Let the scoreboard watching begin

Herre in Denver, the Vikings and Broncos kick it off in about 10 minutes.

If the Vikings are to make the playoffs -- let's put the arcane stuff about ties aside -- Dallas has to beat Washington.

The Dallas-Washington and Minnesota-Denver games go off at the same time.

The Vikings could have avoided all this, of course, if they had beaten Washington last week.

But Washington, with Todd Collins making like Sonny Jurgensen, whomped the Vikes.

So now the Vikings have to win here and hope the Cowboys have enough motivation to beat the Redskins -- at FedEx Field.

Not likely.

But that's why they play the games, right?