Ranking the Super Bowls, #36: Super Bowl XI

(photo credit: raiders.com)

Before the Buffalo Bills lost four straight Super Bowls in the early 90s, there was the Minnesota Vikings from 1969-1977 who lost four different Super Bowls in that era.  This is about their fourth loss on Jan. 9, 1977 against the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders were playing for their second Lombardi Trophy and were coached by everyone's favorite announcer, John Madden while the Vikings came in with their own Hall of Fame Coach Bud Grant.  It was played in front of one of the biggest Super Bowl crowds with 103,438 people at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA.

Oakland came into the game as four point favorites but would win the game 32-14.  The Raiders, in fact, walked into halftime to a score of 16-0 so even if the Raiders didn't score another point the rest of the game they would have still won.  The game started out with Oakland returning the opening kickoff all the way to the Vikings 12 but didn't score until the second quarter when Errol Mann kicked a 24 yard field goal for the first points of the game.

According to the stats Fred Biletnikoff didn't do a whole bunch but he did much more than the stats show to lead to him being crowned the Super Bowl MVP.  Fred caught just four passes for 79 yards but those four catches set up 3 Raiders touchdowns.  Ken Stabler, the Raiders quarterback became the first left-handed quarterback to win a Super Bowl as well, the only other left-handed quarterback to win a Super Bowl was Steve Young so even in 50 Super Bowls only two of those quarterbacks were left handed. The usually vicious "Purple People Eaters" Vikings defense didn't have a great day against the Raiders offense giving up a total of 429 total yards of offense.