Brian Murphy: You know it's different when the kicker is thriving
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, another Vikings miracle.
The franchise tortured by missed field goals and placekicker mismanagement celebrated on Christmas Eve a blessed kicker who walks off victories instead of being frog-walked out of the facility.
Greg Joseph’s team-record, 61-yard dagger as time expired Saturday at US Bank Stadium not only gave Minnesota another improbable victory in their season of the absurd. It also banged the pause button on the episode of kicker anxiety that has played on an endless loop in this market for a quarter century.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. The other shoe will eventually drop, probably an iron boot to the chin in late January. None of this really matters until Joseph buries the extra points and field goals that rescue the Vikings from the ghosts of postseasons past.
Give yourself some grace. Just for a moment. Minnesota has won 12 games and could easily finish 14-3. Heady times. Try not to get too lost in yours.
For the record, Joseph has converted 20 straight attempts. His 61-yarder bested his personal record and the team mark by 5 yards and probably would have been good from 65.
Another clutch performance, another cardiac finish and another dogpile at midfield as the Vikings continue to find storybook ways to win despite their best efforts to lose.
Outplayed or outgained, it simply doesn’t matter.
Eleven of their wins have been by one score or less. No NFL team has ever wiggled out of so much trouble.
They are tightening their grip on the No. 2 seed in the NFC playoff race while still chasing the suddenly wobbly Philadelphia Eagles for the coveted first-round bye and home field throughout the postseason.
“We’re well aware that our best football is hopefully out in front of us,” said head coach Kevin O’Connell.
Go into the light, Carol Anne.
It wasn’t long ago that Vikings fans were throwing rubber bricks and beer cans at their television screens every time Joseph pushed another extra point wide. Like November.
To even attempt a 61-yarder and stretch Joseph’s range beyond rational thinking shows there is no shortage of golden horse shoes ringing around this team’s neck.
“I appreciate the trust and confidence that coach has to put me out there,” said Joseph. “Awesome team win, and another Vikings W.”
Forgive O’Connell and Joseph for blind spots when it comes to the torment and self-flagellation of Minnesota sports fans. The fatalism that is baked in for multiple generations whose cobwebbed memories of the Twins’ 1987 and ’91 World Series championships are fresh as Vanilla Ice.
How to explain the mixed emotions of praising a Vikings kicker for his accuracy and confidence. It’s like bear-hugging a porcupine.
Joseph botched a potential game-winning kick last year in a Week 2 loss at Arizona, but finished 36 of 40 (90 percent) and helped prevent former coach Mike Zimmer from kicking yet another kicker to the curb.
Tempting fate is bold for such a novice in the annals of Purple Misery.
Like telling Mikey, “It’s been three days, you should call that girl.”
Or declaring New Jersey an idyllic place to land a zeppelin.
I have no reason to believe Joseph will flame out when the stakes are highest. Just the smoldering ash heap of failed performances by Vikings kickers who were clutch right up until the moment they weren’t.
Gary Anderson.
Blair Walsh.
Daniel Carlson.
Dan Bailey.
A miss list tattooed over the scar tissue Vikings fans have built up. So forgive them for cynically rolling their eyes whenever a new kicker is draped in savior’s robes by anyone who wasn’t at the Metrodome against the victorious Falcons when Anderson missed his only kick that season in the 1998 NFC championship game.
Scraping permafrost from their face at TCF Bank Stadium when Walsh went wide left from 27 yards during the arctic wild card loss to Seattle.
Watching 0-for-3 Carlson melt down at Lambeau Field Week 2 in 2018.
Or enduring Bailey’s 68-percent pratfall in 2020 after he signed a $10 million contract.
But if 2022 has taught us anything, it’s that history is fungible.
The Vikings rewrite the annals each and every week. None of it whitewashes their 0-4 Super Bowl mark, or the biblical failures among six subsequent NFC championship game losses.
Nor should it prevent you from relishing in the unscripted entertainment and unabashed joy that stalks this team every time it takes the field.
Ties, constant lead changes, wild momentum swings … they all keep adding up to inexplicable victories.
Joseph delivered the last two with his right foot. And with each successful kick, he takes Vikings kickers one small step out of the darkness, with perhaps one more giant leap for Minnesota-kind.
