Minnesota Vikings reflect on "The Losers Bowl," the NFL's forgotten 3rd place game
MINNEAPOLIS — The year was 1968. The Vikings made the postseason for the first time in franchise history. The result was a quick loss to the Baltimore Colts. So, in theory the season was over. But no, because for a 10-year period in the '60s the NFL held something called the Playoff Bowl.
"It seems like kind of a wild concept," said Tom West, the Vikings' director of legends relations. "In the '60s before the merger of the AFL and the NFL they played a third place game."
"We called it the Losers Bowl, because the two losers played each other. So it was the Losers Bowl," remembered Dave Osborn, the Vikings running back from 1965 to 1975. "We didn't get much. It was just another token game."
The Vikings took on the Cowboys in rainy Miami before a sparse crowd of about 22,000. A week later, the New York Jets would win an historic Super Bowl game in the same Orange Bowl Stadium.
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Despite playing for virtually nothing, both teams took the game very seriously. Bobby Bryant gave the Vikings an early lead with an 81-yard punt return for a touchdown.
"I remember catching it and making a couple of moves to get in the clear and then I had clear sailing. So all I had to do was not stumble," said Bryant, who played for Minnesota from 1968-80.
The Cowboys rallied with a couple of late scores to win 17-13.
The game meant so little that even the most die-hard Vikings fans aren't aware of its existence. The NFL apparently feels the same way. If you look at any Vikings media guide, there's an asterisk below the season's results, noting that the statistics from this game don't count. Which begs the question: what was the point?
"Basically you were just playing the game to fill in for TV," said Osborn. "There was an off week and they wanted to get something in there."
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This was the Vikings' only appearance in the ill-fated Playoff Bowl, which died an overdue death the following season, marking the end of one of the NFL's strangest experiments.
This trip down memory lane brings up another question: would the NFL bring back this game?
"I think it'd be a hard sell," laughed West. "I think it'd be a hard sell to get guys right after they've just missed out on the chance to go to the Super Bowl, to rally together and get back together to see who's third best.