Week Three's Nuggest of Wonderment

Coming off the ledge: Bears 19, Vikings 16
Sometimes, in a completely illogical way, I think I'd prefer the Vikes to lose by 30 than to lose a close game. During a blowout, I begin a process of accepting the loss sometime during the second quarter, and by the fourth quarter, I've achieved some distance. During a close loss, however, three hours of intense nervous energy (with many moments of elation and deflation) are followed by a night of bitterness, anger, and frustration, and a week of longing for another game. After a close loss, one can run through any number of individual plays that could have swung the game the other way (Taylor's unforgivable fumble to give the Bears the ball on the Viking 37, the decision to throw 30 yards downfield on 4th and 2, Williamson's drop, Williamson's offensive pass interference, Sharper's near INT) without having the objectivity to look at the individual plays that could have swung the game even further in the opponent's direction.

I hate the Bears. I wish them nothing but ill for the rest of the season. Next week I hope the Seahawks beat the hell out of them in Soldier Field. I hope that Brad Childress is the man to finally build a Viking team capable of winning a game at Soldier Field (Vikes haven't won there since 2000, when Denny Green was coach). I don't even have a lot of respect for them.

One of the purposes of literature is to help us to understand the meaning of our lives. After the Vikings lose, I feel like a character in Beckett's Waiting for Godot: living a fan life of despair and unfulfillment, but coming back each day with hope that something will come along.

Offense: I currently have no faith in the Viking red zone offense. When they are inside the 15, I assume we're getting 3. Still, the Vikes have scored on their first possession three straight weeks; unfortunately, they don't keep that rhythm going.

Defense: the Vikings have allowed under 20 pts. in three straight games; I can't recall this ever happening under Mike Tice. Seems like a fair chance they can keep that streak going at Buffalo next week.

Special Teams: the return game looks pretty mediocre without Koren Robinson.

My wife's contributions to Sunday
My wife was ill and sleeping on the couch all day; every so often she'd wake up and make some odd comment on what she would see and hear on TV. Here are the highlights.

On Joe Buck:
Me: "It's great to listen to him have to shout over the band."
Her: "It's even better to listen to him shout over the band about how he has to shout over the band."
Me: "That's post-modernism, baby."
Her: "It's meta-shouting."

On Chris Simms:
"Don't you need your spleen?"

On Reche Caldwell's crazy eyes:
"Is he on some sort of wonderful journey?"

Commercials
I'm a connoisseur of advertisements. Here are my thoughts on the commercials I see every Sunday.

--The girl in the DLP commercial who talks about the mirrors should get an apartment together with the girl from The Ring.

--Evidently, people who want to eat at Arby's end up doing awful at their jobs.

--I'm fixated on how the centaurs in that HDTV commercial have sex. Do they mount, like horses? Or do they have genitals in the front of their bodies, like humans? Or do they have genitals in BOTH spots, giving them an infinite supply of kinkiness?

Shanahanigans
This is the new term for a Mike Shanahan induced neurosis suffered by people who have Bronco running backs on their fantasy teams. After two weeks of starting Tatum Bell and seeing him split carries, I decided it was time to bench him until he earned the starting job. And then as the Sunday night game got started, Al Michaels informs us that Mike Shanahan told them last night that he'd keep Tatum in there. I hit my head and cursed when I heard it.

Agent Smith plays for the Seahawks
Sunday morning I caught the fight scene from The Matrix when Neo fights all the Agent Smiths (don't ask me to try explain how the cheapest cable package I could possibly buy at $10.33 a month somehow includes TNT). Then later in the day I watched parts of the Seahawks game. I am convinced that wide receivers #81, 82, 83, and 84 for the Seahawks are clones. They all basically look the same in their uniforms, they all have similar skills, and it really doesn't seem to matter which one is being thrown to. This could be a scary team.

Please, NBC: don't flash "Touchdown" in yellow.
NBC absolutely MUST stop flashing "touchdown" in yellow whenever somebody scores a TD. First of all, we're watching the game. We know a touchdown happened. Are we so stupid we need this repeated? Secondly, they flash it in the same color that a penalty gets flashed. So every time somebody scores a TD, for a second you think that some sort of penalty is going to call it back. Just stop the madness.

Favre Tally
With 3 TD passes and 0 INTs, Brett Favre is now 18 TD passes away from catched the record of a man who was never in drug rehab, and remains 19 INTs away from a man who once threw 42 interceptions in 14 AFL games.

At least Favre didn't have to suffer the indignity of losing: he avoided the hissy fit of leaving the field early.

Add this to your Monday reading
Peter King is awful and one day the world will realize it. Instead, or in addition to, read MJD's Smorgasbord on Mondays.