SHIPLEY: With chance to change narrative, Vikings fail to show up

So close, again. As the broken bard of Minnesota once sang, "I can live without your touch, but I'll die within your reach."

Such has been the fate of two generations of Vikings fans now, many of whom don't remember the last time the Vikings were in a Super Bowl. They will always remember losing the rare opportunity to play one in their own stadium. Instead, it will be the Philadelphia Eagles playing the New England Patriots at U.S. Bank Stadium on Feb. 4.

It's going to be a long couple of weeks.

It is now six times and counting that the Vikings have come within a victory of returning to their first Super Bowl since 1977, now six times and counting that they have failed to rise to the occasion.

Last weekend's "Minnesota Miracle" proved that good things can, in fact, happen for the Vikings. Sunday's 38-7 loss to the Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field proved that a divisional-round playoff victory, no matter how memorably stirring — cathartic, even — is only part of what will alter the narrative of the perpetually disappointing Vikings.

If the Vikings were finally on the right side of a miracle in a 29-24 victory over the New Orleans Saints on Jan. 14, they quickly, and somewhat unfathomably, stumbled back into their old roles on Sunday.

Like their forebears of 1998 and 2009, this year's Vikings appeared to be Super Bowl-ready, road favorites against the NFC's top playoff seed.

But the 15-game winners of Randall Cunningham and Randy Moss in 1998, and the first of two Brett Favre-led squads in 2009, lost tight overtime games, losses traced easily to self-inflicted wounds — Gary Anderson's missed field goal at the Metrodome, a couple of red zone fumbles and a late interception at the Superdome 11 years later.

Not so for this year's Vikings, who entered Sunday evening's kickoff with the NFL's top defense and a creditable offense led by a potent passing attack featuring quarterback Case Keenum and top receivers Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen. They rolled 75 yards on nine plays for a 7-0 lead on the game's opening drive, then disappeared.

The Eagles, three-point underdogs at home after averaging 10.3 points in their previous three games, scored the next 38 points. By the third quarter, it was clear this year's disappointment would sit alongside the 41-0 loss to the New York Giants after the 2000 season: not just a loss, but a dereliction of duty.

Keenum, so accurate during a regular season that redefined a kind of anonymous career, played his first bad game in months. His pick-six straight into the hands of Philadelphia cornerback Patrick Robinson allowed the Eagles to tie the game with 10 minutes, 20 seconds left in the first quarter. His fumble on a blind-side strip sack in the second ended their best chance to get back into it.

The Vikings were at the Eagles' 16-yard line, trailing 14-7. The next time they got that close, they were trailing 31-7, and Thielen couldn't corral a seven-yard pass on fourth-and-goal with 6:21 left in the third quarter.

More remarkable was the way Philadelphia carved up Minnesota's estimable defense. By the end of the third quarter, quarterback Nick Foles — the Eagles' pregame Achilles' heel — had completed 23 of 30 passes for 336 yards and two touchdowns. Among them were receptions of 53, 42, 41 and 36 yards. Cornerbacks Xavier Rhodes and Trae Waynes looked lost, the line generated virtually no pressure on Foles and, for the first time in a long time, the tackling was poor.

The interminable nature of Sunday's loss served to blunt the horror. There was no twist ending this time, no shocking mistake to steal defeat from the jaws of victory, just the numb realization that it has happened again.

Many of us thought this team was ready for a Super Bowl; that years of disappointment would be mollified by the unprecedented reward of watching the Vikings play one in their own stadium.

We were wrong.