4 Reasons No One Should Be Surprised the Vikings Lost to the Saints

I was surprised that the Minnesota Vikings lost last night.

I picked them to win here on MSF and also picked them in the NFL Playoffs pool that I’m doing with my family. We use confidence points to add an extra layer of intrigue to each pick, and I placed the maximum amount possible on the Vikings. That’s how confident I was that they would win, despite having to play on the road in the Superdome.

And you know what? They should have won.

Minnesota outgained the vaunted New Orleans offense 475-257. The Vikings were 7-12 on 3rd downs; New Orleans was 3-12. The Vikings had 31 first downs to the Saints’ 15. The Vikings held the ball for nearly 10:00 more than the Saints.

Add up all of the numbers and the Vikings should have won 31-17, rather than lose 31-28. But despite the numbers, none of us should be surprised that the Vikings lost…and here’s why.

1. The “…on the ground” motif created bad karma

After the Vikings beat Dallas in the divisional round, Brett Fun decided to have some favre in the locker room and led his teammates in singing a song that I have, to this point, refused to watch once. You know the one I’m talking about: “Pants on the Ground”.

Somehow, this song has become a worldwide sensation, but such is the power of American Idol. (By the way, I consider it a badge of honor that I’ve avoided even hearing one note of it, and now that it’s gone this far I am taking it as a personal challenge to never see it.)

The problem is that there is absolutely nothing redeeming from a football standpoint about anything being “on the ground.” In fact, from an offensive standpoint, being “on the ground” is the worst possible thing that could happen, whether we are talking about a knee, your quarterback, or the football. So you just aren’t galvanizing good karma when your quarterback is singing such a song in the locker room.

And unfortunately for the Vikings, that is exactly what happened.

They put the ball “on the ground” and lost it three times, part of a five turnover night when you include Favre’s two INTs. In total, the Vikings fumbled 119 times last night, but that is an unofficial count estimated by my impression watching the game. It might have been more.

In addition, while the Saints never were able to sack Brett Favre, they were able to put him and his 40-year old pants on the ground over and over again. Favre even had to hobble off with a temporary ankle malady at one point.

Simply put, the second the Vikings decided to sing that stupid song, they were tempting the fate of a motif that could not have been less appropriate for winning offensive football.

2. The “Brad Childress Factor” should not have been underestimated

I am really pissed off at myself for this one.

In the divisional round, I decided it would be a good idea to throw my prediction support behind the Cowboys and Chargers, two teams coached by men – Wade Phillips and Norv Turner – who have a history of producing underachievers come playoff time.

You’d think I would have learned my lesson and realized that Brad Childress and his apparently not-so-magic beard should not be trusted in such a key situation.

(His headset, on the other hand, should be trusted in a key situation…if the key situation is taking customer service calls from a cubicle on the 10th floor of a dilapidated office building. Otherwise, it really shouldn’t be trusted either.)

Sure enough, a coaching blunder (I assume) led to the Vikings squandering a chance to kick a game-winning field goal in the 4th quarter. There is absolutely no excuse for that “12 men in the huddle” penalty the Vikings were assessed, which then necessitated the Favre rollout that resulted in the now-infamous game-ending INT.

I don’t know if Childress is specifically to blame for trying to make asinine substitutions on that play, but he’s the head coach and he’s made plenty of asinine decisions in the past. The buck stops with him, so he gets the blame.

I’m chalking a major portion of the reason for this Vikings loss up to the “Brad Childress Factor” and punching myself in the arm for not accounting for that more in my pregame analysis.

3. The Saints have just sucked for a long time; the Vikings are actually cursed

This one is huge because there is a major difference between just sucking and actually being cursed.

A team that just sucks can lose and lose and lose over and over again for years, which is essentially what the Saints have done for their entire NFL existence. When you suck, it cannot really be chalked up to curses when you lose. It’s because you suck.

A team that is cursed loses games like the Vikings lost last night. To lose such an important game, in such a terrible way, when the stats suggest you should win by double the points your opponent scores, requires a curse.

Furthermore, in an effort to further illustrate how last night’s game simply follows in the footsteps of past cursed Vikings’ playoff losses, to be 15-1 and lose in the NFC Championship Game to Chris Chandler requires a curse. To make the Super Bowl four times and not ever come away with a victory requires a curse.

You see, cursed teams are good enough to develop legitimate hope that they might actually taste the sweet nectar of a championship. But then, somewhere along the way, that nectar is replaced by the poison of a crushing defeat and all hope is gracelessly snatched away, sometimes in ways that seem inexplicable.

For the Vikings to have everything set up to attempt a game-winning field goal, and then not even get to attempt it…that’s a curse. For a team that hadn’t turned the ball over more than three times in a single game all year to suddenly turn into a band of butterfinger bandits…that’s a curse.

It used to be that the Vikings’ curses took effect in the Super Bowl. Now that there are more playoff games before a team reaches the Super Bowl, I guess their playoff curse won’t even allow them to get that far.

The truth is that the Vikings never really had a chance in this game. Ask the Bills. When you’re cursed. dreams turn into nightmares. I doubt anyone associated the Vikings slept well last night.

(And speaking of curses, you know who else is cursed? Brett Favre.

Ever since he decided to make every NFL offseason his own personal will-he-or-won’t-he-retire melodrama, the football gods have decided to get his and team’s hopes up…then yank that seemingly magic carpet right out from under them.

In his last season with Green Bay, Favre threw a pick-6 to lose the NFC title game. Last year, he started out great and then got hurt and watched his team fade down the stretch. This year, Favre had his best statistical season, yet still ended the year with his last pass being an INT.

Update: As @thegnc pointed on Twitter, Favre’s last pass in Green Bay was an INT but was not a pick-6. The Giants ended up kicking a field goal. I was thinking about the infamous “we want the ball, and we’re gonna score” overtime game that was actually won on a pick-6 by the Packers.

All I’ll say to the Vikings or whoever else has Favre as their QB next year: watch out.)

Finally, the most important reason that no one should be surprised that the Vikings lost to the Saints last night…

4 – The city of New Orleans deserved this

In the end, whether the Vikings lost because of bad karma, bad coaching, or bad luck, the team and city that truly deserved to advance to the Super Bowl did advance to the Super Bowl.

I know, I know…the stats say that the Vikings “deserved” to win and all of that. But remove your spectacles of myopia for a second and take a broader view of the situation.

When was the last time that the Minneapolis-St. Paul area was completely devastated by a natural disaster? (And no, neither Johan Santana being traded nor the whole Clem Haskins debacle count.) We are less than four years removed from the entire city of New Orleans nearly being wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina.

Don’t you think a city that has endured what New Orleans has endured deserves to have its icon of civic pride go all the way to the biggest single annual event in the world? I do, and I think a Saints appearance in the Super Bowl has been destined since Katrina hit and the team serendipitously acquired a franchise QB because Nick Saban and the Dolphins passed.

It’s just been a matter of timing.

Perhaps when the Saints made the NFC Championship a few years back against the Bears – when a win would have sent them to Miami to play the Colts, interestingly enough – the city of New Orleans wasn’t yet ready to truly enjoy a Super Bowl trip. With so many residents displaced or homeless, and the city still an absolute wreck, I’m sure it would have been uplifting for the Saints to make the big game, but so many people would have been too distracted or destitute to enjoy it.

Perhaps the gods of NFL fate decided it would be better to use that season’s Super Bowl to highlight and dispose of Rex Grossman’s ineptitude (a great service to all NFL fans) while saving New Orleans’ appearance for later…like this year, with the city now rebuilt enough for fans to give the Saints their undivided attention, love, and affection.

And perhaps I’m talking out of my ass here. Perhaps karma, destiny, and curses have nothing to do with who wins and loses football game. (Brad Childress, however, does have a lot to do with who wins and loses football games.)

All I know is this: had I actually sat down and considered that the Vikings would be facing more than a terrific offense and the best homefield advantage in the NFL – that karma, childress, curses, and destiny would also be opposing them – I might have rethought my doubled-down prediction of a Vikings victory.

The fact of the matter is that I should have known the Saints were going to win last night. We all should have known.

Unfortunately for the Vikings, they never really stood a chance.

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* – Brett Favre on the ground photo credit: Eed Jacobsohn/Getty Images via ESPN.com

* – Brad Childress photo credit: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images via ESPN.com

* – Vikings fan photo credit: TurfShowTimes.com

* – Saints fans photo credit: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky via ESPN.com

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