49ers-Vikings Suddenly Season's First Significant Showdown

"San Francisco at Minnesota." We glanced at it without really caring for about five months, sitting there inconspicuously under "Week Three" and maybe circled by Minnesota football fans as "Home Opener", but there wasn't anything truly noteworthy about it.  With the Minnesota Vikings fresh from a 2008 playoff appearance, opening the 2009 schedule with the Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers seemed almost like an extended preseason leading up to their Week Four NFC North clash with the Green Bay Packers, a rivalry game made even more significant with the late-preseason addition of Packer legend Brett Favre following his annual aborted retirement.  Given the implications of Packers-Vikings and the combined 11-37 record of the Lions, Browns and 49ers in 2008, it's fairly easy to understand why the football world looked at the Minnesota schedule and skipped to October. What a difference two weeks makes. This innocuous W...