Can we just play the Game ?

I feel a bit like Wade Phillips this morning.  After practicing this week with crowd noise pumping at the Cowboys Wade said his ears were ringing.  Mine are too but its not from crowd noise.  It’s from listening to all the sports radio and television “experts” scream why team A will beat team B.  My eyes are burning too from reading all the print medias opinions and analysis on the same subject.

Can Ware beat the Vikes tackles and get to Favre ?  Can the Good Guys secondary cover the Vikes speedy receivers ?  Can Jared Allen get past Flo and sack Romo ?  Can the trio of running backs our Heroes use gain yardage against the Vikes defensive line ?  Will Favre or Romo play the best at QB ?  On and on the questions go with so many different opinions screaming at us.

This is football not math or chemistry.  There are no absolute formulas.  No set predictable reactions to constant effects.  This is about one on one contests that will be decided by how each player performs today, not how he did in week 4 against a totally different player.  This is about how a team reacts to losing some of those contests and then either finding a way to overcome those individual defeats or falling behind in their quest to advance.

On film maybe Flo looks too slow, too old or too weak to keep up with the faster, younger and strong Jared Allen.  That doesn’t mean that come game time Flo can’t find a way to stop him.  Effort, desire, experience, HEART all find a way to become more than words on a football field. 

After watching the Good Guys all year, after seeing how every week a player with a Star on his helmet surprise me with a play I wasn’t expecting them to make I feel like this game is going to be one of those games that go to the end.  The crowd noise, the overall quality of the Vikes, and the fact that Favre is their QB make me think this will be a hard fought, back and forth kind of game. 

At the end I feel like the Heroes of Our Youth pull it out and leave the big blow up stadium headed for home with a Win.  Maybe then my ears will quit ringing.  later Poke