Move over, baseball — it’s football season!
By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 07/28/2010
The giant gorilla of professional sports has now taken center stage. This week, all 32 National Football League teams, including your beloved Minnesota Vikings, report for the start of the 50th anniversary season of Vikings football after coming off one of the franchise’s most visible and successful seasons and a heartbreaking trip to the NFC Championship.
Vikings fans can’t wait to see if the team can pick up where it left off last season with an overtime loss to the eventual Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints. Getting back to near the top of the NFL heap is not easy. The Vikings came within a five-yard penalty (for 12 men on the field) of potentially winning the franchise’s first Super Bowl.
Will going back be an automatic encore? “There ain’t no automatic; there ain’t no carry over,” said an ex-Vikings great, ESPN’s Cris Carter. “Like when they start in training camp, you don’t start from the overtime in New Orleans. You start from ground zero.”
“And that’s the wonderful thing about the National Football League — everybody restarts at the same point,” Carter continued. “The thing about the Vikings is, looking at their roster and their coaching staff, they are one of four or five teams that really have a chance to win it all.”
Will Brett Favre return for his 20th season? Favre has yet to tell the Vikings (wink-wink) if he will return for 2010. He had arthroscopic surgery on his left ankle in May. He has been working out for several weeks now in Hattiesburg, Miss., at Oak Grove High School with the local football team.
Everything starts with Favre. The Vikings made it clear that they have no problem dealing with Favre’s timeline decision. Last year he joined the team in time for the second preseason game, and you know the rest of the story: It did not take him long to get up to speed and settled in.
Favre had one of his best seasons, and that’s saying something. With a career-best completion percentage (68.4), a quarterback rating of 107.2, and fewest interceptions (just seven), he threw 33 TDs for 4,202 yards and led the Vikings to the NFC North title.
I sat down with Vikings Head Coach Brad Childress this week to get a gauge on what’s ahead with his Vikings and Favre’s future. Personally, I’m a grandfather now, and as great as that is, the body feels different at times. In Favre’s case, “Being a grandfather has nothing to do with it,” said Childress.
“He’s a good grandfather. I’ve been able to see him interact with his grandson, and Deanna is a wonderful grandmother. But still, be that as it may, he’s a 40-year-old man, and we all know how a 40-year-old man’s body talks to you.”
Childress told me that Favre looks fine after he spent time with him last week, and he is getting along well on his surgically repaired ankle. Honestly, Favre does not need to go to Mankato for training camp. He does not need the wear and tear and physical pounding that goes on in camp — two practices a day, meetings, film sessions, fighting off autograph requests. He knows this offense and the players now after one full season.
“I don’t profess to have played anywhere near the snaps that he has. You have those aches and pains that linger and are there. Brett is such a conscientious person that he wants to make sure that he’s all in it mentally as well,” Childress said.
So there you have it. It’s official: Favre is coming back, in my opinion. I’ve been saying that since I broke the news that he was about to become a grandfather many months ago. Call it the wisdom of one grandfather to another.
Larry Fitzgerald can be heard weekday mornings on KMOJ Radio 89.9 FM at 8:20 am, and on WDGY-AM 740 Monday & Saturday mornings at 7:50 am and Fridays at 3:50 pm; he also commentates on sports 7-8 pm on Almanac (TPT channel 2). Larry welcomes reader responses to lfitzgerald@spokesman-recorder.com , or visit www.Larry-Fitzgerald.com .
