RaiderDamus' Friday Foretelling: Raiders vs. Vikings

Greetings, Raider fans! It is I, Raiderdamus, King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, and sovereign of all England. I come to you today with shame in my heart, as I incorrectly predicted a glorious Raiders victory against the Steelers in a game they gave away in the final seconds- just like the Bears game. But this week is a new week, and I will try again.

So as is my custom, I have once again summoned up the Great Beyond to deliver the message of truth regarding what will occur in Oakland for the game on Sunday. Here is what the Great Old One has to say to us mortals:

"You came back again for more? Well the season is only half over and your team is still in pretty good shape. Last week didn't go quite how I anticipated, but Antonio Brown having one of the best days a wide receiver has ever enjoyed is difficult to see through all the fumes of the bacon cheeseburger farts of the Steelers fans in attendance. So let's give it another go, shall we?

Who you got this week? The Vikings? Really. Well, here goes nothing.

The Vikings ruined football.

You may scoff at this, but let me explain. The Vikings for many years started Fran Tarkenton. He was a fantastic player the likes of which had never been seen. He was a quarterback who used his legs, mobility and athleticism to escape the pocket and perform feats of derring-do one can only describe as 'swashbuckling'. He ran around like a chicken on fire and willed the Vikings to win after win.

Now, we have all these mobile quarterbacks (Mobile Quarterback is Latin for 'converted wide receiver') coming out of college who ran nothing but the spread and couldn't figure out how to stand under center if you gave them an atlas and a team of native trackers. They are drafted with the hopes that they can be the next Fran Tarkenton. Not a single damn one of them is nearly as good as Fran Tarkenton was, and they all fail. They take one hit from a safety of a 260-pound outside linebacker and they are never the same. Why do you think Colin Kaepernick has fallen off the face of the Earth? It's because the Niners have too much riding on his health, and they won't let him run. He can't pass from the pocket and the offense is playing to his weaknesses.

The Vikings did not have this problem, as you can tell from watching old Vikings footage that management did not give a single shit if Fran Tarkenton lived or died. They let him do whatever he wanted. Every player in that era was expendable, because they got paid practically nothing. The Bills are allowing Tyrod Taylor to run at will, but they aren't paying him very much and they still wake up every morning with chubs thinking of E.J. Manuel turning into whatever it was they imagined he could be. Whatever that is, he surely didn't show it at Florida State.

Not only has this led to a lot of bad football, it has also partially led to all these ridiculous Communist rules about protecting quarterbacks. You can't even breathe on Tom Brady anymore, even though he runs about as often as Michael Moore. The health of these quarterbacks is legitimately in danger, and it's all the Vikings' fault. You didn't see Dan Marino getting any concussions, because he stayed in the pocket like a good boy and didn't get hurt until he tore his Achilles as an old, bitter shell of himself.

The Vikings also ruined football by foisting upon us all the greatest abomination in modern NFL history, the early 1990s Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys didn't end up with half the NFC Pro Bowl team by accident. They ended up with that team because they had Herschel Walker and pretty much nobody else of note in the late 1980s and traded him to Minnesota for a boatload of picks. The players selected from those picks included:

Emmitt Smith

Alvin Harper

Darren Woodson

and indirectly, Russell Maryland amongst others.

Herschel Walker went to Minnesota and was sort of okay, but Herschel Walker is a stark raving lunatic. He was most certainly not worth anywhere on the same planet as what was given up for him. Still, we will always have this:

Can you imagine how joyous we would all be, if Dallas had never drafted Emmitt Smith and debacled the league for the following decade? Can you imagine if Troy Aikman only had one legitimate target instead of twelve or so? Can you imagine if the early 90s Vikings, who already had Randall McDaniel, John Randle, Chris Doleman, Cris Carter and our beloved Rich Gannon, had kept those picks to add to their depth and talent? They would likely have been the ones to embarrass the Bills twice or even three times. The world would be a better place to be sure.

But the Vikings have also given the game of football many gifts. Chief amongst these is the Oakland Raiders' first Super Bowl victory. After the 1976 season, the Raiders finally defeated the Steelers in the AFC Championship in their own personal Jordan-beats-the-Pistons moment, and moved on to play the Vikings in Super Bowl XI. The Raiders completely dominated the game, which culminated with the Old Man Willie Play we know and love, a picture of which I shall include here merely to annoy the Vikings fans I am sure will show up in the comment section:

The Vikings also gave us the gift of Randy Moss. By that I partially mean that they picked him several picks after the Cowboys selected Greg Ellis. Now, Ellis was a fine player and was a good Raider later in his career, but he is not top-5 all-time at his position like Randy Moss is. Jerry Jones passed on Moss because of character concerns and always regretted it, and this has led to Jones and the Cowboys taking on any number of knuckleheads in order to make up for that, including Dez Bryant and the scumbag they currently have at defensive end. This has made the Cowboys great theater but has not led them to be a good football team. This is good for America.

The Vikings' chief problem is that they are located in Minnesota, and like all Minnesota teams have difficulty attracting top free agents. Minnesota is the Land Of A Thousand Lakes and The Land of Fifteen Quadrillion Mosquitoes. Prince is from Minneapolis, and I am sure he would strongly advise the Vikings to go purify themselves in the cleansing waters of Lake Minnetonka.

The weather for much of the year is really dreadful in Minnesota, which makes one wonder why on Earth the Twins built an open-air stadium. One wonders this until they see the following footage:

The Twins know, your stadium's roof cannot collapse if your stadium does not have a roof. What the Twins' stadium does have is a dungeon to make sure Joe Mauer never escapes to a nicer place.

You can't even farm in Minnesota because the only three things you can grow there are older, colder, and fatter. Since there isn't much to do in Minnesota except die of frostbite and get malaria, the players often have to take matters in their own hands and create their own fun. This leads to incidents such as the Infamous Minnesota Sex Boat, the details of which are too sordid for me to even consider, let alone mention here on a family site. The debaucheries contained therein are so extreme that even the Roman Emperor Caligula would have felt they were beyond the line of good taste.

Even notorious shithead robber baron Vikings owner Zygi Wilf disapproved of the actions of his players that day, but that's probably because he wasn't invited. Zygi Wilf looks like Groucho Marx had a stroke and his best chance at getting laid would be to crawl up a chicken's ass and wait.

What the Vikings do have going for them is an awesome mascot, Ragnar.

Truly, this is what every Vietnam veteran wishes he could be, and what many of them actually look like. This man sure seems to be having a great life. Unfortunately, Ragnar attempted to extort the team for $20,000 a year and was promptly shown the door. You cannot blame a true Viking for trying to pillage the rich for as much plunder as he can get. Godspeed to Ragnar and may he forever torment the Green Bay Packers.

I have it on good authority that RaiderDamus' sister was recently in the Twin Cities and reports that "the Mall of America is overrated" and that she "saw a drug deal go down from her hotel room". If there's two things that encapsulates the overall ennui of the Upper Midwest, it's unsatisfying shopping and rampant drug abuse.

As far as this game goes, the Vikings don't really instill fear this week. They have feasted on the dregs of the league so far and now enter the meat of their schedule, facing almost nothing but serious playoff contenders from here on out. They are currently in first place in their division at 6-2 by virtue of having played the Lions twice. The Raiders are not the Lions, and the Vikings may be missing two of their star linebackers in Anthony Barr and Eric Kendricks. Teddy Bridgewater will probably play, because if going to college in Kentucky didn't destroy his brain, a dirty hit from the Rams sure won't. Adrian Peterson is dangerous, but the Raiders are grown men and not four year old boys. The Vikings' secondary is very good, but so was the Jets and that game went pretty well. The Vikings will lose this game, and probably half the rest of their games at least, but they needn't worry. After the game we will take them into the house and make them pancakes. Game, blouses.

Raiders win, 29-23."