Harshing my mellow

On July 6th, I was mired in a deep post-4th summer funk, bemoaning the excruciating wait for baseball to become relevant, football to reemerge from hibernation and the temperature to drop to an acceptable range for human habitation.  Now we're a month down the road, the baseball calendar has been whittled from 80 to 50 and training camp is in full swing, with the Vikings kicking off the preseason this weekend.  The weather has remained abominably humid, but what else can you expect from August in Minnesota?  Hoodie weather (the best kind) will be here before we know it, so I suppose I can deal for a bit longer.

The Twins kicked off their stretch run last night with a rout of the White Sox, so everything should be lovely in Loserville this morning.  But since contentment is not part of my sports DNA, attention is not focused on the Twins, but instead on the myriad issues cropping up on the Vikings roster like paternity suits following NBA All-Star weekend.

Beyond the saga that is Favregate (I know, he will be here, but I can't be settled until he gets off the plane)Percy Harvin has migraines again, Sid Rice has a hip that apparently hasn't been right since January (or a contract, no one can say for sure), Shiancoe is banged up, half the O-line is hobbling; frankly I'm getting a bit nervous here.

You can tell me it's only August 11th, and the first preseason game has not yet been played, which is of course correct.  But in the long tradition of sports fans the world over, I live by the mantra of "I overreact, therefore I am."  Add in the generally fatalistic attitude I carry about the Vikings, and this is all adding up to an uneasy August. 

(By the way, I make no apologies for this, it's simply learned behavior based on a long history of reinforcement.  I mean if you get an electric fence, and the dog gets shocked a few times, eventually he learns not to go over the boundary, right?  We don't blame the dog for having a pessimistic attitude about life beyond the yard, in fact we praise him for his ability to learn for past stimuli.  Now imagine a dog that's been running into that fence for 20 odd years, can you blame him for shying away a bit when someone is holding a bone on the other side of it?  This analogy sums up my history as a Vikings fan perfectly, being oh so hungry for what's on the other side of that fence, but having to creep toward it slowly and fearfully, knowing the jolt of electricity could come at any time.  I didn't make myself this way, they did, so get off my damn case.)

The NFL is the professional sports league in which past history is least indicative of future success.  In any given season, 4-5 teams thought to be contenders will fall from grace, and 4-5 squads that were written off will either make the playoffs or come very close to it.  Many prognosticators had the Saints ranked as the 20th-best team, or higher, before last season began.  This is probably the biggest reason that football is the king of American sports, fans always know if they catch a few breaks, their team could reverse last season's ill fortunes in a heartbeat, nobody ever stays down for long...well, except Detroit.

But while this is comforting news to the teams who played below expectations, it can be equally troubling to those that played over their heads.  The Vikings were picked by many to be mediocre last year, Favre wouldn't hold up, the offensive line was too inexperienced, no big time receivers, etc.  They went out and beat every expectation, living a charmed life with late comebacks and some unbelievable luck.  A big reason why last season's failure was so hard to take was because any fan who's watched this game long knows a team needs the stars to align to get deep in the playoffs.  But luck is a tricky thing, and the law of averages dictates that what goes up, must come down.  Which is why so much preseason disarray brings a bit of foreboding.

At any rate, I won't belabor the point any longer, there will be more than enough time in the future to worry myself about the Vikings prospects.  But as usual, I'm nervous, and hope the road gets a bit smoother very soon.