Sure, the Vikings have had some bad breaks, but we need to step back and count our blessings. Some teams have never even been to the Super Bowl. Do you remember the 1980 50-yard, game-winning hail mary from Tarkington that bounced off five people before Amhad Rashed one-handed it and waltzed into the end zone with no time left? I I assure you that no one from Cleveland in that era has forgotten it. Cleveland has never been to the Super Bowl. They’ve been intercepted in the end zone by Oakland in the final minute, the victim of Elway’s “The Drive”, and run over by the perfect Dolphins in a championship game in which they once led. They have watched while their baseball team was getting a new stadium when the Browns weren’t and suddenly got this wake up call that their team was now going to become the Baltimore Ravens. Bad things don’t only happen to Minnesota, and we need to stay awake to see that some of them don’t happen here.

I’ve always felt that being close – but never reaching the top of the mountain – was in a lot of ways worse than never getting close at all. I know we’ve seen one of the most consistent teams in the NFL over the last 40 years – but really, which hurt more, 1998 or 2006?

98 hurt more because they were so good and it seemed like destiny that we’d be going to the Super Bowl. 2000 was an utter embarrassment because it looked like the team gave up. Would I not ever want to get close like in those years? Nope, but you might ask a Detroit fan what it feels like.

Our time will come, just like Denver. It took their 5th appearance in the Big Show to notch their first win.

Sure, getting close hurts, but would you rather be a Lions fan (like KFAN’s Common) and have your CEO be Matt Millen, who should have quit while he was ahead, as a great linebacker? I guess the near miss is allegedly the worst, because the Greek gods decided to punish Sisyphus, the sneaky king of Corinth, by making him eternally roll a boulder up a mountain in the underworld and then make it fall back down each time just as he neared the summit. The French writer Albert Camus rewrote the story and pointed out that it takes guts to keep going and that perhaps that’s the meaning of life. (Of course, Camus lost some street cred with that idea by commiting suicide himself.) We all have to play the cards we’re dealt or fold. It could always be worse if we complain too much and don’t watch our step. I personally prefer Jared Allen’s outlook: Tell everyone that we’re coming and charge for the top.

—discussions of which quickly devolve into philosophical ruminations on Sisyphus, Camus, and Icelandic liquor.

What’ll happen if we ever win a Super Bowl, like Dr. Z says we will? The world might end. After all, our re-tooled D-line has been referred to as “the Four Norsemen of the Apocalypse.”

I heard (read) BigGun over at Valhalla say it first right after the trade.