I know you. I’ve lived here for more than 30 years and I know you’re out there brooding. Yes, brooding. I can hear you brooding. Oh sure, you reveled in the Minneapolis Miracle, you jumped off your barca, did the most un-artful 360 ever, and celebrated Buffalo Right Seven Heaven. Your winning the Super Bowl dream at home is still alive.
But then you made the mistake of a lifetime. You composed yourself.
Not 30 minutes after a play that transcends absurd, that has never happened in the 86 years of NFL playoffs, that was never pulled off by Montana-to-Rice or Unitas-to-Berry or Manning-to-Harrison or Aikman-to Irvin or Stabler-to-Biletnikoff, my wife got a text from a good friend, a great guy and life-long Vikings fan who wanted the inside scoop from a certain former ink-stained wretch turned radio host.
‘‘I need a no-bleep assessment from Dan. As I feared, the offense completely shut down halfway through the second quarter. Running game is minimal to non-existent. The defense was phenomenal in the first half and marginal in the second half. Very exciting but fluke-winning TD. What happens in Philly?’’
No. No. No.
I’m not going to tell you it doesn’t matter whether the Vikings grab this miracle opening and run with it all the way to winning Super Bowl 52. It certainly would add to the legend.
But despite being the hardened cynic I am known to be, I am going to tell you to live in this sports moment. Hear it. Smell it. Taste it. Touch it.
It’s that extraordinary.
It’s the sort of moment Vikings fans ---- regardless of what comes next ---- will be talking about for the next 50 years.
Don’t take it from me. Take it from your old nemesis, Drew Pearson, he of the Hail Mary pass at the old Met.
How delicious is it that the guy your dad and your grandmother came to hate is the who who offers the most helpful insight to fretting Vikings fans today?
‘‘I had pretty much given up until I heard all the shouting in my in living room,’’ Pearson told ESPN. ‘‘And this guy had caught the ball [Stefon] Diggs and the next thing I know, he’s taking off down the sideline and I’m kind of imagining that this is the way Cowboys fans felt back in the day; that the game is over and the next thing you know, you make a play and everybody’s going crazy, pandemonium. It becomes a moment you never forget.’’
And if you assumed it ony matters because it led to the Cowboys winning a Super Bowl, think again. The Cowboys got there, but they did not win it that year.
‘‘It’s for life,’’ Pearson said. ‘‘It’s there for 42 years for me now. I get asked about it all the time. If not every day, it comes comes up quite a bit. The Hail Mary situation, the term Hail Mary and the reaction to it and what it means has crossed over into so many different aspects of life. I’ve heard it in the business world. I hear it in the religious world and the charitable world and in family-life situations where families have to overcome negative situations. It’s crossed over into a lot of different people’s lives.’’
Stop hating the man for a moment. Listen to his message. I know that in the now, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees, but after all these decades, all the improbable misadventures, all the wide lefts and across the bodies and take a knees and all the ‘‘No! The Cardinals have knocked the Vikings out of the playoffs!’’ and all the weeping Blondes and the Kick-Ass Offenses and the Herschel Walker trades, you got something that, regardless of what comes next is for life.
It’s not just what you saw, an impossible, inexplicable, indescribable 61-yard touchdown pass featuring Case Keenum, Diggs, and a safety who will live in infamy.
It’s how you reacted at that moment, when there’s no time to reflect, or to think about what might come next or what weaknesses in your team might have been revealed. It’s the moment of pure joy when it dawns on you what just took place.
Something that never happens to the Vikings. Never.
As the Vikings were trying to come from behind, I tweeted: ‘‘How many Vikes fans are Natalie Wood at end of Miracle on 34th Street right now saying ‘I believe, I believe, I believe.’ ‘‘
Wood plays the little girl at the center of the Christmas classic. Some folks tweeted back that based on the Vikings history, even the way they played the second half Sunday, there was no way they were thinking that at all. Twitter is tough on subtlety. The reason I picked that quote from that movie is that she is saying it without any real conviction. It was as if deep down, she too, expected the worst.
And when Santa did indeed deliver what she wanted, she seemed utterly and most beautifully gobsmacked.
Like Vikings fans last night.
It’s about that moment.
It’s what you threw in the air, or the dance you did, the prayer you offered down on your knees. It’s who you shared it with, who you grabbed, who you kissed, who you hugged. It’s who you reached out to ---- right down the street or halfway around the world.
What comes next, comes next.
But Drew Pearson is right: This one is forever.