Throwback Thursday: December 17, 1978

The NFL's slate of games for December 17, 1978 looked like this:

New Orleans Saints @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
New York Giants @ Philadelphia Eagles
San Diego Chargers @ Houston Oilers
Kansas City Chiefs @ Seattle Seahawks
Green Bay Packers @ Los Angeles Rams
Dallas Cowboys @ New York Jets
Cleveland Browns @ Cincinnati Bengals
Buffalo Bills @ Baltimore Colts
Atlanta Falcons @ St. Louis Cardinals
San Francisco 49ers @ Detroit Lions
Minnesota Vikings @ Oakland Raiders

11 games. The Colts were still in Baltimore. The Cardinals were in St. Louis. Jim Hart had a terrific game in the Cardinals 42-21 win over the Falcons. The Rams were in Los Angeles. NFL teams played 16 regular season games for the first time in 1978. This was the 16th week of the season. December 17, 1978 was also the first time that I attended an NFL game. I was at the last one on the list. Minnesota Vikings @ Oakland Raiders. As an itty bitty Vikings fan this was a momentous day. Despite the 27-20 loss. And the rain. It was glorious. I was able to see nearly all of my childhood heroes. Bud Grant, Fran Tarkenton, Jim Marshall, Chuck Foreman, Ahmad Rashad, Matt Blair, Paul Krause, Carl Eller, Ron Yary, Wally Hilgenberg, Bobby Bryant, Jeff Siemon, Sammie White. It was a damn shame that the Vikings felt compelled to release Alan Page earlier in the season. A damn, painful shame. That hurt the day but didn't ruin it. It hurt more when the Chicago Bears signed Page to their roster. This was the last regular season of Tarkenton's career. Tingelhoff too. Eller played his last regular season game for the Vikings. He played one more year for the Seahawks. This was also the last game of John Madden's coaching career.

From a purely football perspective the game was terrible. There was some rain. There was a lot of slipping. It seemed like the Vikings slipped more than the Raiders. Through mistakes of their own the Vikings quickly spotted the Raiders a 21-0 lead. Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler didn't even play in the second half. Tarkenton threw five interceptions. The Vikings had seven turnovers in all. A fourth quarter comeback made it closer than the game really was. The Vikings actually had a chance to tie the game at the end but the officials refused to let them have a fifth down. It's odd how they try to avoid allowing fifth downs. Despite the loss, the Vikings still made the playoffs when the Packers lost to the Rams. The whole day was a dream. Still is.

The Oakland Raiders and Minnesota Vikings played in Super Bowl XI. That game didn't go the Vikings way either. Despite four Super Bowl losses the Vikings had been one of the best teams in the league for about a decade. Same with the Raiders and their Super Bowl win. This game, and this season, was the beginning of the end of the Vikings dominant run. It was also the end of the Raiders run under Madden. Unlike the Vikings, the Raiders quickly rose again under new coach Tom Flores.

Nine members of the 1978 Oakland Raiders have been inducted into the Pro Football of Fame:

Al Davis
John Madden
Gene Upshaw
Art Shell
Dave Casper
Fred Biletnikoff
Ted Hendricks
Willie Brown
Ray Guy

Six members of the 1978 Minnesota Vikings have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame:

Bud Grant
Fran Tarkenton
Ron Yary
Mick Tingelhoff
Carl Eller
Paul Krause

-Alan Page was released during the 1978 season

I recently watched a recording of this memorable game. It felt like I was there all over again. George Allen and Jim Brown were teamed with Vin Scully to broadcast the game. That puts the Hall of Fame count in the Oakland Coliseum that day at 17. A very respectable showing.

Minnesota Vikings at Oakland Raiders on December 17, 1978 was one of those events and one of those days that stands out in a life. There's a dream quality to it even while it's happening. Every moment is longer. Everything is brighter. It was a cloudy, rainy day that neither looked nor felt like one. A kid should have dozens, hundreds of great days in all of their days as a kid. This day was one of those days that's so much better than the rest. The best day. It was a day when a kid saw nearly all of his heroes. As a fan of a team that played their games half of a country away I only knew them as little figures on a TV screen. Now, they were real. So real. For months before the game I slept with the tickets under my pillow. The day couldn't arrive soon enough. I didn't care that Christmas was a week away. This game was the only Christmas that I would ever need. NFL history will show December 17 as a slate of 11 games. For this little Vikings fan, it was so much more. Still is.