The best, and scariest, expedition into the soul of the Vikings that I've encountered is in a terrific book called The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death by Timothy Taylor. I find them a fascinating bunch because they tilled the same soil as my own ancestors - but my goodness...what a boatload of psychos.

In many ways I hate wildcard weekend. There are many reasons to love it, but more often that not, you can expect the home team, the favorite or the higher seed, to win.

I'm fairly optimistic about the 49ers' chances of beating the Packers, but I'd feel more optimistic if they were facing the Vikes.