At the risk of blowing a day’s worth of posts in one sitting, we feel there are so many delightful nuggets from the weekend that we just can’t hold them back. Saturday we ran a 5K (the Reindeer Run at Lake Harriet) with the RBBH. It was her first-ever sanctioned race, and she performed admirably — never once taking a break to walk. We ran in lock-step behind several U.S. Marines as they chanted non-stop. The cadence seemed to spur our ladyfriend on, to the point that she now wants to purchase this CD for her workouts. Seriously. But Saturday’s physical exertion gave way to basically 10 hours of watching football on the couch. It was glorious. Breakfast: A sandwich made with eggs, cheddar, hash browns and hot Italian turkey sausage. That, too, was glorious. Lunch: used spicy leftover meatballs to concoct a giant meatball sub. Also glorious. The rest? Here we go:

*Would the Vikings have won the game against the Lions without the Williams Wall? Debatable because you never know how a team is going to react to a certain situation. We always become infuriated when someone says, “If Player X hadn’t dropped that pass in the second quarter, we would have won the game.” No, because the result of that play changed every single play that followed. Follow? (Also, a convenient joke might have been Player X=Visanthe Shiancoe in the past. Knock on wood, but he hasn’t had the dropsies for a while and is becoming a real threat). So: the Williams Wall definitely helped with those 4th-and-1 stops. They helped free up Jared Allen to be a beast once again (one who would have killed a man yesterday if not for Ray Edwards). In a close game like that, you could say they were difference-makers. Then again, the game would have been completely different if they hadn’t played. So you never know.

*Speaking of Visanthe Shiancoe: We saw the post-game, uh, revelation when it happened and we laughed out loud. Sporting Blog was the first to post the image as far as we know. They have a reasonably clean version right here. You don’t see a lot of full frontal nudity on Sunday afternoon network television, so if nothing else it was a surprise.

*We had the computer going yesterday for two reasons: 1) Fantasy. Obviously. We pounded Marthaler for the third time this year, even though he was the No. 2 seed and we were No. 7 in the playoffs. We just have his number. Also, he started Sage Rosenfels at QB. That was not very sage, indeed. 2) Refreshing the Star Tribune T-Wolves blog every couple of hours to see if there was any, uh, breaking news. Nothing yet.

*Mini Monday Meltdown with Drew Magary, noted author and an aqua belt in karate:
RB: You watching the game? Also, I just figured out why I was terribly confused about whether the Lions had Drew Stanton or Drew Henson on their roster. It’s because they have both those [redacteds]. Amazing.
DM: I’m here. STOP JUMPING OFFSIDE!!!!!!
RB: Are these guys going to lose?
DM: I told you, man. I told you they had it in them to [redacted] this up.
RB: Hey, Childress is going to win a challenge!
DM: Did he take a damn timeout to figure it out?
RB: No i think that was a change of possession timeout … so it’s not so bad. He was waiting for more looks because he had time.
DM: GAHHHHHHHHHH!
RB: Double-GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! One for Allen, one for Gus.
DM: Every play in this [redacted] game is the [redacted] Hindenburg.
RB: Thank the lions this is only 6-3. Nice sneak, Ladyhands.
DM: “Let’s run our 500lb. QB!” What a miserable half of football.
(A quiet second half because things are going well. Naturally).
(Deleted discussion about the Shiancoe incident).
RB: So, there’s really only one question: If Gus is healthy next week, who is your starting QB?
DM: Gus. But T-Jack played incredibly well.
RB: I don’t know. It seems like Gus has run his course. The things he did better than T-Jack initially — move the ball down the field and not throw costly picks — are no longer strengths with the exception of deep passes to Berrian. T-Jack might actually give them a better chance to win right now. Either way, though, their QB situation is a reminder that even if they do make the playoffs, they shouldn’t expect to go very far.

*Underrated play yesterday: the challenge that overturned Calvin Johnson’s reception. Would have been first and goal. Instead, the Lions kicked a field goal to cut it to 17-16 and never had a serious threat again. We’ve been critical of Childress and his challenges, but he nailed two huge ones yesterday. The Johnson play was questionable (some angles looked like a catch, some looked like the point of the ball hit the ground), but it was worth it because of the stage of the game. It certainly worked out.

*The Cowboys’ remaining schedule: home against the Giants, home against Baltimore, at Philly. All of which makes yesterday’s huge botch at Pittsburgh — up 13-3 in the fourth only to allow a comeback to tie and a Romo pick-six for the win — even more devastating. Raise your hand if you can picture them losing two of those three and missing the playoffs. (Raises hand).

*The Giants’ home loss to the Eagles was good and bad if you are a Vikings fan. Bad: with games left against Carolina and Dallas before they get here (yeah, we just got done trashing Dallas but the Cowboys are still dangerous), the Giants are certainly no cinch to have home field locked up by the time they get here in Week 17. Good: with Plax out and Brandon Jacobs now dinged up, they are far more beatable.

*Washington trails 14-0 late in the first half at Baltimore last night. It’s 4th-and-2 from roughly Baltimore’s 43. Less than a minute left in the half. Gotta go for it, right? Try to put some points up before the break? If it fails, Baltimore probably takes one or two shots, then sits on it because a two-touchdown lead is nothing to sneeze at. Nope. Washington punts. From the RBBH, who claims she is “starting to understand football” but still is no expert: “Wait, they have no points and they’re doing the safe thing?” Exactly.

*John Madden and Al Michaels are now average at best. The insight is gone and they flat-out get things wrong (they went to break confidently saying a fumble by Clinton Portis would be overturned, when we could see it was coming out before his elbow hit the ground. Yep, turns out it was a fumble). But hey, at least we learned that Ed Reed is the best ball-hawk in football.

Glad we could get that off our chests.

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