I was really glad to see the Vikings deliver such a crushing blow that they were able to once again let the Tardis finish the game. I don't know why there was such a requirement for the Vikings to only have quarterbacks with silly names... Tavaris, Sage, Rosemary, and Favre... perhaps the Superbowl is at Scarborough Fair? Tenuous attempts at humor aside, Vikings-Bears games are always head-scratchers, and after dealing with the crowd at the theater I scrambled over to the Dome just in time to watch the Vikings and Bears exchange turnovers, and the frustration and exaltation and general confusion of the crowd was like a warm, familiar blanket. Plus the company was delightful, but that's another story.
My favorite play of the game has to be the highlight sack in the red zone, although Allen grabbing the interception and forgetting which way to run is a close second. But watching the Williams Wall calmly pushing forward to efficiently collapse the pocket, forcing an alert Cutler to attempt to roll out to the right, only to bump into his own tackle who was giving up ground to Ray Edwards faster than Neville Chamberlain. Cutler scrambled left just as Jared Allen, who recently gave up drinking and immediately developed an addiction to quarterback flesh, broke free and came looking to kill him, and desperately seeking a port in a storm drowned in a sea of purple. While it was Kevin Williams who got his arms around Cutler, it was a sack that belonged to all of them, as they mercilessly closed in from all sides.
In a way this is the best Vikings team I've ever seen, though they are mere mortals, and lack the Olympian skills of Cris Carter and Randy Moss who made first downs on uncatchable balls multiple times a game, and the general sense of invincibility those receivers and that impassable line gave to the Vikings, running out of a three wide out set, making double-teams invisible, and excruciatingly drawing out the epic killing stroke with a showman's timing... watching a flea flicker patiently develop, or watching the huge right side of the line roll out like the Blob taking over a town, clearing trail for track star Robert Smith to sprint the 60 yards to the end zone unimpeded.
The current Vikings have managed to build up the same record at the same point in the season without appearing to wear the skin of the Nemean Lion (just the mangy pelts of the underfed Detroit Lions), with their biggest vulnerability, Favre's weathered arm, never far from everybody's minds. On second thought, Adrian Peterson was clearly an Argonaut in another life... actually he's more like Dracula, you think he's down but he always cuts back and blows his way through a hole that nobody saw: the only way to tackle him is to drive a wooden stake through his heart. But they do make huge plays by the skin of their teeth, snatching victory in the blink of an eye, with somebody new keeping drives alive every time, making me wonder if they can keep it up all the way to Scarborough Fair.
The spectre of that '98 team hangs heavy on my heart making it hard to believe that this is the real deal; that and the other poisonous heartaches of the years since put the fire out in that battered organ a long time ago. It wasn't the Vikings that turned my beating heart to the cold, cutting weight of peridotite in my chest, but only the Vikings might tempt me to lose myself again in fire and lava. But self-indulgent lovesick metaphors aside, the one place I start to trust the Vikings is on defense. I always knew if they didn't come up with a nasty reversal of fortune (like the turnovers they feasted on) eventually they'd wear down and like the Titanic, the bow would start to slide into the water. This year I feel like it's only a matter of time before the front line starts to claw down the offense and get that last step closer to an increasingly skittish quarterback and drives will falter, and with pressure coming from the front four the linebackers and secondary can stay loose, finish off plays with swarming tackles and make the offense work for every yard. The chains may move, but the decisive moment will eventually come to rip out their throats and make sure the Vikings have a chance to win. There really is something about watching a man in purple push people around.
With a balance the spectacular '98 Vikings and without the ego trip of having the highest scoring offense in history, and the media still (rightly) tumescent over the undefeated Colts and Saints, I hope they continue to quietly go about the business of winning footbal games, and a Superbowl would probably keep them out of LA. However, I still remember once before when the only thing between us and a trip to Miami was a long-unfashionable dome team from the South having a superb year. Two preachers played in that game, one missed his best shot at the Hall of Fame (although he still deserves it), and the other nearly missed the Superbowl for trying to get his helmet polished the night before (and no, I'm not referring to his Falcons helmet).
So how is it that what should have been a tough division opponent imploded like that? I like to think it's because I have a magic rock in my pocket that keeps away Bears. Or at least makes them run away when Jared Allen and Al Jefferson put their arms up and try to look big. So rest assured, I will bring my Magic Bear-Castrating Rock to Chicago on the 28th. SKOL!
An addendum both tedious and brief:
When I started writing this last night, the Wolves were building a lead against the Memphis and looked ready to expand on their longest winning streak of the season (that'd be one game) and I thought the Magic Rock theory was foolproof. Kiriakos Rambidis did say after they beat the Nuggets that the Wolves had collectively decided to do their best from now on and not to all quit after the first quarter, which I thought was a very thoughtful gift for the fans with Hanukkah almost upon us, to actually show some effort at your multi-million dollar dream job at least through New Year's. There were some bright spots, like Ryan Gomes reminding me what a fantastic all-around complementary player he can be (like Scottie Pippen only without the dominance, the arrogance, or the ugliness), Jonny Flynn being aggressive and finding good things happen, and they even let Wayne Ellington play for once. But they still couldn't put away the Grizzlies, Big Al disappeared at crunch time, and they came up short in the final seconds. Given what a marked improvement that still is for a team whose games were over by halftime last year, I have to give all credit to the magic rock.
No comments:
Post a Comment