Post by Purple Pain on Jul 10, 2022 22:17:27 GMT -6
Dynasties of Heartbreak 10-6
No. 10: 1986-2000 Minnesota Vikings
Total Heartbreak Points: 824.2
Playoff Points: 307.2
Win-Loss Points: 265.4
DVOA Points: 251.8
Record: 144-95 (.603)
Playoff Record: 7-11 (three NFCCG losses, four divisional losses, four wild-card losses)
Average DVOA: 10.3%
Head Coaches: Jerry Burns, Dennis Green
Key Players: QB Warren Moon, RB Robert Smith, WR Cris Carter, WR Anthony Carter, WR Jake Reed, WR Randy Moss, TE Steve Jordan, OT Gary Zimmerman, OT Todd Steussie, OT Tim Irwin, G Randall McDaniel, C Jeff Christy, DE John Randle, DE Chris Doleman, DT Henry Thomas, DT Keith Millard, LB Ed McDaniel, LB Scott Studwell, CB Carl Lee, S Joey Browner
It's fitting that they're bedecked in purple, because the Minnesota Vikings are heartbreak royalty.
Other franchises will claim they are the most tortured in NFL history—and you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out who ends up at No. 1—but the Vikings are unquestionably, undoubtedly, and undeniably the most frequently heartbroken team in the NFL. They have played 61 NFL seasons. For 30 of those seasons, they have been in the middle of a top-10 all-time heartbreak dynasty. And that's before you include some of their smaller periods of pain—both the 2003-2009 Tice/Childress teams and the 2015-2019 Zimmer era end up with 300-plus heartbreak points themselves. Add in years like that, and more than two-thirds of Minnesota seasons have been part of an era of disappointment. Long live the king.
Most of this particular swath of pain comes from Dennis Green's tenure in the 1990s as Jerry Burns' teams had become a bit lackluster towards the end of his run. Minnesota had a small window of success with Wade Wilson under center, filled with moments that would be highlights of pain for other, longer runs, but are just footnotes for these Vikings: Darrin Nelson dropping a game-tying touchdown in the 1987 NFC Championship Game against Washington, for instance, or Joe Montana and Jerry Rice taking out the frustrations of the 1987 divisional upset by the Vikings by destroying them in back-to-back divisional rounds the next two seasons.
Honestly, the most painful moment for Burns' Vikings didn't even happen on the field—it's the Herschel Walker trade. General manager Mike Lynn thought Walker would be the piece that would help the Vikings get past Washington and San Francisco and back into the Super Bowl, and they were willing to send away three first-round picks and a passel of other selections and players to get him. That, uh, didn't work. The Vikings went 21-22 in Walker's two-and-a-bit years with the team, making the playoffs just one time, while the Cowboys used Minnesota's draft picks to win three Super Bowls. Walker left after 1991, as did Burns.
It was time for a clear-cut change in Minnesota. Burns had been Minnesota's offensive coordinator stretching back through the Purple People Eater days. His style was getting outdated in the face of the passing changes of the 1980s. Hiring Dennis Green made tons of sense—a disciple of the West Coast offense under Bill Walsh, and just the guy to modernize Minnesota's offense.
That's not what ended up happening—at least, not until 1998, when a veteran named Randall Cunningham and a rookie named Randy Moss happened. But while the Vikings' offense was stumbling with Warren Moon and Brad Johnson, the defense stepped up to carry the load—four top-five DVOA finishes between 1992 and 1995. That set the picture for those early Green teams: the defense led them to nine or 10 wins and they'd earn a wild card, then lose in the first round of the playoffs when their offense couldn't get out of the starting blocks (24-7 to Washington in 1992, 40-15 to Dallas in 1996) or late turnovers doomed comeback attempts (17-10 to the Giants in 1993, 35-18 to Chicago in 1994). Until 1998, that was the story of the 1990s Vikings—four solid months and a postseason failure as the attitude towards Green slowly turned from praise for the quick turnaround to frustration at the postseason flops.
And then there's 1998.
Minnesota's 15-1 season comes out as the second-most-painful year in Vikings history, and I think you can make a strong argument that is still underrating it. That's an insane thing to say about a franchise with four Super Bowl losses, but Minnesota's offense was just that amazing to watch, with Randall Cunningham having the greatest year of his career by a landslide. Randy Moss had the record for most receiving DYAR by a rookie until Michael Thomas took it in 2016, and his 17 touchdowns remain the rookie record. Cris Carter was still performing well. Robert Smith was excelling on the ground. It was a pretty thing to watch. It didn't end up ranking top in our DVOA ratings for the year, in part because they were uncommonly reliant on the long ball—56 plays of 25 yards or more, and 22 plays of 40-plus. Those would be among the league leaders today, so it might as well have been witchcraft in 1998. Usually, that's more a factor of field position and coverage rather than something predictive, which is why DVOA has diminishing returns on huge plays like that. I would argue that, at least in this case, having Rookie Randy Moss is somewhat predictive. The Vikings set a scoring record that wasn't broken until 2007, rolling through the regular season with just one defeat (a 27-24 loss in Tampa Bay). Gary Anderson became the first kicker in history to be perfect on both field goals and extra points, he said, foreshadowing. The Vikings were 11-point favorites entering the NFC Championship Game against a plucky, but not particularly special, Falcons team.
So of course Minnesota would blow a 13-point lead. And of course Anderson would pick 2:07 left in the title game to finally miss a very makeable 38-yard kick, giving the Falcons the ball back down a touchdown. And of course Robert Griffith would miss an interception on Atlanta's desperation drive. And of course the Falcons would tie the game with 49 seconds left, and of course Green would opt to kneel on the ball rather than let his uber-big-play offense take shots to win the game, and of course a limping, injured Chris Chandler would be able to drive the Falcons to a game-winning kick in overtime. It's the Vikings. What else could possibly have happened? It ends up scoring as the most painful season ever that did not end in the Super Bowl, with 242.3 heartbreak points all by itself. Frankly, it should be more.
Green's Vikings never got that close again. They lost a shootout to the Greatest Show on Turf Rams in the divisional round the next season and then got annihilated 41-0 by the Giants in the most lopsided NFC Championship Game in history in 2000. And that was it. Minnesota collapsed in 2001, Green's contract was bought out, and the Vikings entered one of their occasional periods of just being disappointing rather than devastating.
Total Heartbreak Points: 824.2
Playoff Points: 307.2
Win-Loss Points: 265.4
DVOA Points: 251.8
Record: 144-95 (.603)
Playoff Record: 7-11 (three NFCCG losses, four divisional losses, four wild-card losses)
Average DVOA: 10.3%
Head Coaches: Jerry Burns, Dennis Green
Key Players: QB Warren Moon, RB Robert Smith, WR Cris Carter, WR Anthony Carter, WR Jake Reed, WR Randy Moss, TE Steve Jordan, OT Gary Zimmerman, OT Todd Steussie, OT Tim Irwin, G Randall McDaniel, C Jeff Christy, DE John Randle, DE Chris Doleman, DT Henry Thomas, DT Keith Millard, LB Ed McDaniel, LB Scott Studwell, CB Carl Lee, S Joey Browner
It's fitting that they're bedecked in purple, because the Minnesota Vikings are heartbreak royalty.
Other franchises will claim they are the most tortured in NFL history—and you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out who ends up at No. 1—but the Vikings are unquestionably, undoubtedly, and undeniably the most frequently heartbroken team in the NFL. They have played 61 NFL seasons. For 30 of those seasons, they have been in the middle of a top-10 all-time heartbreak dynasty. And that's before you include some of their smaller periods of pain—both the 2003-2009 Tice/Childress teams and the 2015-2019 Zimmer era end up with 300-plus heartbreak points themselves. Add in years like that, and more than two-thirds of Minnesota seasons have been part of an era of disappointment. Long live the king.
Most of this particular swath of pain comes from Dennis Green's tenure in the 1990s as Jerry Burns' teams had become a bit lackluster towards the end of his run. Minnesota had a small window of success with Wade Wilson under center, filled with moments that would be highlights of pain for other, longer runs, but are just footnotes for these Vikings: Darrin Nelson dropping a game-tying touchdown in the 1987 NFC Championship Game against Washington, for instance, or Joe Montana and Jerry Rice taking out the frustrations of the 1987 divisional upset by the Vikings by destroying them in back-to-back divisional rounds the next two seasons.
Honestly, the most painful moment for Burns' Vikings didn't even happen on the field—it's the Herschel Walker trade. General manager Mike Lynn thought Walker would be the piece that would help the Vikings get past Washington and San Francisco and back into the Super Bowl, and they were willing to send away three first-round picks and a passel of other selections and players to get him. That, uh, didn't work. The Vikings went 21-22 in Walker's two-and-a-bit years with the team, making the playoffs just one time, while the Cowboys used Minnesota's draft picks to win three Super Bowls. Walker left after 1991, as did Burns.
It was time for a clear-cut change in Minnesota. Burns had been Minnesota's offensive coordinator stretching back through the Purple People Eater days. His style was getting outdated in the face of the passing changes of the 1980s. Hiring Dennis Green made tons of sense—a disciple of the West Coast offense under Bill Walsh, and just the guy to modernize Minnesota's offense.
That's not what ended up happening—at least, not until 1998, when a veteran named Randall Cunningham and a rookie named Randy Moss happened. But while the Vikings' offense was stumbling with Warren Moon and Brad Johnson, the defense stepped up to carry the load—four top-five DVOA finishes between 1992 and 1995. That set the picture for those early Green teams: the defense led them to nine or 10 wins and they'd earn a wild card, then lose in the first round of the playoffs when their offense couldn't get out of the starting blocks (24-7 to Washington in 1992, 40-15 to Dallas in 1996) or late turnovers doomed comeback attempts (17-10 to the Giants in 1993, 35-18 to Chicago in 1994). Until 1998, that was the story of the 1990s Vikings—four solid months and a postseason failure as the attitude towards Green slowly turned from praise for the quick turnaround to frustration at the postseason flops.
And then there's 1998.
Minnesota's 15-1 season comes out as the second-most-painful year in Vikings history, and I think you can make a strong argument that is still underrating it. That's an insane thing to say about a franchise with four Super Bowl losses, but Minnesota's offense was just that amazing to watch, with Randall Cunningham having the greatest year of his career by a landslide. Randy Moss had the record for most receiving DYAR by a rookie until Michael Thomas took it in 2016, and his 17 touchdowns remain the rookie record. Cris Carter was still performing well. Robert Smith was excelling on the ground. It was a pretty thing to watch. It didn't end up ranking top in our DVOA ratings for the year, in part because they were uncommonly reliant on the long ball—56 plays of 25 yards or more, and 22 plays of 40-plus. Those would be among the league leaders today, so it might as well have been witchcraft in 1998. Usually, that's more a factor of field position and coverage rather than something predictive, which is why DVOA has diminishing returns on huge plays like that. I would argue that, at least in this case, having Rookie Randy Moss is somewhat predictive. The Vikings set a scoring record that wasn't broken until 2007, rolling through the regular season with just one defeat (a 27-24 loss in Tampa Bay). Gary Anderson became the first kicker in history to be perfect on both field goals and extra points, he said, foreshadowing. The Vikings were 11-point favorites entering the NFC Championship Game against a plucky, but not particularly special, Falcons team.
So of course Minnesota would blow a 13-point lead. And of course Anderson would pick 2:07 left in the title game to finally miss a very makeable 38-yard kick, giving the Falcons the ball back down a touchdown. And of course Robert Griffith would miss an interception on Atlanta's desperation drive. And of course the Falcons would tie the game with 49 seconds left, and of course Green would opt to kneel on the ball rather than let his uber-big-play offense take shots to win the game, and of course a limping, injured Chris Chandler would be able to drive the Falcons to a game-winning kick in overtime. It's the Vikings. What else could possibly have happened? It ends up scoring as the most painful season ever that did not end in the Super Bowl, with 242.3 heartbreak points all by itself. Frankly, it should be more.
Green's Vikings never got that close again. They lost a shootout to the Greatest Show on Turf Rams in the divisional round the next season and then got annihilated 41-0 by the Giants in the most lopsided NFC Championship Game in history in 2000. And that was it. Minnesota collapsed in 2001, Green's contract was bought out, and the Vikings entered one of their occasional periods of just being disappointing rather than devastating.
www.footballoutsiders.com/ramblings/2022/dynasties-heartbreak-6-10-raiders-lost-titles
If you dare:
America's Game Missing Rings 1998 Minnesota Vikings
And, well, of course:
Minnesota Vikings: Champions of Heartbreak
No. 1: 1968-1982 Minnesota Vikings
Total Heartbreak Points: 1,378.4
Playoff Points: 667.6
Win-Loss Points: 425.1
DVOA Points: 285.8
Record: 140-71-2 (.662)
Playoff Record: 10-12 (four Super Bowl losses, one NFCCG loss, one Western Conference loss, six divisional losses)
Average DVOA: 8.8%
Head Coaches: Bud Grant
Key Players: QB Fran Tarkenton, RB Chuck Foreman, WR Sammy White, WR Ahmad Rashad, WR John Gilliam, WR Gene Washington, OT Ron Yary, G Ed White, C Mick Tinglehoff, DE Carl Eller, DE Jim Marshall, DT Alan Page, DT Gary Larsen, LB Wally Hilgenberg, LB Matt Blair, LB Jeff Siemon, LB Roy Winston, CB Bobby Bryant, S Paul Krause
This is not a surprise.
When we did the dynasty project a few years ago, the Purple People Eater Vikings hit No. 17 despite their lack of world championships. The greatest team to never have been the greatest team. No matter what methodology you use, the 1970s Vikings were always going to come out on top.
While we docked the Bills for being a good team that took advantage of playing in a weak conference to get to their four Super Bowl losses, the Purple People Eaters were a different beast. From 1969 to 1976, the stretch in which those four losses occur, the Vikings average a 19.9% estimated DVOA, topping 20.0% three times and hitting a high of 37.5% in 1969. Their overall average DVOA doesn't quite live up to those numbers, mostly because the last five seasons of the run with Tommy Kramer under center and the defensive line aging and leaving were shadows of the early 1970s teams.
But a few questionable seasons at the end don't change the fact that the Vikings were able to consistently fight through the Cowboys and Rams, which is significantly tougher opposition than any of the other multi-time Super Bowl losers had to fight off. The Vikings had two teams in their conference who averaged over 20.0% estimated DVOA during their Super Bowl appearances. The other four multi-time losers on this list (the Bills, Broncos, Dolphins, and Patriots) combined to face a grand total of one. Reaching the Super Bowl multiple times takes luck as well as skill, and the Vikings had arguably less luck than any of their compatriots on this list.
That leaves the skill. Alan Page, Carl Eller, Jim Marshall, and Gary Larsen (later replaced by Doug Southerland) would be my choice for the greatest defensive front in NFL history, with Page's arrival in 1967 being the final factor that took the Vikings defense to the next level. From 1968 to 1976, Minnesota allowed 12.9 points per game, or a full 6.8 points less than the league average at the time. A lot of that is the front four meeting at the quarterback, but you also have the all-time interception leader in Paul Krause behind them, mopping things up the few times quarterbacks could withstand the pressure. Less-known outside of Vikings fandom were the linebacking trio of Matt Blair, Wally Hingenberg, and Jeff Siemon, swarming the middle of the field in Bud Grant's defense. Given the choice, I'd still take the Steelers' defense of the time over the Vikings, but it's really, really close.
The offense was the weaker unit, but they still finished in the top 10 in estimated DVOA from 1972 to 1976, leading the league with a 29.0% passing DVOA over those five seasons. That lines up with Fran Tarkenton returning to the lineup; he had missed Super Bowl IV with an unfortunate case of "having been traded to the Giants for five years." When Tarkenton retired in 1978, he held all the significant passing records and was known as the best scrambling quarterback in league history to that point. 1970s Football Outsiders (which would have presumably been some sort of curiously mimeographed zine) would have had an Irrational Staubach-Tarkenton debate thread going, I'm sure.
The Vikings don't end up with as much Super Bowl pain as the Bills. After all, only the Super Bowl IX loss ended up even being a two-score game. They do, however, end up topping them with playoff pain in general, because they made the playoffs more consistently and averaged longer runs than Buffalo did, with 12 appearances in the divisional round or later to Buffalo's seven. Even without the Super Bowl losses, there have been plenty of Vikings postseason heartbreaks to track.
Most of the Vikings' non-Super Bowl losses can be grouped as either "man, I wish we had Tarkenton" or "man, I hate the Cowboys"—and sometimes both, simultaneously. In years without Tarkenton, the Vikings committed four turnovers in the 1970 loss to the 49ers, five turnovers in the 1971 loss to the Cowboys, and eight turnovers in the 1980 loss to the Eagles. Tarkenton also missed the 1977 NFC Championship Game against the Cowboys, with Bob Lee having to fill in due to Tarkenton's grotesque broken right fibula. The most painful game, however, was the 1975 divisional loss to Dallas—the Hail Mary game. Staubach and the Cowboys got the ball trailing 14-10 with 1:51 left in the game, and he and Drew Pearson went to work. Staubach completed a controversial pass to Pearson on fourth-and-16. Pearson came down out of bounds but the officials ruled Nate Wright had forced him out and so the catch stood. Two plays later, Staubach hit Pearson on the 50-yard bomb that made Hail Mary part of football terminology forevermore—and a play on which, Vikings fans continue to swear, Pearson pushed off on Wright. They may have a point, but that was never going to be called in that situation, with the game on the line.
But, of course, the Vikings don't get here without becoming the first team to lose four Super Bowls. 1969 and the trip to Super Bowl IV ends up as the highest-scoring season for the Vikings at 270.4. Their 37.5% DVOA that year remains the highest in franchise history, and it feels like they should get extra bonus points for being one of the two NFL champions to not be world champions. They were 12-2, leading the league in both points scored and points allowed. No Tarkenton on this team, but they had the Indestructible Joe Kapp, a quarterback perhaps best known for his willingness to lower his shoulder into defenders for extra yards. In a violent collision with Browns linebacker Jim Houston in the NFL Championship Game, it was Houston who had to be helped off the field after the play. Like the Colts the year before, the Vikings were double-digit favorites over the challenger from the upstart AFL, but Hank Stram and the Chiefs double-teamed Marshall and Eller all game long, letting Len Dawson pick apart the short part of the field. In addition, the Vikings were used to lighter NFL defenses rather than the larger AFL teams; center Mike Tingelhoff had to match up against defenders who outweighed him by 60 pounds, and the entire Minnesota offense fell apart. Three interceptions and three fumbles later, and the Chiefs had matriculated the ball right to a title.
The other three Super Bowls were even less competitive. Super Bowl VIII saw the Vikings fall to the Dolphins 24-7, with Larry Csonka running through massive holes for three hours. Super Bowl IX saw the Dolphins limit the Steelers to just 16 points, but the Minnesota offense completely no-showed—nine first downs and 119 yards, with their only score coming on a blocked punt. Because it only ended up as a 16-6 loss, that ends up being the Super Bowl that scores the most points for the Vikings, but when your entire team's offensive performance is beaten by Franco Harris alone, the score doesn't reflect the actual game. And then in Super Bowl XI, the Vikings allowed a then-record 429 yards of offense to the Raiders, who rushed over and over and collapsed the left side of the Minnesota defense.
In their four Super Bowl appearances, the Vikings failed to score a single first-half point. Even in the lower-scoring atmosphere of the 1970s, that's not going to cut it. It doesn't matter how good your defense is—they can't be expected to hold up against the cream of the league when the offense provides literally nothing. None of the Vikings' Super Bowl losses are quite as viscerally painful as Wide Right or the Helmet Catch or 28-3, but there's just a feeling of helplessness as you watch one of the greatest defenses of all time have all their hard work come for naught.
Their DVOA and regular-season records are more than enough to give them a top-five spot on this countdown, but it's a decade's worth of playoff failures and flops that make them legends. The Minnesota Vikings are your kings of heartbreak; we may never see a team so good come up so short so frequently ever again.
The Final Standings
The Vikings stand tall atop the countdown in both total pain and playoff-specific pain. In any reasonable sort of weighting system, Minnesota comes out first. The Rams end up first in both win-loss points and DVOA points; they slide down the rankings the more you weight playoff failure versus regular-season success. In the final rankings, potential playoff pain points are balanced one-to-one with regular-season pain points. The Rams stay atop the Bills up until the point you make playoff pain worth 60% more than regular-season pain. Where you put that slider is really a matter of personal perspective, and probably has a lot to do to with whether you were born in Buffalo or Philadelphia. Either way, the Vikings stand supreme.
The 1939-1946 Giants end up getting 61.5% of their heartbreak points from their championship game losses. In an era with just 10 teams, it's easier to end up in a championship game to begin with. The 1988-1996 Eagles are their opposite numbers at just 19.0%, as years of great defenses ended up sitting home in January a lot.
Those same Eagles are the team that gets the most value out of their DVOA ratings, clocking in at 44.1%. Even before Football Outsiders was a thing, DVOA loves it some Eagles. Once again, they stand opposite from the Giants, but this time it's the 1957-1963 version at 15.1% as estimated DVOA never ends up loving them. If you prefer actual DVOA, then the low mark on the totem pole are the 1988-1999 Bills at 17.6%. This is the second historic team countdown we've done that has dinged the Bills for their average-at-best defense, but their collection of Lamar Hunt trophies ensures they get a top-five slot here anyway.
The 2008-2012 Falcons lead the way with 43.9% of their heartbreak points coming from their win-loss records. DVOA never really fell in love with them, and they made quite a few exits in the wild-card round. Their opposite numbers are the 2019-2021 49ers, who have that 6-10 injury-plagued season weighing them down from their Super Bowl and NFC Championship Game losses.
Total Heartbreak Points: 1,378.4
Playoff Points: 667.6
Win-Loss Points: 425.1
DVOA Points: 285.8
Record: 140-71-2 (.662)
Playoff Record: 10-12 (four Super Bowl losses, one NFCCG loss, one Western Conference loss, six divisional losses)
Average DVOA: 8.8%
Head Coaches: Bud Grant
Key Players: QB Fran Tarkenton, RB Chuck Foreman, WR Sammy White, WR Ahmad Rashad, WR John Gilliam, WR Gene Washington, OT Ron Yary, G Ed White, C Mick Tinglehoff, DE Carl Eller, DE Jim Marshall, DT Alan Page, DT Gary Larsen, LB Wally Hilgenberg, LB Matt Blair, LB Jeff Siemon, LB Roy Winston, CB Bobby Bryant, S Paul Krause
This is not a surprise.
When we did the dynasty project a few years ago, the Purple People Eater Vikings hit No. 17 despite their lack of world championships. The greatest team to never have been the greatest team. No matter what methodology you use, the 1970s Vikings were always going to come out on top.
While we docked the Bills for being a good team that took advantage of playing in a weak conference to get to their four Super Bowl losses, the Purple People Eaters were a different beast. From 1969 to 1976, the stretch in which those four losses occur, the Vikings average a 19.9% estimated DVOA, topping 20.0% three times and hitting a high of 37.5% in 1969. Their overall average DVOA doesn't quite live up to those numbers, mostly because the last five seasons of the run with Tommy Kramer under center and the defensive line aging and leaving were shadows of the early 1970s teams.
But a few questionable seasons at the end don't change the fact that the Vikings were able to consistently fight through the Cowboys and Rams, which is significantly tougher opposition than any of the other multi-time Super Bowl losers had to fight off. The Vikings had two teams in their conference who averaged over 20.0% estimated DVOA during their Super Bowl appearances. The other four multi-time losers on this list (the Bills, Broncos, Dolphins, and Patriots) combined to face a grand total of one. Reaching the Super Bowl multiple times takes luck as well as skill, and the Vikings had arguably less luck than any of their compatriots on this list.
That leaves the skill. Alan Page, Carl Eller, Jim Marshall, and Gary Larsen (later replaced by Doug Southerland) would be my choice for the greatest defensive front in NFL history, with Page's arrival in 1967 being the final factor that took the Vikings defense to the next level. From 1968 to 1976, Minnesota allowed 12.9 points per game, or a full 6.8 points less than the league average at the time. A lot of that is the front four meeting at the quarterback, but you also have the all-time interception leader in Paul Krause behind them, mopping things up the few times quarterbacks could withstand the pressure. Less-known outside of Vikings fandom were the linebacking trio of Matt Blair, Wally Hingenberg, and Jeff Siemon, swarming the middle of the field in Bud Grant's defense. Given the choice, I'd still take the Steelers' defense of the time over the Vikings, but it's really, really close.
The offense was the weaker unit, but they still finished in the top 10 in estimated DVOA from 1972 to 1976, leading the league with a 29.0% passing DVOA over those five seasons. That lines up with Fran Tarkenton returning to the lineup; he had missed Super Bowl IV with an unfortunate case of "having been traded to the Giants for five years." When Tarkenton retired in 1978, he held all the significant passing records and was known as the best scrambling quarterback in league history to that point. 1970s Football Outsiders (which would have presumably been some sort of curiously mimeographed zine) would have had an Irrational Staubach-Tarkenton debate thread going, I'm sure.
The Vikings don't end up with as much Super Bowl pain as the Bills. After all, only the Super Bowl IX loss ended up even being a two-score game. They do, however, end up topping them with playoff pain in general, because they made the playoffs more consistently and averaged longer runs than Buffalo did, with 12 appearances in the divisional round or later to Buffalo's seven. Even without the Super Bowl losses, there have been plenty of Vikings postseason heartbreaks to track.
Most of the Vikings' non-Super Bowl losses can be grouped as either "man, I wish we had Tarkenton" or "man, I hate the Cowboys"—and sometimes both, simultaneously. In years without Tarkenton, the Vikings committed four turnovers in the 1970 loss to the 49ers, five turnovers in the 1971 loss to the Cowboys, and eight turnovers in the 1980 loss to the Eagles. Tarkenton also missed the 1977 NFC Championship Game against the Cowboys, with Bob Lee having to fill in due to Tarkenton's grotesque broken right fibula. The most painful game, however, was the 1975 divisional loss to Dallas—the Hail Mary game. Staubach and the Cowboys got the ball trailing 14-10 with 1:51 left in the game, and he and Drew Pearson went to work. Staubach completed a controversial pass to Pearson on fourth-and-16. Pearson came down out of bounds but the officials ruled Nate Wright had forced him out and so the catch stood. Two plays later, Staubach hit Pearson on the 50-yard bomb that made Hail Mary part of football terminology forevermore—and a play on which, Vikings fans continue to swear, Pearson pushed off on Wright. They may have a point, but that was never going to be called in that situation, with the game on the line.
But, of course, the Vikings don't get here without becoming the first team to lose four Super Bowls. 1969 and the trip to Super Bowl IV ends up as the highest-scoring season for the Vikings at 270.4. Their 37.5% DVOA that year remains the highest in franchise history, and it feels like they should get extra bonus points for being one of the two NFL champions to not be world champions. They were 12-2, leading the league in both points scored and points allowed. No Tarkenton on this team, but they had the Indestructible Joe Kapp, a quarterback perhaps best known for his willingness to lower his shoulder into defenders for extra yards. In a violent collision with Browns linebacker Jim Houston in the NFL Championship Game, it was Houston who had to be helped off the field after the play. Like the Colts the year before, the Vikings were double-digit favorites over the challenger from the upstart AFL, but Hank Stram and the Chiefs double-teamed Marshall and Eller all game long, letting Len Dawson pick apart the short part of the field. In addition, the Vikings were used to lighter NFL defenses rather than the larger AFL teams; center Mike Tingelhoff had to match up against defenders who outweighed him by 60 pounds, and the entire Minnesota offense fell apart. Three interceptions and three fumbles later, and the Chiefs had matriculated the ball right to a title.
The other three Super Bowls were even less competitive. Super Bowl VIII saw the Vikings fall to the Dolphins 24-7, with Larry Csonka running through massive holes for three hours. Super Bowl IX saw the Dolphins limit the Steelers to just 16 points, but the Minnesota offense completely no-showed—nine first downs and 119 yards, with their only score coming on a blocked punt. Because it only ended up as a 16-6 loss, that ends up being the Super Bowl that scores the most points for the Vikings, but when your entire team's offensive performance is beaten by Franco Harris alone, the score doesn't reflect the actual game. And then in Super Bowl XI, the Vikings allowed a then-record 429 yards of offense to the Raiders, who rushed over and over and collapsed the left side of the Minnesota defense.
In their four Super Bowl appearances, the Vikings failed to score a single first-half point. Even in the lower-scoring atmosphere of the 1970s, that's not going to cut it. It doesn't matter how good your defense is—they can't be expected to hold up against the cream of the league when the offense provides literally nothing. None of the Vikings' Super Bowl losses are quite as viscerally painful as Wide Right or the Helmet Catch or 28-3, but there's just a feeling of helplessness as you watch one of the greatest defenses of all time have all their hard work come for naught.
Their DVOA and regular-season records are more than enough to give them a top-five spot on this countdown, but it's a decade's worth of playoff failures and flops that make them legends. The Minnesota Vikings are your kings of heartbreak; we may never see a team so good come up so short so frequently ever again.
The Final Standings
The Vikings stand tall atop the countdown in both total pain and playoff-specific pain. In any reasonable sort of weighting system, Minnesota comes out first. The Rams end up first in both win-loss points and DVOA points; they slide down the rankings the more you weight playoff failure versus regular-season success. In the final rankings, potential playoff pain points are balanced one-to-one with regular-season pain points. The Rams stay atop the Bills up until the point you make playoff pain worth 60% more than regular-season pain. Where you put that slider is really a matter of personal perspective, and probably has a lot to do to with whether you were born in Buffalo or Philadelphia. Either way, the Vikings stand supreme.
The 1939-1946 Giants end up getting 61.5% of their heartbreak points from their championship game losses. In an era with just 10 teams, it's easier to end up in a championship game to begin with. The 1988-1996 Eagles are their opposite numbers at just 19.0%, as years of great defenses ended up sitting home in January a lot.
Those same Eagles are the team that gets the most value out of their DVOA ratings, clocking in at 44.1%. Even before Football Outsiders was a thing, DVOA loves it some Eagles. Once again, they stand opposite from the Giants, but this time it's the 1957-1963 version at 15.1% as estimated DVOA never ends up loving them. If you prefer actual DVOA, then the low mark on the totem pole are the 1988-1999 Bills at 17.6%. This is the second historic team countdown we've done that has dinged the Bills for their average-at-best defense, but their collection of Lamar Hunt trophies ensures they get a top-five slot here anyway.
The 2008-2012 Falcons lead the way with 43.9% of their heartbreak points coming from their win-loss records. DVOA never really fell in love with them, and they made quite a few exits in the wild-card round. Their opposite numbers are the 2019-2021 49ers, who have that 6-10 injury-plagued season weighing them down from their Super Bowl and NFC Championship Game losses.
www.footballoutsiders.com/ramblings/2022/minnesota-vikings-champions-heartbreak
Again, if you dare:
The Missing Rings • The Story Of The 1969 Minnesota Vikings
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Football Outsiders has another piece: Dynasty Rankings
Over the last three years, we have gone through and listed every stretch of great team play in NFL history with our dynasty rankings. We have gone back and found every stretch of truly putrid play with our anti-dynasty rankings. We have looked at every painful instance of good teams falling just short in our heartbreak rankings. We even, for a joke, looked back at teams who just waddled in mediocrity for the longest periods of time.
This is not the end of things we can look back on, but it is a nice point to stop and reflect. Between the best seasons, the worst seasons, and the average seasons, you can get a pretty nice reflection of every team's history, at least in the view from 20,000 feet. To do that, though, you have to click through nearly two-dozen articles to find every team's exact rankings, which is a cooler idea in theory than it is in practice.
So, for everyone's convenience, we're putting together this Total Dynasty List: a quick look at all 32 teams and their historic eras of greatness, putridity, and everything in between. If you want to know exactly how often the Packers have been dynastic or just how frequently the Buccaneers have been terrible, it's now all in one place for your reading pleasure.
Each entry will include its ranking on the overall list, but these rankings will slightly differ from their original articles. We have gone ahead and updated them to the present moment. That includes adding 2020 and 2021 for the dynasty and anti-dynasty lists, which brings one new entry onto both rankings. We have also gone back and added actual DVOA from 1981 through 1984 to the older lists, replacing the estimated DVOA we were using before. This slightly shuffles the rankings in the middle for teams that played in the early 1980s, as while estimated DVOA is very, very good, it is just an estimation after all. Now that we have (nearly) full play-by-play for the early 1980s, we can more accurately determine which teams were exceptionally gnarly and which were grody to the max.
At the end of the article, we'll also update which teams have active dynasty and anti-dynasty points so you can see which squads are closest to qualifying for these lists in the future.
How many teams qualify for one of the lists? We tallied:
57 Dynasty teams
59 Anti-Dynasty teams
44 Dynasties of Heartbreak
60 Dynasties of Mediocrity
Without further ado…
This is not the end of things we can look back on, but it is a nice point to stop and reflect. Between the best seasons, the worst seasons, and the average seasons, you can get a pretty nice reflection of every team's history, at least in the view from 20,000 feet. To do that, though, you have to click through nearly two-dozen articles to find every team's exact rankings, which is a cooler idea in theory than it is in practice.
So, for everyone's convenience, we're putting together this Total Dynasty List: a quick look at all 32 teams and their historic eras of greatness, putridity, and everything in between. If you want to know exactly how often the Packers have been dynastic or just how frequently the Buccaneers have been terrible, it's now all in one place for your reading pleasure.
Each entry will include its ranking on the overall list, but these rankings will slightly differ from their original articles. We have gone ahead and updated them to the present moment. That includes adding 2020 and 2021 for the dynasty and anti-dynasty lists, which brings one new entry onto both rankings. We have also gone back and added actual DVOA from 1981 through 1984 to the older lists, replacing the estimated DVOA we were using before. This slightly shuffles the rankings in the middle for teams that played in the early 1980s, as while estimated DVOA is very, very good, it is just an estimation after all. Now that we have (nearly) full play-by-play for the early 1980s, we can more accurately determine which teams were exceptionally gnarly and which were grody to the max.
At the end of the article, we'll also update which teams have active dynasty and anti-dynasty points so you can see which squads are closest to qualifying for these lists in the future.
How many teams qualify for one of the lists? We tallied:
57 Dynasty teams
59 Anti-Dynasty teams
44 Dynasties of Heartbreak
60 Dynasties of Mediocrity
Without further ado…
...
Minnesota Vikings
1968-1980: Dynasty (17)
1968-1982: Heartbreak (1)
1978-1987: Mediocrity (18)
1986-2000: Heartbreak (10)
1991-1997: Mediocrity (17)
2003-2007: Mediocrity (21)
2014-2021: Mediocrity (33)
Total Dynasty Seasons: 13
Total Anti-Dynasty Seasons: 0
Total Heartbreak Seasons: 30
Total Mediocrity Seasons: 30
Total Qualified Seasons: 47 (out of 61; 77.0%)
Thirty years of heartbreak, thirty years of mediocrity: the Minnesota Vikings story. It's pretty nice to be a fan of a team that has never been bad for an extended period of time ever, yeah? It just would be nice if, you know, you eventually won a title out of it. Just one. Just an idea.
Those 21st century mediocrity runs nearly qualify for the heartbreak table themselves, with each getting more than 300 of the required 400 points to be ranked. If they had been just a little bit better in the Mike Zimmer or Mike Tice eras, they would have enough heartbreak seasons that they would never, ever be caught. As it stands, just three decades of pain? Pfft. Rub some dirt on it, guys.
1968-1980: Dynasty (17)
1968-1982: Heartbreak (1)
1978-1987: Mediocrity (18)
1986-2000: Heartbreak (10)
1991-1997: Mediocrity (17)
2003-2007: Mediocrity (21)
2014-2021: Mediocrity (33)
Total Dynasty Seasons: 13
Total Anti-Dynasty Seasons: 0
Total Heartbreak Seasons: 30
Total Mediocrity Seasons: 30
Total Qualified Seasons: 47 (out of 61; 77.0%)
Thirty years of heartbreak, thirty years of mediocrity: the Minnesota Vikings story. It's pretty nice to be a fan of a team that has never been bad for an extended period of time ever, yeah? It just would be nice if, you know, you eventually won a title out of it. Just one. Just an idea.
Those 21st century mediocrity runs nearly qualify for the heartbreak table themselves, with each getting more than 300 of the required 400 points to be ranked. If they had been just a little bit better in the Mike Zimmer or Mike Tice eras, they would have enough heartbreak seasons that they would never, ever be caught. As it stands, just three decades of pain? Pfft. Rub some dirt on it, guys.
Link:
www.footballoutsiders.com/ramblings/2022/saints-lead-way-total-dynasty-lists?check_logged_in=1
... and neither is this Chris guy.