A new post at the Daily Norseman goes digging through the dumpster for comparisons between this year’s struggling team and the very worst in franchise history. Despite what we’ve seen on the field this year (and the awful stench of some of these losses), CCNorsemen says that the 1984 “vintage” was indisputably the very worst Viking team ever:
The 2013 Vikings have had a disappointing season to say the least. With a rash of injuries hitting star players on both offense and defense, a struggling quarterback(s), and a defense that couldn’t stop a bored kindergarten class from learning to add and subtract, even if they shouted that it was time for recess, this team looks bad. Add in a coaching staff that makes questionable calls each and every week, and we now find ourselves staring at 1 win and 7 losses to start the year. This ties a franchise record for worst start to a season set in the inaugural year of 1961, and then matched again in 2011. And it begs the question, are the 2013 Vikings the worst team in franchise history? That question is definitely an open one until the season is finished. However now that the 2013 season is exactly half over, I wanted to dig through the archives of Vikings history to see just how bad this team really is compared to some of the bad teams we’ve had in the past. Fair warning: this is not a topic for the overly optimistic fan or the faint of heart. I will be drudging up the worst of the worst here, so read on…if you dare.
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The date was January 27th, 1984. Bud Grant retired as head coach of the Vikings, and Les Steckel was promoted from offensive assistant to head coach, the youngest in the NFL at the time at age 38. Tommy Kramer was our quarterback in 1984, and he had a propensity for being injured. He started the first 8 games of the season completing 52% of his passes and throwing for 1,556 yards 8TDs and 8INTs on his way to a pretty mediocre 72.3 passer rating, along with TEN fumbles in 9 games. He injured his shoulder and only started 1 more game that year. Wade Wilson and Archie Manning split the remainder of the starts (yes, just like 2013, we had three different starting QBs in 1984). On the whole, Kramer had an ANY/A rating of 4.86 and a QB rating of 70.6. Wade Wilson was even worse in relief with a 2.16 ANY/A rating and a passer rating of 52.5. Manning was only marginally better with an ANY/A of 2.65 and a passer rating of 66.1. It was a pretty abysmal year for quarterback efficiency, although it’s tough to compare those numbers to today’s standards. But compared to 1984 standards, Kramer ranked 19th out of 30 in ANY/A with Dan Marino and Joe Montana leading the league in that metric with 8.94 and 7.93 respectively. Kramer was 23rd out of 28 in passer rating, with Marino and Montana again leading the league with 108.9 and 102.9 ratings respectively.
Our leading rusher in 1984 was a fullback named Alfred Anderson (who?) who ran for a pretty pedestrian 3.8 yards per carry and got only 773 yards on 201 attempts with 14 starts (48.3 yards per game), he also had 8 fumbles on the year. Ted Brown was the only other RB that carried the ball for any significance that year (442 yards on 98 carries for 4.5 yards per attempt). Our leading receiver in 1984 was Leo Lewis a 4th year player who played in all 16 games but only managed to start 5 of them. He racked up 830 yards on 47 receptions, his career best. Mike Jones was the only other notable receiver notching 591 yards in an otherwise forgettable career. For comparison, this was the year that Eric Dickerson broke the single season rushing record with 2,105 rushing yards, averaging 131.6 yards per game. Walter Payton had an incredible year rushing for 1,684 yards on 381 attempts, good for 105.3 yards per game. Art Monk and Ozzie Newsome lead the lead in receptions in 1984 with 106 and 89 respectively. But it was Roy Green, Dickerson’s teammate on the Rams, who lead the league in receiving yards with 1,555.
On defense we scored 1 TD for the entire year. We recovered 0 fumbles and our leading sack artist collected a whopping 5 sacks on the year (right defensive end Randy Holloway). The only bright spot (if you can call it that) was that the team recorded 11 total interceptions (but 0 passes defended). As was mentioned earlier, this was the worst ranked defense in points allowed and yards allowed in 1984.
So, 1984 was a team truly without any bright spots. Offense, Defense, Special Teams…it didn’t matter, it was all bad. Head Coach Les Steckel was fired immediately following the 1984 season, and Bud Grant was re-hired as the Vikings head coach. And with largely the same personnel, Bud Grant improved the team record to 7-9 with a margin of victory of -13. Jerry Burns took over in 1986 and the team had four consecutive years of a winning record. So, good coaching staffs can really turn a team around. Just ask the Kansas City Chiefs who are witnessing a pretty remarkable turn-around with a new head coach and new quarterback this season.
