Minnesota Vikings Misery: Time to Move On?

The Minnesota Vikings season is over. Been over for a few weeks now. It’s old news that most fans have accepted at this point and moved on, in anticipation of next year. Yes, most fans have let it go. But not me.

I suppose I should. After all, there’s not much left to grieve over, except of course for our quarterback’s legal issues, the offensive line’s inability to protect said quarterback and our charismatic, fired-up head coach, whose exit shocked fans worldwide. That last bit was thrown in just for fun.

Hey, I’m a Vikings fan. If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry.

Why? Is it because on paper, we had arguably the best team on both sides of the ball in the NFL last season, leading up to the debacle that was the NFC championship game? Maybe because virtually the entire team returned intact for this season, but was a shadow of what it used to be?

Or is it because we were supposed to be successful, engineered from top to bottom with the right pieces in just the right places, only to fail at the worst moments?

Maybe the easy answer is the most obvious one. Maybe the Brett Favre experiment failed.

That sure didn’t seem to be the case at the start of last season.

With the newly acquired future Hall of Fame quarterback running the offense, the Minnesota Vikings were riding high in the NFC. Any questions surrounding Favre’s health and ability soon vanished with his energized play silencing his critics and bringing Vikings fans to their feet every week. And yes, despite Favre’s history with the Packers, I was one of the guys cheering him on.

I get it, okay? The Packers and The Vikings are mortal enemies. You can’t be a fan of either team and not understand that. But, the truth is, while I hated the guy for constantly shutting my team down every chance he had, Brett Favre was just doing his job, and I admired his game. I was, despite the impossible contradiction, a Vikings fan...and a Brett Favre fan.

Brett is a gunslinger. Always has been. And that is the kind of quarterback I love watching. Yes, his shoot first, Dirty Harry style has been known to get him in trouble. But like Eastwood, Favre got results, and despite the outcome of the games he played, he always kept it interesting, and exciting.

And that arm...

Brett never had the classic NFL quarterback follow-through on his pass. Instead, his arm stopped halfway through, snapping the ball like a shot from a cannon. Every time I saw him fire the ball down the field, I thought, man, wish our guy had an arm like that.

Then, like the most unbelievable plot twist ever written, Brett Favre became our guy.

So, yes, call me crazy, but it was nice to have some buzz around my team, and not because of Randy Moss running his mouth, or because some players choosing to behave like idiots off the field.

We were winning. Brett fit. The offense was firing on all cylinders. Everything was clicking. The defense was monstrous, with the Williamses and Jared Allen leading the way. My team was relevant again. I could not be happier. It was Super Bowl or bust for the purple and gold.

Unfortunately, it ended up being bust.

After the NFC title game, yet another offseason of “will he or won’t he,” surrounding Brett, and once again it was off to the races we went.

"Shake it off," I told myself. Brett’s back. Our team is back. Let’s man up and do this. Let’s put right what once went wrong.

But stupid cliques and obscure Quantum Leap reference aside, this season has ended worse than I could have ever expected. Yes, Brett was the right fit at the right time. No doubt about it. But now?

It’s very easy to lay the blame at Favre’s door. But, again, we cannot forget that this season, Brett has been sent crashing to the earth more times than Wylie Coyote. Hard for a guy to be the hero and save the day when he’s always flat on his back.

So, if I can’t bring myself to entirely blame my quarterback…and yes…”that’s my quarterback, man,” I say with tears in my eyes, then maybe I should look toward our former firecracker of a head coach, Brad Childress.

Let‘s face it, his stone faced, “I don’t need to talk to you people, you’re wasting my time” demeanor, coupled with some less than stellar coaching, got him fired. Truth is, if he’s got no more passion for the game than what he showed in his time with the team, then I doubt anything I say is going to make a lot of difference here.

So, yes, it’s a mess now. Brett is, once again, not coming back. Or, no, he might. But, no this is definitely it for him. But, then again…

Ah well, there is always next season. Joe Webb looked pretty good against Philadelphia, perhaps he’s our guy? Certainly the team will return with something to prove, in an effort to erase the mistakes of this season. Yes, the time has come for me to let it all go and move on.

But, then again…