My Next Chapter on PurplePTSD
This is my first article on Purple PTSD. Still, it is a continuation of my journey rather than a new beginning after roughly 1,600 pieces about my favorite football team on Vikings Territory, the website’s sister site. And I’m doing so as PPTSD’s new Managing Editor. From this point on, I will contribute to both VT and PPTSD.
But how did a German who hadn’t watched a football game before turning 15 land here, you might ask? That is a great question.
My Next Chapter on PurplePTSD
It all started in 2012 when, for me, football still indicated that other football, which is played in most other areas of the planet. Fast forward a decade, and I’m referring to my first love, that other kind of football, as soccer, at least in English.
That is another element of my story. My first language is German, but I (somewhat) learned English in school, although my affinity for sports, especially basketball, was much more helpful in learning the language. Then, in 2012, that journey was accelerated when I discovered a sweet channel called ESPN America, which was airing the NFL in Germany.
I was immediately hooked by the action. Ray Lewis’s vicious hits in the final stretch of his career, Robert Griffin III and his remarkable read option, Peyton Manning’s comeback season, Aaron Rodgers’ precise play, and Colin Kaepernick’s emergence were just fun to watch.
But that one person made me fall in love with the game like no other, and that was number 28 of a certain purple team. Some soccer players are decent athletes; basketball players can jump like nobody else, but a guy who is faster and stronger than professionally fast and strong people was unthinkable. I tuned in for my first season when Adrian Peterson ran all over the league and carried his franchise into the postseason. That admiration for the future Hall of Famer made me a Vikings fan.
I remained interested in the sport and the Vikings for the next few years, but I wasn’t a hardcore fan. That changed in the summer of 2016 when a fractured ankle resulted in a bunch of time to consume everything Vikings-related during training camp. I was suddenly watching interviews with the third-string quarterback and knew the names of the guys playing in the fourth quarters of preseason games who would obviously never make the 53-man roster.
Throughout those years as a casual fan, but also in 2016 and the miraculous 2017 season, I kept saying, “If we only had a quarterback who could throw for 4,000 yards and 25 touchdowns”.
The walking 25 and 4,000 arrived in 2018 when Rick Spielman said goodbye to the approach of rookie and bridge QBs. Kirk Cousins signed a huge contract. Six years later, that didn’t lead to any hardware, but it is another crucial item in my story.
In 2021, I started to be active on Twitter as an observer rather than someone who would tweet stuff. Cousins received a lot of blame for the team’s shortcomings. Undoubtedly, some of that was deserved. However, I felt that most of it was not, so I began to tweet, mostly to do what many NFL fans do: I defended the QB of my favorite team.
Don’t get me wrong, I have never thought Cousins was an elite quarterback. But he has always been a solid borderline Pro Bowler, and the numbers backed it up. I’ve been a fan of numbers, so using statistics to make positive claims about Cousins’ play was easy. Numbers don’t always tell the full story, and context is needed, but they are objective, which I was also trying to be.
A few months later, early in 2022, I had the idea to move my Vikings takes to some website instead of using 140 characters on Twitter. The additional space intrigued me, and I had the time to write stuff. My following on Twitter had been growing, so I’d ask my followers if they knew a place where I could do that. Most replies just tagged Dustin Baker, Vikings Territory‘s Managing Editor.
I sent him a message, and he requested a writing sample. Writing a small sample took me a couple of days because I wanted it to be perfect. After re-reading it as an experienced writer, I dramatically failed, but it was the best I could do then.
Shortly later, he emailed me, declaring, “Excellent. This’ll work. Nice work. Who cares if English is your second language?” He taught me how to write in the upcoming months, as my experience was limited to Tweets.
It was the start of a work relationship that, in the last 27 months, has turned into a wonderful friendship. The occasional claim, “I just wrote something,” to let him know that his editing talents are required to make the article readable shifted to many laughs, debates about the Vikings, the discussion of personal problems, but also some in-person meetings.
After a few months of exclusively corresponding on the internet, Dustin invited me to visit him and his family to attend some Vikings games. “It is a special season,” he said. Indeed, the Vikings were cruising to the NFC North title and surely looked like contenders in the standings. However, the fear of traveling by myself (for the first time) across the Atlantic resulted in some hesitancy, and someone with an introverted personality like myself prefers to be home anyway.
Still, I made the trip to complete the top item on my bucket list: Visit U.S. Bank Stadium. Dustin and his family welcomed me with open arms, and suddenly, we made the four-hour drive through the freezing December cold.
The stadium is just as beautiful as it looks in the pictures. Minnesota’s opponent that day was the terrible Indianapolis Colts with interim head coach Jeff Saturday. A win would clinch the division. What should’ve been easy work turned into one of the most memorable contests ever. The Vikings were down 33-0 at halftime and were rightfully booed off the field. At least the halftime entertainment—a game between mascots and kids—was fun.
Dustin understandably contemplated our early departure. We could get ahead of the traffic and grab some burgers instead of watching this disaster. I traveled around the globe and wanted to stay for the first of the two planned games.
That was a decent decision, it turned out. Touchdown after touchdown, we calculated if the team would have enough time to get the required drives to close the gap. The stadium exploded when Dalvin Cook scored his last touchdown with the organization, a big screen reception. The Vikings completed the largest comeback in NFL history, so I will never forget my first game, regardless of how many more trips to the Twin Cities I add to my resume. “It would be such a Vikings thing if they just miss the field goal in overtime and tie the game,” I said. Greg Joseph didn’t disappoint, though.
On the drive home, Patrick Peterson’s famous words during halftime, “All we need is five touchdowns,” aired on the radio. The post-game burgers were fantastic, perhaps enhanced by the taste of victory.
In my roughly 1,600 articles, as expected, some excellent and some poor takes can be found. I once claimed that Cam Dantzler was the team’s top CB in the 2022 offseason. On the other hand, after watching a ton of tape of all the QBs in the draft, I emphasized that the Vikings should do everything they can to land C.J. Stroud.
Before the 2022 draft, I wrote that Cam Bynum played well in limited snaps in his rookie season and the Vikings shouldn’t draft or sign a safety. As a generally optimistic Vikings fan, I talked myself into Lewis Cine after the draft. My initial instinct was correct, and I should’ve stuck with it. A year later, however, after Bynum’s disappointing campaign as a starter, I stated that fans shouldn’t write him off, and there is still untapped potential. His following breakout season was satisfying to watch.
Another bad example is me hopping onto the Joshua Dobbs bandwagon. I enjoyed his highlights in Arizona and wanted the Vikings to trade for him after the devastating injury to Cousins. General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah pulled the trigger, and Dobbs played remarkably well—for a couple of games. I was sold at that point, just to watch him fall apart in the following weeks. There are endless good but also bad takes on my record, but I hope to have learned from my previous misses.
My predecessor, Josh Frey, has done a tremendous job at PPTSD for almost four years. He has helped the site grow to another level during his time as a writer and the crew’s editor, which couldn’t have happened without him. We wish him all the best in the next steps of his career.
I’m proud to be the new managing editor of PPTSD, the brainchild of the late Joe Johnson. I never met him, but I have heard countless positive stories from those who did. Unfortunately, I can’t tell him how much of a positive impact he had on my life. His idea was to give regular fans a voice on his websites, which is why you can read these words. His family continues to run the sites and share his values, giving me the opportunity I desperately needed in 2022.
I want to thank Stefanie Woldum (Joe’s sister) and her husband Mike, who once again gave me a chance, and I hope I can step into Josh’s footsteps and continue Joe’s legacy.
As I wrote in the first paragraph, this is just the next step of my journey, and I can’t wait to do even more of what I love: Writing about the Minnesota Vikings.
Janik Eckardt is a football fan who likes numbers and stats. The Vikings became his favorite team despite their quarterback at the time, Christian Ponder. He is a walking soccer encyclopedia, loves watching sitcoms, and prefers Classic rock over other genres. Follow him on Twitter if you like the Vikings: @JanikEckardt