Where's The Good News?

The Vikings have gone through the off season and the only question I keep asking is, "Where's the good news?" All I've heard about is Sydney Rice needing surgery, Percy Harvin having difficulties with his migraines, Brett Favre's ankle hurting, how unstoppable the Packers will be, how tough the Vikings' schedule will be, John Sullivan being injured and the list still seems to mount.

I thought on Sunday there would be some good news when I was hearing the Vikings may be signing T. J. Houshmandzadeh. I was aware he wasn't the player of three years ago, but still, given the Vikings' depleted wide receiver core, I think it would have been a good move to sign him. I'm of the belief that you can't have too much talent on your team. But the Vikings passed on T.J. and the Ravens pounced. More bad news.

In fact, the only good news the Vikings got this off season was that Brett Favre would be returning to play and Chris Cook was breaking out as a defensive stud. It was tough to get excited about the former news since it was more or less a foregone conclusion. But even the Brett Favre news can be spun in a negative light. It took three Vikings superstars to drag him to training camp which, some would say, means Brett Favre's heart isn't in it this year (I don't buy it). And then there's Chris Cook who we won't be able to see how good of player he really is for a couple of weeks thanks to a knee injury. The hits just keep on coming.

Right now the Vikings are like a leaky ship in the middle of the ocean. It seems like every hole the crew plugs up just creates two new holes elsewhere on the ship. The Vikings are trying desperately to get the ship to shore before it sinks but I don't think they can do it.

But I suppose it's time for some good news. First of all, I've learned never to underestimate Brett Favre. He's taken leaky ships closer to shore than I ever thought possible. Of course, if "shore" is a Super Bowl Championship then Favre has only gotten the ship completely to shore once in his career and that ship wasn't all that leaky. But still, Brett Favre can pull giant rabbits out of small hats and there's definite hope he can do so again.

Secondly, amazingly enough, a team that made it to the NFC Championship game last season is now being doubted across the nation. We all know that the idea that "nobody believes in us" can be a powerful motivator and now the Vikings have it. Let's hope it helps.

Now let's get to the best news of all. I'm picking the Vikings to lose on Thursday and the Packers to win the division. I'm going with the former because I feel like the Vikings are too banged up to win at the Superdome. I'm going with the latter because Aaron Rodgers scares the heck out of me. But, given my terrible predictive skills (as seen last year), this can only mean good things for the Vikings this week and good things for the entire season. At last…some really good news.