Vikings Fans Begin to Shed Longstanding Demons
Just because they let you down countless times in the past — doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to happen in the future.
Vikings Fans Begin to Shed Longstanding Demons
The Minnesota Vikings own a 14-2 record entering Week 18, and the club will play for homefield advantage throughout the postseason this Sunday at the Detroit Lions.
Generally, in a pressure-cooked Vikings season, fans have grown accustomed to assuming the worst will happen, whether a botched field goal, mind-boggling play that ruins a game, or unthinkable collapse only present in a nightmare.
But Vikings fans have begun to shed longstanding demons. Here’s why, with some examples.
The Bottom Doesn’t Feel Like It Will Fall Out
The Vikings didn’t strut into 2024 with broad shoulders, expecting to barnstorm the business and reach the postseason. In fact, sportsbooks pegged the purple team for six or seven wins.
Perhaps because fans didn’t expect much from the 2024 squad, few have expected the team to utterly faceplant at any time this season. Normally, in all-in Vikings seasons — see: 1998 or 2009 — the weight of expectation looms heavily over, well, everything.
The 2024 squad, however, feels like it has house money, not expected to win much at all. Therefore, the fear of a collapse just isn’t as present as in seasons past.
Ending the Seattle Malarkey
Meanwhile, Minnesota has slayed longstanding ghouls, mainstays of the Vikings experience.
For example, before 2024, the purple team had not won a game at Seattle in 18 years, dropping five straight at that venue in 2012, 2013, 2018, 2019, and 2020. When a schedule dropped in April or May, fans would see at Seattle, and simply roll their eyes, anticipating a loss because that’s just the way it goes.
This go-round, the Vikings waltzed into Seattle and authored their most impressive season moment, a go-ahead, game-winning touchdown from Sam Darnold to Justin Jefferson.
Beating GB Twice (with Starting QBs) for 1st Time in 15 Years
Minnesota hadn’t toppled Green Bay twice in a season when the Packers had their starting quarterback since 2009 — the Brett Favre season.
It wasn’t a feat easily accomplished with Aaron Rodgers in charge.
Fast forward to Week 17, and the Vikings defeated the Packers by two points on Sunday, now within one game of securing homefield advantage throughout the postseason. Based on the Vikings’ old mojo — “they always let you down” — the Week 17 tilt would’ve been a situation where the Packers one-upped the Vikings.
But not this time.
Minnesota responded every step of the way over the weekend, outlasting Green Bay 27-25.
Kevin O’Connell’s Step on the Throat
Speaking of Vikings-Packers, Minnesota received the ball on the game’s final drive, and coaches of yesteryear probably would’ve run the ball three times, punted, and relied on defense.
Not Kevin O’Connell, the architect of the demon-shedding.
O’Connell ran the football once with Cam Akers and fired up three passes to end the game — one to a fullback, the other to Jefferson, and the final to Akers for a scoop 1st Down.
Minnesota relied on offensive aggression. Other Vikings coaches from regime’s past might’ve played the clock and punted.
The Expectation Is to Win
For the most part, Vikings fans no longer expect to lose pivotal, contentious games. They flatly did precisely that routinely in the last several decades.
“They will find a way to mess it up,” served as a horrid mantra that followed everything about the enterprise. Ask yourself now — do you expect Minnesota to bungle big moments? This season, they have not, outside of an unholy missed facemask penalty at the Los Angeles Rams in October.
The Chicago Cubs Example
The Cubs didn’t win a World Sears for 108 years — until they did.
Of the NFL’s Top 16 teams per win percentage since 1966 (the Super Bowl era), the Vikings — ranked fourth per win percentage — are the only franchise without a Lombardi Trophy.
Folks always rest on their laurels, thinking, “The Vikings won’t win a Super Bowl because they never do.”
Well, eventually, they will. Why not now? Ask the Cubs about it. Maybe even ask the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles.
The Vikings QB Debate … Has Flipped
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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