Vikings Crush Dallas, Fans Delirious with Joy, and other Thoughts

As I told my Uncle, I love it when the Cowboys head into the playoffs "red-hot", confident, arrogant, and hyped up as the team to beat, and then get their butts handed to them.

It just really makes me happy to see that, especially to the team that arrogantly promotes itself as "America's team", and especially a team owned by Jerry Jones. So I'm going to run up a quick list of thoughts and reasons for Euphoria.

It was a blowout. 34-3. Cowboys are angry about that last touchdown, Vikings fans are angry about Herschel Walker and Drew Pearson.

The Vikings have a right to their grievances, the Cowboys don't. This is pro football, and it's the playoffs on top of that. You don't take the foot off the pedal. Cowboys D unhappy, then don't let it happen, that is after all what they are paid millions and millions of dollars to do.

Gerald Sensabaugh. So you were going to "shock" Favre were you? You sure showed him on that 47 yard pass to Sidney Rice.

Sidney Rice. My God is he starting to look like Randy Moss. He's not as fast as Moss, not by a long shot, but he may be even better at going out and simply getting the football when it's thrown to him. 

He got his first TD pass AGAINST the defender, he practically pulled the ball in from around the defenders waist with ONE HAND. The third time he made the catch with the defender pulling his arm down as the defender fell. Rice just has incredibly strong arms, and reminds me of Larry Fitzgerald when he's making jumping catches. Tough to bring down, just all-in-all a solid guy. He showed why he is absolutely deserving of being in the Pro Bowl.

Tony Romo wished he had Aaron Rodgers' protection. Aaron Rodgers kept looking over his shoulder for Jared Allen if he watched the game.

Defense finished a game finally. No 150 yards passing in the Fourth Quarter. Leslie Frazier must really want a Head Coaching Position.

We got the match up we wanted and predicted months ago, Saints and Vikings, despite all those who at the end of the season said it wasn't going to happen. Funny, the two teams who were 1-5, 1-5, over the last 3 Games of the season play in the NFC Championship. Just goes to show you momentum is not as important as being mentally and physically rested and prepared. Of course I was skeptical about the Cowboys, two of their wins came against an Eagles team that just looked really bad, and it was an Eagles team that was pretty one dimensional to start with.

So much for end of the season slumps. It's now been 11 touchdown passes since Favre threw an interception.

Vikings offense can power it. 78 points in their last 8 Quarters of play, and both against Teams with a winning record, including a red hot defense which ended the regular season ranked number 2.

Ben Leber finally made a big play after letting so many slip by in the Regular Season. Tyrell Johnson finally made a play, Benny Sapp proved he's more efficient at corner right now than Antoine Winfield, who was a non-presence again.

Ray Edwards had the game of his life. Hopefully his knee is just fine and only needs a few hot soaks and some rest, maybe a shot of cortisone on Friday to get it loosened up in time for the game.

Kevin Williams is back. Pat Williams plays pretty good for being the oldest starting D-Lineman in pro-football at 37.

Four touchdowns for # 4. What was that Mr. Thompson? Favre can't lead a team to the NFC Championship anymore? I know you tried to end his career and give him a final F-U by sending him to an awful, 4-12 team that you knew would never take him to the Super Bowl, his only wish after all the years he punished himself physically trying to make big plays for the Packers franchise. Real classy man. Rex Ryan has the Jets turned around this year, despite awful play from the hyped Mark Sanchez. The Green/Jones running combo is potent and the addition of Revis and Ryan's coaching has made the defense indominitable. Could the Super Bowl also be a Favre Bowl? We'll see. I'd love to see Peyton Manning versus Brett Favre. Vikings probably can't sack him as much, he's such a fast-passer, and of course, he knows he has three tries, so that offense is very comfortable throwing three short four yard passes, and he reads the defense, he'll get rid of the ball quickly because he'll know who's supposed to be open.

There's a lot of discussion about who's better as a QB. But it's hard to compare the two, two totally different styles. Manning is a big fan of sitting in the pocket, and releasing the ball in the 2-4 second range, and doing so with incredible accuracy. He's had a mostly pass-first offense to work with in his career, as well as an extraordinary bevy of talented receivers. The past few years the Offense has been Manning, he calls the plays, he's involved in considering the draft picks, and it's all about him winning games.

Favre has never had that kind of authority or respect. Hell Ted Thompson passed on getting Randy Moss from the Raiders because he didn't think he was worth a THIRD ROUND draft pick. In fact Favre was actively tossed under the bus from day one by Thompson, when he traded Wahle and Rivera and gutted to team to start rebuilding for the future instead of paying homage to what Favre did for the team and building up a veteran team to make a go at the Super Bowl.

But back to playing styles. Favre is better outside the pocket. He does things well that normally coaches tell the QB's to never do, which is throw on one football against their bodies into the middle of the field. And he does it so well. He's not as precise as Peyton, but he has other unique talents that more than adequately make up for it, he buys time, he pump fakes better than any other QB, he makes fake reads, and he avoids pressure on the outside. He helps plays develop by letting the openings come and taking advantage of them. What's more is that Favre has taken an extraordinary number of hits and always gotten back up, never missed a start, lasted 19 seasons. Something has to be said for longevity. Joe Montana went and had a phenomenal NFL career, but he missed two seasons of games due to injury, and ended up not having as long a career as an Elway or Favre had.

I'll also defend Favre with this: one, the first 11 seasons of his career were during a time when the rules favored defenders against the pass and it was harder to pass, while only Manning's first 5 seasons were during this time. Secondly, looking at his tenure in Green Bay, Favre never had any great receivers, Sterling Sharpe a bit, but he had a career-ending injury early on in the run. He had a few good ones, Driver, Walker, and Freeman, but no people on the level of Clark, Wayne, and Harrison.

Manning fans will probably be aghast with me, but I always make sure to point out that he has simply had a fantastic system for a great Quarterback to work with and in, and he's had a lot of advantages.
 
Still, both are, with Dan Marino, the 3 QB's that I consider the most talented in NFL history.

Game proves Favre is amazing at home, he always has been. The frigid tundra was initially a place the Packers were unbeatable at, but as he got older he started slipping. He's come to love the great indoors the past few years.

If Favre comes back next year he might pass Jim McMahon for second most touchdowns thrown at the Bear's Soldier Field.

Twenty-two TD's, 2 ints at the Metrodome. Not what Fans expected, but eh. He was awesome today, the first TD pass was beautifully put right on the money, with a great catch, most receivers drop that ball. Second TD pass was a great move to avoid the sack and get an opening, (see what I mentioned above about the difference between Brett and Peyton), and third one also a pretty ball and a great catch with the defender trying to rip that ball.

Where was Adrian Peterson? A long of 11 yards? Countless no gain to two yard runs? He was given a ton of chances to break the big play, 26 of them, and ended with 63 yards for an average of 2.4 yards a carry. I was just reminded of how fricking screwed the Vikings would have been this year without a big play QB, because Peterson has not gotten it done all year long, and no matter how many people tell you, "They would have made the playoffs without Favre", uh, no they wouldn't have. They would have been 8-8 if they got VERY lucky.

Dallas can't complain, that officiating crew did everything they could to screw the Vikings over. A blatant and brutal hit on Favre after the play was blown dead and even after the ball had been released, and they only call Harvin for a false start? You can't slam the QB to the ground after the whistle. That should have been a damn easy call. How does the guy even get up, he was smacked around in this game, hits to the shoulder, hits after the plays called dead, three sacks. This is what makes Favre better than Warner. Warner falls apart with those kinds of hits and always has.

The refs penalized the Vikings excessively and seemed to avoid hitting Dallas, including a crucial non-defensive holding call against Harvin. And it was obvious, the guy was pulling Harvin's jersey for about five yards as Harvin tried to run his root, and by not calling it they put the Vikings in what seemed at the time to be a crucial three and out, and then called two consecutive penalties against them as well.

All I can say is this: Darren Sharper will be in double coverage against Rice next week, so look for big games with the other receivers, because the openings will be there, especially I feel for Berrian to have a good game, which he can do and has done in the past against the Saints. The Vikings will have more success running against them than Dallas, and look for Favre to possibly beat Montana's record for playoff completions, attempts, and TD's. And also maybe break Jim Kelly's record for INT's thrown, (they are both tied at 28).

It will be a great game, but the Vikings are coming off their most complete domination of the seasons. They literally fixed every problem I've been listing against them, even down to some of the coverage problems, though I'm not delusional, that coverage still needs to get better, it's still not great. Romo just never had a second to throw. Even if Brees has as much pressure as Romo did, he 'd still carve that defense up. They need to get tighter, and play more aggressive man coverage and apply pressure to Brees if they want a chance to shutdown the Saints passing attack. As it is, I don't think the Saints will be able to run on that defense, especially if Dallas couldn't.

Funny how the teams got there. Vikings crushed the team that sent the Saints on their end-season spiral, and the Saints crushed the team that sent the Vikings on their late-season spiral. We'll see how it ends up. While I'm a big fan of many of the Saints players and their coach and enjoy watching them, I'm definitely rooting for the Vikings and Brett Favre. Also, as someone who lives in Louisiana, I have to say I can't stand Saints fans. It's hard to say any other team in America has fans so obnoxiously annoying and arrogant. A bunch of drunks, rednecks, and coonasses, said from someone coming from a long proud line of rural farmers and Cajuns.

If Favre wins a Super Bowl with the Vikings Fran Tarkenton will probably commit suicide, he's already standing in the chair, prepared to put the noose around his neck, lol. Now let's see if Favre can do what Tarkenton, Culpepper, and Cunningham couldn't.