The cursed franchise

Forget the Cubs. I'm convinced that the Minnesota Vikings are the unluckiest franchise in American professional sports.

They lost four Super Bowls in the 1970s. A few years ago, they went 15-1 but lost the NFC championship game. They lost another NFC championship game 41-0. But this year has been in a class of its own: the most explosive wide reciever in football jumped to Oakland ("the Vikings will have an excellent year without a cancer like Moss in the dressing room," I heard people saying before the season started); the team was mired in an embarassing scandal when word about their charter-boat trip got out; the coach is expected to be fired any second now; and to top it all off, Daunte Culpepper hurt his knee in today's humiliating loss to Carolina, and could be out for the rest of the season.

Here's the thing: I remember a Monday-night game in the late 1980s, when the Vikings absolutely pasted Chicago. At one point, a Minnesota player extended his hand to help a Bears player off the ground - and then let go when he was halfway up, sending him tumbling to the ground once again on national television. So while it's normally not in my nature to take pleasure in other people's misery, I'm absolutely loving every minute of this. (Did I mention that the Bears won today?)

Posted by damian at October 30, 2005 07:32 PM | TrackBack