Howie: The quiet collapse of the Vikings brand — and the question every fan should be asking

EAGAN – You don’t feel it all at once. That’s how these things work. Brands don’t implode in a single afternoon. They don’t go out with a press release. They erode — quietly, deliberately, behind the noise of slogans and smoke machines. One strange decision at a time. One dodged investment. One sugarcoated presser after another.

And right now, the Minnesota Vikings brand — once defined by grit, resilience, and the forever-hungry pursuit of that elusive Super Bowl — is slowly, silently collapsing.

You can smell it if you’ve been around long enough. Something’s rotting under the soft new turf at TCO Performance Center. Something ownership doesn’t want to talk about. Something they’ve managed to paper over with a rookie quarterback and a head coach forced into the role of chief morale officer and miracle worker.

But the cracks are showing.

The team made the playoffs in 2024, then let the quarterback who got them there walk with barely a shrug. The message was subtle but clear: performance doesn’t matter when price tags get uncomfortable.

Then came the offseason — a free-agent period that was more library than war room. No big signings. No aggressive reinforcements. Just soft words about “development,” as if a Pro Bowl wide receiver in his prime is supposed to sit back and wait while his quarterback learns to make second reads.

That’s not a build. That’s a retreat.

And every fan in Minnesota — every single one who has stood through subzero games years ago, spent Sundays since hoping instead of trusting, and paid good money for bad memories — deserves to be asking one thing:

Are the Wilfs actually in this to win?

No, really. Ask it.

Because if you strip away the branding, the marketing jargon, and the empty optimism, the facts paint a troubling picture: the ownership group is acting like financial strategists, not football visionaries.

They say the right things, sure. They show up for the ribbon cuttings. They let the front office do the press. But when it comes time to spend — really spend — on top-end quarterback play, veteran leadership, or win-now urgency?

They vanish into the numbers.

They’re treating this team like a long-term real estate hold — something to maintain, manage, and maybe eventually flip. Keep the margins tight. Keep the fans hopeful. But don’t overspend chasing something as volatile and unprofitable as a Super Bowl run.

That’s how you quietly kill a brand. Not with incompetence — with calculation.

This is how the league sees the Vikings now. A holding tank. A mid-market franchise unwilling to push its chips in. A team whose best player — Justin Jefferson — is looking around and realizing he may be starring in a drama he didn’t sign up for.

Veterans don’t want to come here. Agents are wary. The locker room knows this isn’t a plan — it’s a patch job. And yet, the organization still moves forward with the confidence of a team that’s got it all figured out.

Here’s the real danger: fans will keep showing up.

Because we always do.

Because we believe. Because we care. Because we can still hear our dads screaming at the TV in 1998 and 2009 and all the years the dream felt real.

And that loyalty? The Wilfs are counting on it.

But loyalty without truth is just blind faith. And blind faith in this ownership group — at this point — is a dangerous thing.

Because right now, the franchise isn’t building toward greatness.

It’s bleeding relevance.

The silence is growing louder. The trust is thinning. And the brand — the real brand, not the one in the ads — is buckling under the weight of unkept promises and unspent dollars.

The collapse is quiet.

But it’s real.

And the fans deserve answers before the silence becomes permanent.

Howie, editor & publisher of the HowieHanson.com, has been covering the Vikings since 1973. Contact him at HowieHanson@gmail.com