This is the third installment of our series looking at the four Super Bowl appearances by the Minnesota Vikings.
The Vikings took on the Pittsburgh Steelers on Jan. 12, 1975.
Minnesota was in the big game for the second straight year and third time in six years. Pittsburgh was making its first appearance.
The Vikings were one of four NFC teams to finish 10-4 but they did play both of their playoff games at home at Metropolitan Stadium against another 10-4 team, beating the St. Louis Cardinals 30-14 and the Los Angeles Rams 14-10.
The Steelers used three different starting quarterbacks during the season but compiled a 10-3-1 record.
After Terry Bradshaw joined other players in striking for a week during the preseason, coach Chuck Noll named Joe Gilliam as the starter when the regular season began.
He was the first black QB to start his team's first game of a season and his selection provoked a negative reaction from a number of Steeler fans who weren't ready for a black QB. Bradshaw told reporters he'd like to be traded.
After a win over Baltimore to open and a tie with Denver, Gilliam was only 8-for-31 with two interceptions in a 17-0 home loss to Oakland. Noll stayed with Gilliam through three more wins victories before returning Bradshaw to the starting lineup.
Noll would later reveal that Gilliam had started abusing drugs, which the coach said cost him the trust of his teammates.
Bradshaw won his first two starts but lost the starting position again after going 13-35 for 140 yards with an interception in a loss at Cincinnati. Terry Hanratty was the starter at Cleveland but he had more passes caught by the Browns than the Steelers as he went 2-15 for 63 yards with three interceptions although Pittsburgh did win 26-16.
Bradshaw was reinstated as the starter and the Steelers would finish the regular season 10-3-1 before beating the Buffalo Bills 32-14 at Three River Stadium before upsetting the Oakland Raiders 24-13 on the road.
Bud Grant and Chuck Noll were the head coaches of the Super Bowl teams.
While they were both considered "old school" they took different approaches dealing with their team the week before the game in New Orleans.
Grant had his veteran team headquartered at the Airport Hilton far from the French Quarter and a curfew was imposed every night.
Noll leaned on his experience as an assistant with the Baltimore Colts that were upset by the New York Jets in Super Bowl III and didn’t want was an overconfident team that would play not to lose on Sunday.
So the Steelers had no curfew and no bed check the first three nights in New Orleans and then had a midnight curfew the remainder of the week. Also, the players had Monday and Tuesday off and their wives were allowed to stay with them in their hotel rooms.
That meant that the youthful Steelers hit Bourbon Street hard early in the week and stayed out until the wee hours. As linebacker Andy Russell recalled, by the time the Steelers started practicing on Wednesday, players were begging for a bed check.
Pittsburgh players also had another distraction.
Players were allotted four Super Bowl tickets with an option to buy 20 more at $25 apiece.
Before leaving Pittsburgh, a number of players sold their extra tickets for $150 each to travel agents.
Other players were looking to make a bigger profit and took their tickets to New Orleans, where they offered them to ticket brokers.
However, any tickets not sold by Sunday morning dropped in value quickly to as little as $5 as rain fell because of rain that fell throughout the week and a game day forecast of temperatures in the 40s. About 1,000 tickets went unsold, and several Steelers had to eat most of their extra tickets.
New Orleans had been awarded the bid for the game with the assurance that the Superdome would be completed. However, the new facility would not be available until the 1975 season, so the game was played in Tulane Stadium.
On the day of the game, it was raining and the temperature was dropping to the mid-40s. The hard rain stopped by game time, but the skies stayed overcast and a persistent drizzle continued along with 17 mile per hour winds that made the wind chill 22.
As the teams were waiting for the introductions, a shirtless fan wearing a Viking horned helmet collapsed in the stands from a massive heart attack close to the Steelers. Several fans tried to help but he would pass away.
“The man dropped dead right in front of me,” said Pittsburgh QB Terry Bradshaw. “He died with his horns on. And it didn't stop the program for one second.”
Neither team’s offense would score in the first half. The Steelers led 2-0 at halftime as Pittsburgh’s Dwight White would down Frank Tarkenton in the end zone after the Vikings signal caller fell on a fumble.
Franco Harris scored on a nine-yard run and Roy Gerela kicked the extra point to give the Steelers a 9-0 lead in the third quarter.
The Vikings would make it a one-score game in the fourth quarter.
With Pittsburgh’s Bobby Walden standing on his own one-yard line to receive the snap, Matt Blair would crash in from the punter’s right to block the kick. Terry Brown caught the ball on the bounce in the end zone for a touchdown. Fred Cox missed the PAT when his kick hit the left upright, leaving the score at 9-6 with 10:33 to play.
Holding that three-point lead, Bradshaw led the Steelers on a 66-yard drive that chewed up nearly half of the fourth quarter. The drive culminated with Bradshaw connecting with tight end Larry Brown on a four-yard TD. Gerela’s extra point made it 16-6, which was the final.
Pittsburgh's "Steel Curtain" defense forced four turnovers while holding the Vikings' potent offense to just 119 total yards.
Harris was the game’s MVP, rushing 34 times for 158 and a touchdown.
Anthem, halftime
The national anthem was sung by the New Orleans Mardi Gras Chorus of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America.
The pregame and halftime shows featured the Grambling marching band.
In an episode that aired the night before Super Bowl IX, The Mary Tyler Moore Show on CBS (which was set in Minneapolis) used the game as a plot line.
While Lou Grant (played by Ed Asner) had taught Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) how to bet on football throughout the season it was Ted who had developed a winning strategy.
They pooled their money and finished the regular season in the black. Since Ted's strategy would not work on the Super Bowl game's spread, it was agreed they would not place a bet on the Super Bowl.
However, Ted was crushed when it was revealed that Lou actually did place a (losing) bet. Lou bet all the season's winnings on the Steelers.
At the end of the show, Mary Tyler Moore announced the following over the credits: "If the Pittsburgh Steelers win the actual Super Bowl tomorrow, we want to apologize to the Pittsburgh team and their fans for this purely fictional story. If on the other hand, they lose, remember, you heard it here first."
As it turned out, her apology did go into effect.
The uncredited play-by-play announcer that can be heard during the Super Bowl broadcast on the MTM episode was Dick Enberg. NBC did broadcast the game that year, however, it was Curt Gowdy who was the main play-by-play announcer for NBC at that time.
Future Hall of Famers in Super Bowl IX:
Pittsburgh Steelers
Owner Art Rooney
Coach Chuck Noll
Mel Blount
Terry Bradshaw
Joe Greene
Jack Ham
Franco Harris
Jack Lambert
John Stallwort
Lynn Swann
Mike Webster
Minnesota Vikings
Coach Bud Grant
Carl Eller
Paul Krause
Alan Page
Fran Tarkenton
Mick Tinglehoff
Ron Yary
Season results
Results from the 1974 season for both the Steelers and Vikings.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Pittsburgh Steelers 30, Baltimore Colts 0
Pittsburgh Steelers 35, Denver Broncos 35 (tie)
Oakland Raiders 17, Pittsburgh Steelers 0
Pittsburgh Steelers 13, Houston Oilers 7
Pittsburgh Steelers 34, Kansas City Chiefs 24
Pittsburgh Steelers 20, Cleveland Browns 16
Pittsburgh Steelers 24, Atlanta Falcons 17
Pittsburgh Steelers 27, Philadelphia Eagles 0
Cincinnati Bengals 17, Pittsburgh Steelers 10
Pittsburgh Steelers 26, Cleveland Browns 16
Pittsburgh Steelers 28, New Orleans Saints 7
Houston Oilers 13, Pittsburgh Steelers 10
Pittsburgh Steelers 21, New England Patriots 17
Pittsburgh Steelers 27, Cincinnati Bengals 3
Pittsburgh Steelers 32, Buffalo Bills 14
Pittsburgh Steelers 24, Oakland Raiders 13
Pittsburgh Steelers 16, Minnesota Vikings 6
Minnesota Vikings
Minnesota Vikings 32, Green Bay Packers 17
Minnesota Vikings 7, Detroit Lions 6
Minnesota Vikings 11, Chicago Bears 7
Minnesota Vikings 23, Dallas Cowboys 21
Minnesota Vikings 51, Houston Oilers 10
Detroit Lions 20, Minnesota Vikings 16
New England Patriots 17, Minnesota Vikings 14
Minnesota Vikings 17, Chicago Bears 0
Minnesota Vikings 28, St. Louis Cardinals 24
Green Bay Packers 19, Minnesota Vikings 7
Los Angeles Rams 20, Minnesota Vikings 17
Minnesota Vikings 29, New Orleans Saints 9
Minnesota Vikings 23, Atlanta Falcons 10
Minnesota Vikings 35, Kansas City Chiefs 15
Minnesota Vikings 30, St. Louis Cardinals 14
Minnesota Vikings 14, Los Angeles Rams 10
Pittsburgh Steelers 16, Minnesota Vikings 6
No. 1 song
The top song in the country on that Super Bowl Sunday was ‘Mandy’ by Barry Manilow.
No. 1 TV show
All in the Family was again the number one TV on the day of the Super Bowl, but we used that last week.
So instead, in honor of Dean Walters, here’s Kulm, N.D. native Angie Dickinson as Pepper Anderson in ‘Police Woman,’ which did make it number one week two weeks later.
No. 1 movie
The top movie in the country that week was the star-studded ‘The Towering Inferno’
In the cast were Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, O. J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Gregory Sierra, Dabney Coleman and Jennifer Jones.