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This exchange between two of my fellow Vikings fans pretty much sums it up:

Fan1: Vikes 2009 NFL Yearbook airs Saturday, August 7 at 5:30pm CDT on ESPN2.
Fan2: Thanks! I’ll set my DVR to record all but the last 5 minutes.

And so it goes in Viking Nation. This is the 50th year of their existence and they have as many Super Bowl victories as the Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers and Seattle Seahawks. And FEWER than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New Orleans Saints, the two historically worst teams in the league.

So you might wonder why I will be there again, showing up at training camp, buying tickets to games, spending my precious few hours away from work following The Purple.

The Vikings – if you look only at the regular season – are one of the hallmark teams in the NFL. They have qualified for the playoffs for over half of their seasons in the league. They have shown consistent success and had some of the greatest players ever to suit up: Alan Page, Carl Eller, Fran Tarkenton, and – for you younger fans – Randy Moss, Jared Allen and Adrian Peterson.

They’re the true Cardiac Kids. Seemingly every year, they will rise up to beat teams they have no business beating only to crash back to the ground in amazing fashion. Most recently, they pummeled the venerable Dallas Cowboys only to be trumped by an overmatched Saints team. Why? Can’t hold onto the ball. (If it ain’t one thing, it’s another.)

So every year we’re relegated to fret and hope that they can find a way to keep that window open so that the latest young star (Peterson now after the criminal trading of Moss and the great – and underrated – Cris Carter) doesn’t waste his career waiting for what we never have seen. A ring.

There’s a reason Charlie Brown misses that football every time, you know. Charles Schulz was from St. Paul.

It’s especially hard after the type of season they had last year. I haven’t been around for all fifty years, but I can count close to 40 of fandom. In that time, there have been 4 Super Bowl appearances (all before most of you were born, I’m afraid) and some truly great teams. Moss’ rookie year – 1998 – was close. To go 15-1 and lose the NFC Championship Game on a missed field goal (from a kicker who hadn’t missed a single kick all year, by the way) was pretty bad.

Then there’s 2000. The team looked poised to make some serious noise under Daunte Culpepper … only to get embarrassed in the Meadowlands by the team that would lose to the Ravens and Trent Freakin’ Dilfer. We call that game 41-donut. And some of us old-timers wear that scar with pride.

But the closest year to last year – in terms of possibilities – was 1975. That year, the Vikings were in the middle of their dominance of the NFC. They had earned the right to home-field advantage for the playoffs, bringing all those cute teams from the warm areas of the world to our little corner of Hell. And, thanks to Roger Staubach, Drew Pearson and a shove in the defensive back’s solar plexus, the “Hail Mary” was born. And the Vikings were eliminated.

Until last year, that was the best Vikings team I had seen that did not make the Super Bowl. But the 2009 Minnesota Vikings were a complete package; dominant defensive line, great one-two punch at running back, a quarterback who could pull a couple miracles out of his … er, “hat” when needed. They had it all.

And then they went to New Orleans and left the ball on Bourbon Street.

So you think I’d be excited about the possibilities this year, right? I mean, we were SO close….

It’s been too long, friends, and I know this team too well. Catching lightning in a bottle two years in a row is too much to hope for, Favre or no Favre. I fully expect the Packers to have a great season, building on the youth they have on that team, and win the division.

As for the Vikes? I’m guessing 10-6 or maybe even 9-7. They might make the playoffs. And if they do?

I’ll be the one in purple. Now if only I could get Lucy to hold that ball……

Is it September 9 yet?

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