I got rug burn yesterday when Blair Walsh missed a chip shot for the Vikings—THE chip shot—to beat Seattle. The kick sailed wide left, and I dropped to the floor like I’d been shot, scuffing my forearm on the carpeting. I think I screamed out "NO," although I may not have even made it to the “o” part of the word. Just NNNNNNN! and I was down. For a while. I made no sound at all. My wife was playing with the kids nearby and did her best to distract them from the fact that Daddy was dead over in the next room. Pay no mind to the deceased idiot. It was probably really awkward for them.

This, of course, is the fate I deserve. Not only am I a lousy person who gleefully revels in the misfortune of other teams and routinely incurs the wrath of entire states (sorry, Maine), but this is what I get for expecting anything ELSE from the idiot team I cheer for. This is what they do, no? I remember watching them blow the NFC title game to New Orleans back in 2010, and I remember that game not hitting me as hard as this one did because Brad Childress was the coach, and Brett Favre was the quarterback, and Fate will come for you if that’s the case. Also, the team committed several GLARING fuck-ups in that game (settling for a long field goal, getting flagged for too many men on the field) before committing the final, crowning fuck-up (Brett Favre throwing a back-breaking interception that only Brett Favre would throw). All of that felt natural and correct. You could see it coming miles away.

But this was different. With the notable exception of Adrian Peterson, this Vikings outfit is a likable team that has been built to last for years, instead of a team jury-rigged for one final run on behalf of a mercenary veteran quarterback. They play brilliant defense. They never miss a tackle. Their head coach is easily the best head coach the Vikings have had in my lifetime. The quarterback never misses, provided he has time to throw (rarely the case, but still). AND IT WAS COLD. Look at all those fans who braved the cold for that team yesterday. They wouldn’t have done that for Mike Tice!

This is a team made for bigger things down the road: maybe next year, or maybe the year after that. But then they started to WIN. They harassed Russell Wilson and made the Seahawks miserable for the better part of three hours. And even when Vikings things started to happen—Peterson fumbling like an asshole (which he ALWAYS does in important games), Wilson summoning his magic Jesus powers to salvage a play that deserved a Brian Hoyer ending—they kept their shit together and drove the length of the field, doing what the Vikings never do: coming through. And so, just before Walsh got ready to kick that ball, it was easy—against all common sense—to think: Maybe it’s different this time.

That’s where sports crush you. And I should have known. Rooting for the Vikings doesn’t give me any kind of special pass for self-pity because there are so many other miserable franchises out there. We are just one of a great many have-nots: Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati (poor, poor Cincinnati), San Diego, Philadelphia, Houston, Arizona (good luck, men), the Jets… In the NFL, misery is the NORM. Right after the game, I found any number of other fans ready to shake some sense into me and scream, “Why did you believe?! YOU IDIOT!” And they were right. I never should have believed.