Another year, another disappointing end.  I suppose disappointing is a strong word.  If I was truly still able to be disappointed by this team I would have to be the most gullible idiot to ever idiot.  It was never not going to end this way.  But that got me thinking.  This season was a fun, and even at times exciting, ride and I am honestly happy it ended the way that it did.

If the Vikings would have won the Super Bowl I would have, at minimum, three more years of Case Keenum.  Nothing against Mr. Keenum as a person, he seems lovely, but as a franchise quarterback I’d have constant PTSD flashbacks to some sort of Tarvaris Jackson/Christian ponder hybrid and my delicate psyche cannot take that kind of perpetual abuse.  I can’t do multiple years of this or this and especially not this.

If they won the Super Bowl with Case, yes, we would have a Super Bowl win but at what cost?  This talented defense would be wasted for the duration of the inevitable lengthy, lucrative agreement that would have followed.  We would never get to find out what Teddy could really do and that, for me, is honestly the worst part.  I’ve always been a big Teddy guy and I still am.  I believe he can be the guy for years to come.  Someone who can even outlast this current wave of defensive studs in their prime and keep them in contention for the next decade.  I realize even if he is everything I think he can be that it does not guarantee a Super Bowl win.  Aaron Rogers is arguably the best quarterback in the NFL, and has been for a while, and even he still only has one ring.  What I would be trading this fleeting moment of Super Bowl ecstasy for would be a potential decade or more of relevancy.  A decade or more of not having to pick up a veteran off the scrap heap and pray for the best.  A decade or more of being able to give a shit about each and every Sunday and not have to hope that the stars align for that once every 10 year run that has seemed to be the way of the Vikings world throughout my lifetime.  I just want to be able to care each season.  I want to know they have a chance each year, not just foolishly believe things will work out like some sort of battered spouse who can’t get themselves to leave because they have this warped vision of how things could maybe somehow get better.  I just want that feeling of when you are a little kid and anything was possible before the world snaps it all into focus and the reality of the hellscape before you is revealed.  I just want to give a shit, consistently, that’s all.

That defense is good, but it’s regular season good.  It’s not stop playoff Tom Brady or playoff Drew Brees or playoff Aaron Rodgers good.  It can get you to the dance but you need that quarterback to make a run once you get there.  This season was a prime example.

Most people would say they would take a championship regardless of how it happened or what it cost the franchise as a whole.  Most people would trade a lifetime of browns-like irrelevance for just one night with the Lombardi.  The way I see it, I’ve waited my entire life to not only see them win a Super Bowl but to even simply see them play in one.  It may be unfair or childish but I have a way in my head that it would go and a backup quarterback from Houston named Case just isn’t part of that.

Do the right thing, Rick.

Fuck.

 

 

 

 

 

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