Greetings SBS fans! Ol’ Samichlaus is back in action after four days on the new job. That’s right, it finally happened. I’ve left the capital of the Confederacy for the greener pastures of the grand Union and have taken a job in Washington DC with Uncle Sam. Now, I’ve said before on these pages that I’m just too smart to blog about work, but I will say this: Samichlaus misses his old friends in Richmond and around the world. Oh, and the new organization runs with the efficiency of the Minnesota Vikings.
So let’s talk about the Vikings. It’s easy as a Packer fan to hate the Vikings. They always play the Packers tough, the best of Packer teams have not had success in Minnesota, and there’s that whole Randy Moss thing. So suffice it to say when the story broke last week that Vikings safety Fred Smoot had rented two party boats, loaded them with Viking Players, booze and hookers, and had a wild sex orgy, your ol’ pal Samichlaus was tickled pink. Packer fans have always known that the Vikings are a morally bankrupt organization whose head coach may or may not be as smart as my dog. For years the symbol of their success was Randy Moss, a smart and gifted athlete who squandered his talent with attitude and a questionable work ethic.
That’s what really gets Packer fans the most.
If one thing is evident in Wisconsin, it’s that the people who live there are very friendly and very hard working. What ever they lack in talent they make up for in perseverance, and their football team has always mirrored that. Look at Lombardi’s teams and tell me, who was the dominant player at his position? Starr? Not compared to Unitas. Hornung? Gifford was a better player. Taylor? I’ll take Jim Brown thank you very much. Maybe Nitchke, though Bears fans can argue that Butkis had the edge. Even Brett Favre has always had statistically better quarterbacks in every season he’s played. But you’d never hear Starr or Favre or Nitchke or any of them say “I play when I want to play” ala Moss. The Vikings are the team with all the talent, picked by every major sports publication to dominate the division, struggling at 1- 4 and heading nowhere. The team is in disarray, as evidenced by their head coach who upon hearing the news of Smoot’s sex party remarked ‘I’m not happy about this’.
But I can assure you of one thing: the Vikings will be ready to play the Packers this Sunday.
Now there’s no reason why the Packers can’t win and win big. Since the second half of the Carolina game the team has been clicking. The game that Mrs. Samichlaus and I happened to see was nothing short of miraculous. However the Packers can not afford to take the Vikings lightly. They need to run the ball well or Ted Cottrell’s blitzing defense will have a field day teeing off on Favre. They need to play solid defense. They need to continue to play smart, forcing turnovers and keeping penalty free. They need to be professional and machine like. This alone will do more damage to the Vikings than anything.
Last week I wrote that Mike Tice would be fired. The fact that he still has a job is indicative of how God awful that organization is. If the Packers win, and Tice doesn’t lose his job in the following days, that will send a clear message to Vikings fans: Your owner really doesn’t give a shit about you and neither does your team.
But Packer fans have always known that too.
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