The moment will forever live in infamy for every scorned Vikings fan still seeking that elusive Lombardi Trophy.
On Dec. 28, 1975, the Vikings led the Dallas Cowboys in the final minute of a Divisional Round playoff game. That’s when Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach dropped back to pass and launched a ball to the heavens.
As it plummeted back down to earth, Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson gave what some believe was a subtle shove to the back of Vikings cornerback Nate Wright, providing himself the separation necessary to catch a touchdown pass that proved to be the difference.
Asked about the play afterwards, Staubach said, “I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary.”
That birthed the term still used today to succinctly describe a desperation heave.
It’s been 50 years since the Hail Mary, and while it’s long been the subject of much debate, yes, the Vikings still think the Cowboys pushed off.
The Pioneer Press tracked down some important figures from the sequence to get their perspective.
As the person at the epicenter of the controversy, Wright, 78, can still relay the particulars of the play with clarity.
“He was running a go route,” Wright said. “I was running with him. I saw the flight of the ball and I was going to try to take it at the highest point. As I began to jump, I found myself on the ground.”
Those words speak for themselves as far as Wright is concerned. He had jumped in the air many times throughout his rise up the ranks. He knows he wouldn’t have immediately ended up on the ground unless somebody helped him get there.
“It happened so fast,” Wright said. “I was in shock.”
As he laid hopelessly on the natural grass at the old Metropolitan Stadium — frankly, it more like natural dirt — he remembers seeing something fly by out of the corner of his eye. He hoped it was the official stepping in to make the right call. It was actually an orange that somebody had thrown from the stands.
“I thought it was a flag,” Wright said. “Obviously, it wasn’t a flag.”
Vikings tight end Stu Voigt, 77, still stands by his original assessment that he gathered from the sideline.
“My stance is the same as everybody else,” Voigt said with a laugh. “That it was a push off.”
He quickly followed up with a fact that supersedes opinion.
“It doesn’t really matter what we think,” Voigt said. “It still goes down as a loss for us.”
In a recent article published by ESPN, Vikings safety Paul Krause, 83, noted divine intervention had nothing to do with the Hail Mary, saying, “They just pushed off and they won the game.” He added that it still makes his blood boil 50 years later, even if some of his former teammates have decided to let bygones be bygones.
“It wears on me,” Krause told ESPN. “It was so wrong. I don’t want to come to peace with it. It took a championship away from us.”
That’s the hardest part for many people to stomach.
On a legendary run through the 1970s that included a few trips to the Super Bowl, the group that the Vikings put together in 1975 might have been the best of the bunch. Not only did Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton win MVP, the Purple People Eaters were still very much at the peak of their powers.
If the Vikings beat the Cowboys, maybe would’ve gone on to beat the Los Angeles Rams to advance to the Super Bowl. If the Vikings beat the Rams, maybe they would’ve gone on to be the Pittsburgh Steelers to win the Super Bowl.
That’s why the Hail Mary was so damaging in hindsight.
“It wasn’t a play from heaven for us,” Voigt said. “It was more like a play from hell.”
As he reflected on the Hail Mary almost exactly 50 years later, Vikings cornerback Bobby Bryant, 81, noted that it’s a shame Wright has been defined by that play despite the fact that his career was so much more than that.
“I felt really bad for him, because he was such a good player,” Bryant said. “To have a play like that go against him was really unfortunate. He was as good as they come. He just did his job and did it very well.”
Asked if he still thinks about the Hail Mary, Bryant couldn’t help but laugh.
“No, I haven’t thought about it since the last time we talked,” Bryant said. “I don’t think about it at all. I doubt Nate thinks about it, either. This life is way too short for us to be dwelling on stuff like that.”
Wright now lives in a retirement community on the outskirts of Tucson, Ariz. He’s taken a liking to collecting antiques in his spare time and made it very clear that he doesn’t think about the Hail Mary.
“I’ve moved on from it,” Wright said. “You learn to block stuff out as a cornerback so that’s kind of been the way I’ve handled it.”
He paused for a few seconds before acknowledging irony of that statement while on the phone talking about the play he’s been intentional about leaving in the past.
“It still lingers on,” Wright said. “That’s what I’m remembered as. I’m the guy in the Hail Mary that ended up on the ground. That’s the way it goes.”
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