The NFL season opener is certainly a big deal. Just take a look at Thursday night's ratings for the Bears and Packers. The Vikings have played several memorable games on opening day, and here are five of our favorites!
September 17th, 1961Most of us won't remember this one (except for Sid). The little Minnesota Vikings, playing their first-ever game as a franchise, against the Monsters of the Midway, the Chicago Bears.
It was a mismatch for sure. Only it was the Vikings that dominated the day. A rookie third-round draft pick named Fran Tarkenton came in during the 2nd Quarter and threw four touchdowns in a 37-13 blowout. What a start!
September 8th, 19851984 was a bad year, maybe the worst in Viking history. The Les Steckel era lasted that one, sad season. What to do? How about bring back your legendary coach who took the team to four Super Bowls? Enter Bud Grant, lured out of retirement for one more year.
Now, the bad part. You start the year facing the defending champion San Francisco 49ers (coming off an 18-1 season!!!) and Joe Montana.
When Brad Johnson (remember, Cunningham didn't play until Johnson got hurt in '98) dropped back late in the first quarter and threw the ball as high and far as he could, we saw the unstoppable ability of Moss to out-run, out-jump, out-manuever everyone else in the league. As John Madden would continue to say that season, especially in that famous Thanksgiving Day game in Dallas, "Just chuck it up there". Moss would go get it.
The longtime enemy of Viking fans showed up at training camp after a series of bumps including two retirements, and a stint with the New York Jets. Favre with the Vikings? Weird. And what a wild ride it ended up being with a sad end in New Orleans in (again) the NFC Championship Game. A game that would become infamous as "Bountygate".
The opener, an easy 34-20 blowout in Cleveland, was our first look at Favre in purple. He completed 14-21 passes for only 110 yards and a TD, a very low-key game.
It was another, younger star, that stole the show that day. A 64 yard touchdown run by Adrian Peterson, in which he literally shoved a Browns defender out of his way and out of bounds, capped his 180 yard day (see the video below).
The 2010 opener, a primetime rematch in New Orleans, was nothing like the previous year's game in which both offenses went up and down the field. A defensive struggle the whole way, the Saints went up 7-0 early in the game. A field goal, and a Favre TD pass put the Vikes up at halftime. The Purple were going to get this one done. Right?
Wrong. Pierre Thomas put New Orleans up on a 3rd Quarter TD and that was it. The defenses were the stars of the day and the Viking offense really struggled, a theme that would unfortunately last through all of 2010 (and struggle as much as the Dome's roof that December).