I want to use the napkins and the plates. Not just any ones, mind you, the purple and gold I bought 11 years ago. It was 1998, the Vikings were headed to the Super Bowl and I wad headed to the party store. As a lifelong Vikings fan, I was going to be ready when they won. I picked up some napkins and plates with the team logo on them, so I could eat my nachos and lil' smokies with purple pride.
With Cris Carter, Randy Moss, and Robert Smith, they were going to wipe out years of frustration, finally winning the big game. And then it happened. The most dependable kicker in football missed.
As a Vikings fan I should have known better. Of course Gary Anderson was going to miss. After all, he's gotten our hopes up by completing a perfect season until that NFC title game.
Now it's just another footnote on Wikipedia, another sign of this team's failure, along with those four Super Bowl losses, the Herschel Walker trade, and the Love Boat scandal.
But while we've had great offenses and great defenses, the one thing Vikings fans haven't had since Fran Tarkenton is a great quarterback.
We've suffered through guys like Tommy Kramer, Wade Wilson, Sean Salisbury, Rich Gannon, Jeff George, Brad Johnson and Tarvaris Jackson. Along the way there were also forgettable guys like Spergon Wynn and even St. Cloud State's own Todd Bouman.
Sure some of those guys put together a good season here or there, but arguably only one quarterback in that stretch put together a string of success, as Daunte Culpepper gave us glimmers of hope.
Tarvaris Jackson is a tremendous athlete with a strong arm and quick legs. But he hasn't shown he can win consistently. Brett Favre to the rescue -- he could have been the bona fide Hall of Fame quarterback the team has lacked.
But now that too is just another story in this team's ongoing saga of losing.
Guess I don't have to dig up those plates and napkins this season. There's always next year.
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2 comments:
I'm not so sure it was a bad thing that Favre passed on being the Vikings QB. I have a feeling it would've gone down just like his last year with the Jets.... fast start before he broke down in December. Now, if people were willing to give him a second chance, Micheal Vick would be an interesting QB at Minnesota (like Tavaris Jackson, but better, at least before he went to prison)
...and I'm not really a Falcons fan (more of a Dolphins fan), but yeah, sorry about 1998.
Jeff, it's spelled "Michael." :-)
I _am_ a Falcons fan, to the extent that I'm a fan of any NFL team, and 1998 was pretty amazing. Crushing the hopes of the Vikings in the Metrodome almost makes up for the freakin' 1991 World Series in the Metrodome (with Hrbek pushing Gant off of first base and the ump calling Gant out, Lonnie Smith hesitating like an idiot as he rounded second, etc.).
Besides, the Vikings had Herschel Walker AND Fran Tarkenton, both players from U[sic]GA. I just can't support that. :-)
I didn't realize the Vikings had had Jeff George, though. He played for the Falcons, too - he's a total tool.
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