Same as it ever was

Editor’s note — Our weekend editor here at Out of Bounds, Weed Against Speed, happens to be a Minnesota resident and lifelong Vikings fan. Poor bastard. To make things even worse for him this morning, I asked him to write about Sunday’s game. Here are his thoughts.
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The names and faces change, but the song remains the same when your favorite NFL team happens to be the Minnesota Vikings.
I am not here to whine and gnash my teeth about the most recent Epic Fail by the Vikes. I will only attempt to add some perspective from someone who has had the misfortune of following this dang — I’m trying my very hardest not to “work blue” here — team for the better part of 30 years, and how a heartbreaking loss like the one last night against the Saints tears at the guts of long-suffering Vikings fans and leaves us with a profound sense of disappointment about what could have been — yet again.
The Vikings have now lost five consecutive NFC Championship games, the one preceding last night being the 41-0 debacle against the Giants after the 2000 season; the worst loss in franchise history.

After last night’s game, there have now been three overtime games in NFC Championship history. The previous two being after the 1998 season when the Vikings lost to the Atlanta Falcons, 30-27, in overtime at the Metrodome, and when the Packers lost, 23-20, to the New York Giants following the 2007 season; after Brett Favre threw a soul-crushing interception to Corey Webster in overtime in bitter conditions at Lambeau Field.
The components of the outcomes of those two games somehow melded to create some sort of twisted, cosmic synergy in last night’s matchup at the Superdome, and helped create the conditions for yet another heartbreaking loss for the Vikings. There was Brett Favre again throwing a critical interception — this time to Tracy Porter — in crunch time, preventing Minnesota the opportunity of at least attempting a 50-plus yard field goal at the end of regulation for the win. If the ball falls incomplete, kicker Ryan Longwell could have attempted a 55-yarder. If Favre doesn’t throw across his body and instead takes advantage of the open field in front of him — he could have gained at least three or four yards — it’s a bit shorter of a try. The fact that the 40-year-old Gunslinger was already playing on one ankle after getting terrorized by the Saints all evening probably made the run a much less attractive option.
As luck would have it, Favre never got the chance to run the offense again. The Saints won the coin toss, got a 40-yard kickoff return from Pierre Thomas. Throw in a questionable pass interference penalty on Ben Leber — I don’t care what anyone says, that ball was not catchable — and add to that a 12-yard reception by Robert Meachem that was ruled a complete pass. The catch was the subject of a booth review and the ruling on the field stood although one could argue that it could have gone either way; the ball was sliding down his leg and clearly touched the ground.
And that is how we arrive at the crux of the matter. Vikings fans have always felt betrayed by their team. In fact, you could go so far as to say they approach every Vikings season with a sense of dread. Four Super Bowl losses will do that to a fan base. What’s worse, some Vikings fans actually believe the team is cursed.
Of course, that belief is laughable. Many Vikings fans will argue until they’re blue in the face that it’s always some random reason (i.e. “the refs screwed us!”). Sure, there were questionable calls, but they went both ways and a team has no right to win a game after putting the ball on the turf six times (losing three) and throwing two interceptions. The ball security demonstrated by the Vikings last night was despicable. That’s why they lost. Not because the refs were out to get them or there is some conspiracy against the Vikings; they lost because they didn’t make the plays they needed to when it mattered most.
Vikings fans have experienced so much heartbreak over the years, they try to cling to something to justify why they are so frequently left so profoundly devastated; anything that takes the sting away, even just a little. We have developed a fatalistic attitude that has so warped our capacity to see things as they are that we will refuse to accept the truth: the Vikings blew it last night. If the Purple don’t turn the ball over, the game could have been a cakewalk, or at the very least a convincing victory.
I imagine there are a lot of people out there, specifically fans of teams that are far more snakebitten that the Vikings, that are probably thinking we should just be grateful for the team’s relative success. The Vikings organization has been the model of consistency over the years. Since their inception in 1961, Minnesota has only had eleven losing seasons, with five of them coming in the first seven seasons. But you see, that only makes it worse. We are always so close that we can almost taste it, but it is so often snatched from our grasp.
But you know what? I’m 35 now — yes, that’s old in blogger years — and have been through a lot as a Vikings fan: the highs, the lows, the unrepentant anger, the unmitigated joy. One of my most cherished childhood memories is this play from 1980, when Tommy Kramer threw a prayer that Ahmad Rashad miraculously caught on the last play of the game to give my beloved Vikings a victory over the Cleveland Browns. Ah yes, good times.
In my 30-odd years as Vikings fan, I have seen myself change from a hopeful optimist to a jaded realist. You could say I have developed a thicker skin over the years. Ten years ago, I might not have been able to get out of bed today, I would have been so devastated. Now, I just roll with it and move on.
And that just might be the saddest and most heartbreaking part of all.