This Will Always Be A Favorite Memory

I have to agree. That was an incredible time to be a Viking fan.

Mine might be beating the 49ers in the playoffs in 87.

Still Hurtn wrote:

Mine might be beating the 49ers in the playoffs in 87.

Definitely up there.

Well the Minneapolis Miracle has to be mine. Being on that side of an epic comeback/failure was a first.

I have enjoyed most wins against GB with a particular relish as well.

98 @ Lambeau was so cool for me cause it was the changing of the guard in the North and #84's coming-out game.

Others for me (not in order):

• Vikings run in 87 I believe, where AC went off at Candlestick

• Mpls Miracle

• KC to Rudolph knocking the Saints out of the postseason and ending Brees' career with a playoff loss (at home)

• Vikings Divisional Game vs Dallas 2009 at Metrodome

• Cowboy fans came in smug and left with tails tucked - and very quiet

• Comeback vs Colts a few seasons ago

I'm sure I'm forgetting more than I can recall lol!

I was at the game at Lambeau. Had to work the next day so didn't get an extended period of gloating before we had to turn and burn back to Madison. Lots of unhappy Cheeseheads..but it was clear that Moss was something different.

badgervike wrote:

I was at the game at Lambeau. Had to work the next day so didn't get an extended period of gloating before we had to turn and burn back to Madison. Lots of unhappy Cheeseheads..but it was clear that Moss was something different.

Changed the game...Hell, getting Mossed is now its own verb lol!

There's a Buckeye WR now who just might be great enough to get the torch passed...

purplefaithful wrote:

Changed the game...Hell, getting Mossed is now its own verb lol!
There's a Buckeye WR now who just might be great enough to get the torch passed...

Bet Smith doesn't fall to #21 like Moss did though

purplefaithful wrote:

98 @ Lambeau was so cool for me cause it was the changing of the guard in the North and #84's coming-out game.
Others for me (not in order):
Vikings run in 87 I believe, where AC went off at Candlestick
Mpls Miracle
KC to Rudolph knocking the Saints out of the postseason and ending Brees' career with a playoff loss (at home)
Vikings Divisional Game vs Dallas 2009 at Metrodome
Cowboy fans came in smug and left with tails tucked - and very quiet
Comeback vs Colts a few seasons ago
I'm sure I'm forgetting more than I can recall lol!

1975 Vikings Bills snowball game.

JustInTime wrote:

1975 Vikings Bills snowball game.

The mystery of who threw the infamous snowball at Vikings running back Chuck Foreman in Buffalo, N.Y., nearly four decades ago has been solved.

Well, at least much of it.

Entering the regular-season finale Dec. 20, 1975, Foreman was battling Bills star O.J. Simpson to break the NFL record for touchdowns in a season. The record was held by Chicago’s Gale Sayers with 22 in 1965; Simpson had 21 TDs and Foreman 18.

Foreman also was trying to win an impressive triple crown by leading the NFC in rushing, receiving and scoring. He came in trailing Jim Otis of St. Louis in rushing by 22 yards in the only category he wasn’t a cinch to win.

Foreman had a banner outing at what is now known as Ralph Wilson Stadium, where the Vikings play the Bills on Sunday. In the third quarter, he scored his fourth TD of the game to tie Sayers and Simpson in the record book at 22. Simpson scored one early in the game and added a 64-yard TD reception later in the third quarter to reach 23.

There was still time for Foreman to catch Simpson and add to that day’s rushing total of 85 yards. Teammates had been trying to get him the necessary stats during the Saturday afternoon game televised nationally by CBS.

But Buffalo fans, with their team not bound for the playoffs and hopelessly behind in what would be a 35-13 loss, started throwing snowballs onto the field. One was hurled from the end-zone stands late in the third quarter, hitting Foreman in the eye.

“I had blurred vision,” Foreman said. “I probably could have still found my way to the end zone, but (then-Vikings coach) Bud Grant took me out.”

With the Vikings comfortably ahead and already having clinched a playoff berth, Grant didn’t want to take any chances with his star running back. So Foreman sat out the fourth quarter, allowing Simpson to set the TD record with 23. The next day, Otis ran for 69 yards to edge Foreman for the rushing title, 1,076-1,070.

“So I lost the triple crown by 6 yards,” Foreman said.

Years passed, and Foreman never had any idea who threw the snowball. Then on Aug. 16, 2013, his cellphone rang at his Eden Prairie home. Calling him was hall of fame guard Joe DeLamielleure, who played in that 1975 game for the Bills and is a good friend of Foreman’s.

“I’ve got somebody who wants to talk with you,” DeLamielleure said.

DeLamielleure lives in Charlotte, N.C., but attends all Buffalo home games as a casino representative. He was in Buffalo that night at a preseason game between the Bills and the Vikings and had struck up a conversation in a meal room with a stadium security guard.

“We were talking about the Vikings and the conversation got to some former Vikings who should be in the hall of fame, and I said Chuck Foreman should,” DeLamielleure recalled. “Then, all of a sudden, the man said, ‘I threw that snowball that hit Chuck Foreman in the face when I was a kid, and I’ve always felt bad about it.’

“I said, ‘What, are you kidding me?’ He said, ‘I was just a kid and I didn’t know what I was doing.’ So I said, ‘Well, I’ve got Chuck’s number in my phone, and I can call him up and you can apologize.’ ”

So, 38 years after the incident, the man was on the phone talking with Foreman. He told him he was 10 years old at the time.

“He said he was the one who hit me with the snowball and he had carried that with him for some time,” Foreman said. “He said he felt so bad for a long, long time and that he had been trying to reach out to me.

“I said that I forgave him because I knew he didn’t mean to hit me in the eye. I just said, ‘I wasn’t upset with you, and we should all be moving on. It was an unfortunate thing that happened, but it’s all good.’ It was a really strange thing to talk to him on the phone.”

To say the great snowball caper is fully solved would not be accurate since neither Foreman nor DeLamielleure can remember the man’s name. DeLamielleure said, to the best of his knowledge, the man no longer works at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

After the conversation with Foreman, DeLamielleure said the man was relieved. He said the two shared a laugh.

“It was humorous,” DeLamielleure said. “I really didn’t picture Chuck just blowing it off and saying, ‘No problem.’ ”

That’s because Foreman was said to have been very upset when the incident occurred.

“I remember being near Chuck when he got hit,” recalled former Vikings tight end Stu Voigt. “He went ballistic, and I think he tried to get up in the stands.”

Foreman, who was able to return from his blurred vision for the playoffs, denies he was very angry. He takes a diplomatic view now at having lost his chance at NFL history.

“It would have been nice to have happened,” said Foreman, who played with the Vikings from 1973-79 and retired after spending the 1980 season with New England. “I wish it would have, but that’s just the way it goes.”

That game marked Minnesota’s first visit to Buffalo following the 1970 NFL-AFL merger. On Sunday, the Vikings will show up for the eighth time in the regular season.

The 1975 game saw more than just Foreman getting hit. The snowball throwing got so bad that late in the game Grant sent all his players to the locker room with the exception of the defense, which was on the field. Had Buffalo not converted a fourth down, it was believed the defenders would have stayed on the field and played offense, with safety Paul Krause at quarterback.

“The game wasn’t in doubt, and the fans were entertaining themselves by throwing snowballs,” Voigt said. “Those were the old days when they didn’t clear as much snow out of the stands and there was plenty of it to throw.”

DeLamielleure remembers being embarrassed at what Bills fans were doing.

“They were dangerous,” he said. “They were putting ice in the balls.”

Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton said after the game it was the “most ridiculous thing” he’d seen in his long NFL career. He said “the people in Buffalo ought not to be very proud” of what happened.

Tarkenton provided another notable moment that afternoon. By throwing two touchdown passes, he set what was then an NFL record with 291 career TDs, breaking Johnny Unitas’ mark by one.

Yet any chance Foreman had that day of joining Tarkenton in the record book was derailed by a snowball.

Thanks, @badgervike ! Never saw that before.