Where I Briefly Remind You That The Vikings Still Lost Yesterday

Judging from all the happiness and sunshine and positive vibes I'm getting from Vikings fans both on this site and elsewhere today, you'd think that they blew out the Packers by three touchdowns yesterday. My friends' Facebook status updates after the game were overwhelmingly (and alarmingly) positive. I had coworkers stop over to my cubicle this morning and happily rehash how the Vikings almost stole one from the mighty Packers.

Um, I hate to rain on everyone's Positive Parade here, but we're still 1-6. No matter how you slice it, 1-6 sucks. Losing to your biggest rival at home sucks. Being out of the playoff picture well before Halloween sucks. Watching Aaron Rodgers pick apart your depleted secondary with ease sucks.

Yes, Christian Ponder played pretty well at times yesterday. I'll be the first to admit that it was nice to get a glimpse of Ponder's future instead of wishing in futility for McNabb's past. It was nice to see Adrian Peterson have his biggest rushing day in nearly two years. It was nice to give the undefeated Super Bowl champions everything they could handle after looking so bad against Chicago the week before. But guess what? Nice is 100% pointless if it doesn't translate into wins.

Look, I get where my Daily Norseman colleagues are coming from when they praise Ponder for his play in his first start and say that they aren't completely bummed out about the loss. But forgive me if I don't think that "Hey, at least we kept it close!" is a legitimate reason to be happy about a professional sports team. No matter how it happened, losing to the Cheeseheads still stinks worse than...well, Cheeseheads.

So feel free to be hopeful about our future, but I really hope that you aren't OK with the loss. I don't care how poorly the team is playing--your expectations should never be that low.

Oh, and one last thing--LESLIE FRAZIER, HOW DO YOU PUNT TO THE BEST OFFENSE IN THE NFL THAT LATE IN THE GAME AND EXPECT TO GET THE BALL BACK?!

Sorry, I just needed to get that off my chest. OK, now I feel a little better about yesterday's loss.