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.
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