It was a shoot-out and went into overtime, but in the end Brett Favre and the Vikings couldn’t defeat the Saints, who now head to Super Bowl 44 as the underdog against the Colts.
Chad Jorgenson – I am soooooooooooo glad the real Brett Favre showed up for this game. He only had 2 picks, but he could have had 3 or 4 easily and of course one of his picks was the gut punch that doomed the Vikes. Not that the rest of his teammates helped him out much, you can’t put the football on the ground that many times against even crappy opposition let alone one of the best teams in the league. The secretely awesome part of the pick was what had to be going on in the head of Chily at that time. “My 19 year veteran QB who I’ve bent over backward for all season and basically let him run the team down the stretch just made a rookie mistake and I can’t go over and chew him out because he has my balls on a silver platter back in his house.” The Saints committed too many penalties to deserve a win in that game, but the defense showed up and forced some key turnovers to send them to Miami against their hometown boy.
Trent Scott – Discussing this with a lot of people today, many are calling this an “all-time great game.” To which I said immediatly: a game with six total turnovers, 5-1 favoring the Saints, that went to overtime? Come on now. The Vikings dominated this football game but their continual turnovers cost them at the final hurdle to the Super Bowl. The Saints should be thanking some of their namesake for Hammerhands Peterson’s disease hitting the rest of the team at the most crucial of times.
Now, what the Saints did throughout the game in terms of blasting Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve (it is a well known fact you must say his whole name in triplicate when reffering to the man…think Peter King and Rachel Nichols for example) set up that final interception. If Farve isn’t on a bum wheel, he is probably running for that extra yardage, and probably get that field goal in to the upper-40 range, which is far more manageable than the 55 yarder it was looking to be like. Instead, he put zero-zip into a terrible throw that, had it been the beginning of the contest, he would have gotten their long before Tracey Porter breaks on it. (For reference, watch the trajecotry of the throws throughout the contest…they get progressively weaker as the game goes on and Farve is pinataed enough times.)
With all that said, the Saints are a fortunate lot to be heading to Miami. Of course, what they do from here is anyone’s guess because now they have to play the class of the NFL in the Indianapolis Colts. They better figure out a lot of things between now and February.
Tom Daniels – A lot of folks are focusing on Favre’s interception to end regulation and with 10 yards of open field to his front and a clear path to sideline. That’s probably fair, but what they’re not talking about is the heinous, unforgivable pass interference penalty to hand the NFC Championship over to the Saints. It was quite possibly the worst call since the gift NBA Championship Dwayne Wade received in 2006. I have been a staunch defender of the NFL overtime rules. Things like this, where a joke penalty decides the season, changes my mind. Just an absolute travesty of a penalty and, if I were a Vikings fan, one that would have me writing letters to, well, this blog or something. The ONLY mitigating factor in the rage would be the small fact that, had my team actually not fumbled the ball somewhere between 1 and 862 times, we probably wouldn’t have been in that terrible overtime position. Enjoy the Favre show, Minnesota.
Russ Blatt – If you want to learn how not to win a championship, study the Vikings and this game. Yes, they are a great team and maybe the better team in some arguments, but they blew it. No team can fumble six times, lose three and bench your All-World running back and be dominant. That is a reciepe for disaster. Oh yeah, throw an interception with less than 15 seconds on the clock while you could run for ten yards or pass to Berrian at the 30 yard line, while having a time out. The Saints played well enough to win by taking advantage. Fun game, disturbing pass across the body.
Widro – Poetic Justice indeed. After a near-career season and leading the Vikings to the NFC Championship game, Brett Favre succumbed to his own worst enemy – himself. It will be hard to separate Favre’s legacy from his infamous interceptions, and this is yet another example.
