Stefon Diggs’ catch will live in fans’ hearts forever
Throughout the years, the lives of Minnesota Vikings fans across the country had been living a football nightmare. Since the Vikings became a franchise, they’ve been in the playoffs a whopping 27 times since the team’s existence, which is third-most in the league. As fans of this team, you experience a roller coaster of emotions like no other, and those emotions didn’t fail last Sunday when Diggs scored the touchdown heard around the world.
This year could be an exception to the fact of our past playoff blunders. For the first time in a long time, it seems as if we’ve broken a seal in the space-time continuum. For once in the playoff history of the Minnesota Vikings, we can celebrate a memory that’ll live in the minds and hearts of not only Vikings fans, but sports fans in general for the rest of our lives.
When you think of past Vikings playoff games, you think of many different events that’ve transpired in recent years. You think of the past blunders that’ve happened throughout the team’s history, like the four Super Bowls we’ve lost, Roger Staubach’s Hail Mary in 1975, the dropped pass vs. the Redskins in 1982, the missed field goal in 1998, bountygate in 2009, the missed kick in the cold in 2015. Saying that Vikings fans have experienced pain first hand is an understatement, because every time you think this team is about to punch their ticket to the big dance, they rip into your heart and soul like having that girl you like open a snap or a text and don’t reply.
Throughout the game last Sunday, you could cut the tension with a knife in that stadium. Even though the Vikings jumped out to an early 17-0 lead over the New Orleans Saints, the fans of the purple and gold always replay flashbacks in the back of their head of past playoff blunders, and who could blame them? Once the score of the game was 23-21 in favor of the Vikings, with just seconds left in the game, with Drew Brees leading the offense down the field, you could feel the air being sucked out of US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
The biggest play during New Orleans’ final drive of the game, which led to a field goal and a 24-23 lead over the Vikings, was the pass from Brees to Willie Snead for a fourth down conversion, which put them in range for what seemed at one point to be the game-winning field goal. You could hear a pin drop inside that stadium after Saints kicker, Wil Lutz, kicked that field goal. What nobody knew though at that moment was that the Saints would be the ones going home on this fateful day.
The Vikings proceeded then to go on offense, looking for yardage, to down the field for a game-winning field goal. Vikings quarterback Case Keenum was on a mission to make that a reality for this team. The Vikings drove down the field, but with 10 seconds left in the game, it seemed all but over for the purple. Case Keenum proceeded to chuck the ball down the right sideline to Stefon Diggs, and Diggs would house it for a walk-off game-winning touchdown.
If the Diggs catch taught the world anything, it’s that miracles indeed do come true. Not only did Stefon win this game for the Vikings, but he won it for the players of Vikings past. For names like Jared Allen, Randy Moss, Cris Carter, Randall McDaniel, etc. Stefon has etched his name in history, and he hopes he can do the same thing this weekend in Philly.