Brought to you by Mr. Cheer or Die and the Vikes Geek, welcome to the
Views and Personal Photos on the Vikes from the Inaugural Hall of Fame fan.
Brought to you by Mr. Cheer or Die and the Vikes Geek, welcome to theIntroduction by Mr. Cheer or Die: Harry Peter "Bud" Grant was born May 20, 1927. In honor of his upcoming birthday in five weeks, the VU will be paying homage by having special guest author Roger Wilk (aka Purplexing) present a five-part series on Grant. Each Friday, the VU will present one of the five Grant entries culminating on Friday, May 19.
Wilk is an actuary, age 49, single, living along the Connecticut shoreline. His hobbies are running, golf, billiards, and a rare skiing trip to Northern New England states. The only TV he now watched is 'old style reality shows', i.e. news, weather, and sports. As an UConn alum, Wilk avidly follows the men's and women's basketball teams, as well as, of course, the Vikings.
Wilk has been a Vikings fan since early in the 1969 season, when as an impressionable 12 yr old, he saw a pre-game TV special feature on the Purple People Eaters. Wilk immediately adopted the Vikings as his favorite football team. That year, he watched the Vikes win the last NFL Championship before the AFL-NFL merger, then lose to the KC Chiefs in Super Bowl IV. Wilk was impressed by the Vikings defense in 1969. But he also loved to watch Joe Kapp throw his wounded duck passes to Gene Washington, as well as make 'less than elegant' handoffs to Bill 'Boom Boom' Brown and Dave Osborne.
Wilk welcomed the return of Sir Francis Tarkenton, and remained a Viking fan throughout the losses in the next three SB appearances, the Pearson push-off on the Hail Mary pass, the retirement or departures of Larsen, Marshall, Eller and Page, the Hershel Walker trade, the 'various changing of the guard' in terms of owners and coaches, especially the frustrating Denny Green, Red McCombs, and Mike Tice years.
He believes Brad Childress may be able to restore the discipline and attention to detail last seen when Bud Grant coached. Wilk thinks Zygi Wilf's last minute salvage of the aborted sale from Red McCombs to Reggie Fowler may portend the return to the Max Winter - Jim Finks - Bud Grant - Metropolitan Stadium era when the Vikes had top notch management and ownership, and the most significant home-field advantage in the NFL.
Here now, is part four of his Grant essay.
Part One of this five part essay traced Bud Grant's life through his scholastic and pro-athlete years, and reviewed highlights of his ten years as coach of the CFL Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Part Two reviewed Grant's CFL career as a player and a coach in greater depth, and discussed his move back to the NFL to coach the Vikings in 1967. Part Three continued the story of Grant joining the Minnesota Vikings in 1967 and building them into a winning team during the late 1960's and throughout most of the 1970's.
Part Four traces the Vikings under Grant through the Super Bowls of the 1970's and the lean years of the late 1970's and early 1980's. Enjoy!
Everyone knows the story of the Vikings reaching, yet losing, four Super Bowls. At the time, Grant's Vikings were the only team to appear in four Super Bowls. That is little consolation to the team, coaches, management, and fans in North America that watched the dominant defense set NFL records, and the offense develop an effective scheme which would later evolve into what would be termed the 'West Coast Offense'. The team that dominated their division and conference over the late 1960's through the middle 1970's had won the 1969 NFL Championship, but couldn't solve the perplexing puzzle to winning the Super Bowl.
Several reasons have been posed over the years for the Vikings failure to win a Super Bowl under Grant, despite his Grey Cup success in the CFL. Viking fans are likely to differ in their explanations. One theory is that the Vikings were inferior to all four Super Bowl opponents. Another easy answer was they were unlucky. But neither of those considers Grants' four Grey Cup wins in the CFL. One fact few, if any, have considered was Grant's familiarity with his only opponent in his Winnipeg Blue Bomber teams' Grey Cup wins; the Hamilton Tiger Cats, and Jim Trimble.
In his teams' first Grey Cup appearance in 1957, Grants' Winnipeg team lost to Hamilton, and its' coach, Jim Trimble. Thereafter, Grant and Winnipeg beat Hamilton and Trimble in 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1962. Neither Hamilton, nor Winnipeg played in the 1960 Grey Cup game. After 1962, Hamilton replaced Trimble with Ralph Sazio, who led Hamilton to three Grey Cup appearances over the next three years, including a win over Grant and Winnipeg in 1965.
Given this pattern, one has to wonder if Grant hoped Jim Trimble would re-appear as coach of the KC Chiefs in 1969, Miami Dolphins in 1973, Pittsburgh in 1974, and Oakland in 1976. Certainly, there is some credence to the fact that Miami, Pittsburgh, and Oakland were great teams during the 1970's, and Kansas City was a great team during the late 1960's, appearing in Super Bowl I against Green Bay. But, the overriding factor that seems apparent when considering Grants' CFL Grey Cup history is that Grants' familiarity with an opponent translated to success on the field.
The NFL and AFL merger in 1970 meant some interdivisional games would be played during the season. But, it may not have been enough for Grant to learn his opponents' and coaches' tendencies for the biggest game. And the NFL was a much larger league, with better quality players, than the CFL. Finally, there is a greater differential in talent replenishment via the college draft, where the elite players select the NFL over the CFL, and weaker teams receive preferential drafting positions. The differences in talent of players joining the various, fewer, CFL teams, is much less than the elite college players drafted by NFL teams.
So, some of the changes occurring in the NFL were favorable to Grant's ability to succeed; e.g. smaller divisions, team-wise, after the NFL-AFL merger, leading to familiarity with divisional opponents. But, this only applied to the regular season, and to a lesser extent, the conference playoffs.
Note the Vikings dominance over the LA Rams, which may be argued to be another example of ‘familiarity yields success’, more than the wintry weather and home field advantage usually offered as the key reason.
With the continued success in the regular season and playoffs during the 1970's, as well as expansion of the NFL into Tampa Bay and Seattle, Grant and GM Jim Finks were not able to replenish the aging veterans on defense with top level college talent. The nucleus of key defensive players from the 1960's Vikings team were aging, and had to be replaced. Compounding the problem was the trade that brought back Fran Tarkenton in 1972 left the Vikings with fewer high round draft picks in 1972 and 1973, as well as sending Bob Grim to the Giants. And, Tarkenton, who began his career in 1961, was aging.
The retirement of Gary Larsen, the trades of Alan Page to the Chicago Bears, and Carl Eller to Seattle, and the retirement of Jim Marshall after 282 consecutive games played, ended the Purple People Eaters' magnificent run. The replacements for the late 1960's and early 1970's Vikings linebackers, Roy Winston, Lonnie Warwick, and Wally Hilgenberg, were better players individually, and as a unit, but not collectively as effective with the new front four. Paul Krause, Bobby Bryant, and other members of the secondary were gradually replaced with quality players, but the defense of the late 1970's and early 1980's would never approach the multiple record-setting defensive units of the early 1970's.
After 1976, The Vikings managed to remain within one win of a .500 record, except for the strike season in 1982. Facing a grey horizon, a color once so rewarding to him in Winnipeg, Grant retired in 1983. After one season under ultra-disciplinarian head coach Les Steckel, and a 3-13 record, Vikings management coaxed Grant out of retirement to right the Vikings longboat. But Grant only managed a 7-9 record in 1985, and he announced his second and final retirement in 1985.
The wins and accolades Grant earned in Winnipeg and Minnesota are worthy of a short story, and are best treated in a summary separate from this chronological essay. In light of his decisions early in his professional sports career, Bud Grant is an athlete and coach who might have achieved greater individual numbers if he remained in one place longer. But in light of his varied experiences in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Winnipeg and returning to Minnesota, one could also argue he wouldn't have learned as much had he remained in pro basketball, or under the oppressive management of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Coming Friday, May 19 will be a summary of statistics from Bud Grant's career as a pro basketball player, as a defensive end, receiver and defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles and Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and the only pro football coach to win over 100 games in each of the CFL and NFL. A few insightful comments of notable players on Grant’s teams will supplement details and theories mentioned above.
MiniCamp Note
Vikes Geek and Mr. Cheer Or Die will be attending the Saturday morning practice session which kicks off this years team minicamp. Expect updates, photos, podcast and videos by the end of the weekend.
As with the previous minicamp, cameras can only be in use during the first thirty minutes of the practice. Practice runs from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm and is closed to the public. Mr. Cheer Or Die will be issuing live reports, and "crap-cam" photos from his cell phone while practice is going on. You can access these live updates via the VU Moblog site.