Daily Norseman
“Ah – Playoffs? Don’t talk about — playoffs?! You kidding me? Playoffs?! I just hope we can win a game!” — Jim Mora.
The good thing about this gig is that it doubles as therapy. Writing has a way of easing the mind and spirit amid the emotional roller coaster of being a Minnesota Vikings fan. While there are moments – heck, even months – of elation in any given season, the only thing that’s ever guaranteed is disappointment.
Warren Ludford did an outstanding job touching on the general mess the Vikings find themselves in, while Christopher Gates followed it up with a terrific look at the latest surrounding the embarrassing Carson Wentz injury drama.
With that, some of my takes. The recurring theme: I was wrong.
The Lowest Point of KOC’s Tenure
Thursday night was the worst loss of the KOC era. Yes, the 40-3 beatdown by the Dallas Cowboys in 2022 was technically worse in terms of point differential, but context matters. KOC was a rookie head coach; we were 8-1 at the time, and coming off one of those highs mentioned above —a win in one of the most entertaining regular-season NFL games in recent memory against the Buffalo Bills.
This was a trainwreck of another kind. With a 3-3 record and a brutal schedule ahead, the Vikings needed a solid effort. Heck, they needed to seem at least…interested. They failed to clear that low bar. KOC’s body language throughout was alarming to me. He looked exhausted, confused, and, worst of all, like a man resigned to his fate – something you never want to see in a head coach. It all played out like a scene from some cheesy, schmaltzy, depressing Lifetime TV movie or a New York Jets documentary.
The seemingly endless string of injuries is now reaching historic and comical levels. You have to laugh or you’ll cry. That has to take a toll. The same goes for the ongoing quarterback drama, along with the legitimate questions and conspiracy theories that have come with it. At the end of the day, however, it comes with the territory. As Hyman Roth noted in The Godfather II: “This is the business we’ve chosen.” KOC is getting paid the big bucks to navigate such stormy waters, and with it, the expectation that such problems can be solved, however daunting.
Wentz Takes One for the Team
We can engage in the useless exercise of assigning blame for the last two games. Was it 100% Wentz? 90%? 80%? Considering we now know he had absolutely no business playing for weeks, and endured pain that would have put most of us in a hospital bed, let alone being a sitting duck behind a makeshift offensive line for NFL defensive linemen and linebackers to tee off on.
This much is now clear: Carson Wentz is the only one who comes out of this mess looking good. If this does prove to be the end of his career in the NFL, he...
