Everything You Want to Know: Bud Grant's Vikings

[DarthBrooks]

I did this for Redit and thought I'd share it here

It has been said that losing hurts more than winning feels good. Most of the time Winning doesn't feel remarkable, it feels like the natural flow of events, something that should happen. Victory is weighed by it's absence. The loser of a contest can tell you it's value by the pain that he feels. To the winner, it's just life.

There's a new stadium being built in Minnesota to replace the Hubert H. Humphrey metronome. When the debate over what kind of stadium would be built in Minnesota was going on a large part of the fan base called for an open stadium. Every comment had the unspoken "when they were good" attached to the reasoning.

When Minnesota fans look back at the team of 70's it's always a specific group of players. Fran Tarkenton, Chuck Foreman, Ron Yary, Mick Tingelhoff, Alan Page, Jim Marschall, Carl Eller, Paul Krause, coach Bud Grant and that primitive, bitterly cold field, Metropolitan Stadium.

Also unspoken is the heartache that team faced along with the wins. The Minnesota Vikings are the most successful franchise to never win a Superbowl. Since their inception, the Minnesota Vikings have had a tremendous nose for the playoffs. They've had success in every decade of their existence, making the post-season 27 times in 52 seasons. But it's always that team, Bud Grant's team from the 70's that fans look back at.

Bud Grant took over from former QB Norm Van Brocklin in 1967. In Grant's second season the team went to the playoffs. In his third the won the NFL Championship **BUT** that year came with a Superbowl loss. At the time the Superbowl was considered an exhibition game. It was the exhibition game to end all exhibition games but it was damn important.

The Chiefs ran a complex offense that honestly took some experience and time to figure out. This was the last game before the NFL/AFL merger and the Chiefs were emotionally fired up. The Vikings were honestly not ready for KC either emotionally or strategically and the score showed.

The first game in 1970 was a Superbowl rematch that the Vikings won 27-10. This time it was Minnesota that was fired up and ready, not that it mattered near as this time. They spent the decade beating the Chiefs when they played until it no longer mattered.

During the first two years of the decade the team was lead almost entirely by a legendary defense. Led by Alan Page, the defensive line was quick and disruptive. Despite a sometimes anemic offense they would destroy offensive game plans regularly.

Some examples,

VS Green Bay, Sunday, October 4, 1970 32 netyards passing, 141 rushing.

VS. Los Angeles Rams, October 26, 1970 34 net yards passing, 66 rushing

Vs. Atlanta Falcons, December 20, 1970 85 net yards passing, 46 rushing.

Vs. Buffalo Bills, October 3, 1971 8 net yards passing, 56 rushing WITH OJ SIMPSON ON THE ROSTER.

Vs. Chicago Bears, December 3, 1972 1 net yards passing, 90 rushing

In 1970 they had 49 sacks for 360 yards. That's after giving up only 1798 yards. The opposing team's QB rating was 40.4

The defense was nicknamed The Purple People Eaters and it fed off the front four.

Jim Marshall had been at left defensive end since he came over in a trade in 1961. He was light for a DE but cat quick and agile. His name is usually at the top of the annual lists of "who isn't in the Hall of Fame but should be". Rarely injured, he played 282 games consecutively, the NFL record. Someone asked the coach of those teams who the best player was. He answered, “It’s normally very hard to choose, but I don’t hesitate to say Jim Marshall.”

At Right End was Carl Eller, nicknamed The Mad Moose. Tall and powerful, he played with a fierce anger. He was a first round draft pick in 1964 and is a Hall of Famer. In one three-string season from 1975 to 1977, he recorded 44 sacks. Eller is credited as the Vikings all-time sack leader with 130½. At 6-6, he made a habit of blocking punts.

Alan Page may have played at defensive tackle simply because it was the shorted distance to the quarterback. Known for firing off the line he would drive into the offensive line before they were ready for him. He is the only Defensive Lineman to be named the NFL's MVP. After football he became a lawyer and became a Minnesota state supreme court judge.

The other DT was Gary Larsen early in the decade and Doug Sutherland later. They were expected to clean up after the others had disrupted the play. Linebackers were players like Roy Winston and Wally Hilgenberg, The backfield was headlined by Paul Krause, who still holds the record for career interceptions.

From 1968 to 1980 they won the NFC central division eleven times.

1970 and 71 were very similar seasons. The defense was crushing teams but the offense would have needed a transfusion just to be considered anemic. They went 12-2 and 11-3 but lost in the division rounds both years.

In 1972 Fran Tarkenton returned to Minnesota. He helped the passing game but the running game remained pathetic. It took the drafting of Chuck Foreman to truly get Minnesota's offense balanced and in gear.

1973 started a four run of excellence in the regular season and disappointment in the regular season. The team started 9-0 in 1973 and then cruised to the NFC Central title. They beat Washington, then Dallas in playoffs before losing to the Dolphins. Alan Page has stated that he knew early on that they were going to lose that game. Miami had changed their blocking scheme, using Minnesota's speed against them.

In 1974 they went 10-4 and once again went to the Superbowl, losing to Pittsburgh 16-6. This was probably the tightest game. The only score at half time was a Fran Tarkenton safety. Throughout these years the passing attack was solid, the defense was insane but the running game was mediocre. Part of this was Chuck Foreman catching short passes rather than running but it was a weakness that was never truly solved and cost them when it really counted most.

The 1975 team was considered the best by the players themselves. They started off 10-0 and went 12-2 for the season. The offense was 5th in yards and the defense was first in everything. The season ended in a poorly officiated and still controversial loss to the Cowboys. Whether or not Drew Pearson pushed off (he did, just look at how he reacted) the Cowboys were given at least one out of bounds completion.

The only real addition in 1976 was WR Sammy White, which shows just how stable/static the team's roster was. The went 11-2-1 when no one else in the Central was over .500. Again they made it to the Superbowl, this time against the Raiders. It was a match up of teams that had difficulty winning the big one. Before KC, Miami and Pittsburgh beat Minnesota they first beat the Raiders. In fact, since losing Superbowl II the Raiders lost in the playoffs to the eventual AFC champions six out of eight times. Someone had to win and someone had to set the mark for futility and it was the Raiders who came up winners.

1977 was a down year. The still won the division and went to the playoffs but Fran Tarkenton broke his leg in game nine and the defense was showing it's age, especially against the run (which had always been something of a weakness.) They did have a remarkable playoff game called The Mud Bowl

In '74, '76 and '77 Minnesota played the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs. The first two times were in Minnesota and in the mid Minnesota winter cold. With wind chill the first two games were 19 degrees in the first and 7 in the second. For a team from sunny LA, that was quite a bite. The elements weren't supposed to play a part in the third match up because it was in LA. Besides being in Sunny LA, the Vikings were not at full strength. Fran Tarkenton was out and the team had gotten old. There were members who had been playing together since the franchise began in 1961 and everybody knew that the run of playoffs was beginning to come to a close. The Rams were a young team on the climb up and they looked at this match up with greedy eyes.

The weather played a factor again, in a way no one expected.

Los Angles got soaked before the game and the field was soaked. It was a muddy mess that turned players brown from the chest down. Minnesota slugged it's way through the mud, with an early touchdown and 10 pass attempts mixed in between 49 runs. They won 14-7. They lost to the Cowboys the next week. The run of success this team had was nearly finished.

In 1978 they again won the division, but their record was 8-7-1. They were getting old, and it showed. Tarkenton was 38, Carl Eller was 36, Jim Marshall was 40, Mick Tingelhoff, 38 and Paul Krausse was 36. In 1979 Marshall finally retired at age 41. He had never missed a game. The team went 7-9 but it was mostly new guys. Tarkenton, Eller, Tingelhoff, Page all left at the end of 78 and Krause left at the same time as Marshall did.

Bud Grant stayed on until 1983 and then came back for one year when Les Steckel proved to be a disaster as a head coach.

As stated, the Vikings have been the most successful NFL franchise to never win the Superbowl. Why? Some would say the NFC was the weaker conference at the time but they were going 12-2 with regularity, with a defense that was ranked first, especially against the run most of those years. So why the losses?

If they had any weaknesses, it was in not having a dominant power running game. They got their yards where they could. Chuck Foreman was their best runner in this period but he wasn't someone you could turn to to finish a game. Also, when faced with that Best in the League, dominant running game, they could be bent backward. Miami had Larry Csonka, Pittsburgh had Franco Harris. The ability to get tough yards despite the defense throwing everything at you is extraordinarily valuable. If you can run and keep control of the clock, you're going to be hard to beat. It's one of the reasons the Adrian Peterson is so highly valued by the current team.

It could be justifiably said that the teams they faced were the best that those franchises produced. Hank Stram's Chiefs, and the Dolphins, Steelers and Raiders of the 70's are still looked at as among the best teams that ever played the game. The Vikings of the 70's, Bud Grant's Vikings belong on that list as well.

[CbusVikesFan]

Back then, a young man fell in love with football because of Bud Grant, Fran the Man, and Alan Page. He was not from Minny but the Vikings were so impressionable to a kid. The uniforms, the stoic figurehead, the gunslinging leader, and the coolest nickname in the game.
There is no way that I could ever be a fan of any other team.
Back in the late 90's, the Vikings went to more playoff games than anyone, Super Bowl era. I am not sure how it is now, but thinking that the Cowboys, who were only a game or two behind, have surpassed that mark.

[chicagopurple]

After growing up as a little kid, watching those crazy Vikes, is it any wonder that I am forever Purple?? NO Way. Every once in a while we get a new player who can channel a bit of that Insane Viking Berserker attitude, and it takes me back with a smile....Jared Allen felt it......crushing QBs despite a fractured arm, etc.....