Between Jimmy Butler going scorched earth to the Vikings getting blown out by the Bills, it was a bad week for Minnesota Sports.
This week was not a good one to be a Minnesota sports fan. To be fair, there’s almost never a good week to be one but this week was particularly awful.
Minnesota Sports, for the uninitiated, is the perpetual state of frustration that fans live in. It doesn’t matter which of the Minnesota teams someone roots for if something can go wrong it almost certainly will. Whether it’s the Twins winning the AL Central almost every year of the 2000s only to run into a Yankees buzzsaw, or the Wild making the playoffs every year only to win one game, to the Vikings losing four Super Bowls and every big NFC Championship Game that came after, the sports landscape is a boneyard of hope.
The latest edition Minnesota Sports started this past week when Jimmy Butler, the prize jewel acquisition of last season — a guy who the Timberwolves thought would be a centerpiece for years — requested a trade after less than 60 games with the team. It doesn’t really matter why Butler wants out, it’s the optics; even big swings that look like home runs land short on the warning track.
Even by Minnesota Sports standards, this is a special kind of failure. Nothing has gone from being so hopeful to so utterly desolate in such a short amount of time. Superstars have requested to be traded before, but at least Kevin Garnett and Kevin Love twisted in the wind for years before realizing enough was enough. For Butler, an outsider that fans saw as validation of the franchise, it took him less than a full season of games. Given the team’s history when it comes to trading away its superstar, and the tension between owner Glenn Taylor and head coach Tom Thibodeau, this will not end well.
Even by Minnesota Sports standards, this is a special kind of failure. Nothing has gone from being so hopeful to so utterly desolate in such a short amount of time.
The full scope of Minnesota Sports was displayed on Sunday. As if the Butler drama wasn’t enough, Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills came into town and blew the doors off the Vikings in stunning fashion. Not once did Minnesota come close to making a game of it, trailing 17-0 before the smoke from the pregame ceremonies had cleared. The Vikings were 16-point favorites, are at the center of the Super Bowl Favorite conversation, and just spent $83 million on a quarterback. Expectations are through the roof, and no one thought the hapless Bills would stand a chance against a vaunted Vikings defense.
Allen, a guy our NFL expert deemed an inaccurate bust before the draft, hung 27-points and looked impressive for the first time in his career. Cousins threw the ball 55 times and only scored one garbage-time touchdown, turning the ball over twice. Not once was Cousins able to put together a drive that helped the Vikings muster up any sort of momentum. Sean McDermott’s defense forced the $83 million man look less like a high priced free agent savior and more like the same old Vikings quarterback stiff.
As if a perfect cherry on top of this sundae of terrible, the game that Dennis Green was honored at halftime by being inducted into the Ring of Honor.
Was it because the Bills caught the Vikings on a bad week? Are the Vikings overrated? An explanation isn’t needed, not when the letdowns are so comically clockwork. There’s enough sports disappointment in Minnesota to fill all 10,000 of its lakes.
It’s hard to articulate the pain of Minnesota Sports to outsiders. Everyone knows about big moments like Gary Anderson’s missed kick in the 1998 NFC Championship Game, or Brett Favre’s interception a decade later, but the pain has been constant. This week’s events, albeit heightened, is the reality that fans in Minnesota have to live with. Everything that can go wrong will, and when you think it can’t get any worse it always does.
Never underestimate Minnesota Sports, it will always find new and creative ways to disappoint you.