Super Bowl success has eluded the Minnesota Vikings throughout their history, even though they have fielded some of the best teams ever.
If you think this year’s playoff loss to the Seahawks was soul-crushing, you should check out some past examples of the Vikings choking in big games. Blair Walsh‘s missed field goal is child’s play compared to some of the insane stuff that has happened to derail the Vikings on their path to glory.
You don’t need to go back very far to find occasions when the Vikings shot themselves in the foot with everything on the line. Go back even farther and you will only find more heinous examples of the Vikings having teams good enough to win it all but failing to seal the deal.
The Vikings have four Super Bowl losses on their resume, but some of their best teams didn’t even make the Super Bowl. The Vikings easily could have seven or eight Super Bowl losses to their name if more of their good teams had been able to get through the playoffs.
It’s sad but true: For some fanbases Super Bowl weekend is an occasion to celebrate past glories, but for Viking fans it’s just another reason to recall all the disappointments.
So many disappointments.
1. 1970 (12-2 regular season, lost in first round of playoffs to San Francisco)
The 1969 Vikings went to the Super Bowl only to lose to the Kansas City Chiefs. The Vikes came roaring back in 1970, going 12-2 and winning the NFC Central by two games over the Lions. It looked like the Vikes were on their way to another Super Bowl appearance until one terrible day ruined everything.
The Vikes were heavy favorites going into their first-round playoff game against the 10-3-1 San Francisco 49ers. The game was at Metropolitan Stadium and not a single rational human being thought the Vikings had a chance of losing that day. So naive.
The supposed underdog 49ers were undeterred by the single-digit temperatures, the cement-like turf and the skull-crushingly-great defense lining up across from them. Niners quarterback John Brodie said screw you to all the factors aligned against him and had a great game passing and running, throwing one touchdown pass and rushing for another score.
Turnovers ultimately were a huge factor for the Vikings. Minnesota scored a first quarter TD when Hall of Famer Paul Krause recovered a fumble and ran it in from 22 yards out. But the Vikings themselves would turn the ball over an unforgivable four times on the day, killing their own scoring chances and putting undue pressure on their defense. I guess the ball was extra-slippery in the cold?
Thanks to Vikings mistakes and John Brodie’s lights-out play, San Francisco scored 17 unanswered points from the first quarter until late in the fourth. The Vikings scored a too-little-too-late TD on their last possession to make the final score 17-14 in favor of San Francisco.
It should be noted that super-reliable Vikings kicker Fred Cox missed two field goals on the day as well (no school kids sent him consolation drawings). Bud Grant summed up the effort after the game (via Milwaukee Sentinel):
"“We haven’t been a team prone to errors,” Coach Bud Grant said. “We have been the least penalized, we don’t drop many passes. In many of the areas we excel at we broke down today. But you can contribute some of that to the 49ers.”"
One of the all-time best Vikings teams had to go home and watch the Colts beat the Cowboys in the Super Bowl, knowing it should have been them in the big game instead of Dallas.
2. 2009 (12-4 regular season, lost NFC championship game to Saints)
The Vikings brought Brett Favre to Minnesota for one reason: To deliver a Super Bowl championship. Instead The Old Gunslinger helped deliver another notorious big game meltdown.
In all fairness, Favre deserves only a small part of the blame for the flop in the 2009 NFC championship game. Yes he was responsible for the mind-numbingly awful decision to throw across his body instead of at least trying to run for a first down. But he was not responsible for all the ridiculous fumbles. He was not responsible for 12 men on the field.
And let’s not forget that Favre was playing half-crippled after getting cheap-shotted by Gregg Williams and his bounty-collecting defensive thugs. Despite having one working leg, Favre almost single-handedly kept the Vikings in the game in the second half. So laying it all at Favre’s feet is a load of baloney. The Vikings’ loss to the Saints that day was a total team effort.
The 2009 team was not a great team, but it was certainly good enough to win it all. The defense that year was very strong, the Vikes had a potent offense filled with weapons including Hall of Famer Adrian Peterson and oh yeah Brett Favre.
Maybe that team would have gotten over the hump with a better head coach. Imagine if they’d held onto Mike Tomlin instead of giving the reins to Brad Childress? Vikings history is so rich with “what if” scenarios. The 2009 team will continue driving Viking fans utterly nuts for years and years to come.
3. 1974 (10-4 regular season, lost Super Bowl to Steelers)
Which of the Vikings’ four Super Bowl losing teams was the most gut-wrenchingly disappointing? I would argue it was the 1974 team, the one that lost Super Bowl IX to the Steelers.
The 1969 team with its all-time-great D was probably the best squad among the Vikings’ four Super Bowl teams, but that team was not so great on offense, and had to face a Chiefs team in the Super Bowl that was arguably their near-equal defensively and was led offensively by a great QB in Len Dawson (a man who truly liked a smoke).
The 1973 Vikings team was very good on both sides of the ball and had Fran Tarkenton at the helm, but in the Super Bowl they faced a murder-machine Miami Dolphins team one year removed from going undefeated. That Dolphins teams wasn’t losing, period.
The 1976 Vikings were a very good team as well, but some of their great players were getting up there in age, and they had to face an Oakland Raiders team that went 16-1 overall on the season and is regarded as one of the great teams in NFL history. John Madden was not going to be denied that year.
The 1974 Vikings team doesn’t have the excuse of facing a legitimately great team in the Super Bowl. The Steelers’ roster was filled with future Hall of Famers but the squad had not yet established its dominating identity. The Vikings that year arguably had the better team, if only by a small margin.
Yes the Vikings finished just 10-4 in 1974, hardly a dominating mark, but the record doesn’t tell the whole story. That team outscored their opponents 310-195, a point differential on-par with some of their great seasons. They may have been a little off defensively that season, finishing only 10th overall and just 18th against the pass, but their offense made up for it by finishing 3rd overall and 2nd through the air.
That Super Bowl was a show-down between two good-but-not-great teams, with the Vikings holding a distinct edge in terms of experience. Of the four Super Bowls the Vikings played between 1970 and 1977, that one to me is the one they should have won. But they didn’t. Because they never do.
4. 1975 (12-2 record, lost in divisional playoff round to Cowboys)
The Vikings came back from the disappointment of a third Super Bowl loss in five years by posting a 12-2 regular season record, good enough to give them the #1 seed in the NFC. No one could know that the disaster of 1970 was about to repeat itself, and in much more hideous fashion.
Even young Viking fans know all about the play that would crush the Vikings’ chances of making it back to the Super Bowl in 1975. The Drew Pearson play.
The Vikings led 14-10 with just 1:51 left in the game. To that point, Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson had been totally shut down by the Vikings defense. That changed when Roger Staubach hit Pearson on a pair of quick completions to get Dallas to their own 31. The Vikings regrouped to force a fourth-and-16 but saw Staubach hit Pearson for 25 yards to get the Cowboys out of the hole.
A few plays later, Pearson made the play that would forever turn him into a villain in Minnesota, apparently pushing off on cornerback Nate Wright before hauling in a 50-yard go-ahead touchdown pass. Roger Staubach would label the play a “Hail Mary,” adding a brand new term to the football lexicon.
Did Pearson push off or did he not? In the end it hardly matters. The Vikings had multiple chances to put that game away late but failed. The 1975 team may have been one of the very best the Vikings ever fielded – the defense finished first overall against both the pass and run; Fran Tarkenton won the NFL MVP award – but they flopped big time.
5. 1998 (15-1 regular season, Lost NFC championship game to Falcons)
Before there was Wide Left, there was Wide Left.
Of all the great Vikings teams that failed to even make a Super Bowl, the 1998 squad was probably the most disappointing. That team went 15-1 and did so in such all-annihilating fashion, it seemed impossible that anyone could even touch them in the playoffs.
After the regular season you honestly felt that the Vikings could go up against the Death Star. That’s how invincible that team seemed to be.
Who the hell could even hope to deal with that offense? Who could stop Randall Cunningham from chucking it deep to Randy Moss? Who could cover Cris Carter? Who could slow down Robert Smith?
It seemed a foregone conclusion that the Vikings would vanquish the Falcons at Metrodome and advance to their first Super Bowl since 1977. Until everything went completely wrong.
This is another game that will be picked apart forever. Why did Dennis Green go for another score at the end of the first half instead of sitting on the ball, a move that resulted in a turnover and a Falcons score? Why did Green take a knee at the end of regulation instead of going for the win right there?
How the hell could Gary Anderson miss a field goal to seal the game late in the fourth quarter after being perfect through the entire regular season? It was indoors. The ball wasn’t even frozen. The laces weren’t even pointed the wrong way.
It’s almost like the universe hates the Vikings.