The Minnesota Vikings played in four of the first 11 Super Bowls, losing all four of course, and they haven't been back since. For more current generations of fans, four NFC Championship Game losses have been pillar moments of heartbreak.
Through her work covering college football for CBS and now as a co-host of NFL Network's "Good Morning Football", Jamie Erdahl's Minnesota roots are well-known. Every once in a while, she can't hide those roots when talking about the Vikings.
Thursday's edition of "GMFB" brought Super Bowl predictions, teams, and the winner from each co-host.
Erdahl started her predictions segment by talking about finding a Reddit list of Super Bowl matchups that never happened. Vikings vs. Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII topped the list, spurring Erdahl's prediction.
In 1998, the Vikings went 15-1, led by the highest-scoring offense in NFL history at the time. In the AFC, John Elway's Broncos had the second-best offense in the league.
But the two best teams in the league that year did not meet in Miami because Gary Anderson famously missed his first kick all season in the NFC Championship Game against the Atlanta Falcons. Falcons' kicker Morten Andersen then made the overtime winner to send his team to the Super Bowl.
The idea of the Broncos and Vikings as the best two teams in the NFL in 1998 was confirmed when the Broncos easily handled the Falcons in the Super Bowl. The 34-19 final score was not indicative of how much better the Broncos were, as they had a 31-6 lead in the fourth quarter.
Jamie Erdahl soothes the pain of Minnesota Vikings fans with her Super Bowl prediction
Erdahl was a young Vikings fan in January of 1999, and that's where she continued her Super Bowl prediction monologue.
"It's my worst childhood memory. You're hearing a lot about how people are trying to fix their childhood traumas. This one is absolutely unfixable for me, perhaps until this year. I was 10, I cried into the back of the couch in mid-January of 1999 when two different outcomes happened on two different field goal attempts to two different kickers with the same last name.
It happened, it was horrific, and it kept the Minnesota Vikings from facing the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl 33, in what dark places on the internet argue is the greatest Super Bowl that never happened. But what if, nearly 30 years later, it happens? What if I think the Broncos and the Vikings will be playing in the Super Bowl in mid-February of 2026?"
Erdahl outlined the intrigue of a Vikings-Broncos Super Bowl matchup and how Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy is surrounded by a great situation. Then came the reveal, as she unzipped a hoodie that hid the jersey of the team she's picking to win Super Bowl LX.
"To heal my 10-year-old heartbreak, the sweet sound of the Gjallarhorn will fill the air — the crisp, crisp mid-February air," she said. "And the Minnesota Vikings, in their fifth Super Bowl appearance, will finally, for the first time in the history of the organization, win a Lombardi."
A date delayed 30 years. @JamieErdahl picks her 2025 Super Bowl champ pic.twitter.com/9uFPG632k3
— Good Morning Football (@gmfb) September 4, 2025
Beating the Broncos in Super Bowl LX would be extra cathartic for a segment of Vikings fans. Broncos head coach Sean Payton was the New Orleans Saints head coach for a long time, including the NFC Championship Game against the Vikings at the end of the 2009 season.
The Saints were clearly intentionally trying to injure quarterback Brett Favre in that game, and they succeeded, injuring his ankle. Payton was eventually suspended for an entire season for his part in that "Bountygate" scandal, and he remains a loathed figure for Vikings' fans all these years later.
Erdahl feels the lingering pain of Vikings' fans who thought "Mission: Miami" was going to be paid off in 1998 (and 2009, for that matter, coincidentally). If the Vikings went to, let alone won, a Super Bowl, a lot of fans wouldn't know what to do. But it would be nice to find out.