5 forgotten former members of the Minnesota Vikings

Brock Lesnar – DT

It seems like a weird dream or an utter impossibility these days, but WWE legend Brock Lesnar was indeed part of the Vikings for a brief stint during the 2004 preseason.

Mike Tice was Minnesota’s head coach then and those were much simpler times. Tice was loose and instead of shying away from the distraction it was to have Lesnar in camp, he seemed to embrace it.

After spending some time as a professional wrestler in the WWE, Lesnar decided he wanted to see if he could make it as a professional football player.

He hadn’t played since high school, but he was invited to participate in the 2004 NFL Combine. He actually performed very well with a 4.7 40-yard dash time, a 35-inch vertical, and 30 reps of 225 pounds on the bench press.

Unfortunately for Lesnar, he was in a motorcycle accident shortly after that and he couldn’t work out for teams privately as it took him a couple of months to recover from his injuries. He was eventually signed by the Vikings just before the start of the team’s training camp.

Lesnar played in a few preseason games for Minnesota in 2004. He made a couple of tackles and he ended up lasting on the team’s roster all the way until the final cuts were made.

He was offered to play with the Vikings’ NFL Europe team, but he shot that down and so his NFL career came to an end.

While his time with Minnesota was short-lived, he’ll always be remembered for sparking a fight between the Vikings and the Kansas City Chiefs during one of their joint summer practices. Supposedly, a Chiefs player hit Minnesota quarterback Daunte Culpepper late and one play later, Lesnar went out and suplexed the guy which then led to fisticuffs.

Lesnar wasn’t with the Vikings long, but him briefly being a part of the team will always be a fun purple fact.