My Continuing Sports Blog: Top 10 Favorite Moments

11. Thank heavens Brad Childress coaches the other guys. When you can set up a 50 yard field goal with under a minute left, you definitely want to sit on the ball and not move an inch forward
10. My friend Paul calling the Tracy Porter pick to end regulation
8. Text from my friend Brad after the Vikings first drive (an effortless 10 play, 80 yard drive culminating in an ADP 19 yard TD run): "I know your phone is probably off but if it's not: breathe."
9. The random texts I got from friends whose numbers I had long since lost. Is this how people feel when they win Oscars and get congrats from 6th grade girlfriends?
6. My friend Jason after the game: "The lead singer from a boy band just sent your team to the Super Bowl. How do you feel about that?"
5. Feeling strangely confident that, even if the Vikings hadn't pulled the rare "illegal substitution coming out of a timeout" penalty, Ryan Longwell would have missed the kick at the end of regulation.
2. Some months back I saw Shane Suisam miss a chip shot FG that would have iced the game for the Skins against the Saints. In one of the bigger sports miracles I've seen, "we" came back to win that game. If you don't think I asked Karyn to switch seats with me before the game-winning field goal so I could be back on that barstool...I mean, you don't know anything about me.
4. My roommate Josh calling in a shot of whiskey to the bar with the instruction to "drink in an emergency." Me saving it for three quarters and then...
4a. Taking that shot with 1:07 left when no one on the Saints D could tackle Chester Taylor.
3. Winking at girlofcardigan before the final kick. No part of me thought Garrett Hartley was missing.
7. Last year around this time I called my friend Todd 3 and, furious that the Colts had lost the coin flip by calling heads to start OT (in a game I had bet on them), told him that "if my life ever depends on you calling heads or tails for me, please call tails every single time." Needless to say the Vikings called the toss to start OT, for some reason went with "heads" and tails came up. Absolute vindication. Or redemption. One of those powerful emotional words.
1. The kick going straight through the uprights, leaping to my feet and hugging not the six friends who had showed up to support me, but the random Saints fan across the bar who, like me, had been pining for defenders to fall on the ball, for Brees to stop missing receivers...In no other walk of life do you celebrate life with complete strangers. I love sports. I really do.