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Read how Larry Csonka won the MVP of Super Bowl VIII

Super Bowl VIII, January 13, 1974
Miami Dolphins 24 Minnesota Vikings 7
Rice Stadium, Houston, Texas
Attendance: 71,882

Super Bowl VIII had all the excitement and suspense of a master butcher quartering a steer. The slaughterhouse was Houston’s Rice Stadium, and the butcher was Miami quarterback Bob Griese, whose deft dismemberment of the Minnesota Vikings may have had a certain esthetic appeal for serious students of the science of football, but left devotees of drama more than a little bored.

The suspense in the game, which Miami won 24–7, lasted for five minutes and 27 seconds, which was the time it took Griese to march his Dolphins 62 yards in 10 plays after the opening kickoff.

Most of the drive was predicated on the ability of the Miami offensive line to shunt aside the Minnesota defenders, especially middle linebacker Jeff Siemon, who was attacked by a bewildering variety of blockers.

Griese wound up his opening salvo by turning a Minnesota ploy against the Vikings. With the first-and-goal on the Minnesota five-yard line, he forsook power for finesse. The two excellent Dolphin guards—Bob Kuechenberg and Larry Little—pulled and took off in tandem to their right. The Viking line, keying on the guards and reading sweep, went with them and Griese handed the ball to Larry Csonka, who ambled through the hole created by the absence of Minnesota’s left tackle, Gary Larsen. It was a clever call and a cleanly performed play, and it was typical of the way the Dolphins executed their appointed tasks—and their opponents—throughout the chilly, foggy afternoon.

When the Vikings took over following the Miami touchdown, they ran three ineffectual plays, punted, and the Dolphins sliced them up again, using 10 plays to go 56 yards at an expenditure of five minutes and 46 seconds. This time Jim Kiick thrust over from the one.

Griese threw only seven passes, completing six, all but one of them in the first half. With the Dolphins holding a 17–0 halftime lead—Garo Yepremian kicked a 28-yard field goal, to boot—they didn’t need to pass. But the one time Griese put the ball in the air in the second half doomed any chance the Vikings had of winning.

This came early in the third period, on third-and-five from the Viking 38, when Minnesota seemed to have stiffened a bit. The pass went to Paul Warfield, the Dolphins’ All-Pro wide receiver, as he fled down the left sideline, kicking past Bobby Bryant to make a diving fingertip catch. The play covered 27 yards, put Miami on the Viking 11 and set up the touchdown that took the game out of reach. Csonka—who else?—scored by running over some Minnesota people from the two.

After the game, Vikings coach Bud Grant abandoned his accustomed calm. Asked by a reporter to compare Miami to the Green Bay teams of the mid-60s, he snapped, “You’re the analyst. You figure it out.” In a quieter mood, he said, “I knew we were in trouble after their first drive. They didn’t do anything we didn’t expect. They ran the plays we saw in the movies and they blocked well. They did the things that got them here, we didn’t.” Csonka, who got the MVP award and a game ball after rumbling for 145 yards, emerged from the Super Bowl tired and battered. After his 33rd carry, with 1:18 remaining, he slowly rose to his feet and staggered to the huddle. Coach Don Shula took him out, to a great ovation. Sitting limply before his locker afterward, Csonka seemed totally exhausted. “We took advantage of their aggression,” he said. “They stunted themselves out of the play several times.” Even the most fanatic adherent of the old NFL must admit that this Dolphin team rates as pro football’s best in recent years. It has magnificent young personnel and its coaching is impeccable.

Miami also has an unnatural resource common to all championship teams—one charismatic player who has the ability, under pressure, to produce beyond his normal capability. For the Dolphins he is Larry Csonka.

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