Just got home from a friend’s house where I watched the Minnesota Vikings once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the NFC Championship game. While it’s not quite as hard to live with as the 1998 debacle against Atlanta this one will stick in the craw of fans and players for weeks and months to come.

If you look back to the picks posted on this site last night the last line said something about how these two teams are evenly matched and how the game will likely come down to breaks and turnovers. The Vikings had a great season. And they did almost everything they had to do to beat the Saints tonight. Everything, that is, except hang onto the football.

They controlled the time of possession. They defended the pass admirably, holding Drew Brees to fewer than 200 yards passing. They had many more first downs. But they committed five turnovers, two of which came inside the Saints’ 20 yard line. Get three points out of either of those drives and this is a different contest.

In the earlier game, Indianapolis beat the New York Jets. Though it ended an exciting run for the Jets, it was a somewhat predictable result given the experience of Peyton Manning and the weapons is surrounded by compared with the inexperience of Mark Sanchez. But the Jets have a lot to look forward to – Sanchez, Shonn Greene, Darrell Revis and that very, very solid offensive line are mostly on the young side. The Jets enter the 2010 offseason as one of my favorites for another playoff run.

The situation in Minnesota could be a little different. While Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin, Sidney Rice and many of the other players on both sides of the ball are both heading into their primes the one unsettled position is quarterback. The offseason begets another round of speculation about Brett Favre‘s future. If he doesn’t come back, can Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels handle the job anywhere near as competently as Favre did all season long?

And even if he does return, in his early 40s, will he be able to come close to matching what statistically is one of the if not the – best season of his career?

There’s going to be some nashing of teeth in the Twin Cities over the next few months. The Vikes have too many weapons to not make another run. They need to improve along the offensive line, which was young and inconsistent this year, especially at creating running room for Peterson. And they need to solve the quarterback situation, not just for 2010 but for the years ahead as well.

But for tonight and the next couple weeks they’ll just lament tonight as a missed opportunity. It’s hard to get as far as the NFC Championship game. When you get there you’ve got to take advantage of it.

The Vikings almost did. But while the Saints deserve much credit for their season and the efforts they made to reach their first Super Bowl, Minnesota definitely gave them a helping hand along the way.

That’s got to be a tough pill for Favre, Brad Childress and others in purple to swallow.