Speaking of Sports

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

Some weekends of sports are better than others, but this past weekend was one of the most exciting weekend of sports I’ve seen recently.

Start with a great Vikings’ football game, Saturday.  Add in some World Cup soccer, Sunday.  And sprinkle in some other sports action, including a great Sunday of NFL games, and you have the makings for a super weekend of sports.

The Vikings started the weekend off on a sour note after falling behind the Indianapolis Colts in the first half, 33-0.  It went uphill from there as Minnewaska outscored the Colts 39-3 in the second half and overtime to complete the largest comeback in NFL history with the 39-36 overtime win.  Yes, you heard that right; it was the largest comeback win in history.  Wow!

The win also clinched the division title for the Vikings, who will have to pick things up a bit if they want to last long in the playoffs.  You just can’t wait around for a half before starting to play in the NFL.

Speaking of the NFL, 12 of the 15 games played this week were decided by one score or less.  And, one of the games that was decided by more than one score was a 34-23 victory by Cincinnati over Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Bucs led 17-0 in the first half and Brady has gone 89-0 when leading by that many points in his 23-year career.  Well, that streak was snapped as Cincinnati scored 34-straight points to earn a 34-23 victory.

In other games, the Bills beat the Dolphins 32-29 on a last-second field goal; the Jaguars edged the Cowboys in overtime, 40-34, on a pick-six; the Chiefs beat the Texans in overtime, 30-24; and by far, the most exciting finish to a game was Las Vegas’ 30-24 win over the New England Patriots.

New England and Las Vegas were tied at 24-24, but on the final play, the Patriots completed a pass and tried to lateral its way to the endzone.  However, the second lateral was “picked off” by a Las Vegas player and, after stiff-arming quarterback Josh Allen to the turf, he went about 50 yards for a touchdown to end the game.  Wow!

However, none of that matched the excitement of the World Cup soccer championship game between France and Argentina.  It’s kind of nice to watch a sporting event and have no clear favorite.  That way, I can just enjoy the sport and not worry about the outcome.  And what an outcome it was!

Argentina took an early 2-0 lead against France, but France tied it up late regulation to send the match into extra time.  Argentina scored first in overtime and many people thought the game had ended.  However, in World Cup soccer it’s not sudden-death overtime, but instead, the entire overtime period needs to finish before the game is done.

By that time, France scored again to tie up the match at 3-3 and send the outcome to penalty kicks.  At first, I didn’t want this game to end in penalty kicks, but after going through 120 minutes of tense soccer action, I actually was looking forward to having the match end in a shootout.  And, by that time I was rooting for Messi and Argentina so I was very happy to see them win . . . along with millions of Argentinians all over the globe.

•  Want more highlights?  How about Kevin Durant scoring 26 points in one quarter during a win by the Nets?  How about the Wolves scoring 150 points during a win over Chicago?  Or, the Wild winning their fifth-straight game, or finally, how about a 40-point, 27-rebound, 10-assist stat line by Nikola Jokic to match Wilt Chamberlain as the only players in NBA history to achieve those numbers.

Wow, what a weekend!