At around the age when my mutual love for football and geography collided (probably age 10), I posed a question that has never been sufficiently answered. Why don’t the Minnesota Vikings play outside? I know they used to. I know they used to go to Super Bowls, too. I know that for most of my life, they’ve played in the Metrodome. I also know that for the same duration they are one of the league’s most unfeared and pedestrian teams (sans one dynamite season choked away). Hey, Minnesota! Take your team back outside and get your swagger back. If a team strolls into town in late-December or early-January and wants to call you the Vi-Queens, they’ll have to earn it.

Home-field advantage; what is it worth? Most casual gamblers will tell you three points on a betting line. That’s good and great, and there is some level of truth to it as well, but that’s another column. What does it really mean to a team? What factors go into producing an advantage for an NFL team? Why does a team want to play its most meaningful (playoff) games at home?

Home-field advantage in the major sports, other than baseball, does not affect the actual playing dimensions. Like a hockey rink and basketball court in its sport, a football field is the exact same size in every NFL stadium. There are two major components that contribute to advantage; fan noise and the actual stadium’s geography and orientation.

Fan participation and overall stadium noise contributes greatly to any game. If prompted to name some of the more raucous stadiums in recent memory fans would more-than-likely throw out Arrowhead, old Mile High Stadium (or any old steel-made dinosaurs that were so good for foot-stomping and shaking) and most recently Seattle’s Qwest Field. The Great Northwestern stadium opened its doors in 2002 and featured a unique (and sure to be copied) feature. The stadium, though open-aired, is designed to acoustically bounce crowd noise back toward the field (instead of up and into space). While the Seahawks have never been credited with one of the more rowdy fan bases, they have been able to interrupt opposing offenses at record pace, including the infamous game in which Eli Manning’s New York Giants were flagged for 11 false starts.

In 21 seasons outdoors at Metropolitan Stadium (1961-81) the Vikings won 55 percent of their games. However, in that stadium they had a home winning percentage of .603 compared to a .503 clip on the road. When it counted most (again, the playoffs), Minnesota was 7-3. However, away from that stadium during the same era they were victorious a mere two of ten contests, including all four of their Super Bowl losses at neutral sites (a road game for both teams, in my opinion).

Since 1982 the Vikings have resided in the Metrodome. During the 25 football seasons there, they have played .536 ball. Here’s the “shocking” part: they’ve drastically improved their home record! Since the move, the Vikings play .645 ball at home; a number that is certainly aided by additional crowd noise, both natural and pumped in through speakers……um, allegedly.

However, the biggest part of this argument is that a dome team takes on the personality of its surroundings. Not only are these teams’ on-field construction geared toward indoor play- but the psyche of the team seems to stay inside, even when it’s noon and the pigskin is kicked off. Don’t believe me? Why then over the past 25 seasons do the Vikings only play .426 football away from the Metrodome, including a dreadful 4-11 mark in the playoffs? That averages to 3-5 every year for a quarter century! Despite improving their home numbers, the road squads have become so much worse than the outside era. The modern team has only played seven home playoff games in the dome (highlighted by the aforementioned famous choking away the 1998 NFC Championship game). In 21 of the 25 seasons the Vikings home record has been better than road in the dome, whereas the same was only true in 13 of 21 seasons outdoors.

So as to not sound overly mathematical, this, in jock terms, means that the Purple People Eaters are gone and have given way to sissies than don’t want to go outside. We can call them the Purple Pansies, or worse.

To my (and Al Gore’s) best guestimates, the population and climate of the greater-Minneapolis region will not be changing in the next five years. Thirty years down the road all bets are off, but I’d still wager than it’s a colder area than Miami. What do you think when you hear Lambeau Field? The Frozen Tundra (probably in Chris Berman’s voice, too). Well, the average temperature in Minneapolis is lower than Green Bay’s from mid-October to mid-February. So think Frozen- Frozen Tundra. And, perhaps, best of all, those road trips to meet the Packers and Bears will feel like a day at the beach.

I know that the move can be done as evidenced by the University of Minnesota’s future move to an outdoor stadium in 2009. The to-be-completed TCF Bank Stadium is to look like a “traditional” horseshoe and will almost certainly begin to re-energize the college campus in ways the Metrodome has failed the Golden Gophers. If need be, it could serve as a temporary hold-over for the Vikings, like the Universities of Illinois and Washington did for the Bears and Seahawks during their renovation and new-build, respectively.

Trust me, the economics and lease situation in the “Hump Dome” are not overlooked by me. I never said that is has to be done today or tomorrow, just that it should get done. The Vikes are under a lease agreement until 2011 as it is. With the likelihood of needing two or three years to construct a new stadium the Vikes wouldn’t be ready until 2010 at the earliest -- and that’s if they agreed to a pact today! It’s more-than-likely that the stadium would want to be used in the brutal winter months for concerts and conventions and such, but big whip! Either hold them in the Metrodome (if not imploding) or build the stadium with a retractable roof that can go up when football’s over.

What’s all this getting at? Duh! Get this team a loud, outdoor stadium. If it seems simple, and that’s because, at the root, it is. The team’s best play was in brutal cold and a noisy home-stadium. Combine them and you may have a legendary home-filed advantage.