The Vikings and Favre: A Trip Through the Superdome, Hell, and Back

That thing was a trip—wasn't a game. It was a psychedelic incident of hallucination football, muffled schizophrenia, Pink Floyd, fumble blurs, and kaleidoscopes.

Explain that mess better.

Brett Favre did and didn't outplay Drew Brees.  Adrian Peterson had his best and worst playoff game.  Bernard Berrian had the worst play of his career in the best game of his career.  The Saints had a plus-three turnover advantage and were in position to lose the game with 20 seconds left.  The Vikings' defense played the best defensive game of any team in this playoffs and have nothing to show for it.  

There was one moment the game flipped inside-out and that moment happened over, and over, and over again.

The better team won and the better team lost.

A trip, man.

There will be plenty attempting to narrow down the game to Favre's surreal interception in the last seconds of regulation. 

It was an unimaginable, hideous, how-did-he-do-that-again, across the body over the middle of the field with less than 20 seconds left in field goal range interception that couldn't have been written by Quentin Tarantino or God himself.

It was not what beat the Vikings, though

A 12-men on the field penalty—after a timeout—was the biggest blunder in this spaced-out game.  That was the domino that set the catastrophe in motion.  But this game was already a catastrophe; the Vikings had a long hierarchy of mistakes that cost them the win.   

After the 12-men on the hierarchy of failure is the Peterson fumble inside the five-yard line in the last minute of the first half, as opposed to his other two fumbles that the Vikings luckily recovered.  Then the Berrian fumble inside the Saints' 10-yard line; or Percy Harvin's fumble inside the 10-yard line that gift-wrapped a touchdown for the Saints.

Then would be that wretched, wretched pass.  Favre gave all his detractors one last bullet, didn't he?  

He could've ran for five yards and slid!  Does he think this is some Wranglers ad!?  AREN'T I FUNNY?! 

With that bum ankle, man?  

While that one throw was bad, Favre was getting hammered on every other dropback, and he (along with the defense) kept the Vikings in the game despite all the fumbles.  Favre played outstanding, this season and this game, and the Vikings wouldn't have been where they were without him.  

The Vikings had chances before and after that pass; Favre didn't lose this game.

And yet you can easily say he is the reason they lost. Such was the trip. 

There was just too many ways for Minnesota to lose.  They gave New Orleans chance after chance and you can't do that.  The Vikings should have lost that game.  

But there were so many reasons for the Vikings to win. 

Minnesota finished with 475 yards to the Saints' 257.  Outside of a Pierre Thomas touchdown off a screen pass, the Saints were unable to get yards after the catch.  Reggie Bush was held to 41 total yards; Drew Brees threw for less than 200 yards and had his most inaccurate game of the year; New Orleans ran for 68 yards.  The Saints went three for twelve on third-downs.

The Vikings dominated the Saints offense, pure and simple and true.  

On offense, Peterson had 122 rushing yards and three touchdowns.  Berrian had nine catches for 102 yards.  Visanthe Shiancoe nearly single-handedly brought the Vikings back into the game during one touchdown drive in the third.  

But those turnovers—that Sword of Damocles just kept coming down.  No team can survive all those turnovers and win an NFL playoff game.  No team should.  

You aren't the better team if you turn the ball over five times. It was five turnovers that beat the Vikings, and Favre accounted for only one of those.  While his turnover was the one with the big red flashing sign next to it that read "GAME OVER," the other turnovers were just as painful, just as important, and just as difficult to overcome.

The Saints defense created all five of them though, and that's why despite what the stats or the storyline might've said, they were the better team.

Now go negative and napalm the whole thing.

Jared Allen is a piece of Trump with worse hair.  Trade Peterson for Herschel Walker.  Overtime should be another sixty minutes and it should be played by remote-controlled cars!  The Godfather was calling penalties in overtime!  They lathered the footballs with flubber! FLUBBER!!

Good. 

That whole thing, that "game," was just absurd.  So preposterous and exhausting.  Can't pinpoint this play or that play.  Can't blame this player or that player or that call, even though it did give us the greatest monument to Brett Favre interceptions that you could have possibly imagined.

The Saints won and the Vikings lost.  Que sera, sera.

Great game.  

Great season.

It was best just to enjoy the trip.