The Vikings pulled off one of the most stunning endings to a football game every, and Damian Lillard’s reaction was perfect.
Nothing good ever happens to Minnesota Sports. It’s collectively one of the most depressing things a fan can endure, and folks in Minnesota have been enduring for a while.
That’s why Stefon Diggs’ walk-off touchdown against the Saints was so cathartic. It can’t be expressed how unlikely it was, and everyone had a different reaction to what we saw. If you somehow missed it, the Vikings scored a game-winning 61-yard touchdown as time expired to eliminate the Saints and advance to the NFC Championship Game.
Just a few blocks away at the Target Center, Damian Lillard and the Trail Blazers were warming up before Sunday’s game against the Timberwolves. Naturally, the game was being projected on the jumbotron for all of the fans arriving early.
When Diggs caught the game-winning touchdown, Lillard’s reaction perfectly captured how all objective fans watching felt.
Damian Lillard's reaction to that Vikings ending. 😂 pic.twitter.com/CqlC1D1UiA
— Dynamics • £ (@theDYNAMICS) January 15, 2018
Vikings fans lost their minds, Saints fans broke their TVs — we had seen those reactions. But what about the people without a rooting interest in the game? Lillard’s perplexed reaction as Diggs daggered the Saints is exactly how the everyman reacted, which is almost more perfect than the invested reactions of fans.
The look on Lillard’s face is what sports looks like. It’s not the athletic moves made on the court or the passes caught on the field. It’s about the thing that comes after that; the reaction to the drama that unfolds.
Without the fans, Diggs catch is still great but it’s not the stuff of legend. Lillard might not have been invested in the game, but the fact that he could sit there in stunned silence after watching it all unfold is one of the reasons why sports are the best.