More photos » by Jeffrey Phelps - AP

Thanks, guys! Because of you, we might be able to get a lot of rest over the last month of the season! (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps, File)

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How soon?  Well, how does Week 12 work for you?

In an entry on his blog this morning, Kevin Seifert points out to us how the NFC North divisional race could be over before the calendar hits 1 December.  How?  Well, a few different things would have to happen, none of which are entirely unfeasible at this point.  According to Seifert, the things that would have to happen are as follows:

1) Minnesota would have to win their next three games to move their record to 10-1.

Thankfully, Minnesota has a three-game homestand coming out of their bye week, and none of those games are against teams that are playing particularly well.  After the Vikings (hopefully) beat the Detroit Lions on Sunday, they have games against the Seattle Seahawks (currently 3-5) and the Chicago Bears (4-4) at the Metrodome.  The Vikings should be favored in all three of those games, and probably heavily favored in the first two. . .heck, I've seen lines that show Minnesota as a 16.5-point favorite over Detroit (for entertainment purposes only, of course).  Seattle has been abysmal on the road this year as well, sporting an 0-3 mark thus far and losing those three road games by an average of 17 points.

2) Chicago would have to lose one of their next two, in addition to their Week 12 matchup against Minnesota

The Bears have to turn around on a short week and fly out to the west coast to take on the San Francisco 49ers tomorrow night.  (I almost feel bad for. . .wait, no I don't.)  The Niners are reeling a bit, having lost four straight after getting off to a 3-1 start, but the Bears are reeling as well, having given up 40+ points in two of the last three weeks.  After that, Chicago gets a little bit of extra time to plan for a home game against Philadelphia, (tenatively) scheduled for Sunday night, part of the NFL's inexplicable "Hey, let's try to get the Bears on in prime time as much as possible" strategy.

In any case, a loss for the Bears to either of their next two opponents and a loss to the Vikings would leave them at 5-6, and incapable of finishing any better than 4-2 against the NFC North, thanks to their Week 1 loss to the Packers.  Speaking of Green Bay. . .

3) Green Bay would have to lose two of their next three games

It's tough to determine how many "easy" wins are on the Packers' schedule right now, what with them just having lost to the last winless team in the NFL.  However, this seems like the least likely of the three things we would need to have happen to occur.  On Sunday, the Packers will host a Dallas Cowboys team that is leading the NFC East and is riding a four-game winning streak since starting the season 2-2.  It's going to be some tough sledding for the Packers to win that one, and frankly I'm not sure if they can do it.  A loss there would put us halfway to what we would need.

However, the Packers' two games after that are a bit easier, with them hosting San Francisco and then getting a trip to Detroit on Thanksgiving.  The Niners will probably give them some trouble, and Thanksgiving in the Motor City for the Packers has always been a bit of a minefield, but there's a pretty good chance of the Packers winning both of those games, in my opinion.  But if the Packers were to fall to Dallas and to either Detroit or San Francisco, they would also be staring at a record of 5-6, and they've already been swept by the Vikings head-to-head.

So, if all three of these things played out over the next couple of weeks, the Vikings could go 0-5 over the last five weeks of the season to drop to 10-6, and if either Green Bay or Chicago ran the table to get themselves to 10-6 as well. . .they can't both run the table, as they have a head-to-head matchup in Week 14. . .the Vikings would remain ahead of the Packers on the strength of head-to-head record, and they would stay ahead of the Bears on the strength of division record (a Minnesota victory over Chicago in Week 12 would mean Minnesota couldn't finish worse than 5-1 against the NFC North, while a Chicago loss in that game would mean they couldn't finish better than 4-2 inside the division).  Hence, the Vikings would sew up the NFC North division title after their upcoming victory over the Bears in Week 12.

Basically, it's not a matter of if the NFC North division race is over. . .it's a matter of when it's going to be over.  We're Niner fans for the next couple of weeks for sure, as they'll be taking on both of our "closest" competitors, so hopefully they can help us out a bit on that front.

I'll make with the football stuff later on today.  However, today is about something much bigger than football.

I put this video on the site every 11 November, and the song develops a greater meaning for me with every year that passes by.  So some of you have seen and heard this one before.

After the jump, you'll find the text of General George S. Patton's "Blood and Guts" speech.  I'm putting it after the jump because, for starters, it's lengthy.  And also because. . .well, General Patton was known in his time for using some, shall we say, "colorful" language.  So there's your warning.

Enjoy the rest of your day, and we'll be back with some Vikings stuff later on.

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More photos » by Nam Y Huh - AP

Pictured: Chicago Bears' quarterback Jeff George. Not pictured: Jay Cutler (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

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Step 1 - Watch Jeff George v2.0 and the Bears get completely undressed at home by Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald and company.

Step 2 - Watch the Green Bay Packers ensure that there will be NO winless teams in the National Football League in 2009.

And. . .well, that's all you need, really.

So, if the Vikings play .500 ball the rest of the way. . .the Bears would have to go 7-1 to catch them (and, presumably, hope that that one loss isn't to the Vikings), and the Packers would have to go 8-0 in order to catch them for the NFC North division title.

I don't want to say it's over. . .but there's a rather large woman off-stage there getting her vocal chords warmed up.

More photos » by Jim Prisching - AP

Take the day off, guys. . .you've earned it. (AP Photo/Jim Prisching)

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Not going to be paying a whole lot of attention to football today, I'll be honest. . .going to be doing some schoolwork and will likely just have football on the TV for background noise.

The other three NFC North teams will all be in action this week.  The Bears will play host to the Arizona Cardinals, and will hope to hold them to less than 40 points. . .I have my doubts.  The Packers travel to Florida to take on the last winless team in the NFL, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  And in one of the late games, the Lions head out to Qwest Field to face off with the Seattle Seahawks.

There's lots of other NFL action to be had today as well. . .and, if you'd like, you can discuss it all here with your fellow Viking fans.  Enjoy!

Anthony Carter. . .not THE Anthony Carter, I assume, but who knows. . .brought up something worth pondering in one of the FanPosts yesterday, and that's whether or not the NFL's "flex scheduling" rules will affect the Minnesota Vikings in some way, shape, or form as we move down the stretch.  It's getting to that time of year, and the Vikings are becoming a bit of a hot ticket, so it might be worth examining if any of the Beloved Purple's games could end up getting placed into a prime-time slot.

For those unfamiliar with the rules of the flex scheduling, here's a rundown, and we'll look more specifically at the Vikings after the jump.

-Begins Sunday of Week 11
-In effect during Weeks 11-17
-Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
-The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
-The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
-No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
-The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
-Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
-The NBC Sunday night time slot in "flex" weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
-Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
-NFL schedules all games.
-Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.

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I really meant to do one of these back during the pre-season so that we'd have something to compare it to at this point, but I forgot to.  I apologize for that.  But, as usual, we'll have our mid-season version. . .conveniently designed to go along with the Vikings' bye week. . .and our post-season version to compare.

I've done these for the past couple of seasons, after originally getting the idea from our friends over at Dawgs by Nature.  (See the 2007 mid-season and post-season versions, as well as the 2008 mid-season and post-season versions.)  These aren't official or anything, and are more designed to spark conversations/debate than anything else.  Since the table that these rankings are placed in is pretty huge, I'll put it in after the jump for everyone to have a look at.  Enjoy, and tell us what you think!

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More photos » by Jerry Holt - AP

9 days ago: Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre reacts after throwing for the Vikings' final touchdown in a 38-26 win over the Green Bay Packers in an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Star Tribune, Jerry Holt)

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Not necessarily Viking fans that hate Favre, mind you. . .but more the fans of other teams that hate Favre, if they're out there and reading this.

Cliff Christl of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote an article entitled "No Expense Spared by Team in Favre PR War."  I can't link to the article here, as it's from a pay website. . .I don't pay for the site myself, mind you, but someone on a message board I frequent pointed it out. . .but I do want to point out this one little sentence from the article:

Don Hutson considered retirement and reported to camp late in 1939, and he then announced his retirement before the 1943, '44 and '45 seasons, only to play again. Forrest Gregg retired and unretired four times during his career.

Hmmmmmm. . .one has to wonder if the level of poutrage was as great from the other side of the river back in those days as it is today with #4.  Hell, Favre still has one more retirement to go before he catches Hutson, and two more to go before he catches Forrest Gregg.  (Although Gregg did sort of make it up to us by going to the Packers and being a really, really crappy head coach.)

Before people whine about the Brett Favre "will he or won't he" thing or whether or not he "betrayed" the Packers or whatever other WHARRGARBL the Wisconsin media wants to shovel our way this week, they should take a minute or two to educate themselves on the past.  Just saying is all.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has spent a good amount of time in Washington, D.C. over the past couple of days, and I can't say that he appears to have enjoyed himself too much.  He got ripped by Congress for the disgusting way the league treats its former players, and now, according to Pro Football Talk, he's asking the nation's legislative body to close a loophole that he and everyone else in the league offices didn't quite bother to catch until it came back to bite them.

And, as he has since the beginning, Goodell continues to lie his ass off about the circumstances surrounding the StarCaps case:

As the league would have Congress -- and anyone else who cares -- believe it, the NFLPA betrayed the league by assisting the efforts of the members who faced suspension based on the consumption of StarCaps, an over-the-counter supplement that had been secretly spiked with a banned substance.  But the evidence in this case supports a finding that the league knew that StarCaps had been spiked with a prescription drug, that the league knew players had been taken StarCaps, and that the league issued no specific warning to the players that taking StarCaps could be hazardous to their careers -- and more importantly to their health.

See, this is what anybody with a clue has been saying all along.  The question in this case, in my opinion, has always been "What did the NFL know, and when did they know it?"  And damn near all of the evidence in this case suggests that the league knew that StarCaps contained the substance bumetanide way, WAY in advance of the positive tests of Pat Williams, Kevin Williams, Charles Grant and Will Smith of the New Orleans Saints, and Grady Jackson of the Detroit Lions.

Quite frankly, Goodell's pathetic begging in front of Congress to get this rule changed as a result of these events taking place tells me one simple thing.

He's conceding a loss.

I think he's under the impression that there's no way that he wins this case against the Williams Wall, and is now trying to get the rule changed so that he and the liars in the NFL front office don't have to potentially face such a problem again in the future.

Sorry, Roger. . .maybe you and yours should have been more honest in the first place rather than fooling around with the lives of your players in a pathetic attempt to yell "GOTCHA" at some of the guys that line your pockets.

As I always say. . .get up, get get, get down. . .Roger Goodell is a joke in your town.