SKÖLIOSIS WEEK 18: 10 THINGS THE 2025 VIKINGS TAUGHT US — Vikings 16, Packers 3
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.
#1 QUARTERBACK IS EVERYTHING
I had always had a hunch, and even usually bet on teams based on their quarterback and head coach. But I, apparently like the Vikings brass, grossly underestimated the negative impact of below average quarterback play on your NFL team. Turns out the quarterback is oxygen. Going into a season without a solid quarterback is like going into a war barefoot. And the worst part about it, is that the quarterback position is something that’s easy to obsess about. Being a Vikings fan has always been a roller coaster, but it turns out that when it’s a not-having-a-quarterback-with-opposable-thumbs-rollercoaster, it makes you feel sick.
#2 GREAT OFFENSE IS MORE FUN TO WATCH THAN GREAT DEFENSE
Make no mistake, Brian Flores is cool. Once again, we had a badass defense this year. It will never get old watching a Brian Flores defense turn a competent quarterback like Jared Goff into Brad Pitt at the end of Seven, “What’s in the box!” That said, when the other side of the ball is a 3 and out offense where best case scenario is winning a rock fight, the overall fan experience is greatly diminished. Simply put, there isn’t enough joy in watching a great defense with no offense. Which makes sense. Defense is about the minus, and the negative. It’s about taking things away and stops. Offense is the plus. Offense is about getting to eat and getting yours. Which is why 18 weeks of no offense and good defense still felt overly negative from a fan standpoint.
#3 NO ONE WANTS TO LIVE IN SHMUKTOWN
Another underrated bummer about having the Vikings underperform this season is we were often relegated to the “practice squad” broadcasting crew. Watching a NFL game and having your play-by-play and color guy sound like their last job was on the Minot late news, only reinforces how horrible the season is going. If you wanted proof the 2025 Vikings were living in Shmuktown this season, all you had to do was listen to the TV broadcast with JV announcers doing our games. I think the play-by-play guy used his analysts first name (Arch) approximately 112 times this week. It was like Drivers Education for broadcasting, and we had to sit in the back seat of the Taurus.
#4 SWARDSON AND DUHAMEL HELP
Minnesota isn’t exactly celebrity central. We don’t have Timothée Chalamet sitting courtside like the Knicks, or Will Ferrell on the glass like the Kings. But what Viking fans do have is the dynamic duo of Nick Swardson and Josh Duhamel. And when you go through a hard season like we did this year, having these two wing nuts in the fox hole with you was brilliant. A standout from the duo this season was when Duhamel popped on the KFAN radio broadcast for the Packers game this week. Not only did Duhamel seem juiced up like your standard turtleneck wearing Vikings rube (at one point referring to pass interference (PI) as IPA), before grilling Paul Allen about why in the world our quarterback would take himself out of a game for a finger boo boo. It was awesome. Stars, they’re just like us!
#5 IT’S SAFE TO BUY A HARRISON SMITH JERSEY
Harrison Smith is so cool. He’s like a Tim Riggins that talks less. I’m not saying I’d like to fall asleep with my head on the shoulder of his leather jacket on a couch with him, but I’d be open to buying Harrison Smith cologne if they made it. Even if he’s done playing, buy the jersey. Hall of fame. Harrison Smith is the coolest.
#6 WHEN YOUR KICKER IS A STAR IT’S A RED FLAG
It’s troublesome that when we reflect on the 2025 Vikings season, that one of the high points will be the play of kicker Will Reichard. Yes, it’s amazing for the Vikings to have a reliable kicker after the ghosts of seasons past. But let’s all remember the reason Will Reichard dating Sydney Sweeney became a meme was that it’s funny. And unfortunately, when your kicker is your biggest star, that means your team is the joke.
#7 GOD BLESS JUSTIN JEFFERSON
Justin Jefferson must have slept in a mouth guard, to stop grinding his teeth this season. And somehow through a rugged year where he watched his production essentially get cut in half as JJ2K struggled to eke out 1K in the last game of the year, he kept a positive attitude all year long. Sure we saw him staring at the jumbotron walking off the field after “Nine” rocketed another “Ninety-Nine” fastball 15 yards over his head on an out route. But you know what Jefferson never did? He never had the bad press conference; he never did the wide receiver pouty stuff. He didn’t punch a fan; he didn’t ask fantasy owners to drop him. He grinned and beared it like, well, like us Viking fans do. If the J.J. McCarthy experiment is going to continue into 2026, I can only hope that Jefferson kidnaps McCarthy, wipes the eye black off his face, and makes him train with him all summer long together to build some genuine chemistry.
#8 WE NEED SOME ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE TOP.
How we entered into this season, spending all that money, without a NFL-ready quarterback needs to be acknowledged. I don’t need heads to roll, but between Kwesi and “the quarterback whisperer” Coach O’Connell who left us fans SCREAMING at our televisions all season, I’d at least like one of them to acknowledge that they were the ones that took away our boots when we went to war. Darnold. Danny Dimes. Rogers. The least they can give us, long suffering Vikings fans after this season is a, “My bad.” They owe us that.
#9 NOT KNOWING IS THE WORST.
Of course we have to give #9 to “Nine.” I would have been fine if J.J. McCarthy gave us a big enough body of work to know he was terrible. I’m not rooting against him either. But a huge part of playing the quarterback position is staying on the field. The amount of self-diagnosed, mysterious injuries that “Nine” had this season was a worry. He seems like a guy going on WebMD, or worse, a modern-day player that needs to be 100% to play. In a league where Justin Herbert is playing with one arm, having your quarterback take himself out of a rivalry game with a sore finger was brutal. And the worst part about McCarthy being so injury prone, is we will enter the off season still not knowing what we have at the most important position. Yuck.
#10 IT’S A LONG SEASON.
Somehow, even with the mass grave that was the 2025 Vikings season, we finished with a winning record. Even with “Nine” sprinting to the blue tent, this team won 9 games. We were a special teams blunder in the Bears game away from making the playoffs. I’d never be the one to say the NFL season is too long, but the 18-game slate is like many seasons in one. Tampa Bay was the best team in the league before they were the worst. The Colts were Super Bowl champs before they missed the playoffs. What’s the message here? The message is don’t quit. You never know. Keep believing, because someday we’re going to get there. We are, and it’s going to be wonderful. Bloodshot eyes! Purple Hearts! Can’t Lose!
We’ll see you next season, SKOL!
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SKOL!!
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