Stefon Diggs TD catch is the greatest Minnesota sports moment in 25 years

Stefon Diggs daggering the Saints as time expired is the greatest Minnesota sports moment of the last quarter century.

Let’s spare the hyperbole: being a Minnesota sports fans sucks. Nothing ever goes right, the teams are never good and when they are always cannon fodder for “better” teams like the Yankees, Blackhawks, or whoever.

When Wil Lutz kicked a go-ahead field goal for the New Orleans Saints in Minnesota on Sunday, it felt like the record was forever broken for Vikings fans. For the second time in a decade, it looked like Minnesota was going to go home early in the playoffs despite having what many believe to be a Super Bowl caliber team. Memories of 1998, 2001, and 2009 came flooding back. Gary Anderson, 41-0, Brett Favre’s interception — how could this be happening, again?

Then something happened, something that never happens. The stars aligned, the football gods parted the clouds and for the first time in the history of the Vikings franchise, the rays of hope punched through.

Marcus Williams missing the biggest tackle of his life it the type of thing Minnesota teams are never the beneficiary of. That’s why when it happened, the euphoric sound the crowd made was unlike anything you’ve heard before.

That’s one of the greatest sounds you will ever hear in your life. It’s the sound of decades of pain melting away in a moment of pure unfiltered bliss. It’s the sound of the greatest Minnesota sports moment of the last 25 years.

Here’s a list of the things that fans in the state have been able to cheer about since the Twins won the World Series in 1991:

• Minnesota Lynx win four WNBA Finals in seven years.

That’s it. Seriously.

Outside of the Lynx becoming one of the greatest dynasties in basketball history, fans in Minnesota have had to use that balance the following:

• Timberwolves draft Kevin Garnett, make it out of the first-round once
• Twins make it to the playoffs 7 times since 2002, win just one series
• Wild make the playoffs five straight years, only win two series

There hasn’t been a world championship in Minnesota since 1991, and three of the five professional sports teams have nothing but participation awards hanging in the rafters. For the most part, Minnesota has been a graveyard of sports dreams for the last quarter century, and it’s to the point where if something can go wrong it’s assumed that it will.

The whole reason the play even happened was that something bad was in the process of happening; Case Keenum made a bad throw that Diggs had to jump for. If Diggs doesn’t have to leap for a bad pass that was overthrown, he probably gets tackled in bounds.

Enough things have historically gone wrong for Minnesota sports that they all compounded in a single moment to produce something beautifully unexpected.

Next: Best NFL player from each state

Regardless of this season’s final outcome, the Diggs touchdown will go down as one of the greatest moments in Vikings history and the best thing Minnesota sports fans have experienced in the last 25 years.