A lot of people fell off the Vikings fan band wagon two weeks ago when the Minnesota football team fell flat in Arizona to the Cardinals on a Sunday night nationally televised game. I wasn't one of those fair-weather fans. I thought it was just a bump in the road. They would recover from it, and learn from it. They sort of looked like they had recovered and came in with a win last week. Then came another Sunday night game, this time involving travel to Carolina. As bad as the game at Arizona was, this one was worse. They literally stunk the place up. And I think I fell off the band wagon long about the third quarter. This is supposed to be a team that could contend for the Super Bowl? Man, you might have thought that a month ago, but after Sunday night it is obvious they will contend for nothing and will fall out of the playoffs quickly. Sure, they did win the Central North Division. But only when Green Bay lost a close hard-fought game. Perhaps that is why the Vikings looked so flat on Sunday - they had just won the division and had nothing to play for. But that is a lousy excuse. So are injuries to key players. In the game on Sunday, everyone played poorly. Don't blame Bret Favre. Sure, he did have a pretty lousy game. But the line couldn't stop the defense. Favre was under pressure contantly. The running game never even got a start. And the vaunted and much bally-hooed Viking defense? Pee-yoo. They couldn't have played much worse, or with more lackluster effort. Coaches and players on both offense and defensive sides of the line can share in the blame. They were bad. No other way to put it. I think they should consider giving their pay checks for this game back - or to the Vikings Children's Fund. The players and coaches sure didn't earn it on Sunday.