SKÖLIOSIS WEEK 17: PURPLE HEARTS — Vikings 23, Lions 10
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.
Let Bygones Be Bygones
Every year my wife and I do this thing where we go out to eat at the end of the year and we make predictions for what our next year will look like. Guessing where we’ll be the following year around the same time. Will we live someplace new? Will we have the same jobs? Will I finally be able to wear my skinny jeans? Will my wife be blonde, brunette or is she going to try the spicy red again? This also includes, of course, pulling up our predictions from the previous year and usually laughing at how wrong we were. Because the future is elusive. It zigs when you think it will zag. It seems like there are thousands of different futures, but of course there is only just one. We just don’t know which one. Guessing the Vikings future from season to season on the other hand, is usually much more predictable. Because we know it ends in heartbreak. This is the cross we Purple fans bear.
Our biggest question mark is not if our hearts will be broken again, it is only how and at what point of the season they will be broken. Will it be like last season's heartbreak, where our Super Bowl dreams came crashing down all at once in a relocated playoff game in Arizona, watching as our recently anointed Ginger Jesus got sacked 9 times by an inspired Rams Defense, after playing at a MVP level all year? Or would it be a slow death like this year? A death by a thousand sacks or wide receiver dropped passes kind of heartbreak. Watching as our team with high preseason hopes kicked off the first game behind our newly prized red shirt rookie QB with a thrilling come from behind victory over the Bears, only to follow it up with a series of duds and mysterious injuries that had us wrapping the human BAND-AID, Carson Wentz, around our bleeding hearts for a dreadful series of weeks, until he proved to be an inadequate tourniquet and had our season bleeding out again.
The good news is that Thursday’s festive Christmas Day game was our last game of 2025. Number 12 Max Brosmer concluded our 12th month of the year with another anemic QB performance that couldn’t quite get our Purple blood flowing, but inexplicably managed a victory despite only 3 net passing yards.
The end of each year is when we’re supposed to let bygones be bygones, which means to “forget past offenses.” Is it possible KOC and the Purple Sunshine Band misread that, and thought we were supposed to completely forget how to run a ”pass offense?” There is a T in there Coach K. A letter T. PAST not PASS.
Lucky for Netflix, despite the lack of offense by either team, the game was still semi-entertaining thanks to Snoop Doggy Flores doing “Flores Things” to Jared Goff for 3 hours that produced twice as many turnovers as our offense did passing yards (6 Turnovers vs 3 Net Passing Yards).
The other bright side of Thursday’s game was the Vikings finally got a rushing touchdown of over 50 yards; with Jordan Addison’s jet sweep scamper to seal the game. A 65-yarder that was the longest rushing touchdown rush from someone not named Dalvin Cook in the Kevin O’Connell era. Which may not be a ringing endorsement for Coach KOC’s offensive ability to generate explosive running plays, and perhaps is also a reminder of how much we miss Dalvin Cooking in our kitchen, especially over the holidays.
So with that, how about we do a little look back on the season, in hopes that it will help us look forward. Let’s make our top 5 predictions for the 2026 season, via a reverse Ball Drop Countdown to ring in the New Year.
FIVE!! Speaking of Ball Drops…
While it might have seemed like our Vikings had the most dropped passes in the league this year, turns out in fact they were right in the middle of the pack with 19 drops, tied for 15th in the league. Who had the most drops this year? The Jacksonville Jaguars with 43. Who is the Vikings Wide Receiver Coach currently, and where did he come from? Keenan McCardell, who spent most of his career playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Coincidence? Actually, yes. Most definitely. The reality is while the Vikings tied for 15th in quantity of drops, the Vikings percentage of drops was the highest per pass play, meaning we were only the middle of the pack because we threw so little compared to the rest of the NFL.
When J.J. McCarthy was throwing, he was seeing a nearly 15% drop rate of his passes. Which was most likely because he was putting too much “mustard” on his passes as they say.
Can’t we just picture J.J. crashing a receiver meeting in his Hot Dog suit trying to help Coach McCardell solve the mystery of why the sharp increase in dropped passes this year? “Who’s responsible for this mustard everywhere?”
Next Year Prediction: Our drop rate decreases back to one of the lowest in the league after Coach Keenan hacks the jug machines to throw at lethal speeds during training camp. Unfortunately we lose TJ Hockenson whose hands shatter the first time the machine is used, but it's for the greater good, as the team learns to catch rockets.
FOUR!! Or Should We Say FORE!!
Will Reichard seemingly could have had a perfect season kicking if not for TWO misses that many fans believed hit overhead camera wires, resulting in Zapruder-like film analysis and dissections across the land. Otherwise Will was lights out, hitting 30 of 32 kicks, with 11 of those over 50 yards and 4 over 59 yards. But perhaps he should adopt the Golf “Fore” warning to help the camera man out.
Next Season Prediction: Will Reichard switches to cloth hangers and sells his DVD collection of The Wire on eBay. More importantly he continues his stellar run into next season, but adds 5 walk-off game winners to his credentials, as an improved Vikings team plays in more important games. Reichard official becomes our closer.
THREE!!
We started the season with number 3 serving a 3 game suspension as a result of his “wet reckless” plea stemming from a DUI that found him sleeping in his car by LAX airport. Getting a little too relaxed at the LAX it seems. This caused a butterfly effect of the Vikes trading for Adam Theilen, only to tease us with this presence but never really use him. Addison also missed a half in London for again getting too “relaxed” and oversleeping at a morning meeting. Addison has also been the biggest offender of dropped passes this season leading the team with 6.
Next Season Prediction: Jordan Addison’s career will hit a next level as he becomes a top 10 receiver after completing a sleep study with our mad scientist team doctors who get him snoozing instead of boozing. Unfortunately, his big year is for the Buffalo Bills as Josh Allen unleashes the beast.
TWO!! - I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!!
Apparently, the Thomas Jefferson Two Dollar Bills are not printed annually, but periodically. Usually about every other year, which seems to be a similar trajectory for our own Justin Jefferson, who has every other year either been chasing the “2 Bills” mark of being on pace for 2,000 yards. Alternated with having years like this year where he is scratching and clawing his way to the 1000 yard mark, usually due to injuries, or to our fleet of fragile QB’s he has been forced to adapt to over the last 5 years. And as Jefferson goes, the Purple goes. When he is tracking for closer to the 2K mark, we are a playoff team. But when we have trouble feeding him, well, you get a year like this year.
All we know is we are all for pleading the treasurer to start printing two dollars bills every year - cause we want our Two Dollars. Cash. Let’s get the Better Off Dead paperboy working on the collection for us until we get our old Justin Jefferson back.
Next Year Prediction: Justin Jefferson returns to glory, putting up 2000 yards and more importantly a healthy dose of TDs to boot with over 10 playing with his new and improved QB, who goes by his newly adopted alter ego NUEVE…
ONE!! Can We Just Win ONE!!
In the end, the best part of Thursday’s game was seeing Harry the Hitman play one of his career best games with 3 tackles, 2 for a loss, 1 INT and 1 sack. He was the maestro of this epic Christmas Nutcracker performance, and he got emotional in his post game interview, leaving many to speculate this could be Harry’s last season.
Which very well could hinge on whether we can retain Coach Flores for another year who’s contract is up this year, meaning he could easily be poached by another team.
Next Year Prediction: Both Flo and the Hitman sign up for one more Tour of Duty, bringing it back for one more season together, just for the fans.
Next Year Prediction: Purple Hearts Club
Who knows whether any of those predictions will come true. Like we said, the future is elusive. But there is one prediction we can count on. That prediction is regardless of where the Vikings are at this time next year, the fans will still be here. Because that’s life’s one constant. We don’t run off to Canada to avoid the Purple War. We stick it out. We fight through the pain. We show up. That’s what Purple Hearts do. Just like Harry the Hitman said. And even though we’ll probably never see a Super Bowl in our lifetime . . . even Harrison Smith stopped short of saying long suffering Vikings fans would eventually get their Super Bowl in his emotional postgame interview, as if not believing it himself. But The Hitman knows we’ll still be here either way. Cause that’s what we do. We endure.
And just for kicks, our final prediction is that next year is the year where we finally win the big one. Next year is our year. Vikings are Super Bowl Champs. One of these years we’ll be right. Might as well be next year.
Skol!!
Epilogue: Donate to a Good Cause
Please don’t forget to join us in donating after each Viking win.
Join us in donating @ https://www.scoliosis.org/donate/
SKOL!!
NETWORK PARTNERS
