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Monday, February 1, 2010

So Close...And Yet So Favre

A Brief Theological Perspective on the 2010 NFC Championship Game, #4, Lutefisk, Adrian’s Woes and the Meaning of Life ************************************************* Well…in case you haven’t heard….we lost. 31-28 in overtime in the biggest game of the year. I wasn’t able to watch the war – I certainly planned on it but when I got home Sunday at noon the overhead garage door busted and the basement family room dehumidifier was all iced up. So by the time I fixed those two things the article I planned on writing in the afternoon (and that had to be finished that day) got pushed into the evening. So every 30 minutes or so I cringed, hit the button on the remote to see the score, and then turned it off. Toward the end of the game my wife just hollered down the updates. And when she came downstairs and told me that Favre had just thrown an interception and it was going into overtime I covered my ears, said “LALALALALALALALALALA” real loud and just ignored her. She could tell I was upset and was visiting the State of Denial so she just snuck back upstairs. Perhaps the broken garage door and the iced up dehumidifier were signs of things to come. For sure the Vikings’ anti-turnover machine was either broken or frozen or something. I have been a Minnesota Viking fan since the 7th grade and the Bud “Stone Face” Grant days of old Met Stadium. The first quarterback I remember was Joe Kapp who was with the Vikings from 1967-1969 AD. Speaking of Joe Kapp (hang on for just a moment of college football trivia), he may have lost Super Bowl IV but did you know that he was the coach of the University of California Golden Bears for that really crazy “BIG PLAY” in November of 1982? It is probably one of the top two greatest college football plays ever (right up there with Doug Flutie’s Boston College Hail Mary pass that defeated the Miami Hurricanes). The BIG PLAY was that wild five-lateral kickoff return with 4 seconds left that beat John Elway’s Stanford Team. With Stanford thinking they had won and with one hundred and forty-four members of their Stanford marching band streaming onto the field midway through the kickoff return, they were suddenly met by the advancing Cal Bears at about the Stanford 20 yard line! Kevin Moen, the last Cal player to get a lateral, ran the ball through the scattering Stanford band members and into the end zone for the incredible touchdown. Moen finished off the touchdown by running into Stanford band trombone player Gary Tyrrell. His smashed trombone is now displayed in the college football hall of fame!!! Joe Kapp was probably on the sidelines thinking, “Why couldn’t that have been Super Bowl IV?” This was the lead in to an article written by Tex Maule in Sports Illustrated in November of 1969: “The Vikings, with Joe Kapp on the beam and the four Norsemen lowering the boom on opposing quarterbacks, are not only leading the NFL's Central Division but may be building a dynasty. Color it purple.” How about we just color it “heart-breaking” instead: January 4, 1970 - NFL Championship - MN 27, Cleveland 7 (This was before the AFL and the NFL merged to become the No Fun League) January 11, 1970 - Super Bowl IV - Kansas City 23, MN 7 December 30, 1973 - NFC Championship - MN 27, Dallas 10 January 13, 1974 - Super Bowl VIII - Miami 24, MN 7 December 29, 1974 - NFC Championship - MN 14, L.A. Rams 10 January 12, 1975 - Super Bowl IX - Pittsburgh 16, MN 6 December 26, 1976 - NFC Championship - MN 24, L.A. Rams 13 (I guess we didn’t learn our lesson in 1974 and decided to beat them again) January 9, 1977 - Super Bowl XI - Oakland 32, MN 14 January 1, 1978 - NFC Championship - Dallas 23, MN 6 January 17, 1988 - NFC Championship - Washington 17, MN 10 January 17, 1999 - NFC Championship - Atlanta 30, MN 27 (OT) January 14, 2001 - NFC Championship - N.Y. Giants 41, MN 0 (Two days later the Giants were still scoring) January 24, 2010 - NFC Championship – Aints 31, MN 28, (OT) But there’s one infamous divisional playoff game that’s not listed above. It was that December 28, 1975 game against the Dallas Cowboys in which the notorious “Hail Mary” pass took place. Roger Staubuch hit Drew Pearson with a really long pass with just a few seconds to go. But Pearson clearly pushed off on Nate Wright and should have been penalized and the winning touchdown nullified. How can I say that with such conviction and certainty? Because when you play CBS’s post game interview with Drew Pearson and the celebrating Dallas Cowboys backwards and listen real close you can clearly hear Tom Landry saying, “Pearson Pushed Off, Pearson Pushed Off, Pearson Pushed off.” We may be 0 and 4 in the Super Bowl, but we have the only team mascot in the NFL (Ragnar Juranitch) that has the world record for shaving himself with an axe…under 9 minutes! My Green Bay Packer friend Tom tried to console me the other night. “Hey Dan,” he said, “Did you know that Perkins now has a new Vikings meal? It’s called the Five Turnover Special.” Friends like him are hard to find. And he tried to cheer me up a day later when he emailed me an updated American Medical Association poster on choking hazards. The international symbol of choking (a little picture of a guy choking) was being replaced with that Minnesota Viking profile emblem. He is truly a thoughtful friend! He should create sympathy cards for Hallmark. Which reminds me about another one of my Green Bay Packer friends. A few years back Grant Gonyo tried to cheer me up when we lost to Atlanta in the 1999 NFC championship. Grant called me 2 ½ seconds after Morten Anderson kicked the game winner for the Falcons. “Hi!” he said gleefully, “I wanted to wait at least until the ball landed in the stands before I called (hahahaha) just to say (hahahaha) that I feel your pain (hahahaha).” He (along with Tom) has the gift of empathy. I heard on the radio about a Minnesota Viking fan that, sometime in the 1970’s, decided not to shave again until the Vikings win the Super Bowl. His kids have never seen him without a beard. I don’t think his grandkids will either. I remember when the New Orleans Saints were the “Aints” and some of the fans actually sat in the stands with paper bags on their heads. And when Bum Phillips came from the Houston Oilers to become the new Aints head coach, Houston fans lamented by sitting in the stands with bags on their heads and saying, “They got the Bum, and we got the bags!” (Just a little Bum Phillips humor: when asked about Earl Campbell -- his very gifted running back – and his inability to finish a one mile run in training camp, he said, "When it's first and a mile, I won't give it to him!") But unfortunately for us, the Saints certainly ain’t no longer the Aints. My feelings about #4? I like him. But whether you love him or hate him, you can’t deny Favre’s passion and enthusiasm for the game. When he played for the Packers, I hated the CheeseHeads but actually liked Favre. And I think his Sears commercials are really funny. Thanks Brett for a truly wonderful season. But just make up your mind before next October as to whether or not you will play in 2010. Hold it…I changed my mind…I guess I’m not sure if I do like him…I’ll get back to you on that. And here’s my suggestion for a cure for Adrian’s fumbleticulitis. NASA uses a secret concoction of Lutefisk and Lefsa to glue the heat shield tiles onto the underside of the space shuttle in an environmentally friendly way. Adrian, just smear your hands with the stuff before heading into the game. Its NFL legal and it will work wonders. And the noxious aroma will drive the defense bonkers (what IS that awful smell?!?!?). In the Bible the number 40 is a very significant number and appears quite often. It’s related to a time of trial or testing. And do you know what else is theologically significant about the number 40? Each period of 40 is followed by a time of blessing! Brett turned 40 this year. It’s been like three weeks over 40 years since our first Super Bowl loss. I have 40 hairs left on the top of my head. Are you putting two and two together? So I pretty much figured that Favre was Joshua and we were on our way out of the wilderness and headed for the Promised Land! Can I get an “Amen!” brother? And when we defeated the heathen Dallasites and their young king TonyRomeo by 317 points, I thought, “Could it be?????” Nope. 4 points to few nope. Coach Childress must have forgotten his “How to Defeat Jericho” manual and had the Vikings march around the Superdome only six times instead of the required seven. Or maybe they forgot to blow the trumpets or something. Someone asked me in a meeting last week if we are under some sort of curse. (And by the way, is it the same one that Buffalo is under? I don’t think we are under the same one. Buffalo’s curse is….well it’s just that…they’re Buffalo). I think we are. Back on June 8, 793 somewhere near England the Norsemen sacked the entire island of Lindisfarne. I figure if a bunch of us fly over there this summer and buy each islander a Helga hat, that should cure our Super Bowl woes. My former friend Tom made one final attempt at consolation and again tried to relieve my pain and bring some sort of meaning to my life. So he emailed me some trivia about Favre. Seems that Brett’s last pass with the Atlanta Falcons, the Green Bay Packers, the New York Jets and the Minnesota Vikings was an interception. I replied by email and said that if he saw it on the internet then it had to be true. (And I guess it’s mostly true except that the interception with the Jets was his second to last pass. Like that makes a difference). So close.................................and yet so Favre. Oh well…life is good…and there’s always next year! :>) Copyright 2010 All Rights Reserved Dan Vander Ark  onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

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