Norse Nostalgia: Vikings vs. Saints 2009 NFC Championship Game Ruins 10-Year-Old’s Life
One of the big-time annoyances with the NFL and how its schedule works out is that the league’s seasons technically span two years. For example, today I’m venting about the 2009 NFC Championship, but actually, it happened in 2010. We all remember the Minneapolis Miracle during the 2017 NFL Playoffs, but actually, that play happened in 2018.
I don’t know, small thing, but just annoying. It’s like you’re right and both regards, but also wrong in both regards. It’s like explaining to your significant other why “Madden NFL 26” is coming out in August of 2025 and is going to cover the cycle of the 2025 NFL regular season. It doesn’t make sense at all, but if you know, you know.
Anyway, January 24th, 2010, was a horrible day in my life.
Around ten years before Brett Favre was stealing money from the less-fortunate citizens in the state of Mississippi in order to help build the college that his daughter went to, a shiny new volleyball facility, he was the QB of my favorite football team, and he was pretty good at it.
In the year of 2009, the long-time Green Bay Packer unretired (for about the 7th time) to join the Minnesota Vikings in a swift lash of the back to his Green Bay loyalists. He joined the likes of Adrian Peterson, Sidney Rice, Percy Harvin, and others (like Greg Lewis, who caught the original Minneapolis Miracle against the 49ers) to lead the purple to a 12-4 record, good for 2nd in the NFC behind only the 15-1 New Orleans Saints.
Of course, this is back when there were only six teams per conference making the playoffs with the top two seeds in each getting byes, so the Vikings got a week off during the Wild Card round, and it turns out they kind of had a bye week the next week in the Divisional round, too.
When I say the Vikings steamrolled the Dallas Cowboys in that game, that isn’t doing it justice. It was pure domination without regard for human life; it may have been the last time I legitimately felt sorry for the team I was rooting against. Minnesota rolled its way to New Orleans for the NFC Championship over the ‘Boys by a score of 34-3.
So, then it was on at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It was a back-and-forth bout between the NFC’s two best squads, and it was a great game until it wasn’t.
Brett Favre, with room to run and slide to set up a very manageable field goal attempt for Ryan Longwell to send the Vikings to the Super Bowl, decides instead to heave a pass across his body while on the run in the direction of Sidney Rice, instead finding Tracy Porter. The game would go to overtime, and Garrett Hartley would send the Saints marching on to the Super Bowl to play the Indianapolis Colts.
10-year-old me had just experienced what my dad always ingrained in me, and what every other Vikings fan with a Vikings fan father told them for the first time: that the Vikings will always find a way to break your heart. I didn’t believe him until that moment, but when that field goal went through the post, I looked back at him from the living room floor up to where he was on the couch, his blank gaze staring daggers into the TV screen.
I stood up, smacked the wall with tears in my eyes, and ran a warm bath. Since then, things haven’t really changed much. The Blair Walsh miss, the 2017 NFC Championship Game in Philly, the Kirk Cousins checkdown on 4th and 8 against the Giants in the 2022 playoffs, and I still like warm baths.
To quote the great Paul Allen, who has been the voice of the Vikings for over two decades: “This isn’t Detroit, man, this is the Super Bowl!”
Andrew Van Ginkel, Please Be an Electricity Factory Again in 2025
