This post is part of a series of sports history articles commemorating under-the-radar teams and moments in a given year. This article focuses on the 1998 Minnesota Vikings and the ecstasy that was their dominating regular season, along with the agony that was their NFC Championship Game loss.
Monday Night Football was in Atlanta on October 30, 1978 and the up-and-coming Falcons were looking to make their mark. This was a franchise that had produced just two winning seasons since its inception in 1966 and never made the playoffs. But coming off consecutive wins, they were 4-4 coming into this game and were playing host to one of the traditional powers of the 1970s, the Los Angeles Rams. It was time for the 1978 Atlanta Falcons to take the next step.
The city of Pittsburgh was already riding high in the early part of 1979. In January of that year the Steelers became the first NFL team to win three Super Bowls, defeating the Dallas Cowboys 35-31. The baseball Pirates had contended to the season’s penultimate day the previous fall and were one of the National League’s model franchises in the 1970s. Little did the good people of Pittsburgh know that even better times were still ahead and it would be the Pirates and Steelers leading the way.