Here it is, gang: yet another Super Bowl in which the Vikings will not participate. I’d say it’s a disappointment but I’d be lying—the squad began its collapse early enough in the season that we’ve all had ample time to pour out a Hamm’s for what could have been and move on. Heck, much of Vikings nation has already migrated to draft preparation, and while I can’t yet bring myself to get excited for an event that’s still three months away, I understand the desire to put 2016 behind us and look forward to a brighter future.

Still, there’s a game left to play, and this one’s a doozy. Super Bowl LI pits a squad of unlikely newcomers against the game’s modern dynasty, and if that doesn’t get you excited, perhaps you should consider shifting gears and finding one of the few remaining spots on the Minnesota Wild bandwagon. But for me, football always wins, and this Falcons/Patriots Super Bowl is one heck of a matchup. On one hand, you have Goliath; a Hall-of-Fame quarterback/coach combination that seems to conjure highly productive skill players out of the ether and probably needs a separate team facility to house their entire trophy collection. On the other, David; the lowly Falcons, who…have the likely NFL MVP and led the league in scoring?

Okay, so maybe this isn’t an underdog story of biblical proportions. The game pits the NFC’s highest scoring team (33.8 points per game) against the AFC’s (27.6), and the bookies in Vegas set the spread at a modest three points in favor of the Patriots. BUT, the Pats have easily been the NFL’s most dominant team since the turn of the century, making seven Super Bowl appearances (counting this year) since 2002 and winning four. How many times have the Falcons made it to the big game in that timeframe? Zero. In fact, their last Super Bowl trip was in 1999, when they…well, maybe we don’t go down memory road on that one, okay? Okay.