Well, the one thing that pretty much none of us wanted to see happen. . .has happened. We got the big, disgusting cherry on top of the manure sundae that the Vikings' 2010 season turned into.
I'm not going to sit here and praise the Green Bay Packers, or tell you how much respect I have for them or their players or their coaches or their fans. Why? Because if I were to say those things, there's not a damn one of you that would believe me anyway, and with good reason. My saying those things would be a straight-up, bald-faced lie, and I have too much respect for my fellow fans of the Minnesota Vikings to sit here and lie to you. I still don't have any respect for them or their players or their coaches or the overwhelming majority of their fans, and wouldn't if they won the next twenty Super Bowls. Why? Because they're a rival. . .and if people don't understand that, that really isn't my problem.
Don't get me wrong. . .I do have respect for some of the Green Bay fans out there. Being from a state like North Dakota that doesn't have its own professional sports, we get a pretty decent cross-section of rooting interests. There are fans of that team that can support their team without being completely arrogant, self-righteous douchebags. . .they're very few and very far between, but they're out there. Tonight, I'm happy for those folks. Everyone else? Not so much.
So, rather than showering false praise and all of those sorts of things, it's time to talk about us. Because, on this website, we Viking fans are the only people that matter.
It's at a time like this when we, the members of the fan base that has gotten kicked in the teeth with a greater regularity and a greater frequency than any other fan base in the National Football League (and there's not a close second), need to once again take inventory of what's important. And that starts with those three little words that we tend not to think about a whole lot of the time.
It's. . .just. . .football.
The sun has already set for the evening here on the West Coast. The sun is going to come up here and everywhere else sometime tomorrow morning. Now, I'm not sure how many people I speak for here. . .but when that happens tomorrow morning, my life will not have changed in any meaningful way. I'm going to wake up next to my gorgeous wife and with my three kick-ass dogs wanting to be let outside. I'll still be here, running the two best websites of their kind (one devoted to the Minnesota Vikings and one to Minnesota sports in general) on the internet, surrounded by Minnesota sports fans, who are without peer, no matter what anybody says.
I'm relatively sure that the only people that are going to receive pay raises based on what happened tonight in Dallas are people that were actually on the field of play. If you're a Viking fan whose car is broken down tonight. . .it's going to be broken down in the morning, too. If you're a Packer fan that's having their house foreclosed on tonight. . .the bank is going to be foreclosing on it tomorrow, too. If you're a Steeler fan that gets pulled over for speeding tonight. . .you're still going to have a fine to pay tomorrow. If you're walking towards a house with a six-pack of beer and a box of condoms and you see someone that looks like Chris Hanson sprinting towards you. . .
Well, never mind. . .you're screwed. And get the hell off of our website. Pervert.
Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt said it best when she said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Unfortunately, that's what I have been allowing to happen to myself on a personal level. I have allowed the legions of useless slobs that have sent me an unprecedented and unwarranted amount of hate mail, profanity, threats, and so forth through various mediums to make me feel as though they were somehow better than myself, simply because they cheer for a different article of clothing than I do.
And that, my friends. . .to borrow a term from my good friends Penn and Teller. . .is bulls***.
If you're reading this message, there's a very good chance that you are a Viking fan. (And if you're not and you don't agree with what I'm saying. . .well, too bad, because you're the one that's in the wrong.) And damn it all, because we are Viking fans, we are inferior to nobody in the world of NFL fans. Anybody that would tell you that you are is, to put it as simply as I can, weapons-grade stupid. There sure as hell isn't going to be anyone coming on to this website and telling Viking fans that they suck or that they're inferior. (Fans of opposing teams can consider that their warning, by the way. . .hey, if you didn't read far enough into the post to read the warning, that's not a me problem. . .that's a you problem.)
I'm sure that some folks will go to work tomorrow or something like that and be approached by a fan that's celebrating "their" "World Championship," and it will give you the urge to go back to your desk or your cubicle or whatever and cry out, "WHEN'S IT GON' BE MY TURN, LORD!?" Our turn is coming. It wasn't this year. . .it might not be next year (if there even is a next year). . .but it's coming. Eventually, it will be our turn to buy the ridiculously overpriced championship merchandise and all of those sorts of things. Believe me. . .it's coming.
You've probably noticed an uptick in the level of posting here in the past week or so. . .the reason for that has been to put the focus of this website back where it belongs, and that's on the only team in the NFL that 99% of the people that regularly read this website care about, and the only one that really, truly matters.
The Minnesota by God Vikings.
So, in conclusion, keep it right here. Ladies and gentlemen, regardless of what you might read in any stupid poll or what anyone with a mind-boggling superiority complex might have to say to you, Minnesota Viking fans are the best damn fans in the National Football League. Nobody else is close.
I apologize if this rambled a little bit. . .I needed a bit of catharsis here. This was as much for my mental benefit as for anyone else's, and I hope that it helped some of you folks out a bit, too. If you want to vent, commiserate, or whatever else, do it right here.