![]() ( Freaky Sunday?) Green Bay is infamously allergic to splash-play trades, adhering to their draft-and-develop approach like it was less an ideology than bad religion. The trade deadline only further confirmed this Freaky Friday swap. The Vikings didn’t really have a Super Bowl window so much as plans to install new windows in the future, and yet they find themselves near the top of the NFL heap. Minnesota even moved up the playoff standings on their bye week, surging forward while standing still as every other team in the division lost in Week 7. The Vikings’ most hopeful trajectory pointed them toward It’s Nice To Be Nominated territory.Īnd yet here they are at 6-1, with a healthy lead over the Packers and the rest of the NFC North. ![]() There was a positive vibe in Minnesota, at least as positive a vibe as Minnesota sports fans would allow. ![]() felt a little like a placeholder move, keeping things comfy while the newly hired duo of Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell could implement their own long-term strategies. Sure, they opted not to blow up the aging roster of the Mike Zimmer era. Meanwhile, a little ways west down Interstate 94, the Vikings were supposed to be figuring things out. To quote the great figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, who actually won a lot of stuff in her day, “Why?! WHY?! WHY?!” They keep letting Amari Rodgers try to return punts, for the love of god. They blew their savings account of a couple running backs - who actually are quite good - then stubbornly stuck to the faltering passing game, only reverting to their successful ground attack against the Buffalo Bills when they were all but literally out of options. It’s not just the ghosts of past decisions haunting them, either. They refused to look outside the building for coaching hires and wound up bereft of fresh ideas, with a coaching staff so incestuous it belongs in the new Game of Thrones spinoff. They waited too long to lock down Davante Adams and he flew the coop. Brian Gutekunst notoriously drafted a quarterback and a running back when they needed skill-position players for their existing passing game. This was supposed to be Green Bay’s year to finally, fully capitalize on their MVP quarterback with a refined approach that would elevate them from regular-season darlings to post-season royalty.īut then the troubles started. Why does the fiery dumpster stench smell so strongly? Because the window was open. But the worst part of it is, the greatest rivals, the Minnesota Vikings, are warming their hands by that Green Bay dumpster fire. It’s an infuriating season for Packers fans, whose enthusiasm quickly curdled into disappointment. But, despite its commonality, it still really is the best description of the Green Bay Packers’ 2022 season, which saw a presumptive Super Bowl favorite stumble off the starting block, then trip and fall again, then bump into a hurdle sitting beside the track for the next race, then crash through the table holding the Gatorade cooler. The phrase hasn’t been diminished despite heavy conversational rotation in America in a historical era that reeks of smoldering diapers and melting Hefty bags. The first recorded usage of the term came in 2003 when film critic Bill Muller wrote in The Arizona Republic that the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was “the cinematic equivalent of a dumpster fire - stinky but insignificant.” A pithy line, but he really underscores the chaotic drama of blazing refuse in a charred Waste Management bin. It’s such a perfect metaphor for protracted calamity that all other metaphors bow before it (though I’ll stan for my grandpa’s old favorite about the guy so inept he could screw up a one-car parade). How did we ever get by before the invention of the term “dumpster fire”?
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