"Preparation is good. Vital, really. Percy Harvin knows this. That's why, last Sunday, he worked so hard to sell the fake. In this case San Diego bought it, hard. ¶ Do that and it makes it easier on your blockers. ¶ "And I know that if I make it easier for them," Harvin said with a smile, "they'll make it easier for me."

Practice is essential, Harvin acknowledged. You have to be on the same page with your guys, have to have a sense for where the blocks will be. All that is good, necessary. But at some point, the science of a kickoff return becomes an art, a thing of beauty. And you can't teach that.

"You can do all that thinking," said Harvin, just days after notching his fourth touchdown on a kickoff return. It came on the first play of the Vikings' season, a 103-yard masterpiece that started with a good plan and included a good fake and some stellar blocking but ultimately ended up in the end zone because of Harvin's vision, instincts and speed. "But then, once you make that cut -- once I make that cut -- it's all on instincts from there on out. What I see is where I go."

That is the one thing you can't coach.

Vikings special teams coordinator Mike Priefer has always wanted to coach one of the special ones. Someone like Chicago's Devin Hester, San Francisco's Ted Ginn, or Harvin, in his prime. Priefer was essentially raised to coach special teams; his father, Chuck, did it for years.

Priefer, a former Navy helicopter pilot, is all about discipline. His planning is extensive, his preparation exhaustive. But even he knows that for kickoffs to be consistently spectacular, you need a special returner. And now he has one.

"I've been in situations where we've taught guys that had some ability and we made 'em better," Priefer said. "But the great ones? That stuff is innate in who they are as a player. It's God-given."

Because, for all the planning, you have to have to be able to smell a seam, sense an opening, then have the burst to get through it. That's exactly what happened in San Diego. Priefer had called for a bounce return. A misdirection. The plan was to sell that the return would go left -- something the Vikings had put on film during the preseason -- then cut it back right. Priefer knew San Diego's special teams coach, Rich Bisaccia, from his days with Tampa Bay and that he coached his guys to be aggressive in coverage. Vulnerable, perhaps, to a misdirection?

Watch the play, over and over, and out of the chaos comes a theme. Harvin catching the ball, running out to the left, selling the fake, then planting his foot and cutting right. The Chargers defenders reacting, making it easier for Harvin's teammates to seal them off. Harvin getting some spectacular blocking, making one guy miss, seeing a seam, cutting back and exploding.

"And then we all went down to the end zone and had a party," said Everson Griffen."