Newsmax: The Steve Salzberg Show: Bud Grant On His NFL Career

Source:The Daily Press

I don’t want to sound cold here, but if you look at the Vikings four Super Bowl appearances, they were the second best team in every game, so why they would be on a missing rings list from. NFL Films is surprising to me and in really at least two of those games they were clearly the second best team in the Super Bowl. Because only Super Bowl 8 against the Miami Dolphins and Super Bowl 9 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, before the Steelers became a great team on offense, the Vikings were clear underdogs in these games.

The Vikings remind me of the Buffalo Bills of the early 1990s. As teams that got beat badly in Super Bowls by teams that were clearly better than them. The Vikings were overmatched upfront on defense and offense by the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 4. And by the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl 11, which meant the Chiefs and Raiders could run against them real well. And take away the Vikings run game and throw the ball when they wanted to do and force the Vikings to throw the ball when they had to.

The Vikings of the late 1960s and 1970s were very good teams on both sides of the ball. But that’s not enough when you play teams that are clearly better than you in the Super Bowl. They lost to two of the best teams of all-time in the 1969 Chiefs and the 1976 Raiders in the Super Bowl. Which is how both games turned into blowouts because the Vikings simply weren’t big and good enough up front to take on those big powerful offensive and defensive lines that the Chiefs and Raiders had.

The Vikings getting beat badly up front messed up their offense in these games where they had to throw practically every down. Against those big strong quick defensive lines. Against the 69 Chiefs, 73 Dolphins, 74 Steelers and 76 Raiders. The missing rings should be about teams that would’ve won the Super Bowl that year, but came up short and the 98 Vikings would be on that list. Perhaps the 86 Cleveland Browns, the 68 Baltimore Colts or the 1990 San Francisco 49ers. Not for teams that lost the Super Bowl to a better team.

The 69 Vikings are one of the most dominant teams of all-time as far as how they won games and simply dominated their opponents. A team that finished 14-2. But the 68 Colts who lost Super Bowl three were a better team both on offense and defense and a team that should be on this list. A team that won Super 5 against the Dallas Cowboys. What the Vikings were of this era were very good teams especially on defense that didn’t have enough to win the Super Bowl.