Cynical Vikings Guy: A Declaration of Football Independence

Editor’s Note:
Wow. We haven’t heard much from Cynical Vikings Guy this year. Now we know that he has been hard at work over that time. Apparently the Minnesota Vikings loss to the Dallas Cowboys has pushed CVG to make a dramatic declaration. In retrospect, I guess we should have seen this coming.

Here is Cynical Vikings Guy’s “A Declaration of Football Independence”:

When in the Course of a football season it becomes necessary for one fan to dissolve the fanatical bands which have connected him with an NFL team, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that he should declare the causes which impel him to the separation.

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all teams are created equal, that they are endowed by the NFL with the same salary cap. That to enjoy Sunday afternoon, I turn on the TV and cheer my favorite of these NFL teams. That when my team sucketh so bad as to be destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the Fan to alter or abolish his allegiance to it, and to institute a new favorite among the NFL teams, so long as that team is not the Green Bay Packers. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

The Vikings have traditionally made Crappy draft choices (or traded them all to Dallas for that stiff, Herschel Walker) like when they picked Darrin Nelson ahead of Marcus Allen.

The Vikings, when they have accidentally drafted a good player, like Adrian Peterson, have left him on the bench during key drives because they say he can’t block, when his position is running back, not offensive line.

After said accidentally obtained good player rushes for over 200 yards and three touchdowns against the Bears, they declare him to be the back-up to the mediocre Chester Taylor, defying all logic and common sense. They then hand off to him only 12 times against the Cowboys.

The Vikings took a knee against Atlanta in the NFL Championship game.

The Vikings traded the most exciting player in the NFL, Randy Moss, for linebacker Napoleon Harris, who is no longer on the team, and a draft pick that became Troy Williamson, who should not be on the team.

The Vikings traded Daunte Culpepper (who scored five touchdowns with a lousy Oakland team week 4) for a second round draft pick.

The Vikings used that second round draft pick to take Ryan Cook, which everyone agreed was a reach and whose inability to block anyone could result in a quarterback getting killed or maimed.

The Vikings repeatedly fail to defeat the lousy Packers, exposing their fans to obnoxious drunken gloating from Packer fans.

Several Vikings coaching staffs have had no clue as to clock management or when to make a replay challenge.

The Vikings have lost four Super Bowls without winning one.

The Vikings did not fire Denny Green and hire Tony Dungy when they had the chance, as I begged them to.

The Vikings did hire the inept Brad Childress, whose firing I was the fist to call for – before his first pre-season game.

The Vikings have started Kelly Holcomb, a quarterback who has failed with three other teams.

The Vikings are probably somehow to blame for the recent embarrassing loss by the University of Minnesota to some division 1-AA team that no one has ever heard of.

[several dozen additional complaints edited out for brevity -- Sisyphus]

In every stage of these Oppressions I have petitioned for Redress in most humble terms: My repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury and restraining orders. A team, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Lousy Team, is unfit to be the favorite team of a knowledgeable fan.

Nor have I been wanting in attentions to my Vikings. I have warned them from time to time of attempts by their front office to draft stiffs and hire doltish coaches. I have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and I have conjured them by the ties of our common rooting interest to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies while Childress coaches, Friends again when he’s fired.

I therefore, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of my intentions, do, in the name and by Authority of the good Fans of the NFL, solemnly publish and declare, That this Fan is, and of Right ought to be Free of and independent, that I am Absolved of all Allegiance to the Minnesota Vikings, and that all fandom connection between myself and the Vikings, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Free and independent fan of the NFL I have the full Power to root for any non-Packer NFL team of my choosing. – And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, I pledge my Life, Fortune, and sacred Honor.

Cynical Vikings Guy