Steelers "@" Vikings

Do you find yourself occasionally skipping on your way to work? Do you sometimes worry your overly positive attitude is rubbing off on your co-workers? Have you ever caught yourself happily whistling in public? Ever feel your optimism is causing a rift between you and your significant other? Have you noticed yourself admiring the beauty in the world around you and felt glad to be alive? If so, I think I have the cure for you.

The Vikings play the Steelers in what has been dubbed the “Desperation Bowl” in London this Sunday. And you can resolve all your positivity issues in one fell swoop by coming over to watch the game on Sunday. Both the Vikings and the Steelers are unexpectedly 0-3 and in “must win” situations.

Before you all start clamoring for my hide, let me acknowledge what I said about the game last week “this, I assure you, is a guaranteed win for the Vikings. The poor Browns are in for a beating like no other as the underachieving Vikings take out all their frustrations on a poor and undermanned team. I promise you there is no way the Vikings will lose this Sunday. I’m even willing to put money on it. You want to lose some money? Stop by my office today and lay down some cash on the Browns.”

And, before you start guffawing and bellowing at my optimistic prediction, let me remind you that NOT ONE OF YOU stopped by my office to put any money down on the Browns. I always pay my debts and I would have paid you off if you had had the guts to plonk down some moolah on the Browns.

The good news is that change is in the air. Historically, any time a coach has wanted to yank a player without making it seem like they have pulled the plug on a starter, they have leaked news about a mysterious “injury” sustained by the player. Word from the Vikings is that Ponder sustained a “rib injury” at some point during the game last week. My prediction is that if Ponder starts to falter again, Matt Cassel will enter as QB and Ponder will be told to “rest his injury until he is 100%.” Then, the Vikings will ride Cassel until it appears that he’s even worse than Ponder. If Cassel wins, he’ll continue to play. Weeks after the injury is healed, Frazier will say, “Ponder is still our #1 QB, but I do not want to mess with the momentum as long as we’re winning.” If Cassel loses several games, Ponder will be back and the fan base will be somewhat mollified that Cassel got his chance.

For all practical purposes, this season is over. So, why should you come over on Sunday? The kids are with me this weekend and Sheila and I are going to whip up some fun stuff for lunch. We have not created our menu yet, but I assure you it will be something interesting. Probably at least *some* Indian food. So, come to eat and we’ll have the game going in the background. If you want to eat, you must RSVP. I ran out of lunch last week – the Hyderabadi Chicken was a hit!

Hope to see you on Sunday, or sometime this season.

Browns @ Vikings

Isn’t it liberating, in a sense, to have all Vikings playoff expectations removed so very early in the season? We can now just relax and enjoy the season and wallow the misery without getting stressed about whether the Vikings will manage the last-minute surge to make the playoffs only to lose in the first round. Aaaaah, breathe deep. Breathe free.

It was an entertaining game. Ponder looked good in parts and awful in other parts. Even Adrian looked good at times and awful at others. But, don’t worry. The head coach is no claiming that he’s to blame too. How nice that we can add him to the list of good-for-nothing, emotionless, incompetent, unimaginative, back-pedaling, out-of-position, air-headed, tackle-fearing, overpaid, unprepared, stinking pile of drones who make up a good part of this team.

Breathe deep. Breathe free. Enjoy the empty and clear feeling of no expectations for the rest of this season.

You should consider coming over this week. We play the 0-2 Cleveland Browns at home and this, I assure you, is a guaranteed win for the Vikings. The poor Browns are in for a beating like no other as the underachieving Vikings take out all their frustrations on a poor and undermanned team. I promise you there is no way the Vikings will lose this Sunday. I’m even willing to put money on it. You want to lose some money? Stop by my office today and lay down some cash on the Browns. So, breathe deep and enjoy this victory.

Vikings@ Bears

Before I even begin my rant about the Lions game, I must express my deep sadness at the horrible illness contracted by their running back Reggie Bush. You have to admire his courage – being out there and battling for his team despite having such an awful and contagious disease. Also surprising is that there has been NO news coverage about his illness. I have heard NOTHING mentioned in the press about this. Yet, it is apparent he has something horrible and contagious. It was apparent for all of us to see on Sunday. That’s the only explanation for the Vikings defense being so completely unwilling to even touch the guy. They didn’t even seem to be willing to get too close to him. Sad.

But on to the rest of that game. Since Time Reilly has urged me to be more optimistic, let’s start with the bright spots for the Vikings. If we look at the Vikings offensive line, … ok scratch that. So, what about our defense. You could say … hmmm … ummm … Moving on to special teams, our rookie punter had a … ummm … well … okay. I guess this was a bad idea. But I tried? The best part of the Vikings game last Sunday was the fact that the Lions tried so desperately hard to lose the game. They felt so sorry for the pathetic Vikings that they even gave back FOUR touchdowns, refusing to take credit for marching up and down the field at will.

Coach Leslie Frazier at least had this incisive and carefully-thought-out analysis of how we are going to fix the problems and win this season: “We all need to play better.” Nice plan. That makes me very optimistic for the season. If only he hadn’t already said that after the three losses in the preseason, it may be a little easier to take him seriously. I’m sure Bill Musgrave is hard at work designing clever plays that involve Ponder rolling to the left and throwing across his body, running Adrian up the middle on first, second, third, AND fourth down, designing an awesome two yard dump-pass play for third-and-eight situations, etc. So, we’ll be okay. Or at least, we’ll be back to normal for this coaching staff. Is that optimistic enough, Tim?

The game will be on. Come for the beer and company. The 0-2 start will at least dampen any enthusiasm the fans have for this season. So, any silly win against a mediocre team can be celebrated for the rest of this year. Let the fun begin!

Vikings @ Lions

Hard to believe, but it is finally here – THE 2013 VIKINGS FOOTBALL SEASON OPENER!

So, we enter another incredibly uncertain season. There are a swirl of critical questions that will make or break the season. How good will Adrian be? Will Ponder finally live up to the (minimal) expectations that people have of him? How is our secondary going to manage against the high-flying offenses of the NFC North? Will Bill Musgrave finally get fired? How far into the season before you hear me yell “Good for nothing scoundrels” at the screen?

The Vikings have a killer (character-building) schedule their first four weeks before the bye week. They start with two division games on the road (Lions and Bears) followed by two home games against the Browns and Steelers who are both expected to be significantly improved from last year. At the moment, I’m all excited and pumped up about the season and I’m going to predict the Vikings entering the bye week at 3-1.

Which means, that with my awesome super-duper-accutronic-prediction-hat on, if you come this Sunday, you’ll be treated to a VIKINGS WIN! Come on, help celebrate the end of the first week of classes and a Vikings win with some beer and good (or sometimes bad) company. Let me know if you can make it.