San Francisco came into the game ready to prove last year's Favre heroics to defeat them were a fluke. The 49ers looked much better in their second preseason game. Though they defeated Indianapolis quite easily their first time out, they did so despite sloppy play from their quarterbacks. Against the Vikings, San Francisco took a step forward in their quest to become NFC West division champions.
Minnesota, on the other hand, looked disinterested, even bored. Perhaps the Favre drama has taken far more out of them than they would like to admit? Now, more than ever, other defenses will be gunning to put Favre down. New Orleans showed last year the Vikings are susceptible to the blitz and San Francisco reminded the league last night that picking up the blitz is not Minnesota's specialty. Although four plays is not nearly enough of a sample size to project how the season will play out with Favre behind center again, Vikings fans have to be a bit concerned by the aggressive way the 49ers harassed their wizened superstar. In a copy-cat league you can bet other teams will be eager to test both Favre's durability and mobility once the regular season gets underway.
On Friday, I predicted the Minnesota Vikings would come away with a 24-20 preseason victory over the 49ers, but San Francisco had different ideas and broke up my perfect prediction streak by upending the Vikings with a very unorthodox football score, 15-10.
The Creative Misfotune Fantasy Matchup proved to be a bit more entertaining. San Francisco played without the benefit of a starting quarterback. Coach Singletary decided to keep back-up quarterback David Carr on the bench, which could have had a serious impact on the Fantasy Matchup result had Minnesota's Sage Rosenfels actually completed more than two of the handful of passes he attempted.
Sunday Night Football - Creative Misfortune Fantasy Result
| Minnesota Vikings | pts | pts | San Francisco 49ers | |||
| Sage Rosenfels | 0 | QB | 0 | David Carr | ||
| Toby Gerhart | 2 | RB1 | 11 | Anthony Dixon | ||
| Darius Reynaud | 0 | RB2 | 1 | Michael Robinson | ||
| Logan Payne | 0 | WR1 | 0 | Jason Hill | ||
| Marko Mitchell | 0 | WR2 | 0 | Kevin Jurovich | ||
| Greg Lewis | 0 | WR3 | 3 | Dominique Ziegler | ||
| Garrett Mills | 1 | TE | 2 | Nate Byham | ||
| Ryan Longwell | 3 | K | 0 | Shane Andrus | ||
| Minnesota Vikings | 5 | DEF | 10 | San Francisco 49ers | ||
| Total | 11 | >>> | 27 | Total |
Despite not playing their second-string quarterback and deciding to use their primary kicker for field goals and extra points the entire game, San Francisco managed to come away with a solid 27-11 fantasy victory, showing their fantasy depth to be nearly three times better than the Vikings.
Tomorrow, letters to the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings...
