Reusse: 1977 Mud Bowl still brings a smile to older generations of Vikings fans

There only had been one significant December snow in the Twin Cities in 1977 and that was a 4-incher. So, the Vikings could have rolled back the tarp the usual 25-30 yards at the right-field end of Met Stadium’s football surface and conducted practices for the upcoming contest.

Quite a sight it was at times, Bud Grant’s NFC powerhouse teams going through their play sheet on one-third of the field once winter had arrived on the Bloomington prairie. This time, though, Bud’s Vikes had a playoff appointment in Los Angeles and it was arranged to have a few days of practices in Tucson, Ariz.

Three times since Grant started taking the Vikings to the playoffs in 1968, our Purple People Eaters had been matched with the Rams’ Fearsome Foursome, with all those postseason games played right around Christmas here in Minnesota.

The Vikings won ‘em all: 23-20 in their first-ever home playoff game in 1969; 14-10 in the NFC title game in 1974; and 24-13 in the NFC title game in 1976.

The Rams hosted the Vikings in a Monday night game on Oct. 24, 1977. Final: Rams 35, Vikings 3. The quarterback ratings for the night: Rams: Pat Haden, 104.5; Vikings: Fran Tarkenton, 19.4.

Yet, providing Howard Cosell and Dandy Don Meredith with unlimited opportunity to poke fun at Bud and the Vikings on the Monday night telecast was not the revenge the Rams sought. They wanted to thump the Vikes in the playoffs, and now they would be getting that chance on Dec. 26.

Back in 1977, there were two AFC playoff games on Saturday (24th), and the Vikings-Rams and Bears-Cowboys in the NFC on Monday, with Christmas Day protected from the uncouthness of the gridiron.

Three weeks after the Rams fiasco, the Vikings had been playing Cincinnati at Met Stadium. Tarkenton completed 17 of 18 passes for an NFL single-game accuracy record, then was tackled by lineman Gary Burley and suffered a broken right fibula. Rookie Tommy Kramer finished up the 42-10 Vikings’ blowout.

Veteran Bobby Lee and Kramer were Grant’s options to replace Tarkenton for the rest of the season. Lee quarterbacked a 13-6 win in a snowstorm in Green Bay on Nov. 27. The next week, Kramer came in with the Vikings trailing San Francisco 24-7 into the fourth quarter at the Met and executed his famous comeback — three TD passes and a 28-27 win.

“Tommy was a great kid, exciting; and everybody wanted him in there after that comeback, and I didn’t blame them,” Lee said recently in a phone conversation. “Then, we went to Oakland and were beaten badly. Tommy threw three interceptions, and Bud went back to me.”

The Vikings needed a win at Detroit to reach the playoffs. Lee had a 48-yard touchdown pass to Ahmad Rashad and a 29-yarder to Sammy White. The Vikings won 30-21, even though Eddie Payton (a future Viking) had TD returns of 98 yards on a kickoff and 87 yards on a punt for the Lions.

The win put the Vikings (9-5) on a plane to Tucson a few days later, with the knowledge Lee would be their starting quarterback. As they worked out in cool, mostly-clear weather, a helpful event was making its way into L.A.

One of those rainstorms that can roll into California in December and January.

Lee grew up in San Francisco and knew all about long winter rains. “It was raining when we flew in from Tucson on Christmas evening, and it never really stopped,” Lee said.

Welcome to Mud Bowl ‘77.

A young fellow named Joe Soucheray was writing sports columns for the Minneapolis Tribune and his review of this infamous Vikings game landed him on the front page Tuesday morning. The opening paragraph read:

“Nature never ravaged the plush turf of the Los Angeles Coliseum the way the Vikings and Rams did Monday during one of the dirtiest and toughest football games ever contested for playoff loot. It was raining in Los Angeles Sunday night when the Vikings arrived from Tucson and it was raining when they awoke yesterday morning and it rained all yesterday afternoon on the 62,516 clients who covered their smirks in sheets of plastic. It was 14-7 Vikings and the legend of these fond, and yes, even old, warriors continues to grow.”

That about summed it up, somewhat poetically.

“Bud told me and he told the team, ‘We’re going to throw the ball early, be aggressive, because the field won’t be too bad at the start,’” Lee said. “The plan was to get ahead before the footing turned terrible, and then we would control the ball running with Chuck Foreman — Chuck, with some help from Robert Miller.”

Alan Page, defensive tackle and the greatest Viking of all in my opinion, was asked for his Mud Bowl recollections this week and said: “Honestly, I don’t remember that Coliseum field being so impossible to play on, because we had played on so many bad fields. Met Stadium turned into concrete late in the season. It was harder to dig your feet into concrete than mud.

“I do recall, there was a play when the Rams star running back — Lawrence McCutcheon, right? — had to make a yard or two on fourth down and we stopped them,”

The Rams had received the opening kickoff and moved to fourth-and-2 at the Vikings 31. And the stop of McCutcheon was made by Page — then 32, in his final full season for the Vikings, and one of the old warriors of whom we were fond, even after four Super Bowl losses.

The Vikings took over at their 30 and immediately implemented Grant’s strategy: Throw early before the Coliseum acreage turned into a replica of a soggy shore of one of Minnesota’s 200-plus Mud Lakes.

Lee had done mop-up duty for Tarkenton two months earlier in the Rams’ blowout win in Los Angeles. “I was releasing a pass and my throwing hand wound up between the helmets of Jack Youngblood and Fred Dryer,” Lee said. “I was X-rayed later and there were three little breaks in the top of my throwing hand.”

The next time he saw the Rams, with Youngblood and Dryer leading this newer version of a fearsome front four, Lee was going 5-for-5 on a 70-yard drive — that first possession completed by Foreman’s 5-yard touchdown run.

The Vikings coaches mostly left the postgame quotes to Grant, but offensive coach Jerry Burns couldn’t help himself talking about the opening drive that set up the Vikings for the 14-7 upset win in that southern California muck.

“I think you could watch pro football for a generation and never find better execution, considering the conditions,” Burns was quoted as saying. “Big game, terrible weather, terrible field, great defensive pass rush. … I told Bobby Lee after the game, he was great all day, but he was super on that first drive.

“Pat Haden is a fine young quarterback, but Lee was a master today.”

The five completions were Lee’s total for the game. The Vikings only tried five more passes after that. Run, run and run some more after that — with Foreman finishing with 31 carries and 101 yards in the mush.

Foreman came here from Miami (Fla.) in 1973 as a swift and explosive runner, and five seasons later he was as tough as late-season conditions demanded.

The 7-0 lead lasted until the fourth quarter, Nate Allen intercepted a Haden pass in the end zone to hold that lead, and then the Vikings made it 14-0 on Sammy Johnson’s 1-yard run.

The Rams, with three turnovers to none for Lee and the Vikings, only managed a late consolation touchdown. They did recover an onside kick in the mush, and then Jeff Wright intercepted Haden’s desperation pass — also in the end zone — on the final play.

Grant was asked on postgame TV about this “unbelievable” victory for his 10-point underdogs. He gave the TV fellas a Bud special:

“It’s only unbelievable if you’re not a believer. I happen to be a believer …

“And yes, we liked the weather very much. We’ve been a bad-weather team for a long time.”

Generally on the cold December concrete of Met Stadium. Only once in a game worthy of a title that still can bring a smile to older generations of Vikings followers 47 years later:

The Mud Bowl.