Most folks spent almost the entire week looking for and deciding on, weighing out and shifting through, their prime candidates to hang Sunday's heartbreaking loss on. Somebody had to be responsible.

And believe me, there seems to be a laundry list of those in the running to become the official "bad guy." Everyone from the officials who called a crappy game to Brett Favre for not having the same kind of numbers after intermission, from the ball boy who had Longwell's football too slippery, which is why he missed the two field goals, to B.J. Sander who can't tilt the ball right while holding it for Longwell. And then there's my personal favorite; Randy Moss for putting a curse on the team last year when he used the goal post for his butt joke. Funny, though, no mention of Hovan and his overuse of black facial paint. Hmmm, but I digress.

Some even wanted to blame the head coach for the loss.

Hold the phone! Not the head coach.

The fact of the matter is, if you absolutely need to find a scapegoat to hang the blame on, look in a mirror.

What?

I know. What in the name of Sam Hill am I talking about?

Well, just because the Packers were riding their season high one game winning streak going into the game, and yes, they were coming off their bye week and Sherman has a pretty decent winning percentage for the week after the bye, everyone who was expecting the Packers to win forgot that one important factor that takes all advantages and flushes 'em down the preverbal toilet ... They're still the Vikings! At home! In a loud dome! With artificial turf! There's no way we beat them at their place.

Now, for the slightest of moments I almost believed that myself, save for the fact last year we beat them in the Metrodome.

For the split second it took to think of all that B.S. and write it down, I almost agreed with what I was writing. Then I remembered watching the game on Sunday, and thinking to myself that if this Green Bay team had any kind of leadership it wouldn't have found themselves in that awkward predicament of watching the one-time Bear's kicker drill a 56 yard field goal as time drained from the clock. Some sort of leadership would have prevented all the Packers and their fans from ever finding themselves in that painful situation of having to watch that kick, a kick that not only would have been good from at least 60 yards, but a kick that was bobbled at snap and placed perfectly just in the nick of time by their holder.

And once that football split the uprights and found the fourth row of seats behind the endzone, the collective sigh of disbelief from Packer fans everywhere was instantly sucked out of the air as the fickle Viking fans, who decided that it was okay to cheer for their dysfunctional team now seeing how they had actually won the game, went nuts.

But the kick had not been a fluke. It had not been a kick that barely fluttered over the crossbar or ricocheted in off an upright. No sir. That field goal ended up being a kick of great magnitude in the record books of game winning field goals. That's right. That 56 yarder was second longest in game winning field goals, second only to the Grand Daddy of all game winning field goals, Tom Dempsey's record setting kick of 63 yards back in 1970 that beat the Lions. In truth, it was a kick of mind-numbing proportions.

So hear what I'm saying; the gaming winning kick of that length, kicked by a guy the Bears thought sucked enough to let go, and after being snapped badly and held perfectly in place by a guy who doesn't posses the nimblest of hands, could only be a gift from the great football Gods.

So it's fruitless to try and find someone to blame when it would seem the football Gods had it written in stone that the Packers weren't leaving Minnesota with a victory no matter how well they played.

I mean, it's all pretty evident that things were stacked in the Vikings' favor all along. Now, even the speculation of Sherman being an idiot and not anticipating any of the Vikings' adjustments at half time, to the fact that the defense allowed their opponent to move down the field like a skilled football team in a year where they're anything but, all seem insignificant if you take into consideration the facts. Think about this; in spite of being warned about it, and told exactly what the Vikings receivers were looking for; a 12-15 yard pass and get of bounds play, all the Packers secondary had to do was make sure they at least tackled the ball carrier in bounds and it's a for sure overtime game.

IN BOUNDS!

Everybody on the Packers knew what they had to do.

So ... how else do you explain, other than fate, that Green Bay's young cornerback did everything right on the play with the big, glaring exception of tackling the receiver IN  bounds after the 12 yard reception with 2 seconds left on the clock that allowed the Vikings to try the game winning field goal in the first place?

I mean seriously, it had to be the football Gods smiling down on the Purple People Eaters for that to happen. We got rid of the 4th and 26 monkey long time ago, right? Beat to death and left in Philadelphia the way I heard it. . . .

So anyway, I really think it's wrong for anyone to try and drum up a scapegoat after Sunday's embarrassing loss, to what appeared to be a much inferior team in Minnesota, when it's obvious that it was meant to be. So don't waste your time pointing an accusing finger at the head coach for the drop in offensive production in the second half on account of not anticipating that the Vikings would double-up your one big offensive threat that had been plaguing them the whole first half... It's not his fault.

I mean, just because the offense went from 254 yards in the first 30 minutes to 120 yards in the second half is not reason enough to go looking for his head. The game's outcome was out of his hands once the football Gods took over.

And I believe it's wrong to accuse anyone calling the plays for the Packer offense on Sunday, which in this case coincidentally turns out to be the same head coach, of being brain dead and retarded even after watching them run on 3rd and 2, from the shotgun no less, in the last drive of the game down in the noisy part of the dome where the offense couldn't hear what their quarterback just before the snap. And it's not right to accuse anyone of being dysfunctional themselves just on account of, at the time of the running play was called the Packers' franchise running back was already out of the game, and at that point in the drive the passing game was working perfectly in spite of being exposed by an ex-Packer safety on every play.

And worse of all, I think it's just plain ridiculous for anyone to single out a head coach for being so out of touch with reality, and his entire team, just because he tells the press he doesn't want to hear any excuses from his kicker for the sloppy and inconsistent holding he's getting from his holder as the reason he's missing field goals that up until now were practically automatic. No, because if that head coach was worth his salt he would already see that his place kicker, one of the most accurate and consistent kickers in league history until this year, was probably right. No, because that head coach would most certainly be a complete moron for saying anything like that in public considering he should have found a solution to that problem---the same problem that's been plaguing his team since spring training camp, long before the frustrated place kicker made his comment in the press after the game in the first place.

So you see, that's why I don't think anyone needs to go scrounging around looking for a head coach that stupid to hang the blame on after Sunday's debacle because it would be a complete waste of time considering how an incompetent, unintelligent, completely delusional coach like that would never exist in the NFL. And would certainly not be coaching for the Green Bay Packers.

Until next time ... Keep Driving Forward.