Vikingious Expectations

Going into this season I asked everyone of my friends who are fans of the Minnesota Vikings, how they thought their team was going to fair this year in the overcrowded NFC North and they all gave the same sort of answer,

“3-14 would be a solid year.”

“I’d take 5 wins.”

“With Sam Darnold at the helm, 4 wins would be a great year.”

“Hopefully we suck just enough to get the first overall pick.”

“Wait Minnesota has a football team?”

So, you would think they would be through the moon with this start to the season. Well, you would be 100% wrong. Ahhh I’m just kidding. I just wrote that sentence to ruffle a few feathers. For the first time in my life I’m seeing a new Vikings fan, one who is full of understanding and positivity by saying things like,

“Come on guys, if Sam Darnold leads us to promise land great, if not we will have an early pick to surround the team with more talent to make a run at it next year with our new young quarterback.”

Confusing I know… Most years all I hear echoing through our great lakes is a Tom Cruise cocktail of ignorance and negativity. But this sudden change of attitude must have to do with the fact that the team had zero expectations headed into the year but nonetheless, it’s the shock of my lifetime time. Over the past 5 years I’ve heard nothing but complaining from the Vikings fan base,

“How will Kirk mess it up this year.”

“13-4… We will probably choke in the playoffs.”

“I can throw a better ball than Kirk.”

“How the hell did we lose a home playoff game to Daniel Jones of all people?”

“Kirk sucks, fire everyone.”

“You guys are yanking my chain. Minnesota really has a football team?”

They were right about at least one thing… How did you lose to Daniel Jones in the playoffs? For the most part they have earned the right to be negative. The Vikings always have found a way to either choke away a playoff chance due to a kicking mishap or be stuck in .500 purgatory. Two places that will anger any fan base. I will never forget when Blair Walsh missed a game winning 27-yard chip shot in the 2015 playoffs against the Seattle Seahawks on a day where wind chills were reaching close to the negative 30’s. I was at that game, drinking a Miller Lite slushy as I was stuck to an ice-cold metal bleacher seat, watching winter hats and mittens rain down on a slumped shouldered Walsh, listening to fans spit out language that would even make Quentin Tarantino say,

“Don’t you think that’s a little harsh? I don’t even think Jules Winnfield would have said that.”

It was at this point that I learned that maybe that whole Minnesota nice thing doesn’t apply to our sports franchises.

With expectations this year lower than the resting place of Edmund Fitzgerald, it’s nice to see a new side of Vikings fans, one full of compassion and understanding. Well so far… There is no denying it, the Vikings have been the Sam Darlings of the NFL season. The key part to the darling-fication of the Vikings has been their newly found shipwreck of a quarterback Sam Darnold. Darnolds career up to this point has been a combination of bad to worse to bad again to huh, there might be something here. Darnold has bounced around from team to team since being drafted 3rd overall by The New York Jets in 2018. But when Darnold started to see ghosts of Patriots players in New York, they shipped him off to the Carolina Panthers which to put politely, didn’t go well. But last year after signing with the 49ers as he was filling in for an injured Brock Purdy up in the Bay Area, something seemed different. He looked competent in the Kyle Shanahan offense by making good reads and good throws so much, so it landed him an opportunity with the Vikings, where he has fit right in. It does help that The Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell comes from the same coaching tree as Kyle Shanahan, so it must have been an easy transition for the now NFL Journeyman.

Darnold has been spectacular this year. He has taken full advantage of his opportunity with an elite Vikings offensive roster, so much so that after Sunday night’s win over the silver fox Joe Flacco lead Indianapolis Colts the Vikings record has improved to a floating Pre-November 10th, 1976, Edmund Fitzgerald 6-2. The Vikings find themselves only a game back in the NFC North from the best team in the NFL Detroit Lions. But what comes with a 6-2 record and a game out of 1st place in the division? Well, I’m glad you asked. Expectations and we all know how ornery you Vikings fans can get when your team doesn’t live up to expectations. So, I implore you Minnesota to take it easy on this team if things do start to go post November 10th, 1976, Edmund Fitzgerald on you because you shouldn’t even be here in the first place. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year, but with a great defense, a competent quarterback and a receiver who is on goat pace, you have found yourself in the midst of playoff contention, exceeding every expectation you had.

Minnesota I'm proud of you so far. There has been little to no complaining this year. So, let's continue that trend by just enjoying this unexpected sail towards the playoffs. All is forgiven for past comments but we can also learn from those past comments that have been made to not repeat them in future because If I hear anyone in this deciduous state say anything remotely close to,

“Kevin O’Connell needs to be fired he can’t coach a pee-wee team let alone an NFL Franchise.”

“Sam Darnold sucks he should be kicked out of this league.”

“I can throw a ball better than Sam Darnold.”

“Even though we ran him out of town, I really wish Kirk Cousins was still here.”

"Sam Sucks. Fire Everyone."

“You guys weren’t joking; Minnesota actually does have a football team. I thought we built US Bank stadium solely for Taylor Swift Concerts.”

I’m going to start comparing you to Jets fans… That’s right you heard me… Jets Fans!

Thanks For Reading and Hopefully My Friends Are Still Talking To Me After They Read This…

The End To The Baseball Season.

Last night after the Yankees scored 5 runs through the first 4 innings, I looked over at my buddy through a mountain of NA Craft Beers and empty frozen organic pizza boxes and said,

“Looks like we are headed back to LA for a game 6.”

I had confidence in what I was saying because the Yankees seemed to have confidence with Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton all hitting home runs which did nothing but make The Yankees fans as ornery as ever. You could feel the energy of the stadium pulsating off my LG TV screen. Plus, Garrett Cole was out here pitching an all-time World Series gem of a game with a no-hitter through 4 innings. I thought there was no way this series wasn’t going back to LA. But not going to lie my analysis didn’t age well because about an inning later Lee Corso showed up in my living room with a sly smile on his face, leaned over to poke me with a mechanical pencil and whisper in my ear,

“Not So Fast My Friends.”

That’s when The Dodgers went on to score 5 runs in the 5th inning on the back of countless Yankees defensive errors. Both my buddy and I sat in silence with our mouths wide open as we couldn’t believe what we were watching. Garrett Cole, who had built a flawless Roman Empire through 4 and a half innings watched everything come crumbling down in a matter of minutes. First, Aaron Judge dropped a routine fly ball in center field allowing runners to advance. Second Anthony Volpe threw a routine ground ball at the feet of Jazz Chisholm which allowed the bases to become loaded.

Finally, Anthony Rizzo and Garrett Cole had a miscommunication on who was going to end up at first base to try and get Mookie Betts out. Betts hit a ground ball up the first baseline right to the 1st baseman Rizzo while Cole thought it was a good idea to just stand and point at first base while Rizzo fielded the ball and jogged lightly to first to try and beat out a sprinting Betts. It’s like Rizzo and Cole both looked at each other and decided that the 5th inning was a good time to take a stroll through central park and point at all the ducks in the pond on their way to first base.

“Oh look, it’s a Female hooded merganser.”

“Isn’t that nice. Shouldn’t we be getting to first?

“In due time…”

I’ve seen more urgency out of a Koala after consuming a dump truck worth of eucalyptus leaves than those two trying to get to first.

Normally when a team scores 5 runs in an inning you chuck it up to hey that’s baseball but when you have egregious error after egregious error you chuck it up to a collapse of epic proportions. The Yankees cooked up t-bone steaks for the entire Dodgers team and served it to them on the finest of handmade china east of the Mississippi. The Yankees weren’t done yet though. They got another run in the 6th to take the lead 6-5. But then the 8th inning came around. The Yankees just needed to get through the bottom of the Dodgers order to find themselves in the 9th inning with a lead. But that didn’t happen. The Dodgers bottom of the line up found a way to get the bases loaded for both Gavin Lux and Mookie Bets to hit sacrifice fly balls into the late October New York sky to take the lead 7-6. From that point on The Yankees had no more fight to give.

The Dodgers went on to win the game and the World Series by a score of 7-6 and I came away saying something that I thought I would never say,

“Wow what a fantastic baseball game that was. Man, I wish the season didn’t just end.”

What a wild ride these MLB playoff games have been. For the first time ever, I found myself turning off NFL football games to watch the underdog, highest payroll in baseball, Grimace lead Mets and their crazed fans try and make a World Series run. The Atmospheres in every stadium throughout the playoffs were second to none. It was incredible to watch.

How could you not enjoy the MLB Playoffs this year? We had division rivals going head-to-head in The Detroit Tigers and The Cleveland Guardians. We had two great sports towns battling it out in The New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies. We had two passionate Southern California teams dueling for the right to be called the best team in So Cal with The LA Dodgers and The San Deigo Padres. But to top it all off we had The World Series that baseball has been dying to see since 1981 in The Yankees and The Dodgers. Did it live up to the hype? No nothing ever does because it ended in 5 games but boy were those 5 games full of drama, grand slams, great pitching, the best player in the world, and passionate fans trying to steal balls out of player gloves. Baseball has been slowly working its way out of my heart valves for quite some time now, with the length of games and the lack of drama but with the new pitch clock, Grimace, a modern-day Babe Ruth and a postseason full of great sports towns mixed with a little intrigue and drama, it’s safe to say,

“Not So Fast My Friends, Baseball Is Back!”

Thanks For Reading and MLB We Will See You In The Spring!

Sparking NFL Teams.

“Where the hell is that outlet?”

I said as I fumbled a white iPhone wall charger in my hands while leaning off the corner of my bed, feeling the wall up for an outlet in the dead of night.

“It must be around here somewhere. It’s not like these things move.”

Instead of getting up to turn on a light, my lazy past midnight brain and I decided it was a good idea to reach for a knife coated in Skippy Natural Chunky Peanut Butter from earlier when I sliced my midnight PB&J sandwich in half.

“I know, I’ll use the knife to locate the outlet and just follow the peanut butter trail with my fingers which will lead me right to the outlet. Darn it Brett, sometimes even my own genius surprises me.”

I said as I started to paint the wall with such fine-tuned brush strokes, that even Picasso would be proud. That was until my hand slipped and I inserted the knife into the left eye of the sockets face.

Sparks began to emerge out of the socket like a 4th of July sparkler that your cousin Eddy strapped to his nipples as he pretended to be in Magic Mike, drunk on a 30 rack of Miller Lite and Merlot dunked cheese. I began to feel a tingling shoot up my right arm as my brain started to picture Katy Perry dancing with a school of sharks on a beach at the Super Bowl halftime show singing,

“You just gotta ignite the light

And let it shine

Just own the night

Like the Fourth of July

'Cause baby, you're a firework.”

You know how people say your life flashes before your eyes during a near death experience? That wasn’t the case for me… As Katy Perry serenaded my electrocution, my brain decided to go through a photo album of all the moves NFL organizations recently made in hopes they would spark a dried-out Christmas tree sized fire underneath their teams’ cold bottoms.

When I finally extracted my charbroiled hand from the knife all I could think of was a toasted peanut butter sandwich and who in their right mind would trade Deandre Hopkins to the Chiefs. It’s not like the Chiefs need any more help to win a Super Bowl. They won last year with a bunch of no name receivers they found at truck stop just outside of Anchorage, Alaska with a flickering yellow Shell Gasoline sign. What are we doing Tennessee? I get that you’re not having the year you wanted and Will Levis seems like his eyes are coated in Dukes Mayo every time he drops back to pass but you can’t be desperate enough for a fifth-round pick that you break the entire league by giving Patrick Mahomes in actual weapon to play with. It’s like giving Jackie Chan a gun. He doesn’t need it but if he has it, you better put the whole world on alert.

That’s not the only move that baffled my brain during my electrocution. I also couldn’t believe that Aaron Rodgers (allegedly) got his coach fired and then traded for his long-time friend Devonte Adams and the Jets still stink. It’s been over 1,000 days since Aaron Rodgers threw for over 300 yards passing in a game, and he is out here talking about how the team needs to make peace with the darkness. Hey Aaron, how about you make peace with the fact that you can’t move like you used to and you’re just not the same quarterback that you once were. It happens to everyone (except Tom Brady), getting old sucks and watching the greatest quarterback I’ve ever seen struggle isn’t fun for anyone, even though it comes at the expense of the Jets, which is hysterical to say the least… I get the Jets trying to find some sort of spark by firing a coach and bringing in Aarons friends, but they are all out of moves now. This is the final product, and someone might need to put a peanut butter knife in a socket to help generate some sort of fire underneath these players. Everytime I see The Jets lose I just picture Zach Wilson Pillsbury Dough Boy poking Sean Payton's belly and laughing while saying,

“Can you believe I had a better record last year?”  

The Steelers may have made the most baffling move of all though, by benching 4-2 Justin Fields for a 35-year-old Russell Wilson who hasn’t looked great in a couple years now. But so far Russell Wilson has been great. He has sparked a dormant passing offense into a deep ball throwing juggernaut over these last two games. Geroge Pickens has stopped complaining. Well, he has complained less. Even The Steelers average rushing yards per game are up over the last two games. I thought maybe Mike Tomlin was losing his touch a little after benching Justin Fields, but he was seeing something we weren’t in practice. I’m not the biggest Fields fan as you may know, but even I was a knife in the outlet shocked by this move. Fields hasn’t been anything special but for the first time in his career he was winning and not turning the ball over. That is a Carl Lewis sized leap forward for someone with a career win percentage of 32%. With a coach I will never question again, and his newly found Russell Wilson offensive spark mixed with a ferocious defense led by T.J. Watt, The Steelers might find themselves in a legit Super Bowl race.

It seems like every team that is in contention in the AFC made a dramatic move to try and spark their teams past the Chiefs. Bills went out and got a stud receiver from The Browns in Amari Cooper, who just so happened to catch a touchdown pass in his first game as a Bill. The Baltimore Ravens traded a sixth-round pick to the Carolina Panthers for Diontae Johnson. Which gives Lamar another option to throw too in an already electric offense. The Browns started to eat W’s against The Ravens by starting Jameis Winston after Deshaun Watson went down with an Achillies injury. The Colts decided to bench Anthony Richardson in favor of Joe Flacco after Richardson tapped his helmet asking to leave the game because he was tired and maybe the fact that he has a 44% completion percentage. But if you’re Richardson in that spot, you can never admit that you were tired. You have to fake some sort of injury before admitting that you were tired. I don’t care if you fake grab your Achillies so much so that you need to see a specialist in Germany to figure out what is wrong. You just can never admit that you left the game because you were tired. Your teammates will never trust you again.

While the AFC has been busy, all the teams in the NFC must have taken out their spark plugs because there have been little to no moves happening in that conference. Maybe it’s because they don’t have a Patrick Mahomes to go through or maybe they are just content with their teams at the moment. But some teams might need to find a new set of spark plugs by the trade deadline because those Lions look borderline unstoppable. Not even an Aidan Hutchinson sized bucket of water could put out that spark fueled fire over in Detroit. They are beating teams every way possible. If it’s not offense it’s the defense, if it’s not defense its special teams. The Lions won a game 52-14 over the Titans with Jared Goff only throwing for 85 yards. These aren’t your 0-16 Lions from 2008. These are the new school Lions from 2024, and they just might be the most complete team in the NFL and that’s scary for the rest of the NFC.

There are so many strategies that NFL owners and GM’s use to ignite sparks underneath their players and coaches. They sometimes fire a coach who has lost the locker room. They sometimes make a trade to bring in a player who was on a bad team and is just hungry to win. They sometimes make quarterback change to quarterback that loves to lick his fingers and eat a W. There are a million ways to motivate players and coaches but there is one way I wouldn’t suggest and that’s listening to your brain after midnight as you put your peanut butter dipped metal paint brush in the left eye of a sockets face.

Thanks For Reading and I Hope I Sparked Up Your Day…