SKÖLIOSIS WEEK 10—8 Degrees of Dobbination—Vikings 27 Saints 19
If anyone knows what it’s like to be a loyal fan of the Purple, it’s the readers of SKÖLIOSIS — your weekly reminder that being a Vikings fan is bad for your health.
Did anyone watch the Bills game this week and think to themselves that it might actually be worse to be a Bills fan? Josh Allen needs a new facemask because he’s stepped on so many rakes, and the four Super Bowls the Bills lost were in most of the current fanbase’s lifetimes.
Checking the data, the Vikings are generally a winning franchise.
Maybe this makes it worse because Vikings fans never get the Super Bowl closure we all need. Or maybe this makes it better because the data would suggest that on most Sundays it’s a good thing to be a Vikings fan.
While it’s true a few weeks back Sköliosis officially endorsed Jaren “Hall Pass,” we’ve all now embraced our beautiful purple Dobber as Vikings fans across the state continue to yell “BINGO!” each Sunday with Josh Dobbs at the helm.
5-game win streak, the Passtronaut, Vikings smooth, shaving off eyebrows, playing Creed music in the locker room—without question it’s been a great ride.
Now the question is, where do we go from here?
Well, since Josh “The Dobber” Dobbs is driving the Vikings ship, we figured we’d dive deep into the 8 Degrees of Dobbination. Using a bingo card as our guide, below are the 8 possible outcomes to the Vikings season based on how The Dobber will, or won’t, fill the card. You’ll notice each scenario is, in fact, a winning (bingo) scenario. Because, let’s be honest, we’re all playing with house money at this point after Kirk Cousins went down with an Achilles injury.
Scenario 1—Vertical Bingo
In this scenario, like an awful postgame presser, we just keep taking things one game at a time relying on Josh Dobbs to continue to stack wins and take us “Higher.”
https://youtu.be/WOs5b89hBbA?feature=shared
The Vikings finish with a winning record, as the Passtronaut predictably maintains his vertical ascent. We don’t have a ton of playoff success, but all in all we finish with a vertical bingo, or a simple thumbs up on the 2023 Vikes season.
Scenario 2—Horizontal Bingo
If there’s one thing an astronaut, or a passtronaut, doesn’t love, it’s gravity, or a plateau. The dreaded horizontal bingo would mean we’ve already peaked. We had more fun than we ever thought once Kirk went down, but our 5-game winning streak was really the high point as we all descend into a horizontal (fetal?) position on the couch for the balance of the season. The Vikings regress to the mean, and we end up with a losing record, missing the playoffs.
Scenario 3—Diagonal Bingo
It would make sense that the twists and turns of the Vikings season continue to be anything but a straight line. With diagonal bingo, Dobbs is likely to also be injured at some point. Jaren Hall maybe steps in, hell, we might even have a Nick Mullens sighting. Diagonal bingo! Justin “JJ2K” Jefferson comes back and that changes things. Diagonal bingo means for as many interesting stories as we’ve already had tbis season, we’re only halfway through the book and it’s going to be a page turner. We’re not sure if we make the playoffs or not in this diagonal bingo scenario, the entire season remains as unpredictable as a coin toss.
Scenario 4—Four Corners Bingo
We’re going to consider Four Corners bingo, four QUARTERS bingo. This is football, after all. This would mean that the Vikings finish with an uneven season, eventually giving into their circumstances. Yet, there will still be one golden moment, one glorious four quarters of football to look forward to. At some point the Vikings will paint a Picasso, beating a team they have no business beating. Sure, we already did this against the 49ers, but let’s be a little greedy and say we do it again. It might be snuffing out Joe “Cool” Burrow’s cigar and trouncing the Bengals, or we might even settle for completely dismantling the Packers on New Year’s Eve. It’s not Detroit (more on this later). Four corners bingo give us one more special game, and it's almost enough. Almost.
Scenario 5—Postage Stamp Bingo
Postage Stamp bingo is all about the narrative—it’s a season to write home about. We don’t win the Super Bowl, but we do make the playoffs. The rest of the way is almost exclusively a Josh Dobbs story, and they sell the pilot to Netflix (or at least E:60) and someday we will tell our kids we were there.
Scenario 6—Big T Bingo
You’ve heard of being “Low T,” well, in this scenario the Vikings go into complete beast mode flexing their “Big T” on all comers. Bill Simmons might call it the Ewing theory, but somehow the best version of the Vikings is actually this version. Josh Dobbs proves to be better than Kirk Cousins. Our best running back option turns out to be Ty Chandler. Jefferson returns to give us the best receiving corps in the league. We go on a heater, the Vikings become a wagon, and we continue to kick ass until just coming up short late in the playoffs. But it’s a great season, and one hell of a story.
Scenario 7—Picture Frame Bingo
Ahh, the picture frame. There’s only one picture frame bingo scenario for Vikings fans, and you all know what it is: Super Bowl champions! It doesn’t matter how we get there, but the Purple turn Minnesota into Winnesota. We all start selling our ’87 and ’91 homer hankies at garage sales because our WIN passports just got a fresh new stamp.
Scenario 8—Whole Card “Blackout” Bingo
Let’s be honest, this is the most likely scenario, and it was predicted in this column previously. Taking “blackout” to heart would mean the Vikings continue their ascent, stringing together victories until the fanbase is brimming with confidence. And then, just when we feel confident, comfortable, and safe—we square off against Detroit in two out of three games to end the regular season. Heck, the Vikings might even win one of these games. It won’t matter, because we’ll be in a position where only one team can make it from the NFC North and the wild card is hanging in the balance. And just when we let down our guard . . .BAM! A shot straight to the face, as the “Motown Mauling” gets filed alongside Gary Anderson’s missed kick, Drew Pearson’s catch, forty-one donut, and that Seattle playoff game we had no business losing. If this blackout scenario happens, you’re going to want to avoid being around anyone wearing purple for a while.
On the bright side, it should be noted that if the Vikings somehow do win the Super Bowl, that the picture frame bingo could also be a “blackout” scenario for quite a few of us that get overserved on our way to glory. We’ve been waiting a while; I’d say we deserve it.
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