LIONS AND VIKINGS AND BEARS. (Oh my!) The Packers played at Lambeau Field, and again they played badly, but the Vikings also played badly. The Packer defense held the Vikings to three first downs all game, and the offense put placekicker Dave Rayner in position to kick enough field goals for a 9-7 win.

(The game reminded me of a game in Milwaukee in 1969 in which Packer safety Doug Hart had an interception return for a touchdown but the Vikings managed to give future chiropractor Fred Cox three field goal opportunities.)

And I'm not alone in disliking Thursday night football.

Packers fans across much of Wisconsin who planned to settle into their Barcaloungers to watch what might be Brett Favre's final appearance at Lambeau quickly learned this: Unless they could tune in to local stations in Milwaukee or Green Bay, or had access to the NFL Network, they couldn't watch the game.

Apparently there are limits to the rent-extracting behavior of the league.

An NFL Network spokesman said Wisconsin Packers fans are no different from NFL fans in other states experiencing the same withdrawal pangs.

"This is what's been going on every week every time there is a game airing and there is a holdout cable company," said Seth Palansky, communications director for the NFL Network.

The network is available in about 40 million of 110 million homes with TV. Last week the network caved a bit by offering one free week of its network programming to many cable customers on the East Coast so college football fans could watch Rutgers in the Texas Bowl game.

Northern Illinois puts up with all sorts of bizarre game times to harvest a few dollars of television revenue. Saturday is for college football. Now fans of the professional game get caught in a pissing contest between the cable companies and the league's attempt to harvest a few dollars of television revenue. Sunday is for professional football.