The Divorce of the Minnesota Vikings

I'm currently waiting game 6 of the World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals are visiting the Boston Red Sox. Neither of these teams are strangers to the World Series. Both used to be.

For 85 years the World Series trophy aluded Boston. For 85 years, one of the most renowned teams in MLB history, with some of the best players to ever play the game, could not win the games that mattered. Some child named Bud was born, raised a Red Sox fan, had kids, raised his kids to love the Red Sox, taught his grandkids to love the Red Sox, and raised his great grandkids to love the Red Sox, all before he witnessed his team win it all.

The Minnesota Vikings are in their 53rd season. 53 years without a Super Bowl victory. That's a long time. And to be honest, I'd love to not have to wait another 32. But after talking to two of my closest Vikings friends a great deal, I've had some new discoveries on what it means to be a Vikings fan (or any sports fan in general).

The Question

Why do I watch sports? Why do I spend hours on the internet reading rumor blogs about who we are going to trade or what quarterback we are going to start? Is it simply in hopes of winning a Super Bowl? Of course not. No fan expects to win the Super Bowl every single year. If that was the case, cities like Cleveland, Miami, Oakland, and frankly, Minneapolis wouldn't be filling stadiums every week or selling jerseys.

So what is it? What keeps us fans, whose teams just can't seem to win it, watching?

Divorce

Let me change the question around a little bit. Why do husbands and wives stay together? I've talked to married couples who have had years of rough patches - years where it seemed like it just might not work. Yet, they stayed together. Yet, sadly, the divorce rates are sky high, because couples are simply not willing to work through those days, months, and years. Divorce is commonplace now.

In the same way, fans are divorcing their teams at an alarming rate.

"It's a waste of three hours. They are going to lose anyway."
"They don't care about me. Why should I care about them?"
"They just make me mad. I literally get in bad moods because of them, and they just keep breaking my heart."

It's true. I have spent untold hours watching car commercials waiting for the game to come back on that we lose 41-0.

It's true. Most the Vikings don't care about me.

It's true. They make me mad and make me cry. When the Saints beat the 2009 Vikings I literally cried myself to sleep. I felt sick the entire week. Sick to my stomach.

And now here I am. Here we are. The Vikings are 1-6 and things are a mess. Our quarterback situation is simply mind-boggling, our coaching staff is nearly incompetent, and fans are left thinking, "Is it finally time to give up?"

We were even discussing the pros of trading Jared Allen or Adrian Peterson.

Commitment

Marriage is all about commitment. It's about choosing to keep the relationship no matter how good or bad. In sickness and health. That's the kind of fan I want to be.

The Minnesota Vikings and I are in therapy right now. We have some issues. I don't like the way I've been treated this year. And yet, some of my greatest life memories are with them. Do I just throw those away? Do I not accept the good with the bad? After all, it's only been 4 years since we were a field goal away from a Super Bowl birth. That's not that long. We made it to the playoffs last year. That's not long at all.

Conclusion

Do the Vikings suck this year? Yes. Will the suck next year? Maybe. But I know that Allen is sweating and bleeding to get to that quarterback. I know Adrian Peterson won't go down until both his pumping legs are firmly bound. And I know that whoever is playing quarterback is doing everything he can day in and day out to learn the position and succeed.

This season has not been a success for the Vikings. So, I choose to make it a memorable season as a fan. I will remember 2013 as the year I chose to commit to the Minnesota Vikings for the rest of my life.

....

The Red Sox just won it all. One day...some day...I'll know what it's like.

Anakin Skywalker and the Minnesota Vikings

The person who invented bacon said something once, that I think Vikings fans can take heart in.

"The best meat usually doesn't come from a pigskin."

Now, I totally made that up, but that imaginary person does raise a good point. Let me explain. No there is no time. Let me sum up.

The Vikings started out the season with a loss to Detroit. I wouldn't wish an opening loss to the Lions on anyone in this world (except the Packers and Saints).

BUT

That wasn't the end of the world. We put up a good fight, Peterson had a great run. Not the end of the season.

Week two: A nail-biter loss to Chicago. Should we have won? Yes. Is Chicago on the road an okay game to lose if we were 1-0? - absolutely. So we are 0-2. No big deal.

Week three: Literally the ugliest 60 minutes of football I have ever witnessed...and I was at the fifty yard line to watch it all unfold. To be honest, a little part of me wanted to lose by the end. To have won would have been like stomping on a little bunny until it was almost dead, and then letting it crawl away like Anakin Skywalker after Obi Wan cut off most of his limbs in Revenge of the Sith. Imagine how much better the Galaxy would have been if Obi Wan had just killed him!

That's why I was glad the Vikings lost. It gave them time to think. In fact, they had an entire plane ride to England to think about it. Here is what I imagine some of them thinking...

Locke: "Christian Ponder's skill level is perfect for a punter. Lots of play time. Let's keep this up."
Cassell: "Time for redemption!"
Allen: "This sucks. How'd it come to this? Cleveland!?"
Ponder: "I'm in biiiiiiiiig trouble."
Frazier: "As long as the guys are having fun..."
Adrian Peterson: "I'm going to kill that defense. 400 yards baby! GET OUT OF MY WAY!"

And then they went on to barely beat one of the worst teams in the NFL, leaving us fans about the exact same place we were last week. So now we have a whole nother week to look at the schedule and convince ourselves that somehow we can still make the wild card in a terrible NFC.

Frazier says Ponder is our guy. I truly wish he would ask the fans their opinion. It's nothing against Ponder. He got his Masters degree which is super cool. I just think the NFL is depriving him of his book smarts, and all the ways he could be impacting the world.

I'm not saying Cassell is the answer. He's not. And neither is Webb or Favre or Tebow.

I've rambled on a long time to finally come to my conclusion - a conclusion which took me a while to come to, and even when I had come to it, I went into denial for several more days before accepting it.

The Minnesota Vikings.........................are not a good football team.

Blutnly...we are bad.

We are not a good team with a few missing pieces. We are a bad team.

It's okay. You can argue that. I don't mind. The denial stage can be very severe.

But...once you come around, it's really a wonderful feelings. It's kind of like coming to grips with the fact that Anakin is bad. Because only once you accept the fact that Anakin is bad, can you begin to put together the pieces to making him good again. You can't tweak Anakin to make him good again. Padme tried that, and look where it got her. It was a process. New people had to come into the picture and old people had to leave.

As wise and awesome as Yoda and Obi Wan were, they would not be the rescuers of the Galaxy. And as good as AP and Allen are, I fear they will not wear the rings. They will be the guides. Allen will live in a swamp and Peterson will become an electric/sort of invisible person.

Once you accept that the Vikings are bad, everything changes. You start rooting for news things. Instead of whining about Ponder (which is so easy to do), you can cheer him on in his successes (as we did Luke Skywalker).

If you want a little history lesson, look at Eli Manning's first seasons with the Giants.

You can get excited about the little things. Little plays. Little drives. Little decisions that show progress.

I may secretly be saying all of this in hopes of an anti-jinx in which we suddenly become good, but there's also a lot of truth to it.

So come on, put on those jerseys and cheer on the Minnesota Vikings until you lose your voice. Because no matter how bad they are, and how ugly the game is, one day we will be good again, and in some strange, twisted, only a Minnesotan could understand sort of way, it will all be worth it.

The Night I Pee My Pants

There are two nights of the year that I pee my pants. The first comes in December. The pants usually start getting wet around 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. I'm standing in our small country church - holding a candle - singing Silent Night - knowing that after that closing song, I will rush home to open wonderful presents brought by the bearded man in red.

It's Christmas Eve

The second comes in September. The pants usually start getting wet around 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. I'm sitting at my computer in my country home - watching Vikings highlights - weeping over the '98 season...again - day-dreaming of a perfect Ponder-Jennings TD connection - a 3,000-yard season for Peterson - and most importantly...a Super Bowl ring.

It's Minnesota Vikings Opener

I don't have a lot to say in this blog. To be honest, I didn't watch much of Preseason. But let's face it, the preseason means about as much as a Monopoly dollar bill.

So...thoughts for week one.

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We're playing the Lions. If we lose, it'll mean one of three things.

1. We suck.

2. The Lions are finally good.

3. The 2013 Vikings may need a week or two to get things rolling.

Consequences...

1. Bummer. Back to watching Randy Moss highlights.

2. Not necessarily a bad things - Lions could potentially beat other NFC North teams as well.

3. We don't have time to get things rolling. The Vikings need to come out of the gates winning. I'm talking 3-5 straight victories. I don't care if they are ugly. I don't care if every point comes from the foot of Walsh. We need to make a statement, get Peterson back to crushing defenses and most importantly,
give number 7 some confidence.

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Goals for Game One

1. 100+ yards for Ponder
2. A big catch for Patterson
3. Consistent connections with Jennings
4. No injuries for Peterson

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Peeing my pants, bleeding purple and anticipating no sleep,

James Knoop

Every Vikings Fan's Story

Episode One: Training Camp

Vikings football - Is it just a game?

Football.

It’s just a game.

The National Football League.

It’s just an organization flooded with over-paid, murdering, sexually harassing, arrogant, stupid, athletic boys who never turned into men.

Is that true?

Or…

Could it be that there’s something almost sacred about football, and undeserving boys simply invade it – like sin in the Garden of Eden?

I know individuals on both sides of the argument. I understand fans pour their money and attention into a game, while billions of people live on less than $2 a day. I get it.

But I also cried myself to sleep on January 24, 2010, after watching Drew Brees and the Saints capitalize on a turnover-plagued Vikings performance – a game, which aside from pure New Orleans fate should have been won by the purple from the North.

Why?

Why do I watch interviews of training camp from a team that has done nothing but lose three NFC championships in my lifetime? I’m not talking about those fans that have replica Super Bowl rings they can hold and reminisce with whenever they please. I’m talking about those of us who bleed purple and gold (or perhaps you poor blue and white bleeders). I’m talking about those of us who sit and squat and stand and jump and crumble in our living rooms year after year as yet another title evades us, sometimes by 16 games (again, I’m sorry Lions fans), and sometimes by a wide left field goal from the foot of a perfect kicker or 12 men on the field in the closing seconds.

Why?

Why am I sitting in bed, listening to emotional music, praying to God that this is the year the Vikings might win the Super Bowl?

Because it’s not just a game. Not even close.

When I sit in my living room, willing Christian Ponder to complete that pass, grunting as Adrian Peterson strives to break another tackle, something is happening to me. Somehow (I’m not sure exactly how), when they succeed, so do I.

That’s how I know it’s not just a game. I know it’s not a waste of time. Because when the Vikings lose, they mourn with me in my failures in life as well. And when they win, together we forget the bad things, we forget the yesterdays and celebrate the future.

And when they bring that title to Minnesota, whether it be February of 2014 or when I’m a 75-year-old grandpa in a rocking chair – on that day, I will know that anything is possible.