The 5 Stages of Vikings fandom
During the myriad of radio appearances I make each week, I’ve been trying to be hopeful while saying that it is understandable to feel like the other shoe is eventually going to drop. Well, after the game on Sunday in which the Minnesota Vikings made National news for all the wrong reasons… It’s safe to say that the silver lining here is that we finally have two shoes to walk in.
On this morning’s cohosting gig on Bob Sansevere’s radio show and podcast, The BS Show, we debated why the Vikings seem to always struggle with success. Regardless of who the owner or general manager is, across multiple decades and rosters, whether the Vikings are picked to win or are underdogs on sites like mobileuscasinos.com… the feeling of the other shoe dangling above our heads nearly always exists if you’re rooting for the purple.
This wasn’t a hard call, though. As the Vikings clearly are a flawed team that makes entirely too many mistakes. Sure, they’re good enough to get away with it, barely, against bad teams like the Jaguars. But as we saw against Tampa Bay, it was only a matter of time until this article was apt enough to be published.
So, here we are, yet again staring into the abyss and wondering what went wrong. This time, though, I actually feel optimistic about the future. 2020 was never going to be our year, despite all the pre-season prognostications. The injuries, lack of cap space, youth, and COVID all saw to that.
But this team put together an amazing run anyway. The offense showed us that with some further development on defense and a new leader in special teams (that’ll help cut down on the copious amounts of mistakes), this team may just end up being one that makes us worry that the other shoe is yet again to drop, only to catch it for us and use it to run full speed into the end-zone for the game winning touchdown in Super Bowl LVI.
Then again, I may just be in the denial phase of the mourning process. Because at times like this it genuinely feels like we’re never going to win a championship. But it’s fun to dream about Justin Jefferson tearing up some AFC team (after beating the Packers in the NFC Championship), with Dalvin Cook earning his first Super Bowl MVP.
Until then, though, we’ll just have to settle with reality. Cold. Harsh. Reality. And unless we can cancel gravity (which feels more realistic than expecting the Vikings to not massively disappoint), we may be better off buying falling shoe insurance.
My fiance, as I’ve mentioned, is attempting to become a Vikings fan after being a lifelong fan of the Packers. She has jumped in with two feet, and I couldn’t pick a better season for her to experience the full gamut of emotions we’ve experienced as Vikings fans.
Disappointment. Hope. Excitement. Belief. Heartbreak.
Forget the five stages of grief referenced above. Those are the emotional stages of being a Vikings fan, and it’s safe to say that I’m in the latter.