The Purple People Eaters
Minnesota was quarterback by Joe Kapp, but propped up by the defense: after the season, Kapp was traded to the Patriots, and proceeded to suffer the second worst decline in passer rating in NFL history. The Vikings went 12-2 that season, losing on opening day and in a meaningless game at the end of the year.
Minnesota allowed just 133 points, or 9.5 points per game, in 1969. That’s the 2nd fewest in a season since World War II, trailing only the Gritz Blitz 1977 Falcons. The Vikings allowed 16 touchdowns in 1969, but four came on returns (two on interceptions, one fumble, one interception)! Exclude those, and the Vikings allowed just 84 points on touchdowns and 21 points on field goals, for a total of 105 points allowed to the opposing offense.
Now, how many drives did the Vikings defense face? There are, as before, two ways of measuring this. The first is by measuring the end of drives.
- 8 opponent drives ended in passing touchdowns;
- 30 ended in interceptions;
- 4 ended with rushing touchdowns;
- 18 ended with field goal attempts;
- 100 ended with punts;
- 12 ended due to a lost fumble; and
- 0 safeties
That’s a total of 172 estimated drives. What are we missing here? Drives that ended because the half or game expired, and drives that ended due to a failed fourth down conversion.
The other method is to look at the start of drives. Minnesota:
- Played 14 games, which means 14 times when its defense took the field to start either the first or second half;
- Quarterbacks were never safeties (which would have otherwise lead to a drive for the defense);
- On offense, threw 24 passing touchdowns;
- On offense, threw 18 interceptions;
- On offense, had 15 rushing touchdowns;
- Had 37 field goal attempts;
- Had 67 punts;
- Lost 12 fumbles.
- In addition, Minnesota opponents also scored four return touchdowns, which we need to back out of the total (three off of turnovers, and one kickoff return)
That adds up to 183 drives. To calculate estimated Defensive Points per Drive, we simply take the 105 points, and divide it by the average of 172 and 183. That comes out to an average of 0.59 defensive points per estimated drive, the best of any team since 1950.
The second best mark of any team during that period comes from… the 1970 Vikings. And the ’71 Vikings have the 4th best mark. The Minnesota defense during that three year period was remarkable at keeping opponents off the scoreboard:
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