The fans and the media made this past week's game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers one of the most anticipated regular-season games to be played in the past 20 years.

The buildup to our game against the Packers was incredible. Every day last week, the media would gather around Brett Favre's locker and ask him questions about going back to Green Bay to play the Packers. People from FOX and ESPN who don't cover the team on a regular basis flew in to Minneapolis this week to interview Brett.

Anyone who has followed football while Brett has played could tell that Sunday's game was important to him. With everything that he's been through, Sunday was a big day for Brett. But from a team standpoint, the game was equally important.

We needed to beat the Packers to gain the upper hand in our quest to the Super Bowl. Getting a win against the Packers also was vital to us because we wanted to get over our loss to Pittsburgh the week before.

Brett played a great game on Sunday and the team played an awesome game as well. What gets lost in the hype of Brett's return to Green Bay was the total team effort we gave. In all three phases of the game -- offense, defense and special teams -- we played a complete game. Teams in the NFL don't lose too many games when they play a complete game.

Another thing that made Sunday's game against the Packers big for us was we have the bye this week. You don't want to have a losing streak heading into your bye. A losing streak prior to a bye is tough because you can't end the losing streak for two weeks.

When you are a player and you have your bye week, your team's most recent result is what you think about when you reflect on your season. I've talked to other players on other teams and they feel the same way. If your team loses its game prior to a bye week, I guarantee you that most guys on the team think more about the loss more than if their teams wins.

So this week of practice will be fun for us, because we won and it is a short week of practice because of the bye.

The mindset of practice before your Sunday off is simple: Get your work in, listen to your coaches and enjoy your time off. I believe a key to winning a game after a bye week is the days of practice prior to the bye.

Our coaching staff is great and I know they will do a tremendous job of putting us through the drills to get us enough work prior to our bye week.

• Fahu Tahi is a former BYU fullback now in his fourth season with the Minnesota Vikings. Each week during the NFL season, Tahi will write his thoughts and feelings about playing in the NFL.