Minnesota’s season ending finale against the woeful Detroit Lions had all of the entertainment value of watching two little kids duke it out in a school yard fight. It was kind of fun to see them throw haymakers at each other with no regard for defensive consequences, but it was hard to take it seriously. It’s a miracle that play wasn’t stopped and both defenses sent to the principal’s office for imitating professional NFL defensive units.
In fantasy football, they call meaningless, late-season matchups like the Vikings-Lions the “Toilet Bowl.” Two exquisitely bad teams battled for pride, or paychecks, or for next year’s contracts … and some of us watched. We were cheated out of Dalvin Cook getting a chance to shred Detroit’s defense in search of a rushing title, but that is just one of a thousand things that everyone has had stolen from them in 2020.