For any sports-minded transplant here, it’s fascinating to watch the Vikings — especially for someone who became an NFL fan in the 1970s, when Chuck Foreman and the Purple People Eaters made Minnesota the center of the universe for smash-mouth football.

The Vikings haven’t been the center of the football universe since they lost to the Raiders in the last of their four Super Bowl appearances in 1977, unless one counts the 2009 season, when former nemesis Brett Favre signed and led Minnesota to within a couple of brain cramps of a long-awaited return to the NFL’s holy mountain.

In retrospect, it was better this way. With all that we have learned about Favre over the past several years, it’s better he remains a nemesis. The guy’s a tool. But we digress.

For those with no real skin in the game, what becomes objectively clear about the Vikings is that fans aren’t wrong about them, that Minnesota’s NFL team really is always just short of being a champion. That became crystal clear, again, at about halftime of the Vikings’ 31-9 loss to Detroit last Sunday night.

There we watched a 14-2 Vikings team, with a two-home-games path to the Super Bowl within their grasp, not just lose, but look like they had little business being in that position in the first place. Inadequate to the task.

Quarterback Sam Darnold has been a revelation this season, leading the Vikings to a regular-season record 14 wins. But with all the chips on the table, he was terrible, missing open receivers in the red zone three times. Justin Jefferson, a unanimous All-Pro on Friday, was bottled up in man coverage. The defense, the NFL’s best against the run, allowed Detroit tailback Jahmyr Gibbs to run for 139 yards and three scores on 23 carries, while adding a receiving touchdown.

There were reasons, of course. Darnold was under cataclysmic duress for most of the game, and the defense just got worn down, physically and emotionally, from being on the field so much. There are always reasons, and 99 percent of the time they’re the product one team outplaying the other.

After that one, one has to forgive Vikings fans for their fatalism. Their team had everything to play for and laid an egg.

Which brings us to Monday, when the Vikings will play a wild-card playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams in Glendale, Ariz. It’s a fortuitous venue change for Minnesota, if not for the Rams and the thousands losing their homes to wildfires in Southern California. Having blown it in Detroit, the Vikings have an immediate chance to (almost) make that loss go away and set a new course, and tone, for a Super Bowl run.

This time, though, there is even more on the line. When this season started, the plan was still to mold injured rookie J.J. McCarthy into the franchise quarterback the Vikings haven’t had since, who, Daunte Culpepper?

And don’t say Kirk Cousins.

While Darnold, still 27, has proven himself to be an above-average NFL quarterback — and a bargain this season at $10 million — will the Vikings commit to him long-term, or even for another expensive franchise-tag year, if his last two games were losses with so much on the line?

There is a lot of money at stake, not to mention the commitment to another plan. Some of us would say, yeah, Darnold is a sure thing — a good one — and McCarthy could be Tim Couch or Akili Smith. Or get hurt again. McCarthy isn’t going to go 14-2 in his first 16 starts, and this Vikings defense, and its coordinator, aren’t gonna be around forever.

On the other hand, some of us have been wrong before.

In some ways, the Super Bowl dream died in Detroit. Not just because the Vikings couldn’t seize the mother of all opportunities but because, on that night, they were completely overwhelmed by the task. Now, they have to win three games, probably all on the road, to play for their first NFL championship since 1969.

For those looking on, closely, from the outside, it’s impossible to criticize Vikings fans for feeling like maybe this — just like all of those that came before it — again isn’t the year.

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