Admit it, we were all way too excited. We knew if the Vikings could stroll into hostile territory like Philadelphia and get to 2-0, we might just be onto something. Some of us might have even bet $100 on the Vikings, imagining a game where the Eagles keyed on Justin “JJ2K” Jefferson, freeing up Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook to have big nights.

But then we remembered it was Monday Night Football and the Vikings had Kirk Cousins under center during a primetime game. After last night’s loss, Cousins is 2-10 on Monday Night Football, worst in the league. By the end of the night, Twitter had exploded with memes about Kirk wanting to turn off the lights because they were too bright, and our Vikings season had been transformed from top of the world to topsy turvy.

It's a familiar theme on these big games: Bright Lights, Little Kirk. #8 might be a lot of things, but #8 is not prime time. Heck, #8 isn’t even a prime number at all—I checked. As one buddy put it in a text to me, “This might be the ultimate worst thing for Vikings fans. Let’s torture them to have a mildly good QB during meaningless games – but whenever it’s a big game you get all excited maybe having a party and all your friends are watching and then he just embarrasses you in front of all of your friends. People have been texting me Yuck emojis all night.”

So, while #8 isn’t primetime or prime, it will be our guide in Week 2 of Sköliosis as we dissect 8 key moments from Week 2 that remind us that being a Vikings fan is bad for your health:

1) THIS SHELL STATION IS OPEN 24 HOURS

Vikings fans of a certain age will remember our fathers stomping around the house cursing the prevent defense, as many a lead was lost late in games when the Vikings switched to this more conservative defensive style. While commentator Troy Aikman prefers to refer to the prevent defense simply as “shell coverages,” the result is the same: death by a thousand paper cuts.

But give defensive coordinator Ed Donatell some credit, as there was some innovation here. Just like Jimi Hendrix, Donatell may be ahead of his time because rather than wait until the end of the game to drain the blood out of the fan base, Ed ran shell coverages the entire game. It was truly amazing, and we never adjusted. Which meant we got to hear Troy Aikman say “shell coverages” approximately 83 times. In hindsight, this could have been made into an excellent drinking game to dull the pain.

2) COULD DARIUS SLAY COVER RANDY MOSS?

Maybe this Darius Slay is the modern day “Revis Island.” He was an All Pro recently, who knows. But it was a bit alarming to see Justin “JJ2K” get so blanketed by Mr. Slay. It remains to be seen how Jefferson regroups after getting shut down in Week 2. Well, technically JJ2K was shut down by both Slay and Cousins who had his Red Zone subscription cancelled by the end of the night and missed an open Jefferson on multiple occasions.

But if JJ2K is going to be the game-changing receiver we all believe he will be, he needs to eat every night. He can’t have a defensive back like Slay become his personal weighted blanket allowing himself to be removed from the game plan completely. The really great ones don’t do that.

3) HOLD ME CLOSE TINY DANTZLER

On the bright side, there was a very short but fairly excellent section of this game where Cameron Dantzler made about four nice plays in a row. Not bad for a guy almost named after a reindeer. At least we all got to watch Tiny Dantzler make great play after great play before flexing his tiny body and being benched for the entire second half.

4) IN THEIR DEFENSE . . .

The defense didn’t give up any points in the second half and time of possession was roughly an Elvis song (Vikings) to the Elvis Movie (Eagles) at 36:14 to 23:46. Throughout the entire game you couldn’t help but think the Vikings defense actually had a better chance of scoring than our offense. They almost did, but note to the defense—go ahead and pitch the interception next time, because if you don’t get all the way into the end zone (spoiler alert) the offense isn’t going to finish the job. No, the red zone was officially the dead zone last night for the Vikings.

5) MEAN AND FAMOUS

You have to give it to any city that throws snowballs at Santa. The Eagles fanbase is so notoriously savage that most opposing team’s families don’t travel to road games. Going to Philly is like playing in Mogadishu. Last night was a reminder of the brutality of Philly’s fanbase as they boo’d Vikings Jalen Reagor relentlessly on every touch for not being better than new teammate Justin Jefferson (the Eagles drafted Reagor before Jefferson in the 2020 draft). With the game well in hand, Eagles fans showed Reagor no mercy reigning down boos on every punt return.

The Eagles also had a ton of famous fans in the audience including James Harden and Bradley Cooper. And for the record, Bradley Cooper was wearing a cool vintage Allen Iverson shirt. That’s like a Philly cheesesteak inside of another Philly cheesesteak.

This brings to mind another concerning Vikings deficiency. Do we have enough cool, famous Vikings fans? Is it too late to prop up Bob Dylan at the 50-yard line for every Vikings game like Jack Nicholson used to do for the Lakers? Does Josh Hartnett count? Can we get Lizzo to be all-in? Some people mention Josh Duhamel but between his native North Dakota and 5 seasons of “Las Vegas” on TV, he would seem to be compromised. Jesse Ventura? Steve Zahn? Stifler (Sean William Scott) from “American Pie?” What about Nick Swardson?

Philly showed us last night that mean and famous works, not ideal because the Vikings appear to be Minnesota Nice and void of any famous fans.

6) DALVIN SHOULDN’T HAVE CHANGED HIS NUMBER

For starters, think of all the fans holding #33 Cook jerseys. You change your number in your 6th year, and you go to a single digit!? As a cowbell running back, doesn’t it seem like you should go with a bigger number? Could Cook have switched to triple digits and worn 100? Now that would have been a positive change. Seeing him in the single digit now, seems to make his yardage shrink as well. As a running back Dalvin should know that more is more, stay big Dalvin! Can he still switch back?

7) PREPARE TO RIDE THE ROLLERCOASTER

On the bright side, no matter what happens this season it probably won’t be as vindictive and cruel as last season. Last season the Vikings savaged their fan base with all the creativity of Kevin Spacey in “Seven.” They kept us in every game to the bitter end or further, and just as we bought in with our trust they’d pull the football away from us like Lucy with Charlie Brown. It was sick, sick stuff.

This year it appears the purple tail Vikings plane will be far more turbulent, experiencing loads of “rough air.” We should all expect a flight pattern of dominant wins mixed with dreadful losses, like a club kid riffling through a bag of uppers and downers. And then in true Vikings fashion, when we get to the end of the rollercoaster, not only will we have lost our hat, glasses, and all the change in our pockets on a loop-de-loop—we’ll realize we spent the last 17 weeks of our life building to a 8-9 record. Yep, that sounds about right.

8) ARE WE ALL MAYBE GOING TO BECOME BILLS FANS, ANYWAY?

There’s an eerie parallel between the losers in Buffalo and the losers in Minnesota. The Vikings have lost 4 Super Bowls, and the Bills lost 4 Super Bowls in a row. Does it seem to anyone else like the football Gods are trying to turn all of us Vikings fans into Bills fans? Have you noticed your friends wavering? It’s reminiscent of a young Tom Brady leading an unlikely Patriots team to a post 9/11 Super Bowl win . . . “We are all patriots!” It seems like the NFL is doing something weird, offering up the Bills to Vikings fans as some sort of Sopranos style Goomah.

Think about the parallels. The Bills have been bad a long time, so have we. Stefon Diggs and Case Keenum are both in Buffalo. I mean that’s the entire Minnesota Miracle wearing red, white, and blue. It’s cold there. Buffalo fans want it more than they should. I’m telling ya, people are wavering. And based on the facts, I’m not even sure it would be cheating if you wake up with lipstick on the collar of your Josh Allen jersey. Expect to see Vikings fans jumping ship this year. You’ll show up on Sunday and your buddy will be in a Diggs jersey, and you’ll be like, “Not you too, Benny.” Be afraid, if there is a mistress to challenge your Vikings monogamy, they live in Buffalo.

Think about it, Philly was the team that turned the wine back into water one week after the Minnesota Miracle routing the purple 38-7 in the NFC Championship. And you’re telling me the NFL scheduling the Vikings against the Eagles tragedy on the same night as the Bills Mafia turned Orchard Park into Woodstock ’99 crushing the Titans 41-7 – which we were treated to during multiple cutaways was a coincidence? I think not. They’re clearly giving Vikings fans a “soft landing” if we want to get out.

ADDITIONAL RANDOM SHENANIGANS:

You know it was a bad game when the only highlights for Vikings fans were commercials with the Manning brothers, Kelce brothers, Jon Hamm (a “Fletch” reboot!), and apparently Papa John’s has launched Papa Bowls. These appear to be pizza without the bread, stuck in a bowl.

I personally bottomed out Week 2 after eating both Chipotle and freezer burned Neapolitan iced cream as I watched the Vikings get crushed. The moment I knew I had hit rock bottom was when I noticed Troy Aikman float a nuanced golf joke that his on-air partner completely ignored. When a player brought up Aikman hitting an errant shot, his line was, “jeez, you hit 95 or 96 good shots and they won’t let you make one bad one.” I was basically Fat Elvis sitting on the toilet at this point, only to hear Aikman’s golf joke sit there like an unreciprocated high five. It felt like a fever dream. I felt for Troy. It wasn’t a great joke, but he shouldn’t have been ignored like that. “95 or 96 good shots!” (Because that’s a lot, too many).

Maybe Twitter is so bad it’s good? I mean don’t get me wrong Twitter is clearly the worst place on earth. Twitter is what’s on the bottom of the Internet’s shoes, but when your team is getting blown out after you just put a couple bets on them during prime time, it’s nice to just be able to type KIRK COUSINS MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL into Twitter and scroll through material. Related, Kirk Cousins and his family should probably avoid Twitter for a while.

In some ways, I blame myself. Here on Sköliosis we’ve made it very clear the only safe way to watch the Vikings is “through your neighbor’s window.” We modified this rule to allow listening to KFAN on the pontoon the first few weeks of the season. It was over 80 degrees yesterday, and I wasn’t out on the pontoon. The recipe worked Week 1, why did I abandon it? Was I to blame for the shell coverages? Did I inadvertently change my jersey number too?

Finally, probably because of multiple games being scheduled we didn’t even get the pleasure of the Manning Cast for a Vikings game. I can’t imagine what Peyton and Eli would have said about Kirk turning the Red Zone into the Red Wedding.

I resisted the temptation to title this article “Love Hurts” or “Hurts So Good.” That said, when it comes to the Vikings, John Mellencamp or John Cougar Mellencamp or John Cougar was right when he said, “Sometimes love don’t feel like it should.” At one point I sent “FUCK YOU VIKINGS” to the group text, which doesn’t seem like the healthiest relationship. Also, I didn’t realize Jalen Hurts had been upgraded to Hertz Gold, can squat 600 lbs, and wears a flack jacket that appears to have Batman nipples on it.

Also, Johnny Mundt Cake caught a pass while lots of other Vikings receivers opted to bat them down.

After the game, my wife consoled me on the porch saying, “We’re just never going to be good. This is how it is forever.” She might be right. Despite the temptation of the Bills bandwagon, I’m not sure I can quit being a Vikings fan. It’s in there no matter what.

In summary, through two weeks the big purple rollercoaster has gone up once, and down once. While we’re not sure of the exact sequence—it’s possible we get to go back up week 3 against the Lions. Which would be a good thing because the Lions coach and their players like to cry, a lot. And beating a team and watching them cry is a lot better than getting beat by a team and having them cry. With the Lions either could happen.

So, let’s win and we’ll sort out the next loop-de-loop later.