Smith: Expect the unexpected when Vikings and Saints get together
Guest columnist Joshua Smith writes about watching an old Vikings-Saints game and marveling about how it's always a wild ride between these two teams
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a guest column by Joshua Smith. He is a long-time Purple Insider subscriber and is the sports editor and a lifestyle columnist at The Frederick News-Post in Maryland. Enjoy!
By Joshua Smith
They were responsible for my three worst self-inflicted sore throats.
In order: 2009, 2017, 2019.
The high-stakes clashes. The wild swings in momentum. The stunning conclusions.
The screaming at the TV.
What is it about Vikings-Saints?
As we approach the 2023 date between these seemingly perpetually entangled nemeses, I'll tell you what it is:
I think it has to do with hope.
That's what it is, anyway, from my perspective as a battered and beaten Vikings fan. So often when these teams have met, it's preceded or followed by a time when we've let ourselves believe, to have hope.
That's not an easy accomplishment with this lot — those of us with purple bruises on our hearts. We're preprogrammed to fatalism. We’re cloaked in dread.
It wasn't lining up to feel hopeful this year, though, when looking ahead to this Nov. 12 matchup. Not after 0-3. Not after Kirk Cousins hobbled off amid a shockingly uplifting winning streak.
But then: The Josh Dobbs Game.
Entering last weekend, maybe we had suspended our expectations. For one of the few times in 30-plus years, I watched the Vikings in a non-imbibed relaxed state.
Let's just see what happens.
By the time the safety, fumble, fumble happened, I was laughing under my breath.
Then, things got preposterous.
And when the Passtronaut evaded trouble on fourth down and picked up a fresh set with — what's this? — a desperate, electric scramble, I was laughing over my breath.
By the end, I was feeling … hopeful?
For a 5-4 team on its third quarterback in two weeks? With a running game that often starts and ends in its own backfield? With a defense that could well be playing over its head.
Wait.
I was not hopeful in the hoisting-shiny-hardware sense. I was hopeful in the sense that the infrastructure and general direction of the organization seems properly zeroed. That the coach — a volcano of positivity who just coached his butt off in a way that probably hasn’t been done by a man in his position too many times before — is the right guy for this organization right now.
We also see how Brian Flores is maximizing his personnel and schematic smarts on defense. We see how Kevin O’Connell has handled absences of stars and kept the offense moving. We wonder how he can make use of a more prepared Dobbs and his — what’s this? — ability to make off-script plays. We know Justin Jefferson is coming back at some point.
We see the relative mediocrity of the conference and a favorable short-term schedule.
So here we go again. What the hell. Let’s hope.
Just as the Saints come marching in.
In modern parlance, it’s a perfect Crying Vince McMahon gif: “Dad, tell us about Vikings-Saints.”
Who didn’t believe the Lombardi was maybe, finally coming our way after the Minneapolis Miracle?
Who didn’t believe the Favre magic would somehow persist through all of those turnovers … until the cross-body pick?
Who didn’t believe in 2019 that, damn, they have a shot in San Fran if they just play like that again?
Even last year, who wasn’t all aboard the one-score crazy train after seeing that Week 4 double doing in London?
There’s another time for me — hardly heralded in the series lore and after some late-1980s Wild Card installments that I was too young to experience. It might be the first time I allowed myself to have hope with this godforsaken team.
I looked it up again this week.
Sunday, Nov. 6, 1994, in Minneapolis: Vikings 21, Saints, 20.
It’s etched in my brain. Randomly and happily.
Back then, I was gaining footing as a 16-year-old Vikings fan in the Baltimore suburbs. I sent away for team photos and adorned my bedroom with them. I had a replica Riddell Vikings helmet, shirts ordered by my folks from the annual JC Penney Christmas catalog and the same gorgeous block-letter Starter hat that often sat high atop Dennis Green’s head.
On the weekend of Nov. 6, I experienced a modest Minneapolis Miracle when I was able to find the Vikings-Saints Fox broadcast on one of the 12 channels we could get by rotating (and rotating and rotating) the antenna my father installed on the roof of our two-story home.
Long about three hours later, I was exhausted, I was exhilarated and I also knew that years later I’d name one of my dogs Reed — after Jake, who caught 159 yards and a TD worth of passes from Warren Moon in victory.
For the first time, I had hope. All full of innocence and purple passion, and unaware of what awaited me over the decades.
Moon fired lasers. Cris Carter and Jake Reed plucked them out of the air. Denny deftly deployed four — FOUR — running backs. The defense stiffened late, making it possible for Moon to engineer a wonky, game-winning, 84-yard touchdown drive — even as Skinny Ed Hochuli’s crew blew more than one catch-or-not-a-catch call inside of the final two minutes.
The final half hour is worth the whole two-hour, 38-minute YouTube experience.
Those Vikings improved to 7-2, and they didn’t really do a damn thing that year.
But this chapter of Vikings-Saints remains a favorite random game in my history as a fan.
Because it reminds me how fun hope can be.
And I’d much prefer to spend my Sundays cherishing a desire than being calmly indifferent.
Even if it’s a desire that’s repeatedly crushed.
So thanks, Josh Dobbs, for sending our hopes into orbit, unexpectedly and yet again. You haven’t even played in it, but you made this another Vikings-Saints chapter we’ll probably all remember.
As usual, one way or another.
Reach Joshua Smith at jray5k@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter/X: @JoshuaR_Smith
You had me at the JC Penny catalog and Starter jacket as a fellow 90s graduate.
Hope is a great through-line, Josh.