So You Want to Be a Minnesota Vikings Fan… Why??

Everything you need to know before hopping on the Purple Train to glory (or death, whichever comes first)

Maybe you’re new to this whole football thing. Perhaps you’re a Browns fan ready for a new rodeo. Maybe you like trying new things, or maybe you’re just a masochist. For some reason I’ll never understand, you want to be a Minnesota Vikings fan. Okay then — there’s room on the bandwagon.

Honestly the bandwagon is actually just an old Amtrak engine and it breaks down pretty often in the freezing cold, and every now and then you’ll forgive it if it accidentally backs over a couple of our players too. Accidents happen.

The Vikings are this year’s early “it” team, 4–0 already with a stifling defense, a shiny new stadium our grandkids will be paying for, and a new QB we are slowly talking ourselves into. This is the most excited fans have been in almost a decade — never mind the fact that we already lost our franchise QB, our stud RB, and our left tackle for the season and mortgaged the future for a QB who will probably get a paper cut reading this article on his iPhone.

But anyways, you want in!! Feel the excitement. Here are ten things you’ll need to know as you jump aboard the Norse Express…

1. Team traditions: we have them!

Okay so first there’s the insanely loud dome with Guns N’ Roses blaring as the teams hit the fiel… shoot, the dome is gone now. Right, well what about our awesome real live viking Ragnar trolling the sidelines on his Harley!! Oh right, we had to let him go over a payment dispute last year. Fine, but at least you can’t take the color purple from us. Oh. Yeah. Prince died.

Whatever, we have other traditions too! We yell SKOL!! We don’t really know why but I assume it’s a thing Norsemen used to yell before pillaging villages. Oh and we dress up like Vikings! You’ll need to get yourself one of those horn hats like in the picture at the top. Technically it’s a Helga hat. (Yes, like Helga from the Hagar the Horrible comic.) Then there’s the giant Gjallarhorn that blares at the start of the game and every subsequent 4 seconds and sounds sort of like an army of elephants all sneezing simultaneously. It’s awesome.

We also have that sweet new Viking clap thing at the start of the 4th quarter that we definitely didn’t steal from Iceland’s soccer team this summer.

Oh and there’s the bitter cold! And all the choking. All Viking traditions.

2. Quarterbacks: we have them too!! Just not the good kind…

So the good news is you already know our quarterback, because they have been your quarterback already in another life or on another team. Cuz we don’t really believe in quarterbacks. I know, I know, it’s the single most important position in the entire world of sports. Don’t worry; we disagree. Pretty much anyone can play quarterback.

Just look at this list of guys we’ve won* with at QB over the last few decades!

Sam Bradford, Teddy Bridgewater, Christian Ponder, Donovan McNabb**, Brett Favre**, Gus Frerotte, Tarvaris Jackson, Brad Johnson**, Daunte Culpepper, Jeff George**, Randall Cunningham**, Brad Johnson again, Warren Moon**, Sean Salisbury, Jim McMahon**, Rich Gannon, Wade Wilson, and Tommy Kramer!

* hey man, I didn’t say won A LOT. ** but not when they were good or in their prime

The thing is, you’ll feel good about being a Vikings fan because our QB position is basically a rotating cast of Make-a-Wish players living out their final hopes and dreams. In the last 25 years, we’ve had exactly one quarterback start 10+ games for three straight years, and that guy was Daunte Culpepper and he had smaller hands than Donald Trump.

But don’t worry! We’ll have a new quarterback soon. You like Drew Brees right? He’ll be wearing purple in a few years. Can I interest you in a year of Andy Dalton or Alex Smith in 2022? And it’s a mortal lock that Tony Romo will play for the Vikes in the next year or two. Cowboy up!

3. We get one super awesome offensive skill player at all times so you’ll always have to watch

It started with Anthony Carter and then transitioned to Cris Carter. Then the Carters gave way to Randy Moss, and Moss disappeared just in time for Adrian Peterson. There’s always one guy on the field that can do incredible superhuman things at all times, so the Vikings will always be worth tuning in.

Here’s the thing: we get exactly one.

Remember that month-long stretch when Percy Harvin was incredible a few years ago? It was right after Peterson tore his ACL. Adrian comes back healthy the next year and voila, Percy is never heard from again.

You saw my boy Stefon Diggs explode against the Packers a couple weeks ago right? Do you think it’s a coincidence he did it moments after AP hobbled off through our super modern night club in front of all the catatonic fans?

I sure don’t. We get one. Look at me, Diggs: You’re the captain now.

4. Mike Zimmer is our third good coach in history

The first good coach was Bud Grant. We hated him.

He’s okay now, cuz he’s old and cute and he blew the Gjallarhorn and he wore short sleeves to the freezing playoff game against Seattle last year.

The second good coach was Denny Green. We hated him too but he died this year so now we like him. He wasn’t really good, but he wasn’t bad either. He was 9 wins and an immediate playoff exit every year.

I guess what I’m saying is, he is who we thought he was.

5. You’re going to need to hate some teams now. You hate the Packers, Bears, Giants, Cowboys, Redskins, Seahawks, Bucs, Falcons, Saints, and Patriots.

The Packers and Bears are hated division rivals. The Giants ruined 2001. The Cowboys ruined the ‘90s. The Redskins ruined 1988. Seattle ruined last year. Tampa Bay ruined 16–0 in 1998, then Atlanta ruined it (much) further. The Saints ruined Brett Favre in 2010.

The Patriots just suck.

Feels like we might get to add another team to our list this year! Stay tuned.

6. We are *not* the Chicago Cubs of football.

The Cubs are terrible. They had decades and decades of ineptitude. They’re the lovable losers, and they’re my lovable losers, but they’re losers nonetheless.

The Vikings have actually been winners historically (just not when it matters). Minnesota has the 6th best record in the NFL since the 1970 merger. The top ten NFL win rates in order belong to Pittsburgh, Denver, Dallas, Miami, San Francisco, us, New England, Green Bay (suck it), Oakland, and Washington. That group has won 33 of the last 46 Super Bowls — 72% of them!! — just kindly ignore that every team in that group has at least 2 Lombardis except for us.

In fact, Minnesota has the third most playoff appearances of any team behind only Pittsburgh and Dallas with 24! So what if we have only 17 wins and hold the record for most playoff losses (um, 24, obviously). So what if we haven’t won two playoff games in the same season in 30 years!

The Vikes are always really good and sometimes great! Just never the best. You’ll get used to it. One of our most revered players of all time Jim Marshall never missed a start in 20 seasons and has the 16th most sacks in history, but he’s really only remembered for recovering a fumble and running 66 yards the wrong direction and getting tackled for a safety. A very Vikings moment.

We are not the Chicago Cubs of football. The Cubs suck. We are good, and then we choke. It’s different.

7. There have been some very bad Vikings moments. You may need to take notes…

I’m not going to rank them because it’s just too depressing, so here are the lowlights from the last two decades…

• The entire ‘90s — In 1989 the Vikings trade approximately 37 players and 800 first round picks to the Dallas Cowboys for RB Herschel Walker and a case of Natty Light. The Cowboys go on to build a ‘90s dynasty with all their picks. Walker has one good play and was never heard from again.
• 1999 — The Vikings draft Dimitrius Underwood in the first round. He quits the team after one day of training camp that fall and is suicidal.
• 1999 — The Vikings went 15–1 in 1998 and had the best offense in NFL history. In the NFC title game, Gary Anderson — the first human in history to kick perfectly all season — chooses this specific moment to go wide left. We don’t touch the ball again and lose in OT. I don’t want to talk about it.
• 2000 — Antonio Freeman, Monday Night Football, HE DID WHAT??? game-winning OT catch and call by Al Michaels. Maybe you’ve seen it. If not, lucky for you, you’ll get to see the reply 400 times every fall Monday night for the rest of your life.
• 2001 — Minnesota loses 41–0 to the Giants in the NFC title game. We didn’t score a single point. In an NFC championship game.
• 2001 — Korey Stringer dies of heat exhaustion on the field in August practice. This sucked.
• 2003 — Minnesota’s draft clock runs out and two teams jump them. Never mind we got stud DT Kevin Williams; this was humiliating and we will be reminded of it at every sports and fantasy draft for all eternity.
• 2003 — The Vikings need only a win over 3–12 Arizona on the final day of the season to make the playoffs and push the Cardinals to 4th and 24. A Josh McCown throw sails out of bounds with 0:00 on the clock to end the season, only the refs rule Minnesota pushed the receiver out and call it a touchdown. And the Vikings are eliminated from the playoffs on a catch that never happened on a play after the season ended because of a rule that doesn’t exist anymore.
• 2005 — The Love Boat sex party scandal
• 2005 — Daunte Culpepper, second best QB in franchise history (no, seriously), blows his knee out and is never good again.
• 2010 — Brett Favre’s magical purple season ends when, already in field goal range, he Favrely (read: stupidly) throws across his body and gets intercepted to end the game. The Saints cheated and were penalized for Bountygate. I’m pretty sure they kept the trophy.
• 2011 — Adrian Peterson blows his knee out. We don’t believe in knees.
• 2014 — Adrian Peterson is a bad man, and not the good kind of bad man. He misses the entire season. No, you still have his jersey.
• 2016 — Blair Walsh misses a chip shot winner against Seattle in the playoffs. We hate kickers.
• 2016 — Teddy Bridgewater blows his knee out so badly that players are dry heaving on the field and huddling in groups to pray.
• 2016 — Minnesota trades 700 draft picks to the Eagles for a quarterback that no one wants and that has never been good for any stretch. The picks escalate if Bradford wins a Super Bowl. Good luck with that, Philly.
• 2016 — Adrian Peterson blows his knee out. Again. But remember, this is a good year!

8. But wait! There’s more!!

After all, that was just the last couple decades.

I haven’t even mentioned the Darrin Nelson dropped TD on 4th down with a minute left against Washington in the 1988 NFC championship.

Or the universe’s first Hail Mary (no, seriously) from Cowboys’ Roger F. Staubach to Drew F. Pearson who pushed off to knock the Vikings out of the 1975 playoffs and stop us from four consecutive Super Bowl berths.

Oh right! The Super Bowl berths. We lost them all. We lost Super Bowl IV and Super Bowl VIII and Super Bowl IX and Super Bowl XI. We lost IV Super Bowls in a VIII-year span. If there were Roman numerals for Super Bowl SUX I’m sure we’d make that one and lose it too.

9. But there are good moments!! Here’s a complete list of every memorable Vikings win in my lifetime:

Randy Moss moons the Packers at Lambeau in a playoff win.

Honestly, that’s it.

I asked some friends for help. We got nothing. It’s just that one. There’s some great individual highlights though.

But anything good that happens always gets wiped away by something worse later. Which reminds me…

10. It will all go horribly, horribly wrong. And soon.

It always does. We can be 4–0 or 6–0 or 8–0 or 15–1 but the ending is always the same. It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure where you are doomed to flip through pages your entire life only every single outcome leads back to the same terrible page where you fall down an abandoned elevator shaft.

Think of the possibilities! Maybe Kyle Rudolph and Stefon Diggs run into each other on a crossing route and spontaneously combust! Or Adrian Peterson heroically returns to the 13–3 Vikings for the playoff run only to fumble the ball away nursing a 4-point lead with a minute left! Or Sam Bradford somehow survives all season healthy but throws a pick-six in the NFC title game against Philadelphia before tearing off his jersey to reveal his Eagles jersey underneath as Hollywood Hogan’s music plays in the background! Honestly the Vikings screenwriters tend to get pretty creative with this stuff.

But don’t worry. You’ll find your way of dealing with the catastrophic loss soon enough. We all do. One of my friends just stares at the TV for hours waiting for the result to change. Another buries his face into a pillow and screams bloody murder. I like to take a long shower and then fall asleep and hope I never wake up again. I’m sure you’ll think of something.

~ You might’ve heard, it’ll be a cold day in hell before the Vikings ever actually win the Super Bowl ~

Lucky for you, we have about 150 such days in Minnesota every year, so you’ll get your hopes up and believe all over again every season!!

Welcome aboard.

Follow Brandon on Medium or @wheatonbrando for more sports, humor, pop culture, and life musings. Visit the rest of Brandon’s writing archives here. Published by Sports Pickle.