Waning moments - SB IV

[7DnBrnc53]

Bud admitted that if he felt his gameplan couldn't be improved even further, he'd happily take it easy there on out. He'd go out hunting the Saturday prior or what not. No Mike Tomlin waking up in the middle of the night, can't get back to sleep, watching some film, and seeing that in practice whenever someone would make an INT, no "convoy" of blockers coming to the interceptor's aid, etc. Pretty content, Bud seemed to be.

Yeah, Bud would say that he would go home at six every night. However, Tomlin has had a stacked roster, and he hasn't been to a Super Bowl in 12 years. Also, Dick Vermeil, Mr. Workaholic, only won one, and probably sabotaged his team in his first one because of overwork.

[SixtiesFan]

As HOF-worthy Bud Grant is, his weakest point as a HC would have to be how he did in the Super Bowl. If he was an overall better HC than his two fellow 0-4 Super Bowlers, at least Dan and Marv had leads in SBs! I always did know that the Vikings never led in a SB, but this recent factoid brought to attention on this thread about the Vikes never having even scored in a first half...I never even thought that either! Pretty haunting!

Bud admitted that if he felt his gameplan couldn't be improved even further, he'd happily take it easy there on out. He'd go out hunting the Saturday prior or what not. No Mike Tomlin waking up in the middle of the night, can't get back to sleep, watching some film, and seeing that in practice whenever someone would make an INT, no "convoy" of blockers coming to the interceptor's aid, etc. Pretty content, Bud seemed to be.

Makes me wonder if there would have been no Super Bowl after the '69 campaign - the NFL Championship being the "final" game. Then again, how can a 27-7 win turn all the way into a loss of any kind?? Really can't imagine the Vikings losing in such an event. Yes, at least give a game, but a real great Stram Chiefs team, '73 Dolphins, Noll's Steelers, '76 Raiders...yes, again, should have given some challenge. But is it really a total disgrace?

After the Vikings lost Super Bowl XI 32-14 to the Raiders, trailing at halftime 16-0. the Vikings were ridiculed by sports columnists all over the country. They were a national punchline.

[Bryan]

As HOF-worthy Bud Grant is, his weakest point as a HC would have to be how he did in the Super Bowl. If he was an overall better HC than his two fellow 0-4 Super Bowlers, at least Dan and Marv had leads in SBs! I always did know that the Vikings never led in a SB, but this recent factoid brought to attention on this thread about the Vikes never having even scored in a first half...I never even thought that either! Pretty haunting!

Grant did have the misfortune of going up against some of the most talented teams in NFL history. The Broncos were up 10-0 on the 87 Redskins...the Bills lost to Jeff Hostetler. I don't know if, in retrospect, we should have expected the Vikings to win any of those Super Bowls. Some random thoughts:

*Vikings defense contained the KC offense pretty well. Vikings offense had a nice drive, but couldn't run or pass consistently. I don't think the Chiefs were that much superior to the Vikes, really. The Charlie West fumble was a big play, because if gave KC a really short field. The end arounds to Frank Pitts was the most successful part of KCs offense. Much is made of Len Dawson completing short passes in SB IV, but that was by the Vikings defensive design. It had nothing to do with Hank Stram's genius. Even with the short passes, the Vikings sacked Dawson 3 times, intercepted him once, and held KC to 122 net passing yards.

*I think the Vikings were dominated in SB IX, yet they were still only down 9-6 in the 4th quarter. The Steelers should have been leading by more, at least 15-0, but wacky Walden-Gerela mucked things up.

*The play that stands out to me in SB XI is the blocked punt of Ray Guy in the 1st quarter. In the NFC Championship game, Nate Allen blocked Tom Dempsey's short FG attempt, and the ball miraculously bounces to the right and goes straight to Bobby Bryant. If the ball bounces anywhere else, its most likely Vikings ball on their own 5 yard line. Instead, Bryant gets the ball on the run and scores a 90-yard TD. In the SB, Fred McNeill blocks Ray Guy's punt, the ball bounces backward, it appears that once again the ball is going to end up with Bobby Bryant who can jog in for a TD...but the ball bounces backwards over Bryant's head, the Vikes settle for the ball on the 2, and then Brent McClanahan fumbles later on. Had the ball bounced to Bryant for an easy TD to put Minnesota up 7-0, would the game have been different? I do think that in most of the Viking regular season and playoff games, "Viking" things would happen in the game that would turn things in favor of Minnesota. Those things didn't happen in the Super Bowl that often.

[7DnBrnc53]

*The play that stands out to me in SB XI is the blocked punt of Ray Guy in the 1st quarter. In the NFC Championship game, Nate Allen blocked Tom Dempsey's short FG attempt, and the ball miraculously bounces to the right and goes straight to Bobby Bryant. If the ball bounces anywhere else, its most likely Vikings ball on their own 5 yard line. Instead, Bryant gets the ball on the run and scores a 90-yard TD. In the SB, Fred McNeill blocks Ray Guy's punt, the ball bounces backward, it appears that once again the ball is going to end up with Bobby Bryant who can jog in for a TD...but the ball bounces backwards over Bryant's head, the Vikes settle for the ball on the 2, and then Brent McClanahan fumbles later on. Had the ball bounced to Bryant for an easy TD to put Minnesota up 7-0, would the game have been different? I do think that in most of the Viking regular season and playoff games, "Viking" things would happen in the game that would turn things in favor of Minnesota. Those things didn't happen in the Super Bowl that often.

That Viking block FG TD happened after Ron Jessie may have had a TD taken away from him, and after Knox failed to go for it on 4th and 1 (Jim Murray of the LA Times criticized Knox the next day for that).

The Vikes seemed to get the breaks in the playoffs, but the 76 Raiders may have been a team of destiny. They came back to beat Pittsburgh in Week 1 after Franco fumbled the ball with the Steelers up 28-14 and in Raider territory. Against the Bears, they won on a missed FG. And, against the Pats in the playoffs, several things had to work out for them to win that game (they also faced a Franco and Rocky-less Steeler team the next week).

If the Vikes score on that blocked punt, though, I can see things going the other way (me and an old school Viking fan talked about that game at work once). I don't think that Raider team was a great team. They were the third-best team in the AFC that year, and it was the worst team the Vikings lost to in the Super Bowl.

[Jay Z]

*Vikings defense contained the KC offense pretty well. Vikings offense had a nice drive, but couldn't run or pass consistently. I don't think the Chiefs were that much superior to the Vikes, really. The Charlie West fumble was a big play, because if gave KC a really short field. The end arounds to Frank Pitts was the most successful part of KCs offense. Much is made of Len Dawson completing short passes in SB IV, but that was by the Vikings defensive design. It had nothing to do with Hank Stram's genius. Even with the short passes, the Vikings sacked Dawson 3 times, intercepted him once, and held KC to 122 net passing yards.

That defense does come across as far more athletic than the later versions, that's for sure.

The Chiefs made an effort to take away Gene Washington, which they did. That did leave Henderson and Beasley open to an extent, and the Vikings did try to take advantage of it.

Still, there is stuff like not trying the FG on the first drive where the Vikings always came across as timid and intimidated. I think the SB was far away from Bud's preferences as far as hype was concerned, and he tended to turtle a bit.

I read Joe Kapp's book, and he mentioned the team was flat going into the game. Also, they tried to put in some adjustments for the Chiefs' formations, then gave up on it and just went to a base defense. There were things like the Pitts end arounds, adjustments that the Chiefs made. The Vikings made no similar adjustments.

The Vikings in non-SB games were very resourceful and always a threat to come up with a defensive play or timely offense if you made any mistakes against them. They would run the same plays over and over and take advantage at the end. In the SB I think Bud was just too much in contrast to the environment and the team just didn't fully buy in and got timid and tentative. So the Vikings were never in position to take advantage at the end, because they'd started making their own mistakes far before that point.

[vikingsfan1963]

really enjoying reading these opinions about my Vikes. To me, turnovers and inability to rush the football were the Vikes downfall in each of those SBs, with the possible exception being vs Miami. The Vikes were negative 12 in the plus-minus category (15 turnovers to 3 takeaways) with notables (to me anyway) being: West fumble vs KC (Chiefs up 9-0), the Gilliam deflection INT inside the Steelers 10 at the end of hte 2nd qtr vs. Pitts (score 2-0), and the McClanahan goal line fumble vs Oakland (no score).

[SixtiesFan]

*The play that stands out to me in SB XI is the blocked punt of Ray Guy in the 1st quarter. In the NFC Championship game, Nate Allen blocked Tom Dempsey's short FG attempt, and the ball miraculously bounces to the right and goes straight to Bobby Bryant. If the ball bounces anywhere else, its most likely Vikings ball on their own 5 yard line. Instead, Bryant gets the ball on the run and scores a 90-yard TD. In the SB, Fred McNeill blocks Ray Guy's punt, the ball bounces backward, it appears that once again the ball is going to end up with Bobby Bryant who can jog in for a TD...but the ball bounces backwards over Bryant's head, the Vikes settle for the ball on the 2, and then Brent McClanahan fumbles later on. Had the ball bounced to Bryant for an easy TD to put Minnesota up 7-0, would the game have been different? I do think that in most of the Viking regular season and playoff games, "Viking" things would happen in the game that would turn things in favor of Minnesota. Those things didn't happen in the Super Bowl that often.

That Viking block FG TD happened after Ron Jessie may have had a TD taken away from him, and after Knox failed to go for it on 4th and 1 (Jim Murray of the LA Times criticized Knox the next day for that).

The Vikes seemed to get the breaks in the playoffs, but the 76 Raiders may have been a team of destiny. They came back to beat Pittsburgh in Week 1 after Franco fumbled the ball with the Steelers up 28-14 and in Raider territory. Against the Bears, they won on a missed FG. And, against the Pats in the playoffs, several things had to work out for them to win that game (they also faced a Franco and Rocky-less Steeler team the next week).

If the Vikes score on that blocked punt, though, I can see things going the other way (me and an old school Viking fan talked about that game at work once). I don't think that Raider team was a great team. They were the third-best team in the AFC that year, and it was the worst team the Vikings lost to in the Super Bowl.

I remember Jim Murray's column after the 1976 NFC Conference title game. He wrote something like: "Chuck Knox said he went for the field goal because, "I wanted to put points on the board.' Yes, he did. He put seven points on the board for Minnesota. And the Rams put the Vikings in the Super Bowl, something they should answer for."

Jim Murray predicted the day after the Vikings beat the Rams it would be a dull, one-sided Super Bowl with an easy Raider victory.