Hello RandBallers! It was a long and often glorious five days off. We sincerely hope your holidays were filled with good times, safe travels and limited family altercations. We consumed. We gave. We received (a Wii, woo-hoo!). We had enough down time — and also enough intestinal fortitude, not to mention mental instability — to watch two consecutive Timberwolves basketball games on TV from start to finish Friday and Saturday. Much of the momentum (or as it seems, inertia), though, was carrying us toward Sunday, judgment day, when every Vikings fan entered the fray with a sense of dread, their tongues loaded with venom ready to spew out in the direction of another epic collapse.

Ah, but the Vikings were in the spirit of giving this year. Last week, it was seven fumbles. This week, it was a gift to fans, a whopper of a two-part present. First, of course, they managed to pull out a victory despite trailing by nine points in the fourth quarter. Discuss circumstances all you want. Sure, the Giants rested key players. Sure, Minnesota was aided greatly by a missed field goal (for the third time this season. See New Orleans and Green Bay as well). But the bottom line was the Vikings avoided merely backing into the playoffs. They earned their spot. There are no excuses for wins in the NFL. That’s the way the league is. The margin for error is ridiculously thin. If you wind up with more wins than the other teams, you are deserving.

That said … part two of the gift is the one that keeps on giving. Because not only did the Vikings win, but also they still gave fans so much to complain about. Witness this post-game e-mail from Drew Magary, which will serve as the Meltdown because it captures the spirit of the thing beautifully and requires far fewer [redacteds] than were shared throughout the game:

The time management at the end of that game was, hands down, the worst I’ve ever seen. Philly will destroy us.

Yes, that is a man who has watched countless Vikings games. You can tell because he loves to gripe as much as he loves to watch a win. Here it was, mere minutes after Minnesota clinched its first division championship since 2000, and he was focused on time management and how badly the Vikings would lose in the playoffs. And Drew wasn’t alone. Rocket called later, and the two of us griped non-stop about the time management at the end of the first half and end of the game (MC Creme Fraiche and the RBBH can attest to how infuriated we were when T-Jack spiked the ball on 2nd-and-1 late in the first half, the play that kicked off a downward spiral of bad decisions and gave the Giants a cheap field goal). Also, is it possible to yank a kicker around a little more? Hey Ryan, go kick this field goal that will define this franchise’s entire season. Wait, timeout New York. OK, changed our mind. Tarvaris, get out there and waste four seconds (a good move, actually). OK, Ryan, get out there and kick. Wait, timeout New York again. OK, Ryan, fourth time is a charm. For real this time. And he still made it.

So stunning was the day that it led to a strange, wonderful bet that night. Keep in mind that bets are not often made with true conviction. They are made because one person has a vague notion of supporting one side, then you take the other side, and suddenly you are bitterly entrenched with things at stake. Local Quipster thinks the Eagles will defeat the Vikings. We think the Vikings will pull it out. The wager, then, is this: the loser has to perform one (1) game of bowling at a local establishment wearing extra short cut-off jean shorts (up to the pockets). But RandBall, you might say. Isn’t that win-win for you? A playoff win or a chance to show off your trim, athletic thighs? Trust us, it is not win-win for either party.

So there you have it. Hours after the biggest Vikings victory since beating the Packers in the playoffs, we were griping about clock management and making a ridiculous bet that could lead to public shame and scandal. It was a good Sunday.

Questions

*What is the strangest/greatest “bet” you have ever made?

*NFL MVP top four candidates, in order: Peyton Manning, Chad Pennington, Michael Turner, Adrian Peterson. What’s your take?

*After watching countless hours of TV over the holidays, what is the one commercial you are most sick of seeing?

*We are scheduled to be in studio with Kris Atteberry on KSTP (AM-1500) tonight from about 5:30-8. Would you care to have a listen?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.