6 most surprising Minnesota Vikings seasons of all-time

6. 1984 Vikings

In 1984, the Vikings took the field for their first time without Bud Grant as their head coach since the 1966 season. Minnesota had a new guy leading the charge by the name of Les Steckel.

Steckel inherited a Vikings team that had been pretty mediocre during the previous few years prior to him becoming the head coach. So even if he wasn’t able to get Minnesota back to the Super Bowl right away, the team was still expected to be fairly competitive in 1984.

Well, competitive would have been a nice way to describe how the Vikings’ first season went with Steckel as their head coach. For the first time since 1967, Minnesota finished the year with just three wins.

Instead of the Vikings taking a step forward with Steckel as their new head coach, the team had one of their worst seasons in the history of the franchise. It certainly wasn’t something that many were expecting to happen.

During the beginning of the year, Minnesota was sitting with a 2-2 record and it seemed like they would at least have a chance in most of their remaining games. But then the Vikings fell victim to a losing streak they could never recover from and they lost 11 of their final 12 games to finish the year with an embarrassing 3-13 record.

Unlike the results of their 1984 season, it wasn’t very surprising when Minnesota decided to fire Steckel after just one year as their head coach.