Monday (This one feels different) edition: Wha' Happened?

Shortly after the Packers lost in the NFC title game following the 2007 season -- with Brett Favre throwing an overtime INT that sealed Green Bay's fate -- we texted our pal Diddy, a Milwaukee native and lifelong Packers fan, to see how he was doing. He claimed he was doing fine -- that the way the season ended was a disappointment and sure he had hoped the Packers would go to the Super Bowl, but that the entire ride had been so spectacular and such an unexpected bonus that even a loss like that couldn't derail it.

We didn't believe him. We thought he was crazy. We told him as much, but he kept insisting.

Sunday night, it was Diddy's turn to text us to see how we were doing. Oddly enough, we were doing OK. We told him as much, and he remarked that now we finally understood how he felt two years ago, and that we could finally believe him. Indeed.

So now it's your turn to call us crazy. But we have distinct memories of the Vikings' three most recent NFC title game losses, and at least a reasonable recollection of 1987. This one feels different. "Better" is perhaps not the right word, but different, in a good way, describes it. See, when we signed up for This Year of Favre, we signed up for a ride. We signed up for a bonus season that seemed unfathomable. Really? The guy who tormented the Vikings for 16 years is going to come in and try to transform them into a team that has a chance to win it all? And he did. This season doesn't happen without Favre. And if you say you would have rather gone 10-6 again and ducked out of the playoffs early with someone else at the helm, you're crazy. That's not why you play or watch the game. All you want is a chance.

Don't get us wrong: we still had trouble getting to sleep, wired from an unbelievable game that had plenty of crushing moments. We still woke up at 5 a.m. and spent the next 90 minutes replaying certain things. The vast majority of that time was spent wondering about that final sequence in regulation. We kept imagining some way, any way, that the final play of regulation ended with Ryan Longwell getting a chance to put a toe on the ball. We even imagined the collective triumphant scream from this entire state. The Vikings didn't commit that penalty. They ran into the line one more time and set up a 50-yarder. Or Brett Favre didn't throw across his body, instead hobbling for a few yards down the side lines to at least get Minnesota back in the fringes of Longwell's range. But none of that happened. We wondered what if the Vikings hadn't committed five turnovers, a crippling string that started with one of the game's 47 complexion-turning plays late in the first half, when a botched exchange took away what could have been a critical halftime lead. But this was a game, and these were human mistakes. They were Vikings' fans greatest fears magnified on a grand stage -- Adrian Peterson fumbling, Favre trying to do too much -- but again, they were mistakes. They happen. We made peace with that after the game, and we still had peace with it in the morning.

People love certain kinds of movies because they follow an expected script. There is a comfort in knowing what's coming around the corner, that everything will work out in the end. People love sports for the opposite reason. Sure, there are parameters and a seemingly finite number of ways, in general terms, a game can progress. But you still don't know which of the infinite things will happen next. That can punch you in the gut or shoot you into the sky. You can't experience the high without knowing it could have been a low. And vice-versa.

If you're of the mind that it's the Vikings, and it will always end poorly, well ... you can have your fatalism.

We could have subscribed to it in 2000. That was the year the Vikings caught an unbelievable number of breaks, somehow managed to be road favorites in the NFC title game, and then played one of the flattest and least excusable games in pro sports history. That was not this year.

This was, to be sure, a new and creative way to lose a big game. But it was not for a lack of effort. It was not for a lack of heart. It was not to an inferior opponent. It was not on home turf.

You can say that makes it all the more frustrating -- that Minnesota outgained and outplayed the Saints; that the Vikings controlled the clock, got off the field on third down, contained playmakers and did pretty much all the things necessary to win except for hanging onto the football. You can also say this team isn't getting any younger and that even if Favre does come back for one more try, there are no guarantees that a chance like this will come again soon.

We'll give you the frustration, but we can't grant this loss or season the same place in the Vikings' House of Horrors. Maybe we're just getting older. Perspectives change. Maybe we're still locked into what became one of the great ironies of the season: that Favre and his crew eradicated so much of the sinking feeling that had come to symbolize what it means to us to be a Vikings fan, thus making us unbelievably positive (even in the face of what proved to be an undeniable negative). Maybe we're rationalizing too much. But we really don't think so. You can't lie to yourself, and this one just feels different. It feels self-contained. It feels like an ending we never would have written, but one we can accept. It feels like a destination we didn't care for, but a journey we wouldn't trade.

This season was too much fun, and that game was too good for us to feel differently.