Two Football Comments

The Phantom Menace
Disturbing news about the Vikings from the Trib's Kevin Seifert (via PFT): the Vikings lost $10 million in 2005. Zygi has stated emphatically he has no intent to move the Vikes regardless of when he gets a stadium, but for a fanbase that was constantly threatened with relocation under Red McCombs, this is disturbing. However, I'm hopeful that the expenses that led to loss are not regular expenses, and that losses in 2005 and probably 2006 stem from necessary, unrepeated expenses to correct problems from the McCombs era. Zygi had to upgrade the Winter Park facilities and upgrade the staff. That's a big expense. In 2005 and now 2006, Zygi has had to pay for big signing bonuses to big free agents. Under McCombs the Vikes were so far under the salary cap this was possible; however, in the future, it is unlikely this much bonus money will be paid out in a two year span. I hope the Vikes get a new stadium, but I also think they can get back to profitability while remaining competitive.

A literary comparison to Favre
A few days ago I compared Brett Favre's indecisiveness to Hamlet's. That's not fair to Hamlet; after all, Hamlet was gripped with the difficult decision whether to murder his uncle or not. A better literary comparison would be Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken," which Frost wrote to make fun of a friend's indecisiveness (the point is, who gives a shit which road you take? The narrator, by saying things like

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence

is making way too big a deal out of his decision). Obviously an individual's choice to retire is significant. But I'd rather give Favre's indecisiveness not the tragic grandiosity of Hamlet, but the fickle exaggeration of the Frost poem.