I'm not engaging in hypothetical teams. It's enough to figure out if one Vikings team from one year could beat a SB team from another year. By the time Tarkenton got back the defense had slipped.conace21 wrote:I don't know about that. The 1971 Vikings were not only the No. 1 scoring defense, they also ranked 6th in run defense, and 8th in yards per carry. 2 years later, their run defense had fallen to 11th, and in yards per carry, they were 23rd.
In their playoff loss to Dallas, they held the Cowboys to 10 first downs, 183 total yards and roughly 2.5 yards per carry. This was the same Cowboys team that lit up the Dolphins for 252 yards rushing in the Super Bowl. I think the 1970-71 Vikings could easily have won a Super Bowl if Tarkenton was at quarterback.
You'd have to walk back all of the trades as well. The Vikings got draft picks that would become Ron Yary, Ed White, Bob Grim and Clint Jones for Tarkenton. None of that affected the defense, and only Yary was a starter in 1969, and only part time at that. So yeah, the Vikings probably would have been a better team in 1969 at least had that trade not gone down. But it did!