While the national spin on NFL realignment focuses on teams like Seattle and Arizona losing rivalries, the Vikings may be one of the biggest beneficiaries. Why? Tampa Bay will no longer be in the Vikings' division.

A marketing genius has already started running copies of T-shirts, the Vikings are now officially being referred to as the next NFC North Division Champions — as the NFL unanimously approved realignment Tuesday, taking Tampa Bay out of the NFC Central and renaming the division.

The immediate reaction is that the new alignment will benefit the Vikings, since not having to face Tampa Bay twice — a team that Vikings haven’t swept since Dennis Green’s first year as a head coach in 1992 — can’t do anything but benefit the team.

The realignment was toughest on the relatively new franchises — with the exception of Baltimore, which could be pummeling Cleveland, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh for years. Of the teams that have relocated in recent years, three were forced out of their divisions (or at least had most of their division rivals go away). St. Louis is still in the West, but Atlanta, Carolina and New Orleans are gone, the Arizona Cardinals were shipped out of the NFC East and expansion Jacksonville and relocated Tennessee were sent out of the AFC Central to join expansion Houston and relocated Indianapolis in the AFC South.

It seems the teams that have moved have been the hardest hit and couldn’t even complain about it, since their votes on realignment were given in proxy to NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue as part of their moving process. In the short term, all the Vikings really need to concern themselves with is being better than Green Bay, Chicago and Detroit — something that could well give the Vikings one of the best breaks of the entire realignment scenario.

WEDNESDAY NOTES
* It would seem that more is being made out Randy Moss’ plan to play at least one game for the Pennsylvania ValleyDawgs of the United States Basketball League than should be. Moss plays a lot of basketball as part of his training regimen and the only difference is that tickets are being sold. What could concern Vikings more is his plan to again play with the Magic Johnson All-Stars in California just three weeks before the start of training camp. An injury in one of those games could have a direct impact on his NFL career.

Dennis Green made much less of the announcement than many in media, simply saying that "Randy’s No. 1 commitment is to the National Football League and the Minnesota Vikings."

The ValleyDawgs are no strangers to drumming up publicity — their coach is former one-man freak show Darryl Dawkins, who was best known for breaking backboards while playing with the Philadelphia 76ers, calling himself Chocolate Thunder and claiming to be from the Planet Lovetron.

* In what could be a huge announcement for fantasy football players, the NFL announced that it is going to eliminate its Friday deactivation process this year. In the past, the NFL had to reduce its roster from 53 to 46 by game time, with at least three of those coming on Friday. Now those announcements don’t need to be made until two hours before game time.

* Cris Carter remains serious about his plans to become an owner in the NFL and, while Red McCombs says he isn’t looking for any partners, if McCombs can’t get a stadium deal done, Carter is convinced he could get an ownership group together quickly and step in to buy the team and keep it in Minnesota.