December 28, the worst day on the Vikings’ calendar

[Rowdy]

USA TODAY Sports

Although each and every future Christmas will commemorate the day the Vikings allowed Alvin Kamara to score six touchdowns and surrendered to the Saints the most points in franchise history since 1963, the worst day on the purple and gold calendar always will land three days later.

December 28.

Forty-five years ago today, perhaps the best Vikings team of the 1970s (they started 10-0 that year) lost at home in the divisional round of the playoffs to the Cowboys. The defeat happened in excruciating fashion, with receiver Drew Pearson clearly pushing Minnesota defensive back Nate Wright before catching the first-ever Hail Mary.

The name came from quarterback Roger Staubach, who explained to reporters that he uttered the prayer before throwing the 50-yard touchdown pass.

“I could have said ‘Our Father’ or ‘Glory be,'” Staubach said several years ago. “But I don’t think ‘Our Father’ would have carried on.”

The Vikings and their fans uttered plenty of other words starting with “F” that day, and someone threw a bottle at one of the officials, knocking him out cold. (Vikings fans also should have been upset with the coaching staff for the play that was called and/or safety Paul Krause for a half-hearted effort to break up the catch or to make the tackle.)

But that’s just the first of several bad December 28s for the Vikings. In 2003, the Vikings needed to beat the Cardinals in order to secure a spot in the playoffs on December 28, the last day of the regular season. Quarterback Josh McCown threw the ball to the end zone as time expired, receiver Nate Poole caught it, and Paul Allen’s head exploded.

Actually, two Vikings defenders pushed Poole out of bounds before he could get his feet down. Now, that would make the pass incomplete. Then, the official could exercise judgment to conclude that the receiver would have gotten both feet down if he hadn’t been pushed, and rule it a catch. So it was game over, no playoffs for the Vikings for a third straight season.

In between 1975 and 2003 was another miserable December 28 for Minnesota. In 1996, the Vikings were shredded by the Cowboys in the wild-card round of the playoffs, 40-15.

There’s one sort-of bright spot for the Vikings on December 28. In 2008, the Vikings beat the Giants on a last-second field goal to secure a playoff spot. Tempering the euphoria was the fact that the Giants already had locked up the No. 1 seed, and that the starters got the day off.

So that’s a brief look at the ugly history of December 28 for the Vikings. It’s unlikely that any future December 28 could ever be as bad as the first bad December 28 — especially since the postseason will likely never begin again in December.