Why It's Tough To Get Excited About Next Season

The football season seems like a long ways off, but still the news around the NFL is non-stop. However, I for one have been ignoring it. Any time I hear any news about the NFL I just turn away. Is this because I'm bored with off season football from OTAs to mini-camps to training camp to preseason games? Yeah, that has something to do with it. Is it because I have focused my pessimism and negativity on the Twins? Probably a little. Is it because I'm not completely over the NFC Championship game? Sadly, that is a factor. But I think there is more to this.

I'm not saying that when the season starts I won't be rooting for the Vikings, living and dying with each play and annoying my wife by getting too emotionally invested in the games. I'm just saying I'm finding it hard to get really excited for next year's Vikings season. Here are my three reasons why (that don't include the Brett Favre question mark because I believe he's coming back and if he didn't it would be crippling to the Vikings next season).

1. The Vikings Didn't Get Better in the Off Season: The Vikings' draft didn't impress me (I didn't think it was terrible, just mediocre), the weird uncapped year rules kept the Vikings primarily out of the free agent market and injuries from last season bleeding into next season (EJ Hendersen and Cedric Griffin) all means the Vikings look like they'll be a worse team next year than they were last year. It doesn't mean they won't be Super Bowl caliber but the Vikings lost in the NFC Championship game last year and now I expect them to go farther with a worse team? It's certainly possible but it doesn't help my excitement level.

2. Worse Schedule: Last year the Vikings had one of the easiest schedules in the NFL. This year it looks to be much tougher. They'll be playing the AFC and NFC East instead of the easier AFC North and NFC West. Schedules can be deceiving when looking at them in the preseason and, really, if you have Super Bowl aspirations you shouldn't even worry about your schedule because you should be able to beat any team. I still don't like what I see though. I think the Vikings' best hope at making the Super Bowl is getting the number one overall seed and that's going to be tough.

3. It's All About the Post Season: This is probably the biggest reason of all. I know that no matter how well the Vikings do in the regular season it doesn't matter. Next season is all about the post season. So the Vikings could win their first eight games and, while I'd be happy, I'd still be waiting to see how they do in the playoffs. Now, obviously they have to win enough games to make the post season, but aside from that, the regular season is meaningless. So maybe the reason I'm having a hard to getting more excited for the next Vikings regular season is because their real season won't start until January.