No one can say the New Orleans Saints had an easy road to the championship.  Just look at the quarterbacks they had to defeat along the way:

Kurt Warner, Hall-of-Famer.  Brett Favre, Hall-of-Famer.  Peyton Manning, Hall-of-Famer.

The Saints beat Warner and Favre by mercilessly pounding them, sending Warner into retirement and Favre into a bruise-covered limbo.  Peyton Manning was spared the physical punishment, but by game’s end, had received a psychological beat-down perhaps even worse than that suffered by his predecessors.

As with Favre two weekends ago, the final blow to Manning’s psyche was delivered by Tracy Porter.  With the Colts driving for what seemed like an inevitable tying touchdown in the fourth quarter, Porter read Manning, stepped in front of Reggie Wayne, caught the ball and raced downfield for a 74-yard touchdown, giving the Saints a 14-point lead.

The Colts got the ball back after that, but you could tell by Manning’s body language that he was already defeated.

That’s what the Saints do on defense.  They give up  yards, they give up points, but then they turn you over and score, either via return or their quick-strike offense.  In football there is nothing so disheartening as coughing the ball up and watching helplessly as the other team converts the mistake into points.

The Vikings may have a more consistently stifling defense, at least when they’re on turf and can generate their pass rush, but one wishes they were a little more like the Saints in their ball-hawking ability.  Grinding a team down is one thing, but what really breaks their back is the turnover.

Something Brett Favre and Peyton Manning know all-too-well.

For the second straight year, a great Viking of the 1990s will join the immortals in Canton.

Last year it was stalwart guard Randall McDaniel.  This year it is high-energy defensive lineman John Randle.

Randle becomes the third Viking defensive lineman enshrined in the Hall-of-Fame, following famed Purple People Eaters Carl Eller and Alan Page.

He enters the hall as part of a class that includes Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, Russ Grimm, Ricky Jackson, Floyd Little and Dick LeBeau.

One of Randle’s teammates, Cris Carter, was among the 15 finalists also considered today by Hall voters, but he was eliminated in the first round of cut-downs.

It seems absurd that Carter should continue being denied every year, considering what a great player he was for the better part of a decade, but it’s hard to be too angry when another equally deserving Viking has gotten the call.

In his 14-year career, Randle amassed 137 1/2 sacks, was named to seven Pro Bowl teams, and was voted first-team All-Pro six times.  The undrafted Randle was always considered undersized for a tackle, but he had incredible quickness, especially on the Metrodome turf, and was the ultimate motor-that-never-quit guy.

Thanks to that motor, and his trademark facepaint, Randle became a fan favorite.  And now he is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

I know you’ve all been waiting for the chance to get The Viking Age delivered straight to your iPhone, so you can keep up with my sometimes nonsensical, often deliberately contentious posts even when you’re away from your desk or wherever you keep your computer.  Well, as they say in the advertising biz, you don’t have to wait any longer.  Thanks to Notice Software, The Viking Age now has its own iPhone app.  I know nothing about any of this stuff – phones are not my bag – but I’m sure this app is one of the coolest things ever created, if not the coolest.  If you want it, you can get it here.  Don’t ask me what to do once you get there cause I have no idea.  I still haven’t figured out all this blogging stuff after almost three years.  What’s this do?  Oh crap.

Everyone who watched the NFC Championship Game knew Brett Favre received an epic pounding at the hands of the Saints.  Now, Favre and his agent Bus Cook have elected to show the world exactly how epic that pounding was, by releasing photos of Favre’s bruised leg and foot.

Though the injuries aren’t nearly as bad as those sustained by, say, many victims of the Haiti earthquake, they are still pretty nasty, and serve as a stark reminder of exactly how violent and potentially damaging football can be.

I have a funny feeling, however, that Brett and Bus weren’t simply motivated by a desire to educate the public about the perils of being an NFL quarterback.  There was a specific public relations purpose behind the release of these photos.

I’m not sure exactly what that purpose might have been, but I suspect it had something to do with answering the people who’ve been hammering Favre for the terrible play he made at the end of the title game, the one that cost the Vikings a chance at going to the Super Bowl.

The criticism of Favre there isn’t just that he threw the interception, but that he appeared to have enough open field in front of him to run for a few yards instead, and give Ryan Longwell a realistic shot at a game-winning field goal. The bruise pictures may, then, be a direct reply to the people who are grumbling because Favre didn’t run.

“See how bad his leg was?” the pictures say.  “Now do you think he still should’ve run?”

Actually, yes, I think he still should’ve run.

Even on a bad leg, he could’ve limped three or four yards and then gone out of bounds.  Maybe that wouldn’t have given the Vikings enough yards to get the field goal, but it still would’ve been better than attempting an impossible throw across his body, one that ended up being intercepted.

The last I looked, a difficult field goal attempt was still preferable to not having the ball at all.

So no Brett, your Tila Tequila-like photo release has not caused me to change my mind or forgive you for your idiot mistake.  Maybe if you’d released a photo showing your skull dented in, I would’ve believed a severe head injury and not your usual cowboy complex was to blame for that moronic attempted pass.

Besides, I’m sure you’ve played games where you were equally banged up, and still made plays.  Hell, you made plenty of plays against the Saints after taking all those hits.  The problem is, when you were called upon to make that one last vital play, you failed miserably, taking the hopes and dreams of Viking fans down with you.

Nice sympathy-grab, but I’m not buying it.

Laying out the top 10 ways for the Vikings to improve themselves this off-season, so maybe next year, instead of making it to the brink of the Super Bowl, they can actually, you know, make the Super Bowl…

So what exactly do I mean by “upgrade the offensive line?”  Getting rid of that giant nitwit Bryant McKinnie would be a start, but unfortunately, there are problems with that.  For one thing, there’s McKinnie’s contract, which would mean a large cap hit if we tried to dump him on someone.  And for another thing, if you do somehow manage to get rid of him, who do you replace him with?  Phil Loadholt would be the obvious guy, but you still don’t know if Loadholt is left tackle material, plus that leaves you with a big hole at right tackle again.  Much as I would love to see McKinnie gone, it’s really not practical.

In reality, center and right guard are the two places where you could get better.  John Sullivan did nothing this year to prove that he is the long-term answer at center, and Anthony Herrera is Anthony Herrera, in other words, serviceable.  The only unrestricted free agent who looks the least bit attractive at either position is Bobbie Williams of the Bengals, who is regarded as a top-notch run blocker…just what the Vikings need to help improve Adrian Peterson’s stats.  The problems with Williams are that he’s a tad old at 33 and you would probably have to overpay to get him.  Logan Mankins is younger and may be just now rounding into top form, but he is a restricted free agent, and the Patriots will probably lock him up before he ever becomes available.  Kevin Mawae is the most attractive option at center but he is incredibly old, and if you weren’t willing to re-sign Matt Birk at his age, you certainly wouldn’t be willing to bring in Mawae even if it was only for one season.

Perhaps the best fix for the Vikings O-Line would just be a good healing off-season for Steve Hutchinson and another year of hard work and improvement by Loadholt.  And maybe there’s someone on the roster, like Jon Cooper, who could step up in training camp and take over one of those shaky positions.  And of course there’s the draft, which yielded Loadholt last year, and could offer up another option or two.  All I know for sure is, if Brett Favre does come back next year, he’ll need better protection than what he got against the Saints, or he will end up being scraped off the turf like a turd.

Bryant McKinnie has spent the entire afternoon telling anyone who’ll listen on Twitter that he dropped out of the Pro Bowl voluntarily, as a result of nagging injuries, before getting booted for missing most of the week’s practices and meetings.

“I was trying to push myself to play in this game and I thought my body would start feeling better the later we got in the week,” reads McKinnie’s multi-tweet explanation.  “So yesterday I called my agent and said I don’t think I will be able to play.  He called and got in touch with the trainer, the trainer called me last night and I told him what was bothering me.  We ended up missing each other and that was that.”

If McKinnie’s story is indeed true, someone forgot to inform whoever is in charge of updating NFL.com’s Pro Bowl page, because on there it states quite clearly, “The following player will not play in the Pro Bowl because of unexcused absences from practice: Bryant McKinnie, Vikings.”

It could be that McKinnie is telling the truth about his health, but the point is, if he wasn’t feeling up to playing, he should’ve dropped out sooner and let the league call in someone to replace him.  His childish handling of the situation means that someone got screwed out of a shot at playing in the Pro Bowl in his place, and that the NFC will now have to take the field with only two tackles.

My guess is that, by tomorrow, his agent will have convinced him to issue an apology to the league and everyone else for his absurd actions.  It seems McKinnie himself is too dumb to realize an apology is in order.

Bryant McKinnie said he was honored to be selected to the Pro Bowl team, the same as every other NFL player who gets selected to the Pro Bowl team.

Many of those other guys probably don’t mean it either, but at least they bother showing up to practices and meetings the week leading up to the game.  Bryant however did not, which is why today the Vikings left tackle was booted from the NFC roster.

We should’ve perhaps gotten a hint that McKinnie wasn’t entirely serious about his commitment to the Pro Bowl from all the tweets he posted this week detailing his nocturnal activities in his old Miami stomping grounds, like this one from last evening:

Waiting on Tashi 2 get ready! About 2 head 2 the clevelander 4 a bbq!

Which was followed a few hours later by this one:

Leaving the beach headed 2 KOD’s

Of course, McKinnie is a grown man and can spend his time any way he wishes (as long as his amusements don’t veer into the unlawful).  The question one has to ask is, if you’re so much more interested in partying than participating in practices and meetings, why not just bow out like everyone else who doesn’t want to play?

I guess it’s asking too much for Bryant to behave like a responsible adult.  There’s a certain justice in this anyway, since he didn’t belong on the team in the first place.

Update: Bryant McKinnie has taken to Twitter to tell his side of the story.  McKinnie’s tweet from moments ago:

Had 2 withdraw from Pro Bowl! I’ve been playing thru pain the last month and need time 2 let my body heal.

Again, if Bryant is really injured and decided he couldn’t play, that’s fine, but then he should’ve pulled out early in the week like everyone else.  Going down there, showing up for one practice then blowing everything off without explanation just looks terrible.

Of course it’s possible Bryant just doesn’t give a damn how things look to people.  In the immortal words of Barack Obama, “He’s a jackass.”

Five days out from the Vikings‘ stunning overtime loss to the Saints in the NFC Championship game, the fallout is continuing to fall, and a lot of it is coming down on the NFC Champs.

A couple days ago, NFL V.P. of officiating Mike Pereira said the referees made a mistake not calling a penalty on Bobby McCray for hitting Brett Favre low on the play where Favre was injured while throwing an interception to Jonathan Vilma.  Had McCray been hit with a flag there, the Vikings may very well have driven the ball down and scored, though they would’ve had to do it without Favre, who remained sprawled on the trainers’ table until the next offensive series.

Today, the NFL officially punished McCray for that hit and another unnecessary roughness penalty against Favre, fining the defensive end $20,000.

The interesting thing about that is, the play McCray was flagged for was much cleaner than the one for which he wasn’t.  But that’s all water under the bridge now, right Purple Nation?

Um, yeah.  Maybe not.

Oh, and incidentally, McCray was not the only Saints player to receiver a fine for rough play against the Vikings.  In addition to the financial penalty levied against McCray, Jonathan Casillas and Anthony Hargrove also took $5,000 hits to their pocket books, Casillas for blasting Darius Reynaud after a fair catch signal and Hargrove for yet another hit against Favre.

Hargrove’s hit on Favre was, by the way, also clean.

Judging by Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams‘ comments about wanting to put a hurting on Peyton Manning, several more New Orleans defensive players can anticipate disciplinary action from the league about two weeks from today.  And I’m sure they’d all willingly cough up the coin in exchange for a championship.