I'm not the only father's son who wishes Dad was here to see this. After 43 mostly forgettable years following mostly bad Saints teams, we're a large club. It was all I could think of last night. Dad would have liked these Saints. The Times-Picayune's Pete Finney put it this way:
Suddenly on Sunday, there's a confetti shower inside the Superdome and you're thinking of those melancholy Sundays gone bye.
This Saints fan never missed a single one of those "melancholy Sundays". They've left scars on my soul as this game will leave scars on the Vikings fans' souls. I know their pain. That pain and I have been intimate. I wonder if the word "bye" was intentionally used in that Finney quote or if it was a typo. Have they gone bye? I'd like to think so.
That was the hardest-fought, most physical game I've seen in a long time. It was intense. It was a tough game for either team to lose. If stats are your thing, the game was fairly lopsided in favor of the Vikings. Stats don't ever tell the whole story. Neither team could shake the other. Both were intent on being around at the end. The Saints didn't so much steal the game as they were around to accept it from the generous Vikings. They needed every one of those five turnovers and they needed the crazy home crowd. Some might say they needed some dubious officiating but this observer thought the officiating was dubious all night and didn't favor either team. My feeling is that they should let those guys play or don't let them play. Call nothing but procedure penalties and the most grievous personal fouls or call absolutely everything. I'll probably say more about this game as I have time to digest what I saw. To an impartial fan, it had to be a wildly entertaining game. It was much too entertaining to us partial ones, though.
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Quote of the Day
We just had a fullback in there and we changed up and broke the huddle with 12. You can't call back-to-back timeouts either. I thought we slipped up there.
Brad Childress, Minnesota Vikings Head Coach
Blog of the day is here.
Quote from said blog: "Is this how I envisoned the season to end? No, no it is most definitely not. This was the last, best chance that Minnesota had to win the Super Bowl before my Dad leaves me. He might hang around a few more years; I hope he's here 10 or 20 more years, but that's not the point. He won't be. He knows it, and I know it. And we both knew, that once Favre signed, we were all in for this season, and our fortunes rode as far as the magical arm of #4 would take us."
The Cullen household was all-in for the Saints last night. That said, it was still hard to watch Favre throw that last interception. I mean, I still like Favre so even though I was behind the Saints, it was tough to see him go out like that. I felt really bad when he hurt his ankle because I was thinking, "All right! The Saints have this in the bag now! Oh crap, that was a horrible thing to think about a guy!"
But I am so happy for the Saints. If Favre vs. the Saints was hard for Saints fans, Manning vs. the Saints is going to be really tough!
I don't know any Saints fans that were conflicted over playing against Brett. We like him but we pull for our team. Ideally, we'd like for him to do well and still lose. We have the same feelings for Peyton.
I don't think the officiating was the difference either. The Saints did a better job of forcing turnovers and came up big when it counted. So it goes. Now beat the Colts.
Yeah, the turnovers were the difference. I don't think the Colts D is as physical or sticky as the Vikings but they can play.
I was cheering for the Saints, too, and will cheer for them in the Superbowl. This year has been a crazy football year. I mostly watched college football, but there have been a lot of close games like that and not all turned out the way I wanted. I can just imagine how you felt going into overtime!!
There was a sense of dread that came over me the last two minutes of regulation and throughout overtime that I can't explain, Kim, but every Saints fan knows. Historically, the Saints don't do well in big, close games. My friend, Hyde, was right. When the winning kick went through, it was more relief than joy.