As I wrote in my piece last week, I’m quite familiar with Jacksonville, Fla.
I’ve lived in Florida my whole life, long before adopting the Minnesota Vikings as my NFL team in 2011. I’m all too familiar with a dirty, steamy afternoon in Jacksonville. I’ve seen many smoggy, overcast Duval skies like the one we saw on Sunday, blocking out the sun and turning the whole city into a bleak grayscale of dirty concrete and cigarette smoke. So, suffice it to say, the sea of bright purple jerseys pouring out of Everbank Stadium gave my eyes a welcome pop of color.
This was my first Vikings away game, and embarrassingly, only my second time ever seeing the Vikings in person. That’s the plight of adopting a team headquartered halfway across the country from you, I suppose.
So I was extra excited when my beautiful wife surprised me with tickets to this game, wearing a brand-new Vikings T-shirt and announcing that after 11 years of watching me agonize over the Vikings, she’d finally decided to embrace them as her NFL team. I probably should’ve talked her out of it, but after watching me suffer Minnesota’s emotional roller coaster for a decade, at least she can’t complain that she didn’t know what she was getting herself into.
My initial impression of the crowd at Everbank Stadium was about what I expected. For all the smack talk I’ve done about Jacksonville, I have to give credit to the Jags fans present on Sunday. Anyone willing to pay $100-plus to watch a 2-7 football team has my respect — and a 2-7 team without their starting quarterback, to boot. But the stadium was packed, even if it was a solid 35 to 40% Vikings fans.
The home crowd was jaded and cynical to a level that Vikings fans can probably relate to from our own dark periods. They erupted with each Vikings turnover or sparkle of optimism. However, they quickly fell silent and depressed again once Brian Flores dialed up a new way to decimate their offense. Jags fans around us had very low expectations for their offensive output coming into the game, yet they still came away disappointed.
Minnesota’s struggles on offense juiced up the Jaguars faithful. They even got feisty with a few mocking SKOL chants after Sam Darnold‘s third interception. However, even while winning, they could sense that their reality check was coming. When the going got bumpy, they quit on their squad awfully fast.
A perfect example of this came late in the game. After Byron Murphy‘s interception, the Vikings had the ball up 12-7 near midfield with about 3:15 remaining on the clock. Jacksonville had all their timeouts and dominated red-zone defense all game. They had another chance to get the ball back with a chance to win or tie the game if they could keep the Vikings out of the end zone.
But when I tell you that place emptied out, I’m not exaggerating. Jags fans poured out of that stadium in droves while a one-score game was still hanging in the balance. Darnold took the third-down sack at midfield, leading to a punt back to the Jags offense. Still, home fans continued hustling toward the exits. When Mac Jones got the ball back with a chance to win, he did so in front of an almost fully purple crowd. I won’t sugarcoat it; that’s a losing mentality for the home crowd.
Enough about the depressing Jaguars, though. I wanna talk about how much I love Vikings fans.
There’s just something special about the tribalism at a football game. That feeling of showing up to a stadium and immediately bonding with people in your section you’ve never met before, unified by your singular love of your favorite team, is just the best. You’re family, coming together for every cheer and high five for the next three-and-a-half hours.
It was a cool reminder of just how great this fanbase is. I’m sure everyone feels that way about their fans, but the Jaguars game confirmed our bias. We met great people who were excited to hear my wife was hopping on board the bandwagon. Every fan we talked to was cool, friendly, and passionate — even when things got dicey on the field.
And things were pretty dicey. It was interesting to have my finger on the pulse of the Vikings crowd during the Darnold death spiral. Clearly, the honeymoon period with Danold is over for the fanbase, and some of that frustration was unfortunately rolling over to Kevin O’Connell as well. It’s easy to criticize any play call that doesn’t work, but there were many groans for the reverse and the choice to throw on third down on Minnesota’s penultimate drive.
I heard plenty of fans lament J.J. McCarthy‘s injury, desperate to see someone else take over at quarterback. Now that he seems to have turned back into a pumpkin, fans have struggled to reconcile that with his hot start.
Ultimately, when the clock struck triple zeros, though, Everbank Stadium echoed with Vikings fans cheering and putting together a makeshift SKOL chant to send the team off to the locker room. As we exited the stadium, everyone was just relieved to have the victory. I couldn’t help but laugh as I heard “Packers Suck” chants echoing down the dirty, sad streets of downtown Jacksonville.
This wasn’t a game that will live on in Vikings lore, but it was a great memory for my wife and me. She’s 1-0 now as a Vikings fan and eagerly awaiting her first Vikings touchdown.