MinnesotaSportsScene.com

Cancel the reservations for Las Vegas hotels, the party this Monday Night is on the gridiron! The Minnesota Vikings will open their season tonight against the Green Bay Packers, and for the first time in 16 seasons, the Pack will be without Brett Favre under center.

Since the Vikings have a refurbished pass rush threat with NFL sack leader Jared Allen on the same D-line as the Williams Wall, the purple certainly aren’t going to make the debut of Favre’s successor, Aaron Rodgers, an easy night.

Right now, Tavaris Jackson has more game experience and more wins on his belt that Rodgers as a pro, and with Adrian Peterson in the backfield for the Vikes, and Bernard Berrian competently catching passes, it’s our hope that tonight’s game will be a blow-out favoring the purple.

Of course, historically the series has usually been close; but we’re entering a new era, and on paper, the Vikes look solid for the win. Of course, the X-Factor in all of this is the Green Bay defense, which tried to end Adrian Peterson’s career last season and will likely be cheap-shot artists again tonight, which is why we chose our nickname for them: Murderer’s Row.

Somehow, though, I have a feeling the Green Bay Assassins will miss their target tonight.

Three of the 17 players who are finalists to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH, are former Minnesota Vikings. The most notable is wide receiver Cris Carter, who famously came to the Vikings after being cut by Eagles coach Buddy Ryan for “only knowing how to catch touchdowns.”

History has revealed that Ryan’s reason for uttering such a foolishness was to protect Carter’s career; Cris had allowed a drinking problem to get the better of him at that point, and when he was claimed off waivers for $1 by the Minnesota Vikings, a side-benefit was having access to Minnesota’s Hazelden treatment facility, one of the most nationally recognized addiction treatment facilities in the nation.

The rest is football history; Carter went on to set records for catches in a season and become one of the most recognizable receivers ever to don a Vikings uniform. While he never made it to a Super Bowl, he came close a couple times and was rarely a part of the reason the Vikings didn’t go deeper in the playoffs.

Offensive linemen Randall McDaniel and Gary Zimmerman are also finalists. There’s no multi-night stays in Las Vegas hotels that come with being selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but Carter does represent the best chance for a retired Viking player to be selected to Canton induction on a first-year ballot basis.

None of them will have to wait much longer to know if their time for acknowledgment has come round at last; final selections - usually consisting of five players or so - will be made on February 2.