The 1984 season was the

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...

' 24th in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

. The Vikings finished with a 3–13 record, their worst record since the AFL–NFL merger, later equaled by the 2011 team, and the team's second worst overall record by win percentage (only

1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wors ...

was worse). The Vikings' 484 points allowed (30.3 average points per game) was the most by any NFL team between

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...

and

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

, and the most any Vikings team allowed in one season. At the time, it was the third-most allowed in a 16-game season, trailing only the 1981 Baltimore Colts (533, still the record going into the 2021 season) and 1980 New Orleans Saints (487). The team was coached by

Les Steckel Les Steckel (born July 1, 1946) is an American football coach currently serving as the quarterbacks coach at Centre College. He was the third head coach of the Minnesota Vikings in 1984, and he has also worked as an assistant coach with the San ...

after Bud Grant retired; after the bad season, Steckel was fired and Bud Grant was re-hired.

Offseason

1984 Draft

: The Vikings traded their second- and fourth-round selections (40th and 100th overall) to the

Houston Oilers The Houston Oilers were a professional American football team that played in Houston from its founding in 1960 to 1996 before relocating to Memphis, and later Nashville, Tennessee becoming the Tennessee Titans. The Oilers began play in 1960 as ...

in exchange for quarterback Archie Manning and tight end

Dave Casper David John Casper (born February 2, 1952) nicknamed "the Ghost", is an American former football player best known for being a prominent member of the Oakland Raiders in the National Football League (NFL). He was a tight end and also played as a ...

. : The Vikings traded their fifth-round selection (127th overall) to the

Los Angeles Raiders The Los Angeles Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Los Angeles from 1982 to 1994 before relocating back to Oakland, California, where the team played from its inaugural 1960 season to the 1981 season and then agai ...

in exchange for the Raiders' 5th-, 7th- and 11th-round selections (140th, 196th and 308th overall). : The Vikings were due to pick 322nd overall but Green Bay passed on the 321st pick, allowing the Vikings to move up one spot.

1984 Supplemental USFL/CFL Draft

Preseason

Regular season

Schedule

Game summaries

Week 3: vs Atlanta Falcons

Week 15: at San Francisco 49ers

Standings

Staff

Roster

Statistics

Team leaders

League rankings

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1984 Minnesota Vikings Season Minnesota Vikings seasons

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...