I Am Ready To Have My Heart Broken (Again) [OPINION]

My first memory of the Vikings is of me, wearing a Herschel Walker #34 'jersey' and playing knee football in my childhood home. Doing the math based on that memory, I would say I have been a Vikings fan since I was seven years old.

I'VE SEEN (MOST OF) IT ALL 

After a brief flirtation with the Drew Bledsoe-led Patriots for a couple of regrettable seasons, I was fully bleeding purple by 1995. I think I could probably count the number of games I have missed since then on two hands. From watching game with my dad as a kid to watching them with my own kids now, I've always enjoyed watching the Vikings on Sunday-or Thursday, Saturday or Monday...it's hard to keep up these days.

I was 17 when the Falcons beat the Vikings in the 1999 NFC Championship Game, I was 19 when the Vikings got smoked 41-0 by the Giants in the 2001 NFC Championship Game and I was a 27-year-old when Brett Favre's interception ended a magical 2009 run in, you guessed it, the NFC Championship Game in 2010.

I had declared then that I was no longer going to have sky-high hopes for the Vikings and that I would no longer be so emotionally invested in something that I really have no control over at all.

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES

Enter the Minnesota Miracle.

After Case Keenum hit Stefon Diggs with the 'Minneapolis Miracle' to beat the Saints in the 2018 NFC Playoffs, I was CONVINCED that it was the Vikings' year. I WAS BACK IN, BABY!

The Vikings promptly got stomped 38-7 by the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship Game.

QUARTERBACK CAROUSEL 

Since becoming a Vikings fan I've seen retread quarterbacks like Warren Moon, Jim McMahon, Jeff George, Sage Rosenfels, Brett Favre and Kirk Cousins come through town with varying degrees of fanfare with only modest successes.

I've seen Christian Ponder, Daunte Culpepper, Tarvaris Jackson and Teddy Bridgewater all drafted early, only to have short tenures with Minnesota.

I AM JJ 

Something about JJ McCarthy seems different. While I am almost positive that I am completely overreacting to a single game, like when I was a teen and a pretty girl barely said hello to me at the mall and I suddenly fell in love, I am ALL IN on JJ.

From the way his teammates talk about him to the winning pedigree in high school and college, there doesn't seem to be much -not- to like. Combine that with the coaching of Kevin O'Connell and the receiver trio of Justin Jefferson, Adam Theilen and Jordan Addison and, to me, the sky seems like the limit.