NEW ORLEANS — There aren’t many ways to capture the stomach-churning nature of the Vikings eventual 26-20 win over the Saints on Sunday. Each thread seems incomplete. One could cast a simple story about an underdog overwhelming their opponents, but it’s just as easy to write about snakebitten favorites that can’t seem to get past referees. Is this a story about an abysmal fourth-quarter from a quarterback that can’t win under pressure or a narrative arc about overtime redemption for him and his star receiver returning from injury?



Two teams with an acrid history renewed that bitterness in a contest that found ways to keep raising the stakes and their back-and-forth on the field matched the exaggerated sound in the Superdome that peaked with each Saints surge and then ultimately fell into a cavernous silence that seemed to reduce the stadium to a population of 22.



With a game that has so many plots, it resists narrative, it might be better...