It’s Packers week and nobody cares…thanks a lot 2020!
Ya know what’s weird?
It’s “Packers Week” here in Vikings Territory and it feels like nobody cares. There hasn’t been the normal chatter on social media, there hasn’t been the usual trash talk at the dinner table and there certainly hasn’t been the traditional loaded quotes from the locker room that we’ve all gotten used to throughout the recent history of these matchups.
You might think that it’s because of the difference in the two teams’ records. For the 2020 season the Green Bay Packers presently sit atop the NFC North Division with a record of 5-1 and one and the Minnesota Vikings are holding up the rear with an inverse record of 1-5. I’m sure that there’s something to be said about the apathy that’s already setting in here in Minnesota, but what’s strange is the fact that we Vikings fans are not taking the smack talk from the Packers fans this year either.
In years past it wouldn’t have mattered what the records were. In fact, one of these teams could have been winless at the time, the season could have been over but the two matchups against the Packers still carried similar importance to a Super Bowl in these parts.
But this year it’s nothing. This week leading up to today’s game in Green Bay may as well have been a continuation of the Bye. There was no vibe whatsoever.
Thanks a lot 2020!
2020 has already sucked the life out of everything we love and it would have been foolish to think that it wasn’t going to reach our favorite football rivalry. Feeling it, seeing it and living it though, that’s a whole new realization and I’m not a fan of it.
No longer are we standing around the water coolers defending the honor of our favorite teams. No longer are the moments before our in person meetings start turning into locker room banter. There’s no extended family dinner table conversations that are bursting into the flames of football fandom. No longer are we gassing up the suburban to make the trek deep into Sconnie Territory to cheer on our team at Lambeau, heck we can’t even do that at U.S. Bank Stadium either.
This is completely new territory and it doesn’t help that our team stinks. Our fanbase is split on a weekly basis between those who want to see our team victorious and those who want to see our team lose and improve their draft position… we’re not supposed to be in-fighting, we’re supposed to be bantering back and forth with our neighbors to the East.
But there’s hope you guys. 2021 can’t possibly be as bad as this year has been. I mean just think about it you guys. We’ve lost our 2nd round draft pick on a 6 game lease for Yannick Ngakoue, we salary cap strapped because of Kirk’s contract, there’s no telling how the return from injury will look for Danielle Hunter, we’ve got very little depth on the defensive line, linebacking corps and in the defensive backfield, we might be going through a coaching change, there may be a general manager change and it might be the start of a semi-rebuild…but yeah, 2021 can only go uphill from here.
