In 1969, the Minnesota Vikings won their second straight Central Division title with a 12-2 record, scoring a league-high 379 points and allowing a league-low 133 points. Their first-round opponent in the playoffs that year: the Los Angeles Rams. Here’s what happened when Roman Gabriel and the “Fearsome Foursome” took on Joe Kapp and the “Purple People Eaters” on a gray December afternoon at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any photos from the game in the Star Tribune library. But I did find a few choice images from other days in that gritty, memorable season more than 35 years ago.

Vikings Surge Dumps Rams 23-20

RALLY FROM 17-7 HALFTIME DEFICIT

By MERRILL SWANSON
Minneapolis Tribune Staff Writer

Joe Kapp talked with reporters after the Vikings beat Cleveland a week later to advance to Super Bowl IV, where they were flattened by Kansas City 23-7.

The Minnesota Vikings rebuilt a winning football team from the ruins of their crumbling defense Saturday and gouged the Los Angeles Rams 23-20 at Metropolitan Stadium to win the National Football League’s Western Conference championship.

It was the most important victory for the Vikings in their nine-year history, putting them in the NFL title game next Sunday against Dallas or Cleveland.

It also was as courageous a football game as the Vikings ever played.

The Vikings’ chances looked as bleak as the gray, overcast sky when the two teams retired to the locker rooms at intermission with the Rams leading 17-7.

“The feeling at halftime,” said defensive tackle Alan Page, “was that we had to pull ourselves together and hold ‘em. The offense had started out moving the ball and we knew they could in the second half, too. But the defense had to hold the Rams for the offense to do its work.”

And that is exactly what happened.

The defense held the Rams to 64 yards and 3 points in the second half while the offense produced the 16 points that created the victory.

It was Page who made the play that insured the triumph with an interception in the waning minutes of the game that deprived the Rams of their final chance for an overtime-producing field goal or winning touchdown.

But this was no victory that can be credited to an individual. It was a team effort and a team victory.

“It’s hard to say how far the Vikings will go,” said Los Angeles coach George Allen. “They’re a great team and they have great balance. The Vikings were just better than we were today – at least three points better.

“Sure, we played a good first half, but there are 60 minutes in a game.

Nobody realized that more than the Vikings.

They had been victimized by fumbles, pass interceptions and just plain unsound football in the first half and looked as if they were not ready for championship football.

But then the Viking defense stopped giving ground and key first downs to the Rams and started giving the football to their quarterback instead.

Joe Kapp was just the man for the job.

“We were only down 10 points,” he said later. “I didn’t feel that was such a big lead.”

He made sure it wasn’t.

Kapp picked the Rams defense apart with his passes and sent his backs crashing into the line to keep the Fearsome Foursome off balance. Then, for variety he took off on those lurching, bent-legged runs of his – including a rollout around left end for what proved to be the winning touchdown.

The Rams were in the same man-for-man coverage they used the last time the two clubs met. Last time the Vikings won, also, but their leading receiver, Gene Washington, didn’t catch a pass.

Yesterday Washington got even.

He pulled in four passes for 90 yards, including one for 41 yards that set up the Vikings’ second touchdown.

“I was surprised to see them in the same defense,” Washington said. “I think they learned they just can’t cover us that way. But I guess they learned too late.”

The lesson was, indeed, a painful one.

Kapp completed 12 of 19 passes for 196 yards, working primarily with Washington and John Henderson on those lonely cornerbacks, Jim Nettles and Clancy Williams.

The Rams, conversely, concentrated primarily on passes to their running backs. Roman Gabriel, who played an outstanding game for the Rams, completed just three passes to a wide receiver – all to Wendell Tucker and all short ones.

“We can’t go any further,” Vikings coach Bud Grant said in the early stages of a post-game interview, “without mentioning Roman Gabriel. He played an outstanding football game.”

Gabriel, who said after the Rams 20-13 loss to the Vikings three weeks ago that he had stayed too long with his running game, remedied the situation quickly yesterday.

He passed for two first-half touchdowns, each time taking advantage of a break, to prod the Rams.

He wound up with 22 completions in 32 attempts for 150 yards, but one was intercepted[,] and [he] was tackled three times for 21 yards in losses.

But as the sign of one fan said, Sept. [it probably said December] 27, 1969, was the date of the fall of Roman’s empire.

Page and defensive end Carl Eller put on the finishing touches.

With the Vikings leading 21-20, Eller caught Gabriel behind the goal line for a safety with 7:49 remaining to play. Then, just over seven minutes later, Page tipped Gabriel’s pass, caught it, and thundered 29 yards to the Los Angeles 26.

Kapp kept falling on the ball to run out the 31 seconds that remained on the clock. While the crowd of 47,900 roared, the Vikings players shook hands with each other on the sidelines.

Grant? He stood there, typically straight-faced, and watched Kapp. Bud probably was thinking about Jan. 4.

FAST CARS: The Vikings of 1969 made far less money than their 2006 counterparts, but that didn’t stop them from splurging on nice wheels. Quarterback Joe Kapp, halfback Clint Jones and safety Paul Krause rolled into training camp in, from left to right, a 1939 LaSalle, a 1968 Porsche and a 1968 Jaguar. (Star Tribune photo by John Croft)

FAST TRACK: Back in the day (August 1969), video games were not an option for Vikings cooling off at training camp. Rookie defensive back Homer Cavitte, right, joined future Hall of Famer Paul Krause and iron man Jim Marshall for some action-packed slot-car racing in a dormitory laundry. (Star Tribune photo by Kent Kobersteen)

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