Smart Approach: Vikings have plan for future while improving in the present...

Seven-plus months after their season ended with an overtime loss to the Saints in the NFC title game, the Vikings returned to the Louisiana Superdome to open the 2010 season.The pressure on that team was immense.

Brett Favre, coming off one of the best seasons of his Hall of Fame career, was a month away from his 41st birthday and had made the late decision to play one more year only after being coaxed by a trio of teammates who made the trip to Hattiesburg, Miss.
The Vikings’ offense for that Sept. 9 opener had only one change from the group that had started on Jan. 10 and that was because Sidney Rice was injured. The defense featured four different starters, but veteran cornerback Lito Sheppard was the only one who hadn’t been on Minnesota’s roster for the NFC title game.
That was an aging team set to make one more run at a Super Bowl. We all know how it ended. The Vikings lost the opener, started 1-3, coach Brad Childress was fired after an embarrassing loss to Green Bay in November at the Metrodome … and on and on.
That was the last time the Vikings began a year with the type of expectations that will follow them into their regular-season opener on Sunday against San Francisco at U.S. Bank Stadium.
http://www.1500espn.com/news/2018/09/zulgad-smart-approach-vikings-plan-future-improving-present/