The journey is over. We’ve returned to the station toting more baggage than we left with. For a few days, we will complain about the new bags — how heavy they are, the space they take up — only to return to the station with a mix of eagerness and dread, ready to board the next train in September, hoping that this time we return unencumbered.
Minnesota Vikings fandom, much like the sport our favorite team plays, is a game of attrition. But, as the saying goes, “It is better to have loved and lost than to have never made the playoffs at all.” Or something like that.
For Vikings fans, however, that is a defining piece of the cosmic cruelty we endure. Always good to very good, never good enough. Never more than one playoff win, often less. The fifth-winning-est franchise in the Super Bowl Era, no Super Bowls.
The worst part? It’s worth it.
Sometimes, the journey is the destination. That feels as true as ever this time of year as we turn our collective gaze to free agency and the draft.
We mustn’t lose sight of why we care so much as we obsess over the potential machinations of the offseason that could get our favorite team further than ever before.
Think about who introduced you to your favorite team. It could be a parent, grandparent, older sibling, or cousin. Or perhaps you arrived here by your own misguided intuition. Whatever the case may be, you belong. Some people struggle to find a sense of belonging in other facets of their lives where they feel miscast or misunderstood.
To garner understanding in their lives, they need only say four words: “I’m a Vikings fan.”
If you don the purple and gold, you can connect with anyone else who does. You share trauma bonds with complete strangers, weaving an unbreakable chain across the fandom. You are understood. You belong. You share common experiences with more people than you ever thought possible.
Nothing unites humans quite like a common goal, and football provides us with that year-round. For some, football is 23 weekends of entertainment each year. For others, it is ubiquitous. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
That’s either football or The Force, I confuse the two.
There is no way to quantify what football adds to our lives. We can only qualify it as something that brings us immense joy, whether it’s from the success of our favorite team or the gathering of our favorite people.
The Vikings enter the offseason on a gut-wrenching note. Expectations that were low in August soared into the stratosphere from Weeks 1 through 17, only to plummet again at terminal velocity. However, the memories of those weeks when all things were still possible cannot be taken away. And some of us are already looking forward to making more of those memories.
The 2025 offseason is what we’ve been waiting for since Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell arrived in 2022. A litany of roster improvement opportunities lie ahead for a staff that has already exceeded expectations. Many of this season’s main contributors will return next season, and the team will have the resources to bring back the rest and acquire new talent. The highest-drafted quarterback in franchise history is set to take over and begin the next chapter.
As fans, it is our responsibility to them and ourselves to continue to enjoy the ride. The best Hero’s Journey narrative structures include the protagonist overcoming many challenges and failures before finding within themself the ability to overcome and succeed. John Elway’s back-to-back Super Bowl victories on his way out of the league in 1997 and 1998 would be far less sweet were it not for his Super Bowl losses in 1986, 1987, and 1989.
For the Vikings, it’s been 59 years without a Lombardi trophy. Once they get one, we will think back to all of the tears, all of the anger, all of the times that the rug was pulled out from under us, and smile.
Let’s get back on the train. The Vikings play football again this year.
