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.
Okay, That Was Bad.
Admit it. We all did it. We all allowed ourselves to get super excited about Carson Wentz. And then he became Carson Wince.
Making matters way worse, it was a Monday Night Football game. There was A LOT of buildup. I was damn near hyperventilating by the time the Whiskey Myer’s guitarist completed his electric guitar National Anthem. Also, is the shredded guitar anthem the stadium flyover of anthems? It might be.
Like many Vikings fans, I was here for all of it. I even watched the entirety of something called Monday Night Countdown where Jason Kelce was rocking a Minnetonka letter jacket, even though he referred to the Skippers by the wrong mascot name. Maybe this is the moment we should have known it was all going downhill!
We had Adrian “All Day” Peterson going into the ring of honor. We had Randy Moss in the house. We even had one of those cool warm-ups walk around interviews with Harrison Smith.
By the time the game started I was as amped up as, well, Carson Wentz . . .
We Hit Rock Bottom.
The quarterback performance that Carson Wentz put on tape Monday night was scarier than any movie that was in the theaters over Halloween. He was overthrowing receivers like a sophomore at prom. He was missing his reads. It was a historic level of incompetence.
Here we all thought Wentz was going to get the ball to Justin Jefferson, and we couldn’t even do that correctly, with a backwards pass to J.J. right on the line of scrimmage costing us a turnover. Wentz wasn’t seeing wide open receivers. He was throwing to the other team. His QBR was officially listed as “closed casket.” Troy Aikman was reading texts on air from Drew Brees joking that he was going to come out of retirement. Even Randy Moss was reduced to a suffering Vikings fan convulsing on the sidelines as he watched it all go down. It was truly amazing.
And then Wentz started banging his fingers off helmets and getting hit. Watching a vulnerable Carson Wentz in the pocket somehow reminded me of the dead grandmother strapped to the top of the station wagon in National Lampoon’s Vacation. The Vikings offense had truly reached rock bottom, as Wentz went three and out faster than you can say three and out on seemingly every drive.
When Left To Our Own Devices.
Let’s be honest, Vikings fans have some real demons. When the going gets tough, we get ugly. I’ll admit most of my hatred was directed toward Kevin O’Connell. It’s crazy to think a fanbase could so quickly turn on a coach with this high a win percentage (including a very recent 11 game win streak). But this isn’t just any fan base, we’re long-suffering Vikings fans. We’re more than happy to choke you out in the fox hole. And watching this offense sputter made every one of us want to slap KOC. None of us are proud of it, but that’s how we felt.
I started to wonder if my now Chicago Bears loving brother was right when he called KOC “Hallmark,” saying he was too good to be true. He doesn’t even bother to A.I. the images with KOC’s face anymore, he just randomly texts me Hallmark movie posters after every inept Vikings offense performance on Sundays.
The guy not so long ago we were referring to as Our Kevinly Father, and The Quarterback Whisperer had become our arch nemesis. Mostly because . . .
B-Flo Has Built A 2006 Ravens Caliber Defense.
Vikings fans group texts were filled with “fire KOC and make B-Flo the coach” texts. I even had one buddy suggest B-Flo should add the Vikings Offense to his NFL lawsuit. The Monday Night Football crew didn’t help much as they showed the ridiculously lopsided time of possession graphic repeatedly.
We all knew it was only a matter of time before our majestic defense would break; we’d seen it last week late in the game against Detroit. We were just waiting for the commentators to talk about “creasing” the defense.
It made you wonder what that divided locker room felt like at halftime. The defense on the field the entire time, while the offense did nothing. It almost felt like an abusive relationship. You wanted the defense to walk out the door and leave this offense once and for all, but they just couldn’t. It was like watching a Rocky movie, but knowing Rocky was going to get knocked out at the end. As much hate as KOC was getting, B-Flo remained our mad scientist with the defense making the best quarterback in football look scared and afraid, as a rosy cheeked and glass-eyed Josh Allen stared at his iPad in disbelief all night.
Also, Denzel is for sure playing B-Flo in the movie. Right?
B-Flo is so cool. He’s built the best and most complex defense in the league filled with a group of athletic and interchangeable players. He’s allowed us to text THE DINK! to our buddies more than once this season. He’s turned Blake Cashman and Eric Wilson into Purple People Eaters.
At one point when Cashman went down with an injury, they cut to B-Flo on the sideline and you could see him say into his headset, “Kevin, you go out there.” B-Flo is so badass, he’s like a NASCAR driver that doesn’t go to funerals. He’s Drago, “If he dies, he dies.”
We Almost Went There.
Thank God the Vikings traded for Kirk Cousins (more on that later). Because we all know where this was headed. When Max Brosmer got into the game in garbage time we all had that very dangerous feeling again. I think it’s called hope.
Had the Vikings not traded for Cousins. It would have only taken about 6 days before this weekend’s Packers game to talk ourselves into Brosmer as our next savior. We would have walked around saying, “Well, he can’t be any worse,” and “the kid looked pretty good late, even Aikman said he had something going.”
And then Brosmer would have absolutely sucked against the Packers, and we would have been grinding our teeth again. It would have been this all over again.
But that didn’t happen because . . .
We’re Second Cousins.
Perhaps we can thank the Monday Night Massacre for allowing the Vikings front office to bring Kirko Chains back to Minnesota. Listen, I remember how we were all done with Kirk when he left. We didn’t want a Cub Scout dad to be our quarterback. “Uncle Rico” was a regular season guy, that would never win us a Super Bowl.
So, what’s different now? Well, we’re 6-2, and by the looks of Monday Night, had we kept doing the same thing we were doing, the Vikings might have finished the season 6-11. I’m not joking. Now we bring in a guy who knows our system, has thrown for the second most touchdowns in the league this season, and did I mention our defense has a strong resemblance to the ’06 Ravens?!
Here at Pulltab Sports we like to keep things fair and balanced. The biggest eyes wide open thing I can say about Second Cousins is that he has to fight his way through the gauntlet that is the NFC North, a division where he might be the 4th best quarterback behind Goff, Williams, and Love. So there’s that.
On the flip side, my favorite part of the Cousins trade is how upset it made a Packer fan I know. Before the Vikings officially went Second Cousins with the trade, my Packer buddy was worried, “I know you’re going to sign Cousins. He’s playing great, he’s going to jump into a system he already knows and light it up against the Packers. I really hope you don’t get him, that would be terrible.”
That’s all I needed to hear. If a trade pisses off your biggest rival, it must be a pretty decent move for your team.
So I’m all in for Second Cousins.
I’m doing all my holiday shopping at Kohl’s.
I’m going to start wearing more chains.
Let’s do this, bring on the Packers!
SKOL!
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SKOL!!
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