The 1998 Minnesota Vikings team is arguably the best in franchise history. They had one of the best offenses of that era, led by Randall Cunningham, and had both Cris Carter and Randy Moss playing wide receiver. The defense was no slouch, either, as they still had both John Randle and Ed McDaniel on the squad, and finished 6th that season in total defense. Is this iteration of the Vikings one of the best to miss out on the Super Bowl?
Aaron Schatz of ESPN believes so, as he went over the best teams by DVOA (DVOA measures a team’s efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent) and found that Minnesota made the list. Their 15-1 season stands as the best in franchise history, and their heartbreaking loss to Atlanta in the NFC Championship is still a sore subject in the Twin Cities.
The Vikings don’t come out as a bad team, certainly. They ranked second in 1998 DVOA behind the eventual champion Broncos. But their high-powered, record-setting offense ranked only third by DVOA behind the Broncos and 49ers. Some of this is related to adjustments for playing 10 of 16 games indoors. Some of it is related to the easiest schedule of opposing defenses in the league that season. And some of it is related to the fact that the Vikings specialized in absurdly long explosive touchdowns, and DVOA doesn’t necessarily see those kinds of plays as being quite as predictive as consistently moving the chains.
Vikings fans have long waited for a team to match that 1998 success, and the furthest they have gone since then was in 2017, when they made the conference championship game, where they lost to the eventual champion Philadelphia Eagles 38-7.
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This article originally appeared on Vikings Wire: 1998 Vikings ranked among best teams to miss out on a Super Bowl
