RICHMOND, Va. -- Super Bowl IX was scheduled to be played in the brand-new Louisiana Superdome, but construction delays forced the NFL to use old Tulane Stadium instead, the last professional game ever played there.
While the game itself was no masterpiece, particularly the turnover-plagued first half, the Steelers defense turned in a virtuoso performance, thoroughly dominating Minnesota and allowing just 119 yards of total offense, 17 on the ground. An amazing stat: if you subtract Chuck Foreman’s 12-yard, third quarter gain from the Vikings 21 rushing attempts, they averaged only 9 inches per carry over the other 20! Dwight White himself outscored the entire Minnesota offense with his tackle of Fran Tarkenton for a safety in the second quarter, despite having spent the entire week leading up to the contest in a New Orleans hospital, gravely ill with pneumonia.
I never get tired of reading about Super Bowl IX. The idea of the relatively unknown Steelers bursting onto the national scene, and the country’s genuine affection for Art Rooney Sr., the affable, long-suffering Chief, is just irresistible. At the time, the idea of Steelers fatigue must have been too preposterous to contemplate. I wonder if people were as tired of the Steelers by 1980 as we all are of the Patriots in 2019?
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