How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
So apparently the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings are meeting this week on Monday Night Football.
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There's supposed to be a fair amount of drama, or so I've heard. Part of it extends beyond the realm of the NFL to Major League Baseball. You see, the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers will have to play a tiebreaker at the Metrodome if they finish tied for the American League Central title. Ordinarily, the NFL would oblige by switching this Vikings-Packers game to Green Bay and moving the Nov. 1 game from Lambeau Field to Minnesota. But the NFL won't budge because, apparently, this Vikings-Packers face-off is kind of a big deal.
A major part of this whole MNF drama is that Green Bay and Minnesota don't like each other. Imagine that!
Apparently, like a lot of relationships, these two have a messy history. Even before you get to the off-field sagas, you should know that the Packers have a record of 49-45-1 against the Vikings, which I would guess means that the teams enjoy seeing each other, especially since they're fewer than 300 miles apart. In fact, this competitive friendship extends so much that they're in the same NFL division. It's true! I don't expect that ESPN or any of those so-called "real" sports networks would tell you that, let alone mention it all the time, would they?
Minnesota, the defending division champion, will enter with the division lead and a record of 3-0, while Green Bay will come in one game behind at 2-1. The division in question, of course, is the NFC North, the NFL's so-called "black and blue" division. I can only assume it's because the winning teams finish in the black while the losers finish feeling blue (why else would the Lions wear that color?).
This week, the purple and yellow host the green and gold, and it seems likely, unfortunately, that one of these squads will leave seeing red. If one of these teams is even the teensiest bit angry, it may not be due entirely to what happens on the field. The Vikings and Packers have a way of stepping on each other's toes. And even though one team sincerely calls it an accident, the other — oh gracious! — looks for malicious intent. Like when former Vikings receiver Randy Moss "mooned" the Lambeau faithful in a 2005 playoff game. Or when Green Bay accused Minnesota of "tampering" with one of their former players. I'm sure there are perfectly legitimate explanations for these incidents, but I can't think of any.
In all events, it's all water over the Viking horn or under the Cheesehead. A particular sore spot for these two franchises is when players switch sides. Recent history shows that players go west, from Green Bay to Minnesota. Players such as safety Darren Sharper and kicker Ryan Longwell trade allegiances, which increases the familiarity and any sense of rivalry. Of course, stories like this usually go under-reported, but that's what writers like me are for.
Well, I think that's about all of the major storylines for Monday night. I didn't miss anything, did I?
