SKÖLIOSIS WEEK 15: Shamash Mouth Football — Vikings 34, Dallas 26
If anyone knows what it’s like to be a loyal fan of the Purple, it’s the readers of SKÖLIOSIS — your weekly reminder that being a Vikings fan is bad for your health.
Tis The (End of the) Season
It’s officially the Holiday Season, which kicked off this past Sunday Night with the start of Hanukkah about the same time our Vikings took the field against the Dallas Cowboys. A game that saw our Purple officially eliminated from playoff contention before kickoff, after the Bears had beaten the lowly Browns earlier in the day, mathematically eliminating us from contention. Damn you math. You ruin everything. On the bright side, we got to watch our Vikings worry free, liberated from the stress and anxiety of failed expectations. Not unlike opening the present under the tree that we already knew was hand knit underwear from Aunt Bea because we caught a peak at her wrapping it while sipping on the egg nog, giving us a few hours to diffuse our disappointment and practice our mock appreciation and surprise instead. “Underwear, just what I wanted, you're the best Aunt Bea!!”
And I have to say, it was quite wonderful to not care so much about the outcome for a change. To not fret every little miscue and sweat the final results. We got to just watch some football like it was any other game. We got to watch our boys play “The Boys” on a Primetime stage where our only role left in the season was to play spoiler. Like a Christmas Grinch, ruining the holidays for those Texas Boy’s, the Jerry Joneses and Matthew McConaughey’s by delivering a big fat L to the Big D. A lump of coal for Texas oil country.
Sure we got a little help from our Secret Santa Brandon Aubrey who uncharacteristically missed more field goals during the game then he’s missed all year, having trouble getting the ball between the goal posts (Malone) on two occasions. Many of us were hoping for a third miss in that final minute so Matt McConaughey could adapt his catch phrase of “alright, alright, alright” to “wide right, wide right, wide right,” but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. The two early misses were more than enough to help us get the win.
The important thing is we got the gift of a victory on the first day of Hanukkah. Even if God did make the Cowboys on the 8th day, he didn’t make them playoff contenders, because of our Vikings. Add that to your face tattoo collection Posty. More important than the win, and playing the spoiler, we got to see continued growth and development from our young QB J.J. McGriddy, and watched him collect his 4th win and counting, which really ain’t too shabby for a red-shirt rookie when you think about it. Consider Jaxson Dart only has 2 wins so far this season. Drake Maye had 4 in his rookie season and Caleb Williams had 5 in his, and both are shoo-ins for the playoffs just this one year later. Our boy has a chance to best them all with 3 games left. So while our playoff hopes may be dashed, at least we have something to watch for, am I right? Because we all know we love counting who has the most Christmas presents and rookie wins under the Christmas tree.
The Shamash
Being raised a Norwegian Lutheran Kid, I have to admit I don’t know much about Hanukkah, other than like most Christian kids that it seemed like a pretty awesome deal with eight whole days of celebration versus our one and a half (were counting X-mas Eve as a half day holiday) for Christmas. Which did make me recently wonder, why does a Menorah have nine candles on it instead of eight? With a little help from google I learned the ninth candle, the one in the middle set apart higher in the menorah from the others is called the “Shamash,” which means helper, used to light the other candles, symbolizing divine light and human action. It's the servant candle used to bring light to the other 8.
How perfect that our own number 9 brought a spark on the first night of Hannukah, lighting a spark on this Viking team by playing his best game yet. Unfortunately, while he seems to have lit a spark under most of the offense the past two weeks, we have to admit, we are worried about his lack of chemistry with Justin Jefferson. I guess the Shamash only lights 8 candles, not 10, so it makes sense someone on this starting offense is going to be left out. But I think we can all agree, we really miss watching Jettas run wild and free, having him flash that mega watt smile with his mouth full of tinsel grilled teeth while shattering every wide receiver record known to man. O’ Brother where art though? We miss ya.
Trading Places
Which really begs the question, why can’t J.J. connect with JJ? Are they like two positive ends of a battery? Do we have some sort of quota on how many successful JJ’s we can have? Is our Christmas tree not strong enough to handle that many candy canes at once?
Watching J.J. Junior doing a five yard griddy while bootlegging into the end zone Sunday night, you had to wonder if J.J. Senior was gritting his grill some, watching as this young kid steals his dance, vultures his TD’s while seemingly unable to complete simple passes to him over the last month. It’s as if McCarthy has developed some sort of Chuck Knoblauch yips when throwing to first base, only in this case Justin Jefferson is the first base. Jefferson should be the easy connection, but J.J. can’t seem to make the throw, or when he does Jefferson seems so surprised the ball goes right through his hands. Meanwhile the kid can throw darts on the run jumping off of one leg to every tight end on the roster and hit Jalen Nailor with his eyes closed.
You gotta wonder if Justin Jefferson is starting to feel like Trading Places’ Louise Winthorpe the third while Billy J.J. Valentine is stealing his life. Where are old Mortimer and Randolph these days anyway? Are we sure they aren’t responsible for this? Let’s just hope we don’t see Justin Jefferson eating stolen buffet salmon through a raggedy old beard anytime soon, because I’m worried that’s where he might be headed if we can’t get these two some chemistry soon.
Happy Holidays
Closing the loop on the Hanukkah thing, the other thing we learned is that Hanukkah (also spelled Chanukah) means “Dedication” in Hebrew. Which we suppose is also appropriate timing. Because it would be easy to give up on the Vikings and the season now that we are officially out of the playoff hunt. But us true fans won’t. Because we are dedicated. We are here for the long haul. In it for thick and thin. Through the good times and the bad. Yeah, this year has definitely been more of the latter. But we are still here. Still tuning in each Sunday and hopefully we can see young JJ stack a few more wins into his Christmas Stocking and older JJ find a way to get himself another 1000 yard season (168 yards to go). More importantly maybe we can see them establish some chemistry, and build some momentum going into next year. That’s what I’m putting on my Christmas Wish List anyway. We have a lot to be hopeful for. A lot to be thankful for. Hell, young JJ is literally HALF the age of Old Man Rivers that started for the Colts on the same Sunday. 22 vs 44. J.J. currently is the youngest QB in the NFL, even despite his 1 year injury sabbatical last year. So, yeah, maybe it's been a rough year. But it's been a growing year, and our future is bright.
So with that, whether you're celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Bodhi Day, Yule or just celebrating your stupid Bears making the playoffs, whatever your religion, whatever is your thing, may it be filled with Peace and Joy. Joy with lots of capital J’s.
Well maybe not the Bears one. They can go suck a candy cane. ( ;
Skol!!
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SKOL!!
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