Murphy: You won’t forget that one, kid

Another crazy Vikings game, only this time through the eyes of a first-timer

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By Brian Murphy

THE STANDS — It’s 11:39 p.m. Thursday as I crack open my laptop and try to reconcile another Vikings colonoscopy that has me staring into my empty wallet and taking measure of my 10-year-old son’s exhausted soul.

The lasting image of Minnesota’s greatest loss it’s ever won was Ethan gnawing on his fingernails on one hand while peeking through the other with a face full of dread like generations of tortured fans before him.

There was thousand-year-old Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger dropping back with 3 seconds remaining and firing into the Pittsburgh end zone, where Pat Freiermuth swaddled the ball before Harrison Smith and Xavier Woods separated the tight end from the potential tying touchdown as time expired, salvaging another date that could have lived in Vikings infamy.

Here came the relief that salvaged him and 70,000-plus other true believers from another overtime scar and a lifetime of primal scream therapy after a raucous 36-28 victory that didn’t have to be so damn hard.

Instead of sleeping in Friday, I could have been in a windowless hearing room being prosecuted for subjecting my innocent fifth-grader to the kind of abuse that can strip one of parental rights and promote public flogging.

Here I thought I was doing the sports-crazed kid a solid. Introducing him to the great American mashup of sport, commerce and binge drinking before any of his jealous classmates. Of grown men in jerseys swearing at the failures of athletes half their age. Of mothers guzzling hard seltzers and bouncing infants in babybjorns while threatening to cast referee Clete Blakeman into hellfire.

No slow-play initiation with a preseason matchup or noon kickoff against the Browns. This was a prime-time, school-night epic against a legacy franchise. With job security and credibility of the Vikings’ front office, coaching staff and franchise quarterback on death’s doorstep.

I was walking Ethan into a viper pit of drunken and profane angst. Instead of coach Mike Zimmer being given a full-throated Brad Childress banishment, my boy was treated to a generational beat down of the no-show Steelers.

Until suddenly it wasn’t.

Roethlisberger went from losing his career in the sun and colliding with Willie Mays in the 1973 World Series to leading Pittsburgh on an improbable comeback that featured 28 second-half points and a last-minute drive that resurrected all kinds of demons from Minnesota’s Sunday meltdown in Motown.

It wouldn’t be a Vikings game in 2021 without the cardiac monitors and cyanide pills nearby. Pure-gold entertainment and unpredictability that brings all of us back to the trough demanding more.

I declared them dead just four days earlier after losing to the previously winless Detroit Lions, an unforgivable defeat that likely will be the damning piece of evidence that owners Zygi and Mark Wilf use to justify an inevitable house cleaning.

Lest anyone forget, the Vikings still have to defeat Chicago twice and the Los Angeles Rams or Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field at minimum to slither into the playoffs.

For this dormant weekend, though, I’ll humbly wash down some crow with Hannibal Lecter’s Chianti and fava beans. No one on the planet could have predicted a 29-0 Minnesota lead. Or running back Dalvin Cook patching together his damaged shoulder and rushing 25 times for 205 yards and a pair of scores without having his limb amputated in the face of a misguided comeback.

This team refuses to go quietly into the night. Nor has it quit playing for Zimmer. All of which may prove moot in the final analysis. But there is something noble in how the Vikings repeatedly close ranks and march into the headwinds.

Perspective is broader from Section 338, Row 17, where the $60 tickets I purchased late on the secondary market seemed like a solid deal until the processing fees piled up faster than Baushaud Breeland’s blown coverages.

We were four rows shy of the back wall of the upper, upper deck above the south goal line. Ironically, right over where I would have had my snout buried in the press box buffet in a previous life. Ethan had a Gatorade, the old man a double Crown Royal on the rocks as kickoff neared.

Perfect for the Irish wake that never came.

I’m a few years late to the party, but as a first-time fan, I must say U.S. Bank Stadium is a beautiful venue. Great sightlines. Friendly staff. And a steady din that makes interminable television timeouts tolerable.

Watching Ethan’s eyes widen as he took in the vast expanse of the green gridiron and yellow goalposts for the first time brought me back to the first NFL game I attended.

It was my 12th birthday Nov. 6, 1983. Lions-Giants at the old Pontiac Silverdome. Monday night. Billy Sims ran for a touchdown and spiked the ball in front of Lawrence Taylor. The good guys won en route to a rare division championship.

A couple drunks got into a fight in front of us. Someone raised a “Howard Sucks!” banner behind the uprights to troll Cosell in his final season in the ABC booth. And all was right in the world.

Thirty-eight years later, after Roethlisberger’s final pass rattled incomplete, and the Vikings celebrated another unlikely redemption, Ethan’s voice was hoarse with fatigue as we exited like cattle out of the stadium into the frigid night in search of an available Uber.

How does one process the previous three hours of unscripted madness through the eyes of a first-timer? He’ll have playground stories to tell of valiance and victory.

But do I have to brace him for the inevitable Soldier Field face plant? Or challenge his unwavering belief that a seventh-seed playoff berth and first-round buzzsaw opponent would only prolong his agony?

That’s the cynicism of a 50-year-old who thinks he knows better. He’s the 10-year-old with the world laid out in front of him. With plenty of time to discover the joys and sorrows that keep us coming back for one more thrill.

Fees be damned.