Miss Piggy Lunchbox

So that happened.

Defeat -> Jaws of victory -> Vikings -> Snatch!

The Red Sox of the NFL strike again, managing to get oh so close and once again amaze us with their ability to lose in new and unimagined ways.  Our biggest rival’s greatest player ever joins us to be thwarted by a 12 man in the huddle penalty to push us out of field goal range?  Wow…didn’t see that one coming.

I’m very sad, natch, but am handling this one in stride, much unlike the disaster of 1999.  It’s just who the Vikings are.  If they were different, they wouldn’t be the Vikings.  It’s just their way…you don’t know what it’s like when we’re alone together.

Besides, since 1999 I lived through the W presidency, and two financial crises (and two respective turns of unemployment), and the health care reform and Haiti disasters of the last two weeks served to provide some immediate perspective as well.  So I’m not completely distraught, and I’m not disowning them like I did for a few years after 1999, either.  I’m owning them, wearing them like a battle scar, a badge of…not honor…but a badge of something.

The Vikings are like sun spots, managing to lose NFC championships in stunning, painful, head-shaking fashion every 11 years.  1988, dropped pass in the end zone.  1999, the best Vikings team ever lost as the only field goal kicker ever to make every kick in a season missed a relatively easy kick indoors.  2010, well, we’ve covered that.  And don’t forget about that one year we needed to beat an awful Arizona team in the last week just to make the playoffs and we let them score a last second touchdown on something like 4th and 25 from midfield.  I’ve got money on an excessive celebration penalty in 2021.

Ten years ago today.

Minnesota then drove to the Falcons 20-yard line, setting up a 38-yard field goal attempt for Anderson, who had not missed a field goal all season. Another successful kick would have all but wrapped up the NFC title for Minnesota, but Anderson’s kick sailed wide left, giving the ball back to Atlanta with 2:07 left and new life. Chandler then led his team down to the Vikings 16-yard line. Following a dropped interception by Minnesota LB Dwayne Rudd, Mathis’ 16-yard touchdown catch tied the game with 49 seconds left and sent it into overtime.

After the first 3 possessions of overtime ended in punts, Chandler, on a bad ankle, led his team 70 yards to set up Andersen’s 38-yard field goal with 3:08 remaining that put Atlanta in the Super Bowl for the first time in team history.

I can stlil hear the deafening silence from my friends and me in my apartment that day.  And I can still remember that the front page headline of the Star Tribune on Tuesday was about how bad Monday sucked.

I remember confidently telling my cousin in November, “Who’s going to beat them?” when she asked if I thought they would really make the Super Bowl.

I had broken my thumb breakdancing on New Year’s (seriously), and when they asked me what color to make my cast, I went with purple to celebrate the Vikings’ 15-1 season and imminent Super Bowl victory.  Sitting in my apartment that day with that purple cast, I wanted to cut my whole arm off.  When I got the cast off in mid-February, there was another man getting his purple cast off, too.  I said, “I hope you didn’t make yours purple for the same reason I made mine purple.”  He said, “Those assholes….”  I concurred.

It was easily, easily, the toughest loss I’ve endured as a sports fan.  I still haven’t forgiven them.