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1975 Minnesota Vikings: Fran Tarkenton’s Best Year Ends In Heartbreak

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Fran Tarkenton had the best of year of his career at age 35 for the 1975 Minnesota Vikings. The team might have been the best in the seven-year stretch that Tarkenton played for Bud Grant (1972-78). Tarkenton won the MVP award, the Vikings went 12-2 and were poised to reach the Super Bowl for the third straight year and perhaps this time, finally bring home a championship. Heartbreak caught up with them at the end.

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Tarkenton threw for nearly 3,000 yards and had a 25/13 TD-INT ratio, sparkling numbers in this era when defensive backs could essentially assault wide receivers. Chuck Foreman, the third-year running back, ran for 1,070 yards. The offensive line got a spark when right guard Ed White developed into a Pro Bowler at age 28, joining right tackle Ron Yary, who was a perennial first-team All-Pro.

The Viking offense ranked third in the NFL in points scored, and the defense also ranked third. Alan Page, a 1st-team All-Pro at defensive tackle was the anchor on a front four that was no longer dominant, as they had been in the early part of this decade, but still had a lot of veteran savvy in Carl Eller and Jim Marshall at the ends.

Jeff Siemon was a young Pro Bowl linebacker, and two defensive backs had great years. Paul Krause, the veteran free safety made his usual Pro Bowl trip, and his ten interceptions were an unusual display of ballhawking. Bobby Bryant was another Pro Bowler at corner, picking off six passes.

Minnesota’s early schedule was soft—none of their first four opponents finished better than 5-9 at the end of the season. The Vikings were sluggish at home against the San Francisco 49ers, leading 13-10 and then pulling away in the fourth quarter to a 27-17 win. Minnesota went to Cleveland and picked off four passes to key a 42-10 rout.

Tarkenton then began a home game with the Chicago Bears by hitting veteran receiver John Gilliam  on an early touchdown pass, and he completed 19/30 passes for 250 yards in an easy 28-3 win. There was a lot of hype surrounding the visit of Joe Namath and the New York Jets one week later.
Namath’s Jets weren’t very good anymore, but they did lead 21-20 in the fourth quarter, before a blocked punt for a safety give Minnesota the lead and they eventually won 29-21. Tarkenton threw for 244 yards, while Foreman ran for 96, including the clinching touchdown.

The Detroit Lions were 3-1 and hoping to give Minnesota a run in the NFC Central (the same teams as the current NFC North), but the Vikings jumped out to a 25-3 lead behind Foreman’s 107 rushing yards. Detroit rallied to make it 25-19, but Minnesota extended its division lead to two games.

Minnesota’s trip to Chicago was on Monday Night Football, and it was a defensive battle. Tarkenton was the difference—he completed 16/30 for 234 yards, while counterpart Gary Huff was only 10/22 for 97 yards. The Vikings won 13-9. Tarkenton then went to Green Bay and completed 24/30 for 285 yards, including two fourth-quarter touchdown passes that turned a 17-14 deficit into a 28-17 win.

It was the defense’s turn to shine at home against Atlanta. The Viking D held the Falcons to 43 rush yards and intercepted quarterback Kim McQuilken five times in a 38-0 rout. A win over another bad team, the New Orleans Saints, followed, when Tarkenton threw for 310 yards and helped overcome five turnovers in a 20-7 win.

The Vikings won their tenth straight over the terrible San Diego Chargers, although it wasn’t an inspiring blowout. The Chargers hung around until Foreman, who ran for 127 yards, went for two fourth-quarter touchdowns to break open a 28-13 win.

Even though Minnesota was 10-0, they hadn’t played a team that would finish the season with a winning record. The first chance came at RFK Stadium and the Washington Redskins on November 30. A consistent playoff team under George Allen, the Redskins were fighting for their lives and they put Minnesota in a 21-0 hole.

Tarkenton got hot, and rolled up 357 passing yards against a proud, veteran defense. He brought the Vikings all the way back, to a 30-24 lead. It should have been the stuff of legends, but the Minnesota defense allowed Billy Kilmer and the Redskin offense to drive back and win the game 31-30. Washington would not ultimately make the playoffs, but they had derailed the Viking bid for perfection.

Minnesota came back with an easy 24-3 home win over Green Bay, but a road trip to Detroit resulted in a 17-10 loss. The offense played one of its worst games, with the only points coming on a Krause fumble return when the score was 17-3. The Vikings’ first visit to the new Detroit stadium, the Pontiac Silverdome, hadn’t gone well.

Under the old playoff format rules, this would have been irrelevant, because until 1975, homefield advantage for the playoffs was determined by a rotation system, rather than record. Once a team won its division, nothing else mattered, and with no other winning teams in the NFC Central, the Vikes had put that to bed long ago.

But 1975 was the first year that record would be the criteria for seeding division champions, and Minnesota’s second loss meant they needed to win the season finale at Buffalo to hold off the Los Angeles Rams for the #1 seed. The Bills had O.J. Simpson, and they were 8-5 coming in—a reminder that the Vikings still had not beaten a team that would finish on the plus side of .500.

Minnesota’s defense met the moment. They held O.J. to 57 yards and intercepted Joe Ferguson three times, two of the picks by Bryant. Tarkenton led an easy 35-13 win and the road to the NFC title would come through the Twin Cities, and the frigid outdoor environment and old Metropolitan Stadium.

The Dallas Cowboys were the opponent, the one wild-card team in the four-team NFC bracket. Tarkenton didn’t have a bad day, but it wasn’t his best, at 12/26 for 135 yards. Cowboy counterpart Roger Staubach completed 17/29 for 246 yards. Even so, the Vikings led 14-10 and had Dallas backed up on their own 15-yard line with 1:51 left.

Dallas faced a 4th-and-16, when Staubach found Pearson for a first down near midfield with 24 seconds left. Pearson then ran down the right sideline. Staubach launched a desperation pass. Minnesota corner Nate Wright appeared overrun the play, though Viking fans and players argued ferociously that Pearson gave him a nudge to aid that. The Cowboy receiver caught the ball and walked into the end zone.

It was a stunning end to a great season for the Vikings. Say what you will about the schedule, any team that goes 12-2, produces the MVP and has the eventual NFC champs (Dallas) on the ropes to that extent is awfully good.

Perhaps it’s a small consolation to consider that the Pittsburgh Steelers, who beat Dallas in the Super Bowl, were probably too good to be stopped anyway. But the 1975 Minnesota Vikings deserved a better ending than they got.

Back-To-Back Super Bowl Trips For The 1974 Minnesota Vikings

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The 1974 Minnesota Vikings weren’t quite as good as their 1973 predecessors in the regular season. But the ’74 Vikes were still plenty good, as they went 10-4. And they were just as good in the playoffs, winning a second straight NFC Championship before finally falling in the Super Bowl.

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Fran Tarkenton was 34-years-old, but the scrambling quarterback still threw for nearly 2,600 yards. There was a bit of dip in production from second-year running back Chuck Foreman and veteran big-play wideout John Gilliam. But Tarkenton, and reliable right tackle Ron Yary on the offensive line, still led an offense that was able to finish fifth in the NFL in points scored.

The defense was even better, ranking third. The fearsome front four of the “Purple People Eaters” was starting to show wear and tear, but they were still plenty good. Defensive end Carl Eller didn’t make 1st-team All-Pro, but he was still a Pro Bowler. Jim Marshall was now an aging 37, but could still play. The Vikes moved 26-year-old Doug Sutherland into the defensive tackle spot previously anchored by Gary Larsen. And no defensive tackle anywhere was better than Alan Page, again an All-Pro.

Where the defense did take a modest step back from ’73 was at linebacker and in the secondary. Jeff Siemon, the young middle linebacker didn’t make it back to the Pro Bowl. Corner Bobby Bryant had injury problems, but 32-year-old Pro Bowl free safety Paul Krause helped keep everything together.

Minnesota opened the season at Green Bay and broke open a 10-10 game in the third quarter, with corner Nate Wright picking off Jerry Tagge twice and the Vikings won 32-17. One week later, they took a defensive battle in Detroit’s old Tiger Stadium. The final was 7-6, as the Lions could only pass for 56 yards, while Tarkenton was able to throw for 142 and give his team at least a little bit of juice.

Another ugly game followed, an 11-7 home win over Chicago. But ugly or no, the Vikings were 3-0 and had beaten their three divisional rivals. Up net was a road trip to Dallas. The Cowboys were off to a 1-2 start, but had become a perennial playoff team under Tom Landry and this was a rematch of the previous year’s NFC Championship Game.

In a late afternoon kickoff, Minnesota gave up an early 58-yard touchdown pass to Roger Staubach, but Foreman responded by taking a pass from Tarkenton and going 66 yards. It set up a back-and-forth battle, and one that the Vikings would win 23-21 on a fourth-quarter field goal from Fred Cox. It set the tone for a rare year where Landry’s Cowboys would miss the playoffs.

The following week against the Houston Oilers, an average team, Tarkenton threw an 80-yard touchdown strike to Gilliam, setting the tone for a 51-10 blowout. Then, at 5-0, the Vikings let a couple games slip.

Home games with Detroit and New England—both .500 teams—saw Minnesota hold fourth-quarter leads and give them up on late touchdowns, losing 20-16 and 17-14 respectively. They righted the ship at lowly Chicago a week later, when the defense took over and led a 17-0 win.

The Monday Night stage was next and it was against the St. Louis Cardinals, who were on their way to an NFC East title. The Vikings trailed 17-14 at half and St. Louis quarterback Jim Hart would throw for 353 yards. But the Vikes ran the ball well, with vet Dave Osborn coming up with 98 yards. Tarkenton and Foreman each ran for touchdowns in the second half and Minnesota escaped St. Louis with a 28-24 win.

Bud Grant’s team held a three-game lead in their division, and this was an era were only four teams per conference were in the playoffs, meaning no first-round byes. Moreover, homefield advantage was determined by a rotation system. Which is basically a way of saying the Vikings’ regular season work was done.

They played like it the next two weeks. The Packers came to the Twin Cities and the Vikings were overrun by John Brockington, who keyed a rush attack that produced 202 yards and a 19-7 upset. Minnesota then lost in Los Angeles to a good Rams team, on their way to the playoffs. The Vikes led 17-6 after three quarters, but again had a game where they didn’t close. James Harris threw for 249 yards and led the Rams to a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns and a 20-17 win.

It’s this inability to close games that made the 1974 Minnesota Vikings “only” very good, as opposed to outstanding. They didn’t play well the following week at home against a poor New Orleans team. It was 15-9 in the fourth quarter before Tarkenton and Gilliam hooked up twice to finally break it open.

Tarkenton sat out the next week and played part-time in the finale, both games against bad teams in the Atlanta Falcons and Kanas City Chiefs. The Vikings still won both comfortably and whatever problems they’d had, they were 10-4 and poised for another Super Bowl run.

Another game with St. Louis, this one at the old Met in Minneapolis, started the postseason. It was a scoreless first quarter, then Hart and Tarkenton swapped TD passes in the second. The Viking defense played much better against Hart then was the case in the earlier Monday Night game though. Hart only completed 18/40 passes for 200 yards.

Tarkenton was much more efficient, at 13/23 for 169 yards, he was backed by a running game, as Foreman went for 114 yards and Osborn for 64 more. A field goal, a fumble return for a score by corner Nate Wright and a 38-yard strike from Tarkenton to Gilliam broke the game open in the third quarter and it ended 30-14.

The Los Angeles Rams came north for another rematch. Minnesota led 7-3 in the third quarter, when Harris hit Harold Jackson on a 73-yard strike that got the Rams to the two-yard line. But a false start was called on Ram guard Tom Mack, and forced to throw, Harris threw one to Viking linebacker Wally Hilgenberg.

Minnesota took a 14-3 lead in the fourth quarter and hung on 14-10. It was a sloppy game, with eight turnovers in all. But the Vikings collected five of those turnovers and it was the biggest reason they were going back to the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl was against the Pittsburgh Steelers down in New Orleans, at Tulane Stadium. The Steel Curtain was starting a dynasty and their defense was too much for Minnesota. The Vikes could only run for 17 yards. Tarkenton threw three interceptions and the only Vikings points came on a blocked punt recovered for a touchdown. They lost 16-6 in a game that wasn’t that close.

Minnesota wasn’t on a par with the Steel Curtain, just as they hadn’t been on a par with Don Shula’s Miami Dolphins the prior year, or with John Madden’s Oakland Raiders two years later. What the Vikings were was better than anyone in the NFC, a group of teams that still included Landry’s Cowboys, George Allen’s Washington Redskins and Chuck Knox’s Rams. And that’s pretty good.

A Great Four-Year Run Starts With The 1973 Minnesota Vikings

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Fran Tarkenton’s return to the Twin Cities in 1972 had fizzled out. But the 1973 Minnesota Vikings juiced up the weapons around the future Hall of Fame quarterback and started the best four-year stretch in the history of the franchise.

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The lack of a go-to running back had hindered the Vikings—they got piecemeal work from backs ranging from Oscar Reed to Dave Osborn to Bill Brown for the past few years, but nothing to really sustain an attack in an era where defense-friendly passing rules made running the football an imperative. Minnesota drafted a fullback named Chuck Foreman, a good blend of power and speed and he rushed for 801 yards in 1973, winning Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Tarkenton still had reliable John Gilliam, a big-play wideout on the outside. The offensive line was tolerable, though not great. Ron Yary was outstanding at right tackle, making 1st-team All-Pro, but the best of the rest was center Mick Tingelhoff, once a Pro Bowler, but now past his prime.

The defense, after regressing in 1972, returned to be one of the league’s elite. The “Purple People Eaters” finished second in the league in points allowed. Carl Eller and Alan Page were first-team All-Pro up front, with Gary Larsen and 36-year-old Jim Marshall competent players that filled out the front four.

More improvement came in the back seven. Jeff Siemon was a 23-year-old middle linebacker and he made the Pro Bowl. So did veteran free safety Paul Krause, and cornerback Bobby Bryant had a breakout year, with seven interceptions.

Minnesota opened the season at home with the Oakland Raiders, a consistent playoff team throughout the 1970s. Tarkenton’s 43-yard touchdown pass to Gilliam put the Vikes up 10-0 early, though a special teams lapse—allowing a punt return for a TD—put Minnesota behind 16-10. In the end, Minnesota was able to force four turnovers and win 24-16.

One week later, the Vikings fell behind a terrible Chicago Bears team on the road, 10-0, but turned it around and won 22-13, getting five field goals from Fred Cox. The biggest concern in the early going was rush defense—both the Raiders and Bears had run for 200 yards on a Minnesota defense that prided itself on being physical up front.

The rush defense showed for a trip to Green Bay, the team that had displaced Minnesota in the NFC Central (the four teams in the current NFC North). The Packers would slip below .500 this year, and the Vikings also intercepted four passes to go along with dominating the point of attack in an 11-3 win.

Ed Marinaro, an occasionally used fullback, had rushed for 83 yards against Green Bay, and he was a weapon again the next week at Detroit’s Tiger Stadium. Tarkenton found the fullback on two first-quarter touchdown passes that sent the tone in a 23-9 win.

Minnesota played two subpar teams in the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles and won both. They didn’t run the ball well in San Francisco, but forced five turnovers against an offense quarterbacked by Steve Spurrier, in for the injured John Brodie. Gilliam starred in the win over Philly, running an end-around for one touchdown and catching another.

The Vikings were riding high at 6-0, as were the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC. Homefield advantage was still determined on a rotation system, rather than by merit, so the Vikes-Rams meeting in Minneapolis on October 28 didn’t have the same meaning it would today. But there was still a lot of pride on the line. Minnesota ran for 182 yards, held Los Angeles to 89 on the ground and won 10-9. More dominance of the running game led to a 26-3 win over Cleveland a week later.

No one else in the NFC Central was seriously going to keep up with Minnesota and any doubt about that was eliminated when the Vikings beat the Lions 28-7. Brown and Osborn conjured up the best memories of their recent past, in rushing for 101 and 79 yards respectively. With a record of 9-0, an undefeated season was on the table—just one year after the Miami Dolphins had completed a perfect year by winning the Super Bowl.

A Monday Night visit to Atlanta ended those dreams. The Falcons were a good team, one that would finish 9-5 and even though they missed the playoffs, they would have made it under the more expanded format of today. Tarkenton threw a 39-yard touchdown pass to Gilliam, but there was no running game and Atlanta’s Dave Hampton ran for 108 yards to key the Falcons’ 20-14 win.

Tarkenton and Gilliam hooked up five times for 139 yards the next week against the Bears. Two of them went for touchdowns and Tarkenton was an efficient 11/15. Reed was the running back who had his moment in the sun, going for 97 yards in a 31-13 win.

Foreman’s playing time was going up and down in this stretch of games and he was ineffective at Cincinnati. The Bengals were on their way to a 10-4 season and playoff spot and they embarrassed the Vikes 27-0. Minnesota bounced back to close out the year with easy wins over the Packers and New York Giants, both by 31-7 counts and both on the road. Bryant intercepted three passes at Green Bay, including one taken to the house early that set the tone.

Now it was playoff time and it was George Allen’s Washington Redskins that were coming to old Metropolitan Stadium on December 22 for the NFC Divisional Playoff round. An early turnover set up a Redskins touchdown, and Washington’s Larry Brown—the league MVP one year earlier when the ‘Skins reached the Super Bowl—ran for 115 yards. Minnesota trailed 7-3 early and 13-10 after three quarters.

The risk of another home playoff loss, akin to the disappointments of 1970 and 1971 was a real possibility. But Tarkenton found Gilliam on a 28-yard touchdown pass to give the Vikings the lead. Then corner Nate Wright intercepted a pass and set up another Tarkenton-to-Gilliam touchdown. Washington scored to cut the lead back to 24-20, but Tarkenton led a final drive for a field goal and Minnesota won 27-20.

Minnesota would go to Dallas for the NFC Championship Game, although under today’s rules, the Vikings would have been the #1 seed in the NFC. The defense came ready to play and so did the running game. Foreman ran for 76 yards, with Reed adding 75. Dallas running back Calvin Hill was out, and quarterback Roger Staubach couldn’t carry the load.

Nonetheless, a punt return for a TD got Dallas back into the game after they fell behind 10-0. Tarkenton and Gilliam hooked up on a 54-yard touchdown pass, but it was still 17-10, when the Cowboys began driving and crossed midfield.

Then Bryant stepped up and intercepted Staubach. It was one of four picks thrown by the Dallas quarterback and on this one Bryant finished it off in the end zone. The game was effectively over. Minnesota won 27-10 and was going to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1969.

Head coach Bud Grant took his team back to the state of Texas for the Super Bowl. The game was held at Rice Stadium in Houston, and the Miami Dolphins were looking for a repeat title. The Dolphins were simply too good. Tarkenton was able to complete 18/28 passes for 182 yards, but he couldn’t find Gilliam on the big play, and the Vikings couldn’t run the ball. Miami could run, piling up 196 rush yards and they won easily, 24-7.

The 1973 season was still the start of some very good things in Minnesota Vikings football history. They never did win the Super Bowl, but this was the first of three NFC crowns in a four-year stretch when the Vikings were the best team in their conference.

1972 Minnesota Vikings: Fran Tarkenton’s First Year Back Fizzles

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The 1972 Minnesota Vikings had seen potential Super Bowl teams in 1970 and 1971 undone by problems at offense in general and quarterback in particular. Head coach Bud Grant swung a big trade to get Fran Tarkenton from the New York Giants to solve the problem. The deal would ultimately work, but not immediately. In 1972, Fran’s return to Minnesota fizzled.

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Grant had traded Tarkenton away prior to the 1967 season and used the resulting draft picks to build one of the league’s best defenses, the “Purple People Eaters.” Tarkenton made four Pro Bowls in the next five seasons in New York, but the teams were never good enough to win.

Minnesota made the postseason each of those years and the Super Bowl in 1969, but never won it all. Tarkenton wanted to come home and his old team wanted him back. Grant packed off two first-round draft picks to get the deal done.

There were other changes coming at the skill positions. Grant acquired wide receiver John Gilliam from the St. Louis Cardinals, to help make up for the decline of Gene Washington. Changes were made at running back, and 28-year-old Oscar Reed was promoted and given his opportunity, while rookie Ed Marinaro was drafted out of Cornell.

The juicing up of the offense worked—Minnesota improved from 18th to 12th in points scored, in spot of having an offensive line that was starting to age a bit, with the exception of 26-year-old right tackle Ron Yary, a future Hall of Famer.

But just as the offense improved, the defense declined. They went from being the best in the NFL to ranking 11th. The front four was still the reliable unit of Carl Eller and Jim Marshall on the ends, with Gary Larsen and Alan Page on the inside. But Page was now the only one on the right side of age 30, and not coincidentally, the only one to make the Pro Bowl.

In the secondary, Ed Sharockman was phased out at corner and replaced with Bobby Bryant. Sharockman was a great ballhawk, and interceptions went down. Even though Paul Krause was still a Pro Bowl safety, the defensive backfield wasn’t quite the same.

Minnesota opened the season at home on Monday Night against the Washington Redskins, with each team having made the playoffs the year before, at a time when they were only four qualifiers per conference in the postseason. The Redskins were on their way to a Super Bowl and set the tone by blocking a punt for a touchdown in the first quarter and winning 24-21.

Tarkenton threw for 233 yards, two touchdowns and had no interceptions, so it’s not as though the new/old quarterback was a disappointment. But special teams had always been a source of Viking pride, and on the defensive side, Minnesota allowed Larry Brown, soon to be league MVP, to rush for 105 yards.

The Vikes did bounce back with a win at Detroit. The Lions had been their stiffest competition in the NFC Central (the current teams of the NFC North). Tarkenton hit Gilliam on an early 40-yard touchdown pass and the result was a 34-10 rout.

One week later, Minnesota lost—but it was to the Miami Dolphins, who would eventually become the first team to win the Super Bowl with a perfect record. And Minnesota still led 14-6 in the fourth quarter before a late Miami rally beat them 16-14.

At this point, any potential problems really aren’t surfacing. The record of 1-2 is disappointing, but the losses are the two future Super Bowl teams—both of whom were playoff teams in 1971, so their ability was known at the time—and a win over what had been the biggest division rival (though that would change in the weeks ahead).

It was the next three games that set the alarm bells off. Minnesota played the St. Louis Cardinals, Denver Broncos and Chicago Bears in succession. None of these teams would finish better than 5-9. The Vikings lost two of the games and needed a fourth quarter Tarkenton-to-Washington touchdown pass to escape Denver with a win.

Minnesota wasn’t stopping the run, and to make matters worse, the Cardinal loss came to opposing quarterback Gary Cuozzo—the man whose struggles in Minnesota had been so costly the last two years.

The season was already on the line when the Vikings went to Lambeau Field in Green Bay. At 2-4, they trailed both the Packers and the Lions by two games. With the money on the table, the defense came through.

The game was tied 13-13 in the fourth quarter, when Krause and linebacker Wally Hilgenberg each intercepted Green Bay quarterback Scott Hunter and each took those interceptions to the house. The following night, Detroit lost in Dallas and the Vikings were within a game of first place.

A home win over lowly New Orleans followed, and then Minnesota got set to host Detroit for another must-win game. They got an early 10-0 lead, before Lion quarterback Greg Landry threw over the top for two touchdowns and the Vikes were down by four. They lost three fumbles on the day…but they came back. Reed rushed for 124 yards, his most consequential performance of the season and the Tarkenton led two drives for field goals and a 16-14 win.

Tarkenton then went west and got into a passing duel with Los Angeles Rams’ quarterback Roman Gabriel. In a back-and-forth battle more befitting the football of the 21st century, Tarkenton threw for 319 yards, Gabriel threw for 240 and Minnesota outlasted Los Angeles 45-41.

The schedule didn’t do Minnesota any favors in 1972. At the time, teams played two games from the opposing conference. The Vikings had already played the Dolphins. Their next opponent was the Pittsburgh Steelers, who would be Miami’s opponent in the AFC Championship Game. Overall, Minnesota played 8 of 14 games against teams with winning records.

And they lost this one in the Steel City, with Pittsburgh taking over the fourth quarter because Minnesota couldn’t stop the run in a 23-10 loss. Fortunately, Green Bay lost to Washington, so the NFC Central race was still within one game, the Vikings still had the tiebreakers and they still had the Packers coming to the Twin Cities in two weeks.

The defense showed their old form in taking care of the Bears. Chicago quarterback Bobby Douglass only completed two passes for a total of eight yards…and one of those was a seven-yard touchdown pass that came when Minnesota had a 23-3 lead in the fourth quarter. Yup, the Vikes pass defense held an opposing quarterback to one yard passing at points when the result was in doubt. No matter what era you’re in, that’s impressive.

What wasn’t impressive was how Minnesota played with the division title at stake against Green Bay. On a frigid December afternoon with the wind chill at -19, the game was scoreless through the first quarter and the Vikings were up 7-0 at halftime. But the rush defense collapsed in the second half. John Brockington and MacArthur Lane led a Packer running attack that piled up 214 yards. Tarkenton only threw for 118 yards and gave up three interceptions. The final score was 23-7 and the playoff streak in Minnesota was over.

One more loss awaited, this one in San Francisco the following Saturday afternoon. The 49ers won the NFC West, had knocked the Vikings out of the playoffs in 1970, and beaten them in the regular season in 1971. In spite of committing seven turnovers, they won this one too, with two fourth quarter touchdowns sending Minnesota to a 20-17 loss.

Minnesota was licking its wounds after the 1972 season, but the Tarkenton trade would pay dividends in the years ahead. Over the next four seasons, the Vikings reached the Super Bowl three times. The one year they didn’t, 1975, was when Tarkenton won the MVP award. It was a good trade, but its first year was a definite fizzle.

1971 Minnesota Vikings: Offensive Woes Undo Super Bowl Hopes

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The 1971 Minnesota Vikings produced a tremendous defense, the kind that could give the franchise its first Super Bowl victory, and did produce a division title. But offensive problems, in particular a train wreck at quarterback, ultimately did them in at playoff time.

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Minnesota’s defense was the best in the league and it was built around a powerful defensive line and a ballhawking secondary. Carl Eller at defensive end and Alan Page at defensive tackle were Pro Bowlers, and Gary Larsen at age 31 and 34-year-old Jim Marshall still had gas in the tank. The front four was “The Purple People Eaters” with a simple motto—“Meet at the quarterback.”

If the opposing quarterback got the pass off, then Pro Bowl free safety Paul Krause was waiting for the pick. The same goes for corners Charlie West and Ed Sharockman, who combined for thirteen interceptions between them.

It didn’t take much offense to win, and the Vikings were willing to test that to its logical limit. They ranked 18th in a 26-team NFL in points scored. They had good pieces on the offensive line, in 25-year-old Pro Bowl right tackle Ron Yary, and center Mick Tingelhoff, even though the latter’s best days were behind him. But there weren’t enough playmakers.

Clint Jones was given an opportunity at running back and he wasn’t bad, but at 675 yards, you couldn’t build an offense around him. The production from speedy wideout Gene Washington dropped, though 26-year-old Bob Grim became a Pro Bowl receiver on the other side. The real problem though, was complete chaos at quarterback.

Gary Cuozzo was the starter, but he was one of three quarterbacks who got the opportunity in meaningful games. Head coach Bud Grant also tried Bob Lee, and 32-year-old Norm Snead in an ultimately futile attempt to generate a passing game.

The season opened on a Monday Night in Detroit at old Tiger Stadium. The Lions had been the Vikings’ stiffest competition for the NFC Central (the teams of the current NFC North). The offensive problems that would manifest themselves weren’t apparent for the prime-time audience.

Cuozzo hit Grim for a 45-yard touchdown pass and Minnesota moved the ball mostly through the air, turning a 13-0 second quarter deficit into a 16-13 win. One week later, the Vikings lost a home game to the Chicago Bears, but it was a surprising defensive breakdown. Minnesota led 14-3, before Kent Nix threw two fourth quarter touchdowns and the Bears stole a 20-17 win.

Snead started the next two games, against a lousy Buffalo Bills team and the mediocre Philadelphia Eagles. It really didn’t matter who the quarterback was, because the defense made amends for the Chicago loss, with two straight shutouts, 19-0 and 13-0. Cuozzo returned to start at Green Bay on October 17, and after a slow start, he threw two second-half touchdown passes to lead a 24-13 win, a game in which the defense forced five turnovers.

Minnesota was 4-1 and in control for a fifth straight division title. It was the ideal time to again appear on the national stage, and they hosted the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Colts on Monday Night Football. The defense responded to the moment and intercepted Earl Morrall three times, Sharockman doing the damage twice. The offense didn’t move the ball, but played relatively clean, only one turnover and that was enough for a 10-3 victory.

The quarterback problems started to move more into the open on October 31 in Yankee Stadium. Ironically the opponent was the New York Giants—quarterbacked by the man who had once been the Viking QB solution, Fran Tarkenton, and would be again in the very near future. The Giants were a bad team, but Cuozzo was erratic and the score was tied 10-10 in the fourth quarter. Snead came in to throw a 55-yard touchdown pass to Grim and escape with the win.

Minnesota wasn’t as fortunate a week later against a good team. The San Francisco 49ers had upset the Vikings in the playoffs in 1970, and they won this game 13-9. Cuozzo misfired on his first ten passes, and was pulled for Snead, who didn’t do a whole lot better.

The Vikings got back on the winning track the next week against Green Bay at home—in a game that ended 3-0, and Cuozzo threw for 42 yards. Minnesota as a team gained just 87 yards, while Green Bay gained 301, but the defense picked off three passes, two of them by West.

Lee started the next week at New Orleans. The Saints were on their way to a 4-8-2 season and not a threat to anyone. Lee played respectable and went 14/25 for 146 yards in a 23-7 win. A week later against the respectable Atlanta Falcons, the running game had one of its best days. Jones ran for 155 yards, and 33-year-old fullback Bill Brown conjured up the memories of his Pro Bowl days, bulling for 85 yards and two second-half touchdowns in a 24-7 win.

Minnesota was 9-2, and able to keep some separation from Detroit, who was 7-3-1. The teams were pointing to a game with each other in the Twin Cities on December 11, the penultimate weekend of the year. The separation the Vikings had proved important—they were upset at San Diego, after Lee and Snead combined to throw four interceptions and almost singlehandedly allowed the Chargers to score 20 fourth-quarter points and win 30-14.

Fortunately, Detroit lost at home to Philadelphia that same week. So even if the Vikings couldn’t clinch the division in the head-to-head battle, they could still do so at Chicago in the finale.

It was a Saturday afternoon game when Grant’s team went for the NFC Central crown. The linebackers came up with big plays and it started with Roy Winston taking an interception 29 yards to the house in the first quarter, and the Vikings led 14-3 at the half.

The lead was 17-10 in the third quarter when Page blocked a punt through the end zone. The defense forced five turnovers overall and pulled away 29-10. It was an appropriate way for the 1971 Minnesota Vikings to win—Cuozzo completed only four passes for 21 yards.

Lee played the regular season finale and played well, lighting up the Bears for 271 yards and an easy 27-10 win. Minnesota was 11-3 and tied with the Dallas Cowboys for the top spot in the NFC overall. But the NFL didn’t use merit to determine homefield advantage and playoff pairings then. They used a pre-assigned divisional rotation format. It meant the Vikings and Cowboys had to meet in the first playoff game. For Minnesota it could have been worse—they at least got the game at home.

It was Christmas Day when the Cowboys came north for the NFC divisional playoffs, but Viking fans got a lump of coal in their stocking. Lee and Cuozzo each threw two interceptions. Minnesota only trailed 6-3 at the half, but an early third quarter pick led to a Cowboy touchdown, Dallas pulled out to a 20-3 lead and won 20-12. They scored 10 points directly off the turnovers. It was a disappointing end, if an unsurprising one.

While much focus has been given to the quarterback problems and offensive impotence, it needs to be said that it’s only because defensive excellence was becoming such a way of life in the Twin Cities that it could be taken for granted. The Minnesota defense has taken its special place in NFL lore.

They just needed help. Fortunately, Grant wouldn’t sit on his thumbs—by next year, Tarkenton would be back and while it took a year to get things rolling, playoff success was soon coming back to the Twin Cities.

The 1970 Minnesota Vikings Miss A Perfect Super Bowl Opportunity

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The Minnesota Vikings had the best season in the short history of their franchise when they made the Super Bowl in 1969. The following season was the first year of the NFL-AFL merger and the formation of the league structure as we know it today. The 1970 Minnesota Vikings spent much of the season looking like they might not only make it all the way back, but take the final step. But a great regular season gave way to playoff heartbreak in a year when the Super Bowl trophy was theirs for the taking.

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When the season started, a return Super Bowl trip wasn’t the biggest thing head coach Bud Grant had to focus on—finding a quarterback was. Joe Kapp had left after a contract dispute, and Gary Cuozzo took over. Cuozzo was a career backup, though in fairness, part of that career involved being the backup to Johnny Unitas with the Baltimore Colts.

Cuozzo was supported by a running game that was led by Dave Osborn, who had a rather pedestrian 681 yards on the ground, but still made the Pro Bowl. Bill Brown at fullback was a former Pro Bowler, and at age 32, was still productive.

On the surface, the offensive line didn’t produce a Pro Bowler. But there was more to this Viking front five than what met the eye. Center Mick Tingelhoff was an All-Pro in five seasons immediately surrounding 1970. Ron Yary at tackle was a third-year player and embarking on a Hall of Fame career.

The defensive line didn’t require anyone to dig below the surface to appreciate their excellence. Carl Eller at end and Alan Page at tackle were first-team All-Pros. Gary Larsen was another Pro Bowler on the side. Normally, Jim Marshall at defensive end would be in that group, but at 33, Marshall was starting to show signs of decline and was “only” pretty good, as opposed to one of the game’s best.

If you wanted to pass against Minnesota, that wasn’t going to be much easier. Ed Sharockman at corner picked off seven passes in what was then a 14-game schedule. Karl Kassulke was a Pro Bowl strong safety, and Paul Krause was another future Hall of Famer at free safety.

Minnesota hosted the Kansas City Chiefs in a Super Bowl rematch. After a scoreless first quarter, the Vikings returned a fumble for a touchdown, won the rushing battle 132-63 and won the game convincingly, 27-10. The Chiefs were headed for a down year and would miss the playoffs. The Vikings had exposed their flaws quickly.

The defense continued to produce points the following week in a 26-0 win over a terrible New Orleans Saints team, but the first loss came a week later. Cuozzo and the offense were unable to generate any action when they went to Milwaukee to play the Green Bay Packers. The Vikes trailed 6-0 in the fourth quarter and after kicking a field goal, gave up a kickoff return for a touchdown. The Packers won 13-10.

A road trip to another NFC Central (the same teams of the current NFC North) rival produced a better result. Minnesota won at Chicago 24-0, with Page scooping up a fumble and rumbling 65 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter. With the record 3-1, the Vikes now prepared for a tough sequence of games against the Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions.

Dallas was on its way to an NFC East title and they came to Minnesota. No one was prepared for the breadth and scope of what the Vikings would inflict. Sharockman scored off a blocked punt and an interception return in the first quarter alone. The Viking defensive front produced seven sacks. The score was 34-6 by halftime and ended at a stunning 54-13. Grant’s team was off and rolling.

Monday Night Football came to the Twin Cities for the Rams-Vikings game, a rematch of a good divisional playoff game the prior year when Minnesota rallied to win in the fourth quarter. The defenses ruled this game. Cuozzo was able to connect with Brown on a 17-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter, but neither team broke the end zone the rest of the night. Minnesota recovered four of seven Los Angeles fumbles, won the rushing battle 146-66 and chiseled out a 13-3 win.

Detroit wasn’t a perennial contender like the Cowboys or Rams, but the Lions were showing their teeth in 1970. They were 5-1 and tied for first when they hosted the Vikings at old Tiger Stadium on November 1. The first half involved a lot of back-and-forth. Minnesota corner Bobby Bryant intercepted a pass and took it 39 yards to the house. Cuozzo threw a pair of second-quarter touchdowns, one of them a 41-yarder to speedy Gene Washington.

The Viking defense was uncharacteristically lenient in the first half and the Lions were within 24-17 at intermission. But they kept the Detroit ground game under wraps and returned to form in the second half. Minnesota got a couple field goals from Pro Bowler kicker Fred Cox and won 30-17.
Grant’s team kept their focus in a win at the mediocre Washington Redskins, while Detroit lost, creating a two-game gap in the division race. And the schedule brought the Lions right back, with the rematch in Minneapolis set for November 15.

Viking special teams were usually a strength, but the 1970 season is marked with too many instances of opposing teams returning punts and kickoffs. The game with the Lions was another example, as a second-quarter kickoff return after a field goal gave Detroit a 10-3 lead. They still led 20-10 in the fourth quarter and were poised to tighten the NFC Central race.

Cuozzo didn’t have a great game, completing just 13 of 30 passes. But he made them count, getting 228 yards, and he led drives that set up two short touchdown runs from Clint Jones. Minnesota escaped with a 24-20 win. There were five games to go, the Vikings led the division by three games and they owned the tiebreaker. They were home free.

A ho-hum win over Green Bay followed. The Vikes won 10-3 in a game marked by zero turnovers and zero ball movement either way. The Packers had faded from the race and would finish 6-8, as would the Bears.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving produced a little fly in the ointment, as Cuozzo had to leave early in a game at the New York Jets. Bob Lee stepped in, but threw four interceptions in a 20-10 loss. Lee had to start the next game six days later, a Saturday kickoff with Chicago. A win would wrap up the division, and in an era where homefield advantage was determined by rotation rather than merit, that’s all that mattered in the regular season.

Osborn played his best game of the year, rushing for 139 yards on 29 carries. Lee stayed away from mistakes and the Vikings were ahead 16-6 late. The special teams coverage problems resurfaced when Chicago returned a kickoff for a touchdown and made the game interesting, but the defense closed out a 16-13 win. Minnesota was NFC Central champs.

Lee started and won a game at the then-named Boston Patriots, while Cuozzo returned for a season finale tuneup at the equally lowly Atlanta Falcons. Minnesota easily won both games and at 12-2, they were the best team in the entire NFL.

The Vikings were a solid favorite to beat the San Francisco 49ers, and when Krause returned a fumble 22 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter, the Metropolitan Stadium faithful could surely smell another playoff victory. But it was the last good thing to happen to their team that season.

Cuozzo got nothing going, completing just 9-of-27 passes. The 49ers gradually moved ahead 17-7. Cuozzo finally got his team into the end zone, with a touchdown pass to Washington…but it came with one second left. A disheartening 17-14 loss ended the season.

Bud Grant achieved much during his tenure with the Vikings and that’s highlighted by four trips to the Super Bowl. He never won it all, and this team might have been his best shot. The ’69 team had been heavily favored in the Super Bowl, but that’s as much on the public for underrating the Chiefs and the old AFL as it is on the Vikings. In future years, Minnesota was simply not as good as the best the AFC had—the Pittsburgh Steelers, Oakland Raiders and Miami Dolphins.

1970 was different though. Dallas, the very team Minnesota had beaten by 41 points went to the Super Bowl. The Cowboys lost to the Baltimore Colts in a game that was exciting (decided on a last-second field goal) but generally regarded as one of the most poorly played Super Bowls in history. There’s no reason to think Minnesota doesn’t win, if they just get there.

The 1969 Minnesota Vikings Take The Super Bowl Step

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Bud Grant came to the Twin Cities in the 1967 season and turned the Minnesota Vikings into a feisty team. In 1968, Grant got the team into the playoffs for the first time. And the 1969 Minnesota Vikings continued the improvement, enjoying a monster season and reaching the Super Bowl.

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Minnesota was a complete team in every way. They had the league’s most prolific offense and its most stingy defense. The defensive front four, the legendary “Purple People Eaters” was dominant. Carl Eller and Jim Marshall were at the ends, with Alan Page and Gary Larsen on the inside and all four were All-Pro, Eller and Page first-team.

The Vikings had a tough leader at quarterback in Joe Kapp. He was 31-years-old, but still in only his third NFL season, having started his pro career in Canada. The offensive line had its own Pro Bowlers, in Grady Alderman at left tackle, and Mick Tingelhoff at center.

And on both offense and defense, there were big-time playmakers. Gene Washington had 821 yards receiving, a big number in this era and he was superb at stretching the field. Defensively, corners Earsell Mackbee and Bobby Bryant combined for fourteen interceptions and Pro Bowl safety Paul Krause picked off five more.

The running game wasn’t ideal—fullback Bill Brown, now 31-years-old, saw a little bit of a step back from his own All-Pro days and Dave Osborne, while a decent running back, wasn’t outstanding. But the 1969 Minnesota Vikings were a team without real weaknesses.

That wasn’t immediately apparent when the team opened the season in Yankee Stadium against the New York Giants. Gary Cuozzo started at quarterback and threw two long touchdown passes to give the Vikings an early lead. But an old and future friend—Fran Tarkenton, who had been traded from Minnesota upon Grant’s arrival and would soon be traded back—did the Vikes in. Tarkenton threw two late touchdown passes and a mediocre New York team stole a 24-23 win.

One year earlier the Baltimore Colts had been the NFL’s dominant team, before losing one of the famous Super Bowls ever to the New York Jets and Joe Namath as a three-touchdown favorite. What the Vikings did on September 28 in old Metropolitan Stadium sent a loud and clear message.

The Cuozzo idea was junked and Kapp was back in the lineup. He threw an 83-yard touchdown strike to Washington in the first quarter. He hit the speedy wideout on a 42-yard scoring play in the third quarter. Kapp kept pumping touchdowns against an outstanding defense and didn’t stop until he had thrown seven TD passes. Minnesota had a shocking 52-14 rout.

Before the Colts were the NFL champs, the Green Bay Packers were. Vince Lombardi was gone, now with the Washington Redskins, and Minnesota continued its pattern of knocking off the old guard. They forced three turnovers and beat the Packers 19-7.

Minnesota rolled through road games against lousy teams in the Chicago Bears and St. Louis Cardinals, and set up a home date with the Detroit Lions, came into the game at 3-2. The Vikings had the opportunity to open up some room in the Central Division (the teams of today’s NFC North) and they took advantage.

Kapp-to-Washington came through again, a 41-yard touchdown pass, and an early 10-0 lead. Mackbee was all over Detroit quarterback Greg Landry, picking off three passes. The running game took over late, with Osborne and Brown each scoring and the game ended 24-3.

After another win over Chicago, the Vikings prepared to host the Cleveland Browns, who were running away with the Century Division (the Giants, who would finish 6-8 were the closest team to Cleveland). Yet another shock awaited NFL fans—not so much that the Vikings won the game, but the size and scope of the victory.

Kapp hooked up with Washington three different times for touchdowns. This game was Bryant’s turn to play ballhawk, as he intercepted three passes. The final score was 51-3. Minnesota had played the two teams that had met in last year’s league championship game and calmly dropped a combined 103 points on them.

Green Bay and Detroit still held theoretical chances of catching Minnesota in the standings, so a November 16 trip to Milwaukee to meet the Packers was still important. The Vikes did not play well, and a potential scoring drive ended up in an 85-yard interception return the other way for Green Bay. Trailing 7-3, Minnesota looked ripe to be picked, but kicker Fred Cox booted two field goals and they escaped. The Packers were finished as a threat.

After another offensive explosion—52 points over the Pittsburgh Steeler team that was bad enough to get the #1 overall pick in the ensuing year’s draft and get Terry Bradshaw—the Vikings traveled to Detroit for Thanksgiving Day. Minnesota had a two-game lead, and with only three games remaining after this, they could clinch the division.

It was a sloppy game in old Tiger Stadium, but Minnesota just gradually pulled away. Page scored a defensive touchdown in the fourth quarter, and with a 27-0 win, the Vikings had punched their return ticket to the playoffs.

Homefield advantage was determined on a rotation basis, so there was really nothing left to play for, but Minnesota did make one more statement. The Los Angeles Rams were playoff-bound, and the Vikings went west, built a 14-0 lead and beat the Rams 20-13. Minnesota completed the regular season 12-2, losing at Atlanta.

Los Angeles was coming to Minnesota on December 27, amidst 10-degree cold for the first playoff game. The Vikings looked to have an early big play—Eller tipped a pass, caught it and ran in for a touchdown. But Page was whistled offsides and the Rams got a huge break.

Then LA went about the business of making the break count. Quarterback Roman Gabriel worked his tight ends, and the Rams’ own strong defensive front was causing problems for Kapp. Minnesota trailed 17-7 at the half and was still down 20-14 in the fourth quarter.

Grant’s offensive adjustment was for Kapp to roll out more frequently and to take off and run, to try and neutralize the pressure. It worked, and he ultimately ran for a touchdown to put his team up 21-20. With less than four minutes left, the LA offense was backed up and Eller sacked Gabriel for a safety.

Los Angeles came charging back, crossing midfield and looking to tie the game. But Page made amends for his earlier penalty, coming down with a tipped pass that sealed the win. Grant and LA head coach George Allen had more playoff meetings ahead of them, when Allen went to the Washington Redskins two years later. This game started a pattern of Grant consistently coming out on top.

Cleveland was the opponent at the Old Met for the NFL championship (this was the last year prior to the AFL-NFL merger, and what we know as the conference championship round was still considered the “NFL” rather than “NFC” Championship, as would become the case a year later).

The result wasn’t as lopsided as the regular season game, but nor was it close. Kapp ran for an early touchdown and then threw a 75-yard strike to Washington. Osborn, who ran for 108 yards as the Vikings controlled the ground game, took one in from 20 yards out. Washington caught two more passes for an additional 45 yards in the air. It was 24-0 by halftime and the Vikings cruised home to a championship, 27-7.

Minnesota was a two-touchdown favorite over the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, as oddsmakers and the public felt like the NFL losing the prior year’s game was just a fluke. This game proved otherwise, The Vikings couldn’t get anything going, turned it over five times and were picked apart defensively by smart Kansas City quarterback Len Dawson. The Chiefs won 23-7. The AFL was on a par with the NFL, and the newly named AFC would win most of the Super Bowls through the coming decade.

But the Minnesota Vikings were now on a par themselves—with the rest of the league’s elite. They had now broken through and reached a Super Bowl, and it wouldn’t be their last.

Night At The Museum: What's New In The Collection Of Sports History Articles

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TheSportsNotebook’s historical museum, its extensive collection of sports history articles, is constantly growing. It’s not always directly visible on the home page, so for our regular readers, we want to provide an update on what’s going on and what’s been regularly added to the museum.

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*There have recently been separate pages completed for Notre Dame football history, and Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl history.
The latter has the six seasons in which the Steelers won it all, the most of any franchise in the Super Bowl era.
Our Notre Dame football history page contains the links to articles that cover the period that began in 1975, when Dan Devine took over for Ara Parseghian. We’re currently up through 2002.
1976 serves as a general cutoff point, but as the *There is also regular additions being made on Boston Red Sox history and San Antonio Spurs history. Each organization has enjoyed a big run in the 21st century, with multiple championships over an extended period of time, with one player as the common bond—David Ortiz in Boston and Tim Duncan in San Antonio.
Our article series will give the reader a sense of how each team’s modern history developed. For Boston, that starts in 1975, when they reached the World Series. For San Antonio, the calendar jumps ahead a little bit—modern Spurs history began in 1990, with the drafting of David Robinson.
*A more ambitious project is to add complete “packages” covering each season of major league baseball since 1975. The packages include separate articles on each division champion’s regular season run and each postseason series. The year was chosen for two reasons. I begin with 1976, as the period in which the free agency era began in MLB history. Since the Big Red Machine of Cincinnati won the Series in 1975-76, I just went back one year to cover both championship runs.
*And another NFL project has also begun. I’ve begun adding content on two teams, my own beloved Washington Redskins history, along with Minnesota Vikings history. For the Redskins that begins in 1971, when George Allen arrived in D.C. For the Vikings, Bud Grant came to the Twin Cities in 1967, marking the birth of their modern era.
Eventually, each team will have its own separate history page, with a compilation of all the articles, and e-books will be made available for download. For now, as we build the collection, you can click on the links up top, that take you to the history pages for each sport as a whole, and they’ll take you to the specific archives.
Thanks for visiting TheSportsNotebook.com. Come on back and continue to check out our sports history articles, as we carry out our mission of preserving the modern age of sports.

The 1968 Minnesota Vikings Bring Playoff Football To The Twin Cities

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The Minnesota Vikings had come into the NFL in 1961, and were waiting for their first trip to the playoffs. The arrival of new head coach Bud Grant in 1967 put the team on a solid footing. And the 1968 Minnesota Vikings, while far from a great team, were able to give the Twin Cities playoff football for the first time.

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Success began up front for the Vikings and the defensive line was outstanding. Carl Eller, the dynamic 26-year-old defensive end was a 1st-team All-Pro. Second-year defensive tackle Alan Page and veteran defensive end Jim Marshall each made the Pro Bowl themselves. On the offensive side of the trenches, the Vikes got a Pro Bowl season from center Mick Tingelhoff.

If you’re tough up front, you can compete, especially in the 1968 world of the NFL, and the Vikings were tough up front.

With a no-nonsense profile like this, it’s appropriate that the most accomplished player at the skill positions was a fullback. Bill Brown was 1st-team All-Pro himself and even the quarterback, 30-year-old Joe Kapp, was as renowned for being rugged as he was for throwing the ball.

Kapp, who had come from the CFL the prior year and taken over for Fran Tarkenton after the latter was traded, finally became the permanent quarterback in 1968, and his favorite target was Gene Washington. The 24-year-old receiver caught 46 passes for 756 yards, pretty good in a running era when defensive backs were allowed to get physical at the line of scrimmage.

The Vikings had gone 3-8-3 in Grant’s first year, but the signs of progress were clearly there as the season went along. Minnesota came out and buried the woeful Atlanta Falcons 47-7 in the season opener. Beating Atlanta didn’t make one a playoff team, but at the very least, Grant’s team had shown there was now a considerable distance between them and the league’s worst.

Up next was a road game with the Green Bay Packers that would prove to be a seminal moment in the history of this division (the teams of the NFL Central in 1968 are the same four of today’s NFC North). The Packers were in a new era, as Vince Lombardi retired following a Super Bowl win in 1967. They opened the ’68 campaign with a 30-13 win over a bad Philadelphia Eagles team. Then, on September 22 at Milwaukee County Stadium, a changing of the guard moment happened.

Kapp delivered a workmanlike 9/15 for 138 yards performance and Brown established the run, pounding in a pair of first-half touchdowns. The defense was excellent. Marshall sacked quarterback Bart Starr for a safety. Corner Earsell Mackbee picked off one pass, and safety Paul Krause intercepted another, one of a team-leading seven interceptions for Krause this year. Minnesota delivered a 26-13 win that stood out for how ruthlessly efficient it was.

We know in retrospect that it was a changing-of-the-guard game, as the Packers declined, and the Vikings went on to mostly own this division for the 1970s, but the immediate aftermath of Week 2 made one wonder if Minnesota could keep their focus.

They went to Chicago and Gale Sayers ran over them for 108 yards on 16 carries, as the Bears built a 17-0 lead and coasted to a 27-17 win. A win over the last-place Detroit Lions righted the ship, but then Minnesota managed to lose at lowly New Orleans, 20-17. What’s worse is they not only lost to a lousy team, but in came in spite of seven turnovers by the Saints. Kapp was awful, at 9/28 for 78 yards.

Another loss to a strong Dallas Cowboys team followed, and then the Bears came into town on October 27. Chicago had started slowly, with their win over Minnesota being the only one in the first five game. But they were finding their groove. Sayers again couldn’t be stopped, going for 143 yards. Kapp played well, going 16/27 for 205 yards, including six catches by Washington for 133 of the yards. But Chicago still kicked a late field goal and won a back-and-forth game 26-24.

Minnesota was able to play the Washington Redskins, en route to a 5-8 season next, and the Vikes won 27-14. They were 4-4, as were the Bears, with the Packers at 3-4-1. Minnesota again beat Green Bay, with Brown again rushing for two touchdowns against the Packers and then defense again being opportunistic, collecting four turnovers. The 14-10 win kept the Vikings tied for first with the Bears.

A win at Detroit followed, and then the gap between Minnesota and the league elite showed in consecutive losses to the Baltimore Colts on the road and the Los Angeles Rams at home.

The Colts were the best team in the NFL, on their way to a 13-1 year. They would ultimately be remembered as the team that lost to Joe Namath and the New York Jets as an 18-point favorite in the Super Bowl, but even that unfortunate ending tells you how good they were. The Rams finished 10-3-1, and only the fact they were in Baltimore’s division prior to the era of wild-cards kept them out of the playoffs. Minnesota lost the two games by a combined 52-12.

Minnesota stood at 6-6 and there were two games left. Chicago was also 6-6, but held the tiebreaker. Green Bay was 5-6-1, but got to play the Bears in the season finale. The Vikings had to keep winning, and with two road games ahead, it didn’t look good.

The first road game was at San Francisco, a team as good as any in the Central, but with the misfortune to fall behind the Colts and Rams. Minnesota played perhaps its best game of the year. Kapp was 10/17 for 150 yards, they won the turnover battle 3-1 and built a 27-6 lead, on their way to a 30-20 win.

By rights, this should have been enough to vault the Vikings to first place, since the Bears were in Los Angeles, but Chicago pulled off a 17-16 upset to maintain control of the division. Minnesota had to win in Philadelphia in Week 14 and hope for help.

The Vikings only threw the ball ten times in Philly, but Kapp made the most of it, completing seven and getting 135 yards out of it. Brown produced a workmanlike 78 yards and Minnesota churned out a 24-17 win. Meanwhile, the Packers were jumping all over the Bears in Wrigley Field, leading 28-10 in the fourth quarter. Chicago made a furious rally, but in the era prior to the two-point conversion, could only close to 28-27. Green Bay won and Minnesota was the champion of the NFL Central.

It might have been a playoff year that came about as much as a byproduct of the divisional alignment then anything, but that’s hardly unusual in sports history. Minnesota, at 8-6 was in the playoffs.

The trip to Baltimore for the divisional playoff round ended with a loss. The final was 24-14, although with the Colts scoring the game’s first 21 points in the second quarter, one of them a defensive touchdown on a fumble recovery return, it really wasn’t that close. Minnesota was never able to establish Brown and the running game. The Colts were able to make big plays in the air, as league MVP Earl Morrall went 13/22 for 280 yards.

But the most important thing about the 1968 Minnesota Vikings season is that they got to the playoffs. They would be back many more times in the years to come, and a run to the Super Bowl was just around the corner.

1967 Minnesota Vikings: Bud Grant Lays The Foundation For Excellence

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The Minnesota Vikings came into existence in 1961, and their first six seasons were marked by tensions between quarterback Fran Tarkenton and head coach Norm Van Brocklin, over how much Tarkenton ran.

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One thing they were not marked by is winning—after Van Brocklin’s first good year in 1964, the team regressed to 7-7 in 1965 and 4-9-1 in 1966. It was time for new leadership and the change that came would alter the trajectory of franchise history. Bud Grant became the new coach, and while the 1967 Minnesota Vikings did not have a good record, they got the pieces in place for a lot of winning in the years to come.
Grant and general manager Jim Finks made a big move immediately by trading Tarkenton to the New York Giants for a package of four draft picks, all in the top two rounds. To replace him, the team would rely on either Ron Vander Kelen or newly acquired Joe Kapp.
Kapp was 29-years-old and had gone to the Canadian Football League out of college. It was Finks, then working in the CFL, that spotted him and now the new GM went to work on getting Kapp into the NFL. Complicated maneuvering created a de facto “trade” between the leagues, and Grant would have two quarterbacks from whom to choose.
The offense had one Pro Bowler, fullback Bill Brown, but second-year running back Dave Osborn would be effective, rushing for 972 yards in what was then a 14-game schedule. The defense didn’t send anyone to the Pro Bowl, but they had a core of young talent that would ultimately form the “Purple People Eaters” and be one of the best defenses of the 1970s.
Carl Eller was at defensive end, just 25-years-old. Grant drafted rookie Alan Page to play defensive tackle. Veteran Jim Marshall was on the defensive line’s other flank. And cornerback Earsell Mackbee intercepted five passes in the 1967 season.
The NFL has undergone a couple major realignment changes in the years since 1967 and a few other tweaks here and there. One constant has remained—the Vikings have always been in a division with the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, and in ’67 it was called the NFL Central. The Packers were still under the leadership of Vince Lombardi, entering his final season in Green Bay. The Bears were still led by George Halas. Grant was stepping into a neighborhood occupied by legends.
To say the season didn’t start well would be an understatement. Minnesota hosted the San Francisco 49ers and trailed 27-0 after three quarters, before a late rally made the final a respectable 27-21. The Vikings were then sent west to play the Los Angeles Rams on a Friday. I’m going out on a limb and say that sending a team cross-country on five days rest would catch more than a little heat if someone tried it today.
This time Minnesota fell behind 32-0 before scoring. A home date with Chicago saw improvement—the Vikings only trailed 17-0 before they got on the board for the first time. The Grant era had started 0-3 and all of the games were colossal embarrassments.
Vander Kelen had taken most of the snaps in these games, and Kapp got his first start on October 8 at home against the St. Louis Cardinals. When Kapp hit Gene Washington on an 85-yard touchdown pass to give Minnesota a 24-13 lead in the fourth quarter, the new coach’s first win was at hand. Alas, the defense fell apart down the stretch and the Cards scored three touchdowns.
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It was time for a trip to Green Bay. Lombardi’s Packers had won the first Super Bowl ever played the previous season and were the NFL’s dominant franchise. Even with quarterback Bart Starr out, there was still no reason to expect trouble from a winless team, especially when Packer backup Zeke Bratkowski had shown himself capable.
Minnesota’s defense came ready. They shut down the Packer running attack of Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor, holding Green Bay to 42 yards. The Vikes picked off Bratkowski three times, two of them by Mackbee. They ran the ball, with Brown and Osborn each going over 70 yards. The fourth quarter was a breakthrough point, as the Vikings scored ten points and got a 10-7 win.
Backup quarterback or no, a rookie head coach getting his first win on the road against Vince Lombardi is heady stuff. And while it would be a mistake to say the Vikings immediately took off, you can see clear progress that continued from this game forward and set the foundation for Grant’s tenure.
Minnesota hosted the Baltimore Colts next, a team on their way to an 11-1-2 season, coached by Don Shula. Kapp went toe-to-toe with Johnny Unitas, the Vikings fought the Colts to a draw in the running game and a draw in the scoreboard. A 20-20 tie against a team like this was a moral victory in any case, and certainly coming off the high of the Packer win.
There was regression the following week with a 21-20 loss to Atlanta. Vander Kelen was back in the lineup and threw a costly pick-6 in the fourth quarter. But the Vikes turned around and beat the New York Giants, tied Detroit and then nearly pulled another road upset against the playoff-bound Cleveland Browns. Minnesota led 10-0 in Cleveland, before Browns running back Leroy Kelly capped off a 123-yard day with a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns.
Kapp was back on the saddle on his own for a road date in Pittsburgh the Sunday after Thanskgiving. The Steelers were a far cry from the team that would win four Super Bowls in the ensuing decade—Terry Bradshaw was still in college and Chuck Noll was still an assistant coach in Baltimore. But the Steelers got out to a 13-3 lead. Then Kapp took over.
The quarterback threw two touchdowns and ran for one more. The defense scored twice, one a pick-6 by Mackbee. The Vikings ended up winning decisively, 41-27.
Minnesota closed the season 0-2-1, losing to the Packers 30-27 on a late field goal (although we must note that Green Bay had clinched the division and homefield was then determined on a rotation basis, removing any incentive for the Packers), tying the Bears on the road and losing 14-3 to the Lions. All of the games were competitive battles against the teams that Minnesota would have to beat.
The 1967 Minnesota Vikings finished the season 3-8-3 (there was no overtime allowed), which on the surface was about equivalent to the 4-9-1 record Grant inherited. But the surface didn’t tell the story. Grant found young defensive talent, a quarterback he liked, his team played competitively with league powers and got better as the season went along.
Good times were just around the corner—Lombardi would retire and Minnesota took over the division in 1968. They made the Super Bowl in 1969, and made it three more times under the head coach’s tenure. The even got Tarkenton back a few years later. Football was on the rise in the Twin Cities.

The 2009 Minnesota Vikings: Brett Favre’s Amazing Year At Age 40

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The 2009 Minnesota Vikings were a team looking to take the next step. Widely regarded to have a solid all-around roster, the Vikings needed a quarterback if they were going to take the next step. They had won the NFC North in 2008 with Tavaris Jackson behind center, but he was so lightly regarded that the Vikes were a 3.5 point underdog at home in the playoffs to the wild-card Philadelphia Eagles. Minnesota “backed up” the skepticism by losing 26-14. If they wanted more, they needed a change.

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And no change could be more dramatic than signing Brett Favre. The Green Bay Packer legend had retired after the 2007 season. Then he unretired and amidst bitter acrimony with the Packer front office, Favre was traded to the New York Jets. The quarterback retired again after 2008. He got overtures from the Vikings, but said in July 2009 that he was retired. Then Favre unretired one more time.

The indecision was comical for some (including me), infuriating to others, but to the fans in Minnesota, it was worth the price if Favre could get them to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1976 and win it for the first time ever.

Favre joined an offense built around the immense talents of running back Adrian Peterson, who would run for over 1,300 yards. The left side of the line was held down by Pro Bowlers, in Bryant McKinnie and Steve Hutchison. The defensive front was very good all the way across. Ray Edwards had 8.5 sacks from his defensive end spot. Kevin Williams was a Pro Bowl defensive tackle, and Jared Allen had a huge year at the other end, with 14.5 sacks. The back seven had a Pro Bowler in defensive back Antoine Winfield.

It was anticipated that Favre, now 40-years-old, would be a veteran game manager for a team that would still focus on winning games by running A.P. and playing good defense. That formula produced a pair of road wins over bad teams in the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns to start the season. But playing another pedestrian opponent, the San Francisco 49ers, at home in Week 3, the Vikes found themselves in a 24-20 hole. That’s when Brett Favre’s last glorious ride really began.

With two seconds to play, Favre rifled a 32-yard strike to Greg Lewis to win the game 27-24. The win kept the Vikings undefeated for a highly anticipated Monday Night home game with Green Bay, as Favre played his old team for the first time. He threw for 371 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.

Aaron Rodgers, now in his second year and still trying to prove himself, threw for 384. But Rodgers had an interception and also maneuvered his way into a couple of sacks. There were also the sacks that were no fault of Rodgers at all, and those kept piling up. He hit the deck eight times, with Allen getting 4.5 of them, one for a safety. Minnesota built a 30-14 lead and held on to win 30-23.

After a blowout win over the St. Louis Rams, Minnesota played at home against Baltimore. Trailing 31-30, Favre threw a beautiful 58-yard strike to Sidney Rice that set up a go-ahead field goal. The Ravens got into position for a game-winning kick, but missed from 44 yards.

Minnesota finally lost its first game the next week in Pittsburgh and now it was time for the biggest regular season game of them all—Favre’s homecoming to Green Bay for a late Sunday afternoon kickoff.

The game was close to a carbon copy of the first. Favre was outstanding, throwing four touchdown passes with no interceptions. Rodgers played a good game, throwing three TD strikes of his own against no mistakes. But the Viking pass rush was ferocious—six sacks in all, three of them by Allen. Minnesota built a 24-3 lead, and though Rodgers rallied the Packers to within four, Favre pulled the Vikes back away and it ended 38-26.

Minnesota’s sweep of Green Bay, a team that would make the playoffs as a wild-card, put the Vikings in command of the NFC North. They won three more in succession, before dropping a 30-17 decision to the Arizona Cardinals.

It was a loss that was costly—there was no room for error in the race for the NFC’s #1 seed, not with the New Orleans Saints still undefeated. And the Vikes also lost linebacker E.J. Henderson for the year to a broken leg.

After a victory over Cincinnati, the Vikings began to run into problems. They were beaten at the line of scrimmage on a Sunday night in Carolina, Favre was unable to bail them out and they lost 26-7. Even with New Orleans slumping at the end, another loss on Monday Night in Chicago took the Vikes out of position for the 1-seed.

Favre had brought Minnesota back from a 23-6 deficit in Chicago and the game went to overtime tied at 30-30. But a Peterson fumble set up the last of Jay Cutler’s four touchdown passes and now the Vikings were in serious trouble.

Entering Week 17, Minnesota was looking at the 3-seed—meaning no first-round bye and potentially two road games on the way to the Super Bowl. They got themselves back on track with a 44-7 win over the fading New York Giants. And they got a break that night when Philadelphia lost to Dallas in a winner-take-all battle for the NFC East. The Eagles were the team that could have taken the 2-seed, but their defeat elevated the Vikes back into the spot and a week off.

It had been an incredible year for Favre—over 4,200 yards passing, 33 touchdown passes and the man who had a reputation for throwing some ill-advised passes, only had seven interceptions. He wouldn’t win the MVP—that went to Peyton Manning, whose Indianapolis Colts went 14-2—but Favre had his best year since winning the MVP award each year from 1995-97 and it was surely the best season ever put up by a 40-year-old.

Now it was time for the playoffs and Minnesota’s late-season hiccup had oddsmakers worried. Dallas was a hot team and they beat Philadelphia for a second straight week in the first playoff round. The Vikings were a 2.5 point favorite—but given they were at home, an advantage customarily valued at three points, the number told you who Las Vegas thought was better.

Maybe the week off was all Minnesota needed, because they destroyed Dallas. Favre hit Rice on a 47-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter, and a 16-yarder in the second that made it 14-3. The lead grew to 20-3 midway through the fourth quarter. Favre and Rice decided to put an end to any hope the Cowboys had left, hooking up on a 45-yard scoring play that sealed it. One more touchdown put the finishing touches on a 34-3 rout.

Now it was on to New Orleans and what would prove to be a thrilling NFC Championship Game. Unfortunately, it was the Vikings made the mistakes. Entering the game’s final five minutes, they had lost three fumbles and Favre had thrown one interception. In spite of all, the game was tied 28-28 and Favre had the Vikings on the move for a winning field goal in the closing minute.

Minnesota has lost some playoff games in tough fashion in their history, but only the 1998 NFC Championship Game and a 1975 NFC Divisional round game to Dallas can measure up to what happened next.

The Vikings were on the 33-yard line, within the range of kicker Ryan Longwell, especially indoors. They got penalized for twelve men on the field. On the next play, Favre rolled to his right. Receivers were covered, but there was plenty of room to run 10-12 yards up the sideline. Instead, he forced the ball back to the middle where it was intercepted by Tracy Porter. Regulation ended, the Saints won the toss in overtime and immediately drove for the winning field goal.

Two things happened in the aftermath—though not immediate—that would make this long sting even more. The first is that the NFL changed the overtime rules. No longer could a team win the coin toss, get a field goal and have that be the end of it. Under the rules of today, Favre could have at least gotten the ball back one time in OT with a chance to tie or win the game.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered—maybe New Orleans plays differently on offense and goes for a touchdown on the first possession (a circumstance that does end the game immediately under the new rules) or maybe the Viking offense would have been stopped. But in the world of 2009, most of us knew that whether Favre or Drew Brees, playing indoors, won the coin toss, would decide the NFC champion.

The second thing is that New Orleans would be punished severely by the NFL three years later, when it came out that they had “bounties” on certain players, notably Favre in this game. Everyone watching this game in the moment noticed just how hard the Saints punished the veteran quarterback. And though I personally had no sense of anything dirty (though I was rooting for Favre), others did. Did the raw punishment meted out—apparently illicitly—impact Favre’s poor judgment on the final offensive play of the season, when he chose not to run for easy yardage and instead forced a pass?

It’s hard to say, and for all practical purposes, the music died for the Minnesota Vikings and Brett Favre that night in New Orleans. Favre came back in 2010, but his body finally ran out of gas. He retired at the end of the year—this time for good. The Vikings have had some good teams since then—notably in 2012 when Adrian Peterson had a magnificent MVP year and they reached the playoffs. But they’ve never been a real threat to reach the Super Bowl since.

But this article is not going to end on the unfortunate ending or the aftermath. Brett Favre’s performance for the 2009 Minnesota Vikings was outstanding by any measurement, and positively unreal given he was 40.

The Playoff Teams Of The 1980 NFL Season

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Read the story of the 1980 NFL season as told from the perspective of the 11 most consequential teams. Each section consists of a discussion of each team’s key players and then a game-by-game narrative of their drive through the season.

No wild-card team had ever won the Super Bowl prior to the 1980 NFL season, and three years earlier the league had made it even more difficult. They expanded the playoffs to five teams per conference, but with a three-divisional alignment similar to what major league baseball uses today, the wild-cards would now have to win an extra game for the first time. In spite of these obstacles, the Oakland Raiders pulled it off and went the distance.

This blog compilation contains the complete game-by-game narratives of every notable team in the 1980 NFL season, starting with…

*The Raiders and Houston Oilers pull off a big quarterbacks swap of Ken Stabler-for-Dan Pastorini, but it ends up being Jim Plunkett who makes the biggest mark of them all.

See how Oakland began to come together around the 1980 season’s midway point and how Houston seemed close to fulfilling their dream of a Super Bowl run behind powerful back Earl Campbell, but first lost tiebreakers and then lost a wild-card playoff game…ironically in Oakland.

*In the NFC East, the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys were both at the top of the NFL and jousted all season for the top. See the strange way the Eagles “beat” the Cowboys in the season’s final week. It proved to be a historic year for both franchises—Philadelphia made its first Super Bowl trip and Dallas began the post-Roger Staubach era.

*The Atlanta Falcons and Cleveland Browns each had magical years, and both were in positions to win playoff games at home, against the more tradition-laden Cowboys and Raiders respectively. Each had their hearts ripped out. Read how their rises to prominence came about before the fall.

*The San Diego Chargers continued to be the league’s most exciting offense with Dan Fouts at quarterback, and went all-in to try and win in 1980. Read how they survived Oakland in the AFC West during the season before losing to the Raiders in the playoffs.

*The Buffalo Bills stepped up and won the AFC East. Read how an excellent head coach in Chuck Knox guided a team through the season even though they didn’t have the best talent.

*The Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams, two powers of the 1970s, would fade briefly in this decade, but still had enough in the tank to reach the playoffs. Read how the Vikings crawled to the finish line in a weak NFC Central, aided by a miracle pass, and the Rams played their way into the postseason a year after making a Super Bowl run.

*And how can we forget the Pittsburgh Steelers? They didn’t make the playoffs, but this was the two-time defending Super Bowl champion, with four titles in the previous six years. “One For The Thumb” was the rallying cry. You’ll read how they came up short, as well as the moments at the early and mid-points when it seemed like they were still in position to make a championship run.

Each of these articles is published individually on TheSportsNotebook.com and editing has been done to eliminate obvious redundancies. Taken together, these eleven articles tell the story of the 1980 NFL season through the eyes of its most consequential teams. Download it from Amazon today.

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