A cold sun rose over the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul today, groggy and hungover, smelling like stale beer from Bourbon Street or a 1st Avenue sportsbar. Viking Nation collectively rose and wiped the crusty defeat from their eyelids.  The season was over.   Minnesota was already close to being the Chicago Cubs of the NFL, and last night was their Bartman incident. And like any good fans in an NFL market, they quickly went about the task of placing blame.

THE OTHER SHOE

Some went after Favre for what may have been his final pass in the NFL, another NFC Championship game ended on an ill-advised throw just before the end of regulation. Many blamed Adrian Peterson for all the now-cliched fumbles. There was all the questionable calls by the refs. There had to be a reason that the Vikings went down in such tragic fashion – again.  For all the borderline replay calls, all the turnovers, all the late hits on Favre by the Saints defense, all the drive-killing blunders…the reason they lost was 12th Man.

Now, I know that I am a piss-ant spitball artist. Unfairly questioning coaching decisions is what I do, and I am summarily unqualified to do so. But the decisions made in the waning seconds of the NFC Championship game deserve to be dissected, interrogated, savaged, and burned at the stake.

How in the %$#&ing world do you come out of a timeout with 12 men in the huddle?  And after that, how in the $#%&ing world do you have Brett Favre executing a designed rollout pass-play, when he can barely walk, and have one of his targets be his go-to guy all the way across the other side of the field?

Both of those mistakes may have actually been someone else’s fault, but both fall on the head coach’s shoulders. It’s his responsibility to see that those things don’t happen.  Somewhere in between the 12th Man flag and the next play, either Favre or Chilly decided that calling that particular play was so cute and so unexpected that it had to work.  It was too clever not to work.  They must have thought, “Who would be expecting this kind of play?  It’s the worst possible play we could try in this situation!”

If it was Favre making that call, it’s on Chilly to stop that kind of thing from happening. The coach has to have enough control to prevent it.  If it was Childress making that call, then he deserves to be tarred, feathered, and fired.  I’ve harped on it so much all year that I am sick of saying it, but it’s true: Brad Childress is a f*cking moron.

There were so many bounces and calls that didn’t go the Vikings way, and those instances will be remembered and rationalized by those irrational Vikings optimists out there. The irrational Vikings fatalists will write it off as another cursed run at a Super Bowl title.  The aspect that makes it gut-wrenching, even as a Vikings hater, is that they still were in a position to win despite the crap calls and the fumblitis. As Mike Tice once famously said, “Brutal. B-R-U-T-A-L. Brutal.”

To listen to anyone carve up Favre for losing the game is an insult to being a football fan. That guy left everything on the field in a game in which he was practically sodomized on national television. He came back when he was 40 and took a team that was going nowhere into overtime of the NFC Championship game, and gave you a season that you’ll never forget for it’s drama and storybook heroics, and that’s how you show your gratitude? If you’re a Vikings fan and you blame Favre for that loss, you’re an asshole. He played well enough to win that game. Blame all the other f*ckups on that roster and coaching staff, but don’t blame Favre. He did his part.

THE OTHER FOOT

It is only a matter of time before Favre starts his annual waffling over retirement. If the 2007 NFC Championship game left him with a bad enough taste in his mouth to come back, I wonder how his silver dragon-breath is tasting this morning?

He had kept the Ol’ Gunslinger trapped away in the closet virtually all season. Then it kicked the closet door down at the worst possible moment, and charged out like Butch and Sundance.  Guns blazing, wild, fearless, suicidal, and unmoved by the consequences of his actions.  It cost him a shot at the ultimate redemption, the real Hollywood ending to his career.  And yet, the loss wasn’t his fault.  It was Peterson’s.  That has to be motivation to give it one more shot.

Now, Vikings fans are going to be hung out to dry like the Packers fans they once loved to ridicule. Now it’s them hanging on every nuance Favre leaks out to Ed Werder or Jay Glazer or Joe Buck. The QB cupboard at Winter Park is pretty bare without No. 4. If it isn’t Brett, next year looks like the result of a missed opportunity and a closed window, instead of one last chance at glory.

The best decision management can make is not to take a stand one way or the other, until they absolutely have to. Let Favre make his choice, and then let him flip-flop around. The only scenario in which Favre would be forced into a decision is if the Vikings try to trade for Donovan McNabb.

Perhaps a more pressing question for the organization is what to do with Adrian Peterson.  Talk-show radio rubes called for a trade or his head or both, but the Vikings have no reason to cut a guy still on his rookie contract and unlikely to reach too many incentive clauses next season.  And honestly, what is Peterson’s real trade value after the Saints game?  No team is going to give them a first-round pick for a guy who put the ball on the carpet three times (yeah, the botched handoff was on him too) in the biggest of spots.  At a ridiculous minimum, he’s a guy you’d certainly rather have on your team than not.

But he’s a liability.  Vikings fans clenched their asses awkwardly every time he was handed the ball after his 2nd fumble.  I guess if you’re the Vikings, you see if you can get anything for the guy and if not, get Albert Young off the practice squad and try to do what the Jets and Ravens did with a bevy of talent at RB.  Speaking of the Jets…

JETS HOMER SECTION

When the Jets were up 17-6 in the 2nd quarter on Sunday vs. the Colts, I knew what Jets fans were thinking.  I’d been there before.  In Super Bowl 41, the Bears, my Bears, were up 14-6 on Peton Manning and the Colts, and I convinced myself that they’d be able to pull off the upset.  I was wrong.  And as this game started to slip away from the Jets, their fans came to the same sobering realization.

When Manning has everything clicking, he’s virtually unstoppable.  Darrelle Revis did his job and held Reggie Wayne to 3 catches and 55 yards, 0 scores.  But once Manning started to figure out the rest of the Jets’ talented secondary, it was over.  But there is much to look forward to if you’re a Jets fan, in fact, losing this game to the Colts, which is totally excusable, is better than going to the Super Bowl and losing there.  It leaves the team hungry instead of deflated.  The Jets will be a force in 2010.

contact: nick.thomas@flyingpigskin.com