Welcome home, old friend: And when Garrett Hartley’s 40 yard field goal sailed through the uprights to secure a 31-28 win for the New Orleans Saints Sunday night in overtime, a win that would send them to their first franchise Super Bowl appearance, Minnesota Vikings fans turned to their left and found an old friend sitting next to them on their couch. It was that sense of déjà vu, of repeated mistakes, curses, disappointment and almosts. It was that feeling in the pit of your stomach that is a mixture of disbelief, anger, resentment, aloofness, acceptance, and indifference. Everything that Minnesota sports fans saw as the din of a Saints NFC Championship celebration played muffled in the background was familiar, because we’d all been here before. Call it a curse, call it bad luck, call it just being a Minnesota sports fan, but none of it was very surprising. It just is. It’s something that we’ve all come to expect and often times, unfortunately, accept. Not even the ludicrousness of signing former rival and hated quarterback Brett Favre, aka you Land Baron asshole, could save this franchise from itself. And as another opportunity escaped Viking fans hands the real loss wasn’t found in a missed Super Bowl opportunity, or success for the teams players. No, the real loss was found in every single fan that had seen this coming at the start of the year and had lived through this in years past. It was the fatalistic feeling that success was never going to happen. Whether true or not, it has ended up being a self fulfilling prophecy and the lasting effects are greater. Sure, we’ll all be around next season predicting another 12 to 14 win season, but deep down we’ll all know better. We’ll all know better because we’ve lived through this year, and with last night’s loss another dagger was driven into our unbridled passion and blind faith. Vikings fans have always been skeptical of success, and now even more so. And that’s the real loss. Depressing? You bet your ass. Now let’s let go of the depression and get angry at someone! RAAAAWWWRRR!!! 
I’d love to blame Favre for all of this: Oh Favre. Favrity, Favrey, Favre. You stupid, self indulgent twat. I would love to skewer you alive for this loss. I would love to toss shit balloons at your loved ones and watch as boiling acid was poured down your throat and ate you alive inside out. I’d love to say that I saw this ending coming from months away. Predicting that you would throw a back breaking, game losing, season ending interception before you were even officially signed was almost unfair because it seemed so easy. But yet you managed to do just that. You could have slid for even three yards on that last play and the refs would have given you five, despite how shitty they were calling plays last night. They still would’ve given you that one! But no. One last chance at being a hero also meant one last chance to destroy a new fan base. I’d love to blame everything on you Brett, and I know that if I give you any leeway or passes that I’ll sound like another douche bag major media ball washer that everyone hates. And I hate myself even more now because I know that I can’t blame it all on you. Even I’m not stupid enough to realize that without your play this season the Vikings never would have been the two seed anyway. I know that if it was TarVar back there that he would have crumbled like stale bread after getting hit the first two times and watching his teammates fumble more balls than a gay rookie porn star. The fact that you kept the Vikings in the game despite everyone else looking like idiots was fairly impressive. I also know that there are bigger people to blame for this game and that if I just dumped it all on you that wouldn’t even be satisfying. So I’ll just say fuck off, in a teasing sort of way. You never made a fan out of me, and I do think I may hate you a little bit more than before, but I don’t put this one all on you. And surprisingly, there’s nothing about what happened that makes me feel smug or happy knowing that I predicted this ending for so long. Instead, I’m just disappointed that you didn’t try to prove me wrong just this once. Jerk off. 
That Childress extension is looking solid now: No, I won’t blame it all on Favre because we also had some epic fuck ups from our wonderfully fantastic head coach who has proven he totally deserved that extension … In case you couldn’t tell, I was being sarcastic. After a time out, Childress is fully to blame for having sent 12 guys into the huddle. I have no idea how a head coach gets away with this. The fact that Childress is still alive this morning is more surprising than an M. Knight Shymalan film ending. It’s the biggest game that he has ever coached, the one singular moment that will lead him to a potential game winning field goal, and you send 12 guys into a huddle. Jesus. Ok, I’ll admit that the coaching job the Vikings did on the Cowboys was impressive. More than anything, I was blown away by what Leslie Frazier did with the defense to stop the Cowboys and even to a lesser extent what he did to hold the Saints to 257 total net yards. Think about that. The Vikings offense had 475 total yards and lost. The coaching this post season has, more or less, impressed even an angry skeptic like me, but I should have known that it was only because Childress had yet to face an important coaching decision the entire time. Sending 12 guys into the huddle and moving you essentially out of field goal range on a third down was terrible, but electing to still throw it at that time was questionable too, especially when if the ball was incomplete you would have left plenty of time on the clock for the Saints to try and do something too. Why not line up three wide and run once more, let the time run to three seconds and call a time out? I’d rather take one chance with a Longwell kick than watch that interception happen again. Fuck. Regardless, Childress is on a hot seat this offseason and to be honest, I don’t think there’s anyway he improves next season. 
Mushroom Stamp of Disapproval – Adrian Peterson: So if Favre and Childress aren’t solely to blame, who else can we toss bile at? Well, I’m doing two things I thought I would never do here. First, I’m not calling him by his angelic name again until he decides to start playing like the name of this blog. From now on he’ll be known as Adrian Peterson, a mere mortal. Secondly, I’m electing not to throw any of his teammates under the bus by giving them this week’s Mushroom Stamp of Disapproval, as I’m sure he would want himself. Also partly because I don’t have the time today to blame everyone on the team. People will look at last night’s game and call Peterson overrated. They’ll
blame his fumbles as a main cause for why the team lost. While it is a pretty big reason, it fails to address fumbles by Favre, Percy, and. Those gashes were also to blame for the turnovers. Also, you could blame the offensive line for letter a mediocre Saints pass rush harass Favre all night like he was the fake titted prom queen in a lecher’s back seat. No, instead we’ll leave the blame with Peterson and trust that he’ll know what to do with it. Really, the guy had a great game last night. He ran 25 times for 122 yards (his first 100 yard game since week ten), had three touchdowns and averaged almost five yards a carry. That’s why the reason to throw on that last play is so questionable. And while his fumbles will otherwise mar this performance, it’s not like he was the one who fumbled Percy’s ball or’s. That was what we call a team effort! Regardless, Peterson’s been humbled, as have we, and until things turn themselves around (damn, probably not until next season I guess?) he’ll be known by his mortal name. Damn you for making me do this, Adrian! 
Fuck off New Orleans: First, I understand this rant will make me sound cold, callous, and like a huge asshole, but hey, that’s kind of my MO. Second, people need to get their heads on straight. I am pretty damn sick and tired of hearing about how the city of New Orleans, a city that is still pretty much ravaged and destroyed by the awful events of hurricane Katrina, is all of a sudden now some revitalized and healthy, thriving city because the Saints are going to the fucking Super Bowl. You fucking idiots. While writers around the world love to masturbate to the idea that football and other sports provides some type of spiritual release or diversion from real life, the actual tangible effects that you can associate with a football win are zero. None. And this is especially true for a city that got fucking DESTROYED by a hurricane four years ago. Do New Orleans residents probably feel a sense of euphoria after the win? Oh hell yeah. But you know what they’re not doing with that euphoria? They’re not going out and finishing building that home that was without a roof because the family was too broke to build it and so they still have all six of them living in a FEMA trailer. They’re not improving pumping systems around the levies. They’re not even redistributing money from the football team’s revenue or state taxes related to football exposure and putting it back into the city. No, New Orleans is still a train wreck, but their team is going to the Super Bowl. Congratulations, but this fixes nothing. A Saints win there would still be as empty as my wallet and as rewarding as a blow job from a chick with braces. Idiots. 
Tweets o’ the Game: As you can imagine there was lots of Twitter conversation going on last night. Like some people though, I wasn’t quite stable enough to spend a lot of time on Twitter to sift through ALL of the comments to find the best ones of the night, but I did come across some gems. In no particular order, let’s start with Berstreet:
“Now I better not hear one more fucking word about Hurricane Katrina ever.”
Tough but fair. From Soopafreak:
“SOMEONE TELL ME WHY”
I imagine that was the same thought running through most people’s broken minds last night. In all caps? Not sure, but at least similar sentiments. From WilliamfLeitch:
“Every Vikings player has hand leprosy. (It’s a special kind of leprosy.)”
Touche. And I in fact do think leprosy IS contagious, so that explains the metaphor about contagious fumbling. From KenTremendous:
“Why don’t people say that Brees looks like a kid out there? He’s shorter than Favre.”
It’s funny because he’s short. But also, more attention needs to paid to Brees’ mole too. If you notice in interviews, rarely will he have the mole side to the camera. And it has it’s own zip code. Finally, from Mourn4:
“And all is right again with the universe.”
Yeah … dick. Thanks for everyone who’s tweeted about the Vikings this year. I’m guessing this feature won’t be around too much since, you know, there aren’t anymore games, but we’ll see what we can do with it. As always, we’re always around there if you want to follow our feed. 
A losing haiku for a lost season: “One thing you will learn, Is that even at fourty, You can still get Favre’d” 
Looking ahead: Like I mentioned previously, PJD is at a bit of a crossroads here. Our ability to post continuously has been hampered (through no fault of our own, I swear!) and so we’re really not quite sure how we’re going to carry on in the future. I imagine Viking interest will be at an all time low this week as people take a full seven days to recover mentally. That’s fine. While there may not be daily posts up over here we will continue to chime in. Also, if you didn’t follow us during last offseason don’t think that the amount of stories, sarcasm, hatred or dick jokes will subside. Oh no. We still have lots to do around here. Continue to check back as we do season recaps, look at free agency, prepare for the draft, meet new players, write topical holiday stories, make fun of ourselves, do the old Favre watch, and prepare ourselves for another Vikings season that’ll rear its ugly head again in August. Always a good time. I also just want to say thanks for everyone that has read us and followed us. I’d like to think I worked hard at this site throughout the year to be both entertaining and informative in a way that other Vikings blogs weren’t, and so I appreciate everyone that has read it, passed it on to others, bought tshirts, commented, and become acquainted with. While losing football games sucks, having some type of camaraderie and friendship with random people through football means is always enjoyable. Hang with us, as we’ll still be around, and of course if anyone wanted to PAY me to do this, well, we’d all be a lot happier. Thanks for the season and we’ll see you all again soon.
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