Vikings included in the best Super Bowl matchup to never happen

The potential Super Bowl showdown during the 1998 season between the Minnesota Vikings and Denver Broncos could have been one of the best games in NFL history.

Throughout the existence of the Minnesota Vikings, there have been a lot of opportunities to look back and wonder if the franchise would have ever won a championship or two by now.

With four appearances in the Super Bowl and 10 conference championship games during their history, the Vikings have had plenty of chances to end a season on top of the NFL mountain. However, nothing has ever seemed to go as planned for Minnesota over the years, even with some of their absolute best rosters.

Recently, NFL Media’s Elliot Harrison ranked the top 10 dream Super Bowl matchups that never actually happened. Guess who was featured at the top of this list?

For the No. 1 spot on his countdown, Harrison chose the potential Super Bowl showdown between the Vikings and Denver Broncos in the 1998 season. A matchup that could have easily been one of the greatest in Super Bowl history.

It would have featured the league’s top two scoring offenses and a number of future Hall-of-Famers facing off against each other. Unfortunately for Minnesota, they failed to capture their spot in the Super Bowl that year.

The Broncos did their part and qualified for the NFL’s season finale by defeating the New York Jets in the AFC Championship. But the Vikings ended up getting upset inside their home stadium by the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship.

So instead of getting a monumental showdown between Minnesota and Denver, the world had to endure four quarters of the Falcons getting demolished by the Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII instead.

The fact that Vikings fans were robbed of a potential classic matchup between their team and Denver in 1998 makes Minnesota’s NFC Championship loss to Atlanta that much more disappointing.