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.

Losing sucks.

Maybe we had forgotten that a little.

For the last 11 games, being a Vikings fan was a lot like living in California. It’s always 70 and sunny. Always perfect. So much so that eventually you start taking it for granted.

You stop packing umbrellas and rain ponchos and galoshes.

Galoshes?

Dammit. I really am in my 50s.

Eventually you stop checking the weather app altogether. You cavalierly schedule picnics and outdoor weddings without even considering the forecast.

You just assume sunshine.

These past couple of months we have just assumed every Sunday would be a victorious Sunday for our Vikings.

Then this past Sunday we felt a couple raindrops.

We looked toward the sky. Storm clouds were gathering. The threat of a loss was suddenly very real.

Nah.

It’ll blow over.

Until it didn’t.

And suddenly we were all inexplicably diving over wedding cake tables like that guy in the Guns N’ Roses November Rain video, desperately trying to escape the rain as that old familiar purple panic of losing set in.

Which, by the way, has anyone ever gotten an explanation for why that dude chose to Fosbury Flop over the wedding cake rather than just let his flowing locks get a little wet? I mean, that was a serious over reaction. no?

I guess now that we have the internet I could finally look this kind of stuff up eh?

Which is a lesson to all you millennials reading this—

Ha. Who am I kidding. Obviously we don’t have any millennial readers.

But seriously, this is the kind of stuff your parents had to deal with growing up in the ’90s. Questions like this could linger for YEARS. There was no Google. No Reddit thread. No AI. Questions that kept us up at night because we had no internet to search for answers or share our endless ridiculous fan theories, leaving us staring lost and confused at our bedroom ceilings.

Which, come to think of it, is pretty much how Kevin O’Connell looks on the Vikings sideline these days.

Lost.

Confused.

Staring into the middle distance while his toddler-sized quarterback and offense wander around the field, apparently with no answers for how to make them good again or stack our Jenga tower of wins any higher.

Kevin, we have the internet now.

USE IT.

Search Reddit.

Ask Claude.

Ask ChatGPT.

Try this Prompt:

“My offense suddenly sucks and Justin Jefferson has to tip passes to himself because my mini QB is tossing them like catapulted water balloons out a trench. What should I do?”

Maybe there’s a QB Whisperer subreddit.

Because we can’t handle this anymore.

Anyway, does it seem like I’m stalling right now?

Filibustering?

I am.

Because I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF ANYMORE.

I don’t know who I am.

Where do we go from here?

My confidence is shattered.

Some of us got a little too attached to that undefeated swagger we had been carrying around these past two months like a magical little Baby Yoda. Like a Harry Potter invisibility cloak to hide from the misery of defeat.

Seriously, it had been so long that we’d forgotten what losing felt like.

That weird Sunday-night malaise where the food doesn’t taste quite as good. The beer isn’t quite as cold. The sunset seems a little less colorful. You just watched 30 minutes of Dancing with the Stars without even realizing it in your fugue state.

Your wife asks what you want to watch and you say:

“I don’t care.”

And you REALLY mean it.

Is this what Ozempic feels like?

The Vikings win streak made Mondays feel like Fridays. It put a little pep in our step. It gave us those little Easter eggs of joy from watching non-Vikings fans lose their minds every week while insisting we were frauds.

And then we’d win again.

And again.

For 11 straight games life was colorful.

Purple skies.

Purple Kool-Aid.

Purple everything.

Like summer never ended.

Then the calendar flipped one page.

October became November. Oct to Nov.

And apparently November hates the Vikings.

Welcome to…

NO-V.

As in:

NO VICTORY November.

And NO-V sucks.

Damn that cold November rain.

NOVEMBER IS A BULLY

With the calendar officially flipping to November this past weekend, the Vikings immediately suffered their first loss since…

You guessed it.

Last November.

It seems November is our Bermuda Triangle. It’s Scott Farkus’s Neighborhood that we need to start taking the long way around.

Last November the Vikings went 1-4 before finally escaping that godforsaken month and rattling off 11 consecutive victories spanning the end of last season and beginning of this one.

September loves us.

October appears to be a subscriber.

December at least still invites us to its Christmas parties.

But November?

What the hell did the Vikings ever do to November?

Did we forget its birthday?

Did we see November’s Instagram post and not like it?

Did November notice we watched its story but didn’t leave a comment?

Did Minnesota hook up with November’s sister in college and never call her again?

Because this feels personal.

Eleven straight victories.

Then midnight hits October 31st, the calendar flips over and November is standing there waiting for us like:

“Oh. You assholes again.”

And I did a little research.

Apparently the Anglo-Saxons called November Blōtmōnaþ, roughly associated with a month of sacrifice, and in Finnish November is marraskuu, traditionally associated with death.

Oh.

Cool.

BLOOD, SACRIFICE AND DEATH. Another way to say that might be BILLS, PACKERS, 49ERS, AND FALCONS—the teams remaining on the Vikings November schedule.

That seems encouraging.

So burn some sage.

Do a rain dance.

Sacrifice a frozen pizza.

Send November an Edible Arrangement.

Whatever we did, apologize. We need to get off November’s shit list before its too late.

WHO EXACTLY IS DAYLIGHT SAVING?

And because the universe apparently has a sense of humor, daylight saving time gave us an extra hour this weekend.

Great.

Exactly what Vikings fans needed.

Another hour to think about that game.

People always say daylight saving time gives you an extra hour of sleep.

Poppycock.

It gave us an extra hour to wallow.

Maybe that’s why they call it Fall Back.

Because apparently we’re falling back into our old losing ways.

And who exactly are we saving daylight for anyway?

You know what needs saving?

Kevin O’Connell’s offensive genius.

Can we turn THAT clock back?

Remember QB Whisperer KOC?

This guy once plugged Passtronaut Josh Dobbs into an offense with basically 45 minutes of preparation and somehow had him playing quarterback like Tumi Lamar Jackson which most of us would easily settle for.

Where did THAT guy go?

At this point KOC’s QB Whisperer membership has expired and I’m declining the auto-renewal option until one of his quarterbacks throws for 300 yards and three touchdowns. Rememeber when QBs used to do that? Or when running backs like Robert Smith or Michael Bennett or Dalvin Cook would suddenly bust off a 50 yard TD scamper? We haven't seen one of those in so long I am not even sure they are legal in today's game. Oh right - Jahmyr Gibbs just did that against our number one defense.

Anyway, whatever this offense is right now, it certainly isn’t offensive genius.

It’s just…

Offensive.

Meanwhile the Lions OC is lining up plays where he has Ahman St. Brown 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage on a screen pass, getting a full head of steam as he catches the ball and coming at our tired D like a missile. Where is that kind of ingenuity?

MAYBE WE SHOULD BECOME DOLPHINS FANS

Just throwing this out there in a moment of weakness.

What if we adopt the Miami Dolphins as our second favorite team?

Because I think they discovered a football loophole.

Every year, members of that undefeated 1972 Dolphins team famously celebrate when the NFL’s final unbeaten team loses, preserving their status as the league’s only perfect Super Bowl-era team. Also - you're welcome Miami fans. I hope you enjoyed your random November 1st Sunday afternoon champagne party at our expense.

Do you understand how brilliant this is?

THEIR TEAM DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO WIN.

While we were kicking pebbles down the sidewalk after the game, hands in our pockets, quietly muttering swear words at squirrels, Dolphins fans could celebrate somebody ELSE losing.

That’s genius.

We’ve been doing fandom completely wrong.

Instead of tying our happiness to our own team’s success, we tie it to everyone else’s failure. It’s basically what TikTok and Instagram have taught us to do anyway. It's what our modern society and politics is all about. We just need to start applying it to football now.

The Dolphins could go 3-14 and you’re still sitting there in November:

“GET THE CHAMPAGNE, MARTHA! THE BILLS LOST!”

I think I’m onto something here.

AND THEN IT STOPPED BEING FUNNY

There was one part of Sunday’s game that was harder to joke about.

Football is supposed to be fun.

We yell at televisions. We complain about play calling. We make stupid memes. I co-write ridiculous columns about November having a personal vendetta against the Minnesota Vikings.

But watching some of those injuries was disturbing. DJ Wonnum, a former Viking now Detroit Lion getting a pretty nasty concussion on a collision with his own player. And later a worse collision resulting in Jack Campbell, a rookie out of Iowa, down with what appeared to be a bad neck or back injury.

There is something incredibly uncomfortable about watching grown men openly bawling over an injured teammate—seeing genuine fear on their faces—and then realizing that a few minutes later they’re somehow expected to turn all of that off.

Put the helmet back on.

Buckle the chin strap.

The whistle blows. Resume play.

At that point the game becomes secondary.

And even sitting on the opposite side, I found myself wanting those guys to rally. Wanting them to get something out of the ugly day. It was like finding a toenail halfway through eating a slice of wedding cake. Some of us didn’t even want to watch anymore. We just wanted to push our unfinished plates of Vikings Football Cake into the middle of the table and call it a day. Appetite gone. So we turned the channel. Or we switched to radio.

But then after a few minutes we tuned back in, we couldn’t help ourselves but also were not sure what we wanted. Do we even want them to win still? Would that even feel good at this point?

Or is it better if the Lions win. Get some emotional salvation.

Some consolation prize for having to experience something that clearly shook everybody on that field.

Because every once in a while, football reminds you that underneath the fantasy points, gambling lines, memes, contracts and standings are actual human putting their bodies on the line for our entertainment.

So, here’s hoping everyone who went down Sunday is okay.

Here’s hoping the news is better than it looked.

And here’s hoping every one of them makes a full recovery.

As for us?

We’re 11-1 over our last 12.

The sky isn’t falling.

The season isn’t over.

We just got wet.

Let’s not all flying burrito into wedding cakes just to avoid a little rainy adversity.

Go find the umbrellas.

Dig the galoshes out of the closet.

Maybe sacrifice a frozen pizza to Blōtmōnaþ.

And for God’s sake, somebody get Kevin O’Connell the password to the QB Whisperer subreddit.

Because it’s November.

And apparently…

No-V is No Fun.

No one likes a Bully.

SKÖL.

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