Vikings get late Christmas present

With the Saints improbably losing to the Bucs on Sunday, the Vikings are suddenly alive for the #1 seed in the NFC again. On the even brighter side, if the Bucs could travel to the Superdome and beat the Saints, I don't feel too bad about the Vikings' chances to do the same, so a #2 seed would also be a nice consolation prize. In any case, if the Vikings can nail down that #2 seed (or better), it guarantees that the only outdoor game they might be playing January will be in Miami for the Super Bowl. Now if only Denver could have come through and beaten the Eagles, our weekend would have been complete...

Oh right, except for that pesky detail of beating the Bears tonight.

The down side to the wacky weekend? It guarantees that Brett Favre will get no rest, as both the Vikings' remaining regular-season games will have impact for the team. To which I say: fine. Every game is expected to be meaningful, and a quarterback is expected to play all 16 games in a season. If the quarterback can't play a full season, then that's a negative that needs to addressed. In a sense, I've found it a trifle odd that everyone was so concerned about Favre's durability this year. I mean, the guy's only probably the most durable player ever. But if part of his playing well was supposed to entail him getting rest at the end of the season, well, most teams don't have the luxury of resting their starters at the end of the year; in fact, apart from the Colts, the only teams that can do that now are making vacation plans for January. Favre's been excellent, but if we only rented a three-month quarterback, then maybe we should have made other plans. At least he'll (probably) get a week off before his first postseason game in purple.