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.

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

Let us be the first to welcome you to Week 3 of the Minnesota Vikings 2025 season, and more specifically to Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood. As in new Viking, Isaiah Rodgers, a man who became a legend by single handedly winning a NFL football game while playing cornerback! How is this even possible? It requires a stat line for the ages:

An interception Pick-6 for a touchdown
A forced fumble and recovery for a touchdown
Another forced fumble just to show off, like adding bacon to a perfectly good grilled cheese

We know that Rodgers won a Super Bowl with the Eagles last year. We know that he has 4.27 / 40-yard dash speed. But a new Vikings hasn’t emerged on the scene like this, since a lanky wide receiver named Randy Moss blew our minds.

Until yesterday, the closest Rodgers was to being “one of us” was his Monday Night Football intro where he said he was from “The Blake School,” a revelation that had a few upper crust Minnesotans (most with Roman numerals in their names and sweaters tied around their necks) quite excited, only to find out Rodgers didn’t go to that Blake School.

Sure, Brian Flores was coaching against a Joe Burrow-less Bengals, but that doesn’t change the fact that his defense somehow put up 22 fantasy points yesterday. Legendary. Harry “the Hitman” Smith was back, Van Ginkel was running around like Thor. It was magnificent.

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

We know Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was more about King Friday than it was the King James, but based on Isaiah Rodgers Week 3 coming out party, we decided to dive into the Book of Isaiah to see if there might be some clues to where this Vikings season is headed. All you have to do is read this passage from Isaiah 64:6, to see being a Vikings fan has a lot more in common with the Old Testament than the New:

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

Well, that was a bit of a bible buzzkill, so let’s jump back into the Mr. Rodgers metaphor as shriveling doesn’t seem like a great game plan.

NEW SWEATER #11

The big news Week 3 was that “the kid” J.J. McCarthy was injured, and veteran Carson Wentz was going to be stopping by Mr. Rodgers closet to put on his new purple Vikings sweater. This quarterback change was intriguing on so many levels.

First, watching Coach Kevin O’Connell observe McCarthy’s slow processor struggling for seven of eight quarters this season, even had the “Quarterback Whisperer” looking like he wanted to scream into his pillow. O’Connell’s face Week 2 looked like he was thinking, “I could jump into this offense myself right now and do a better job than the kid is doing.” So much so that most Vikings fans seem to think a conversation went down something like this at TCO Performance Center:

O’Connell: J.J., you’re hurt.

McCarthy: I am?

O’Connell: Yep, you’re hurt pretty bad, actually. Like 2-4 weeks hurt.

McCarthy: Sounds good. I got a new baby and stuff. That works.

Enter Carson Wentz, the perfect everyman replacement. Despite basically leading the Eagles to a Super Bowl before getting injured, the present day 32-year-old Wentz gives “guy bagging your groceries” vibes all day long.

WEST DAKOTA

All Mr. Rodgers had to do was point at a map and show us that Minnesota was really just East Dakota, to make it obvious that Wentz could be the next in the great line of Vikings replacement quarterbacks for fans to get over excited about. Wentz was from North Dakota, had that blue collar grit playing for North Dakota State, and he was even a Vikings fan growing up.

Is Carson Wentz the Vikings next “Ginger Jesus” like Sam Darnold last year? Only time will tell, but 14 for 20, 173 yards and 2 touchdowns isn’t too shabby for a guy we expected to be asking us “paper or plastic?” Not to mention the Vikings nearly eclipsed the franchise’s all time point total in single game (54) in Carson’s first start for the team.

Yes, “Clipboard Carson” looked pretty good behind the wheel of O’Connell’s purple Maserati. Turns out this offense can do just fine with a game manager at the helm. If this goes in typical Vikings fashion, we expect Wentz to be brilliant for a couple weeks and then have a Charlie Sheen like fall from grace. Are we being cynical? Maybe not, just roll up your sleeves and look at that Josh Dobbs “Passtronaut” tattoo you’ve been saving up to get removed.

MASE FEELS SO GOOD

Not even Diddy could bring down Jordan Mason right now. Mase had us feeling so good again with 116 yards rushing and two touchdowns on just 16 carries. Dude is an absolute stud reminding us that Vikings GM “Kwesi-moto” Adofo Mensah should get more love for bringing Mason in this off season from San Francisco. Based on how hard Mase runs the ball, we expect him to keep dropping those beats for the foreseeable future, “Yo, what you know about goin' out Head west, red Lex, TV's all up in the headrest.” Bad Boy for life.

PURPLE PASSPORTS

In summary, it’s happening again. Our hopes are trending up. We caught the Bengals without “Toe Burrow,” and now the Vikings head to Europe to play what appears to be two mediocre opponents in the 2-1 Steelers and the 1-2 Browns.

Uh oh. We can feel our purple hearts swelling. We can see ourselves talking to strangers on the street about how Carson Wentz really won that Super Bowl, not Nick Foles.

It’s times like these that we need to, once again, turn to the book of Isaiah, specifically Isaiah 7:9, a passage that seems like it was written specifically for long suffering Vikings fans: “If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.”

There you have it, Vikings fans. Pick up some Guinness, cook up some steak and eggs on your Blackstone grills with the early Sunday start from Dublin this weekend, and enjoy this time sitting at 2-1 atop the NFC North (thanks Browns), in Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood where “it’s such a good feeling, to know you’re alive.”

Epilogue: Donate to a Good Cause

Please don’t forget to join us in donating after each Viking win.

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SKOL!!

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