In the minds of Minnesota Vikings fans, there’s a spot reserved for the season they’re having in 2024.
Imagine in a Vikings fan’s brain there exists an epic Hall of Fame, with banners for the 2000, 2009, and 2017 seasons hanging in the rafters. If you’re older, you might even have the Vikings four Super Bowl seasons in 1970, 1974, 1975, and 1977 there as well. But in this illustrious space, there’s something tucked away in a dark corner.
It’s like a nuclear safe with contents that should never be opened. It’s labeled in big, purple letters with a code no Vikings team has cracked.
The top of the door reads “1998.”
If you’re old enough to remember, the 1998 season was a wild ride for Vikings fans. It’s a season many felt would never be duplicated, but this year’s team has a chance to crack the code.
To understand, we must ask what made the 1998 season so memorable. It started with one of the biggest comebacks in franchise history against the New York Giants in the 1997 Wild Card game.
Randall Cunningham was filling in for an injured Brad Johnson, and the Vikings trailed 19-3 to the New York Giants at halftime. The Vikings were mired in a stretch of seven- to 10-win seasons under Dennis Green, who could have been coaching for his job in the second half of that game. Cunningham hit Jake Reed for a touchdown that cut the Giants’ lead down to 22-20 with 1:30 to play, and Chris Walsh recovered an onside kick that set up the game-winning field goal with 10 seconds remaining.
The stretch of un-Viking-like events led to a loss at the hands of Steve Young, Jerry Rice, and the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round, but it bought Green time. Cunningham, who had been working as a carpenter before Green convinced him to come out of retirement late in the 1997 season, returned in 1998, and the Vikings selected Randy Moss with the 21st pick in the 1998 draft.
The rest was history for that team. Moss teamed with Reed and Cris Carter to form the iconic “Three Deep” trio. Robert Smith anchored the backfield. The Vikings had an offensive line led by Hall of Famer Randall McDaniel and Ring of Honor member Korey Stringer. The defense, led by John Randle, was the powder keg for a 15-1 explosion.
Being a fan of that team was different. Every game was an event. It didn’t just feel like the Vikings had a chance to win the Super Bowl. It felt like it was their destiny to win the Super Bowl, to the point that a remix of Will Smith’s song “Miami” dominated the airwaves because it was the site of that year’s big game.
An underdog quarterback, likable players, and explosive talents helped build that team. While there are several similarities between that group and the 2024 squad, this year’s team also has a quality that came out of nowhere.
That’s kind of how the tale of the 2024 Vikings began. The beginning of the year featured a heated quarterback debate, beginning when Kirk Cousins was set to leave in free agency. The thought of the franchise crumbling was too much for some fans to consider, and the signing of Sam Darnold sent that group into a panic.
Darnold wasn’t retired like Cunningham, but his rise has been just as unexpected. After failing with the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers, Darnold used a year with the San Francisco 49ers to rehabilitate his career and brought that experience to Minnesota. Working under Kevin O’Connell, Darnold has hit the mythical 4,000-yard, 30-touchdown benchmarks that Cousins was known for — and married them with long-term success.
That success didn’t come from Darnold alone. Justin Jefferson has played Moss’s role, becoming so dominant that teams leave his teammates wide open in an effort to contain him. His presence has paved the way for Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson to break through and allowed Jalen Nailor to catch five passes for 81 yards in Sunday’s win over the Green Bay Packers.
The likeability of this team is also off the charts. After tormenting the Vikings for years, Aaron Jones has played a crucial role in Minnesota’s backfield. Cam Bynum leads a defense that has forced a takeaway (and produced a subsequent viral celebration) in every game this season. The Vikings even have Harrison Smith, who, like Randle, could be a future Hall of Famer looking at his last chance at a Super Bowl ring.
That dynamic differs from other Vikings teams that have made Super Bowl runs. Daunte Culpepper led Minnesota to the NFC Championship game in 2000, but people expected him to be successful because he was a first-round pick with the framework of the 1998 team in place.
The Vikings made another run with Brett Favre in 2009. However, that team had a curmudgeon of a head coach in Brad Childress and a mercenary-type feel after Minnesota won the division the previous year.
Even the 2017 team was different. A group of young players, including Stefon Diggs, Adam Thielen, and Anthony Barr, led the way. Case Keenum rode the wave to produce one of the most memorable moments in NFL history, The Minneapolis Miracle.
Each of these years live in the minds of Vikings fans, but they didn’t quite feel like this. This team makes you angry they’re not playing during the week. They’re so fun to watch it feels like an eternity when you’re waiting for a mid-afternoon or a night game to kickoff. It’s why the video of O’Connell’s locker room speech has over 200,000 views on YouTube and Bynum’s High School Musical celebration has over 25,000 likes on X within 24 hours of being posted.
Of course, Vikings fans are also trained to expect the worst. That 1998 team ended with a loss to the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game. When I went to school the day after, it felt like a friend had died just from the stunned silence in the classroom. That’s how much that team meant to everyone.
Is this the squad to rectify that? Who knows? But they’ve reached the point of making everyone go all-in and crack the code that the Vikings established back in 1998.
