Super Bowl: Five Vikings teams that should have won it all
By Dan Zinski
2. 2009 (12-4 regular season, lost NFC championship game to Saints)
The Vikings brought Brett Favre to Minnesota for one reason: To deliver a Super Bowl championship. Instead The Old Gunslinger helped deliver another notorious big game meltdown.
In all fairness, Favre deserves only a small part of the blame for the flop in the 2009 NFC championship game. Yes he was responsible for the mind-numbingly awful decision to throw across his body instead of at least trying to run for a first down. But he was not responsible for all the ridiculous fumbles. He was not responsible for 12 men on the field.
And let’s not forget that Favre was playing half-crippled after getting cheap-shotted by Gregg Williams and his bounty-collecting defensive thugs. Despite having one working leg, Favre almost single-handedly kept the Vikings in the game in the second half. So laying it all at Favre’s feet is a load of baloney. The Vikings’ loss to the Saints that day was a total team effort.
The 2009 team was not a great team, but it was certainly good enough to win it all. The defense that year was very strong, the Vikes had a potent offense filled with weapons including Hall of Famer Adrian Peterson and oh yeah Brett Favre.
Maybe that team would have gotten over the hump with a better head coach. Imagine if they’d held onto Mike Tomlin instead of giving the reins to Brad Childress? Vikings history is so rich with “what if” scenarios. The 2009 team will continue driving Viking fans utterly nuts for years and years to come.