Coming to Terms with Historic Season’s Untimely End

Viking fan for life now in San Diego. After the end to the season, I have some thoughts.

1. Thank you to the media who cover the Vikings and provide information for those of us who follow the team, coaches and players, predominately the coverage from Vikings.com. Love reading/watching all the coverage.

2. This was a great season. I am not sure at what age I started watching every game I could, but from the mid-to-late ’70s I have followed every season, through highs and lows. Even though the last two games did not go as desired (more below) a team that was expected to win 6.5 games came together as a team, individuals stepped up, stars were team players, and coaches brought out the best in each player and group. This was a fun season to be a fan.

3. One team wins the Super Bowl each year. Two teams reach the Super Bowl. Every other team has some heartache, or what could-have-beens. I would much rather go 14-3, than 6-11, or 4-13, or any other record that makes going into work hard from having to listen to fans of other teams. The Vikings as an entire team played very well all year.

4. Somehow the loss, as bad as it was, made it easier to take. I told those watching with me, “They have 10 points, we have 1 yard. Game over.” Nowhere near as painful as ’98 or ’09.

5. I love K.O. and hope he is our coach for many years. To unite the team and have them exceed expectations the way he did could not have done by many other coaches, if any. Having said that, the last two weeks could have had more quick slants, jet sweeps, maybe even some toss back RB throws. Something to mitigate the pressure the defensive fronts were putting on us. I hope there were some lessons learned there.

6. I am super happy Sam Darnold had such a great year and had successes that he had not seen in his career previously. I did not think he was a potential long-term QB for us, but mostly because of the money. If he had said he would do another year for $15M, I would have said I was for that. The last two weeks have swayed me for sure that J.J. McCarthy (and maybe Daniel Jones?) is the correct path for next year and beyond.

7. I hope Harrison Smith comes back for at least another year. I respect players who only play for one team for their career, and for the Vikings only Mick Tingelhoff (240), Fred Cox (210) and Scott Studwell (201) exceed Smith’s 192 games played (according to pro-football-reference.com). I don’t want him to come back just…