Unlucky/cursed but smarter than the remaining AFC East teams:

#18 Vikings: you know, from Minneapolis

What can I say that hasn’t already been said by this brilliant and thorough documentary?

Nothing, that is what I have to offer, absolutely nothing. As it turns out kids, the hardest lesson in life to learn is that your parents are not saints and are just ordinary people who have made plenty of mistakes. The second hardest is that the world is a cold, harsh, and cruel place and there is no justice. You can do everything right, and it just doesn’t matter because somebody else exists who is just that much better than you. This is the plight of the Minnesota Vikings, who have decade in and decade out crushed the NFL… all the way up to the NFC Championship game or Super Bowl even, and then no further. A chaotic cosmos that only offers entropy and Vikings choke jobs.

If having Fran Tarkenton, a Hall of Fame defense, and Bud Grant doesn’t get you over the hump then literally nothing will. The same goes for that Randy Moss-Cris Carter-Randall Cunningham triumvirate. And whatever is coming down the pike for a team with TJ Hockenson, Jordan Addison, Justin Jefferson, Aaron Jones, JJ McCarthy, and lol Sam Darnold. It won’t be enough, and we all know it. I remember when Sam Darnold was the hot new USC QB, those were the days, right folks? Just like Mark Sanchez, and Caleb Williams, and Jaxson Dart, and JT Daniels, and Cody Kessler, and Matt Barkley, and on and on and on and on and on. Carson Palmer was good. That’s it.

I really wish there was more to write here because that would make me a much better writer. You all got screwed, plain and simple! Doesn’t help that you all fell into the classic trap of never having a great QB to lead the team, instead just relying on Kirk Cousins who is good but not great. Leslie Frazier and Mike Zimmer as coaches were good but not great. Sam Bradford and Case Keenum were good but not great. The trade for Joshua Dobbs was good but not great. That’s your entire legacy in a nutshell, but instead of HOFers in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘90s, it’s now just pretty okay guys.

But hey, Kevin O’Connell is here now! And, uh……Justin Jefferson sure is a #1 fantasy player! He’s cool, so you have that going. He got paid a lot, good for him. That’s about it. I end up picking up a lot of your players off the waiver wire every year, like Ty Chandler, Alexander Mattison, Laquon Treadwell, Tyler Conklin, Irv Smith Jr., and KJ Osborn, why is that?

TJ is a borderline top-five tight end. That’s not nothing, I guess…

I’m running out of juice, sorry Vikings, you guys are just cannon fodder for the Packers, there always has to be a Washington Generals for every Harlem Globetrotters. You sold off Diggs and Dalvin Cook at the exact right time, but at no point did you draft a quarterback worth a damn! Dak Prescott went in the 4th round, Brock Purdy went in the 7th, you couldn’t get someone better than (looks at pro football reference) Nate Stanley? Jaren Hall? Kellen Mond? Who are these people??? Did you make them up by going into a name generator?

I respect the people of Minnesota too much to really go super hard on them, I don’t have it in me to lambast the Timberwolves (which I could) or the Twins (which I could) or the Wild (no one cares about them). Minnesota sits near two other states in the Midwest I have much bigger gripes with, that being Wisconsin and Michigan (fucking Trump voters fucked everything forever and then flipped to Biden, but I’ll never forget or forgive, that grudge lasts until I die).

Didn’t you guys have Danielle Hunter once? Why did you let him go, you’re not tanking, which is weird because you’re starting a rookie this year whose team was built on him not throwing the ball ever. I don’t get the obsession with being mediocre every year, but if you’re all happy to run on that treadmill that’s fine by me, less player names to memorize.

[Editor’s note: there were several statements made here at the end about Adrian Peterson’s alleged abuses against children and using religion as a defense against grand jury charges of reckless assault and negligent injury to a minor on multiple occasions. We have omitted them to avoid a potential lawsuit for libel, so feel free to look up all of those incidents as well as his arrest for domestic violence on his wife from 2022. Sports Ethos should not be held liable for what this writer has to say.]

Oops, breaking news, we have another guy who got arrested to make fun of…

Read more here!

Smartest teams with recent rings to show for it:
1 – Chiefs
2 – Rams
3 – Eagles

Mostly lucky but somewhat wise/savvy:
4 – Ravens
5 – Texans
6 – Packers
7 – Steelers
8 – Bengals
9 – Bucs
10 – Lions
11 – Seahawks

Dumb AND evil, what a combo!:
12 – 49ers
13 – Browns
14 – Cowboys
15 – Patriots
16 – Commanders

Unlucky/cursed but smarter than the remaining AFC East teams:
17 – Bears