packers Super Bowl Championship. Vikings fans had to watch the Packers make one of the most unlikely runs in sports history. The Packers showed their merit by overcoming and avoiding some of the same adversities the Vikings had fallen prone to. The NFC Title game was an especially bad day for Vikings fans as they were forced to watch the Packers and Bears square off for the chance to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. After losing three of four games, and with the season on the line, the Packers rattled off six wins in a row including three straight road playoff games to become the first NFC sixth seeded team to win it all.

In the end all that was wrong in the football universe has been set right. The Packers are now poised to make continued runs at the big game while the Vikings find themselves worse off than before their version of the Favre era. The Packers have now won as many Super Bowls as the Vikings have lost. But best of all, the Packers are now being highlighted as the premier franchise in the NFL with the greatest fans and the most historic stadium, while the Vikings will probably be packing their bags for LA after the 2011 season.

The 2010 season was the worst for the Vikings.