This article was originally gonna be a review on Kevin O’Connell’s first season as Vikings’ head coach, but I put it off until after the Wildcard game because I knew it’d have a huge impact on how this review would pan out. I was right, and now this team’s returned me to the sad reality we live in. The Minnesota Vikings: an eternal life lesson.
What is there to say that hasn’t already been said? This team is full of frauds, they can’t beat any real teams, but to lose like that, is just pure embarrassment. For that team to flaunt and boast all season about how good they were, all they managed to do in the first game of the playoffs was fall flat on their faces. The playcalling, baffling. The defense, weak all game long. It’s gotten so annoying and tiring to talk about it every damn week. To be honest, I’m sick of complaining about this team’s obvious problems only to see little improvement throughout the season. Donatell had all year to fix his schemes, and he didn’t. O’Connell had all year to establish a more polished screen game, and he didn’t. Kwesi had until the trade deadline to bring in more depth and potential starters in positions of need, and he barely did that.
This team at no point looked like they wanted to change. We fired Zimmer for his stubbornness and replaced him with a defensive coordinator that was literally just Zimmer but worse. How do you do that? I figured O’Connell’s choices for his staff were unorthodox, but nothing’s worse than seeing them double down on those choices. If it doesn’t work, fix it. They chose not to fix it, and look where it got them. This isn’t a team that wants to win if that’s how they’re going to conduct themselves. It’s an embarrassment to this team and every single player and coach should feel nothing but shame for their performance. I don’t want to hear anyone say you can’t blame the players but that was entirely a team effort. Seriously, a check down on 4th and 8? Game on the line? That’s the read?
I don’t feel like complaining about this team anymore. I’ve lost bad games before, it’s just football, you move on with life. For Vikings fans who are new to this feeling, you will feel it again. You might just feel this way for the rest of your life. Learn to live with it, it’s what the rest of us have had to do, welcome to the club. I don’t feel any better for being proven right, I feel nothing. Maybe sports shouldn’t matter as much as we make them out to be. If I took every Vikings loss personally I’d be dead by now, it’s simply not worth it. I suggest we all take this as an opportunity to step back and enjoy some of the finer things in life. This loss still sucks ass, though.
Pain. All I feel is pain. Smiling through it all. It’s mock draft season, I guess.
