September 24 Crowd Reacts

A rare Saturday game back in the 1977 season had a franchise that had never experienced victory pitted against one of the top teams in the League. One of them got to hear the Roar of the Crowd in this memorable contest.

There was a rare early in the season Saturday night game in the NFL on September 24, 1977. The Minnesota Vikings coached by Bud Grant traveled to the Sunshine State to pay a visit to the Tampa Bay Buccanneers. The Bucs in their second year of existence were not a very good football team. A year prior the Creamsicles melted under the heat that other NFL teams brought them, finishing 0-16 in their inaugural season. The Vikings on the other hand were one of the top NFC teams, a place that they had been in for much of the 1970s. However they enterd this game with a record of 0-1 after losing to a very good Dallas Cowboys team 16-10 in the openin g week of play.

This was the only game being played so a National Audience got to watch the Bucs, many for the first time. Tampa did not dissappoint as they played extremely well holding an odd 3-2 lead at the half, sounding more like a baseball score than that of a contest in the NFL. The points were a product of defensive back Jerris White picking off a Minnesota pass near midfield. This led to a Bucs field goal. That score was followed by Minnesota scoring a safety.

Could Minnesota lose this game to a team that had never won an NFL game, ever? The Vikings afterall were the defending NFC Champions, surely they could not lose to the worst team in the League. The Vikings offense that had been stymied for much of the contest finally seemed to find some rhythm in the third quarter. Frustrated players in purple were finally seeing veteran Quarterback Fran Tarkenton and company move the ball. It was a drive that everyone had expected to come and they were waiting for with baited breath. Tarkenton engineered three key plays on the drive that put Minnesota in business. The 37-year old signal caller scrambled and somehow was able to launch a strike to Wideout Sammy White. The next was an eight-yard toss to running back Sam Johnson to move the sticks and keep the drive alive. The third was a the capper of the drive when Tarkenton found his star halfback Chuck Foreman open, and the big back hauled in the pass to complete a 31-yard scoring play to put the Vikings up for the first time in the game. Vikings fans in stadium and everywhere had a sense of relief as Foreman scored and heard the Roar of the Crowd.

The defenses on both side would allow not another point to go on the scored board and Minnesota won the game with a final score of 9-3. Tampa would finally win their first game in weeek 13 disposing New Orleans 33-14 and then the Bucs also won the next week in ther season finale over the St Louis Cardinals 17-7. Coach John McKay's team finished strong but still had a 2-12 record on the year.

The Vikings after starting out 5-3 went on to win the NFC Central Division only by a tie breaker over Chicago as both teams had identical 9-5 records. The Vikes then defeated the LA Rams in the Divisional Round of the playoffs in a game called the Mud Bowl, before falling to the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game 23-6. Had Foreman and Tarkenton not hooked up for that score to win the game, the Vikings may have well lost to Tampa Bay and missed the playoffs altogether.

The picture in the banner above is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of Former Minnesota Vikings QB Fran Tarkenton scrambling, circa 1974, taken by an Unknown author.

The story idea came from multiple Associated Press articles printed on September 25, 1977 via Newspapers.com