Vikings vs Saints for NFC Championship

This is the front page of Monday's New Orleans Times-Picayune.

I spent six years in New Orleans and I have a lot of friends who are Saints fans and frankly, they’ve been absolutely unbearable this season. I avoid Facebook and Twitter like the plague on game day because I can’t stand the “Who Dat” cheers.

Saints fans have quintupled in number since this season began and suddenly everyone thinks this is the team of destiny and it’s totally annoying me.

I admit that it’s a totally personal reaction and that the Saints are a good team. Hell, I’m glad Green Bay lost in the first week of the playoffs because I think they’d have been dismantled by the Saints and that would have been embarrassing.

I’m having this totally visceral reaction to the Saints fans and it’s making me want them to lose.

The problem is, they’re playing the Vikings. And while I’m annoyed by the Saints and their fans, I despise the Vikings, Brett Favre and the gratuitous attention they’ve received this season.

It’s a good thing I have a good, old, crappy box TV, because if I have to see one more side-by-side of Favre as a Packer in the Super Bowl running around the field next to him running last weekend, I might just throw the thing.

I don’t want either of these teams to win this game.

I’m admittedly disdainful of Favre. I have irrational amounts of hate for him. I hate every reporter, pre-game show and ESPN segment that has been a redundant cycle of idolatry and hype. I turned off the first Packers/Vikings game because I couldn’t stand the unreasonable blathering of the announcers.

I just don’t think Favre deserves it. I’d be pissed to see him in another Super Bowl.

I don’t have respect for his methods and I would think that other players should be upset that he seems to have rewritten the rules for himself and has gotten rewarded for it. He retired twice in a little over a year and managed to miss two pre-seasons/training camps in the process. It just irks me that he’s been allowed to dictate and everyone has fallen all over themselves to accommodate him and now it’s working out. That’s dangerous precedent.

All this is in addition to my long-standing hate of all things Minnesota – Vikings included. It’s a state rivalry thing and it just breaks my heart for the Vikings to have success.

Moral of the story – I hope the Colts dismantle the winner of this game in the Super Bowl.