Stadium-craving owner should exploit silver lining in roof drama

Sunday morning, cameras captured a uniquely Minnesotan internal drama: snow spilling through the Metrodome roof and onto its heretofore hermetically sealed playing surface.

The cameras missed the real story.

A lens stationed atop the Dome would have revealed the reason for the implosion:

Locusts. Teflon-eating locusts.

And frogs. Steroid-injected frogs.

And Brett Favre hammering away, lefthanded, with a hatchet.

Nearing the end of a season in which Vikings owner Zygi Wilf must feel he's been visited by a variety of biblical plagues, the roof finally caved in.

Had someone been injured, the collapse of the Metrodome roof could have been tragic. Instead, Wilf and the quarterback he's paying $1 million a game could benefit in unforeseen ways.

Wilf now has undeniable proof of his need for a new stadium. How safe would fans feel under even a repaired Metrodome roof?

And his quarterback, Favre, receives an extra 31 hours and 20 minutes to convalesce, meaning he will have another 31 hours and 20 minutes of preparing us for his latest ascension from the training table.

The Teflon-eating locusts could provide interim coach Leslie Frazier with a healthier Favre to help him prove his worthiness as the Vikings' next full-fledged head coach, as well as healthier version of his other damaged players, including Steve Hutchinson, Ray Edwards and Percy Harvin.

Is it possible that the roof falling could topple a string of dominoes that benefit the Vikings, after a season in which every major event -- Favre's waffling, Randy Moss' arrival, Sidney Rice's reluctance to undergo surgery early in the offseason -- has signaled trouble?

Not only is the Metrodome now decrepit, it has become obsolete in the wake of the opening of Target Field.

Fought by stadium opponents for years, Target Field became a success story on every level -- aesthetically and in terms of national publicity; the refurbishment of the Warehouse District; attendance; and the strengthening and tethering of a proud local franchise to its home.

Target Field has made Minneapolis a better place, just as the Xcel Energy Center made St. Paul a better town.

Imagine, now, the Target Center bookended with a tourist attraction of a football stadium on the south end of town, where the bones of the Metrodome lay.

Let's face it: Minneapolis building the Metrodome was like a college student buying a 1998 compact car with 200,000 miles on it. It wasn't supposed to last forever; it was a cheap way to get by for a while.

We shouldn't spend any money to resurrect the Dome; any new funds should be applied to the pursuit of a new stadium.

Wilf has been a good owner. He spends money, he craves a winner, and he is only using the Los Angeles market as a tease because that's what all owners feel they must do at some point to make their voices heard in Minnesota.

Now that Target Field is a success, does it matter than Carl Pohlad once tried to persuade us that the Twins were headed elsewhere?

Eventually, we'll be faced with a simple question: Do you want to keep the Vikings or lose them?

Keeping them will require the construction of a new stadium.