"What, me worry?" - Alfred E. Neumann, 1955

Sure, from a Viking perspective, the season is over, but the Viking's kept playing until the clock expired. It's called spitting in the face of the undiscovered country, but not everybody gets that. We all hear the sound of things through our own distortion boxes. Football, like life, is a learning experience and makes us confront things.

"I'll be back." -The Terminator, 1984

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but the good news is the Vikings are not as bad as people said they were before week one. (If I had known that Harvin would go on IR, not even I would have expected them to improve this much in a season, and remember, Dickerson had 31 more carries.)

Now, Joe Webb has thrown a touchdown in a playoff game. (Clearly, the Packers are mortal and can still lose track defensively of a native Floridian who stands 6-foot-4.) Fear not. This too shall pass. Until you are a coach, the fact that all the other teams in the league try to get better every week too is somewhat lost on you. The Packers did not triple their victory total from last year, and it is not the fault of the replacement refs. This Viking season has been some accomplishment, and this is not the end.

Now comes the off season for Mr. Spielman and friends to add some more worthy souls to the team. Football really is a team sport. You can't count on All Day blocking all field goal attempts and running all the kickoff returns back to the house. You need 52 other players, the coaches, scouts, and assorted other contributors.

The best party to which I ever went was after a losing basketball championship game. You have to do the best with whatever cards you are dealt. It's like still being paralyzed after that daunting surgery from the anthesthesia, but you can hear the nurses talking about you in recovery as if you were unconscious, as it appears in their world. Unfortunately, you can't tell them about the funny hallucination you just had about a sign flashing before you which said, "To be continued..." Remember, it's all in your mind, and even when it was a placebo you took, your brain is really doing things that matter.