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SHOCKING ALLIANCE: Vikings and Bills UNITE in Unprecedented ‘Brotherhood of Sadness
When the Buffalo Bills’ Tyler Bass missed a field goal wide right on Sunday night, all but ensuring another victory for the Kansas City Chiefs, Minnesota Vikings fans felt a sudden phantom pain, not unlike what an identical twin might suffer when their sibling is injured hundreds of miles away.
It was hard to watch. Bass’s kick didn’t just squeak outside of the upright, it veered away from the goalposts like it was trying to escape Highmark Stadium through a side door. The whole unseemly affair felt like the fickle whim of the football gods, punishing some poor soul for his father’s blasphemy. This was generational torment, passed down like a tragedy of cockeyed genetics.
The agony of sports fandom is a strange phenomenon. It’s an ancient curse, masochism, and a badge of dubious honor, all rolled into one. It’s a bond that unites disparate, desperate cities by the solidarity of chronic hard luck. It transcends franchises and individual sports: the Chicago Cubs, long haunted by a vengeful billy goat’s hex; the Minnesota Timberwolves’ rising like a phoenix from the ashes only to fly straight into a smoldering Webber grill; a Cleveland Browns fanbase sold out by ownership, only to be dragged back into existence just to go through quarterbacks like so many losing pull tabs.
And, of course, the Vikings and the Bills.