Vikings

Bud Grant coached the Vikings from 1967 to 1985. The Hall of Fame inducted him in 1994. Alan Page, Carl Eller and Mick Tingelhoff are among the 15 or 16 Hall of Famers who passed through the club in that stretch and after it.

Grant's team delivered the franchise's only major title: the 1969 NFL Championship, a 27–7 win over the Cleveland Browns on January 4, 1970. That victory sent the Vikings to Super Bowl IV. They went back three more times, after the 1973, 1974 and 1976 seasons, and lost each one. They have never won a Super Bowl. Fran Tarkenton, the quarterback for much of that run, was inducted in 1986.

The near-misses did not stop with Grant. The Vikings lost the NFC Championship in 1989, 2000 and 2009. In 1976 they were beaten by Dallas on the "Hail Mary" pass. The 1998 side went 15–1 in the regular season and still did not get to the Super Bowl.

Neither game has a trophy attached. The only one the Vikings play for is Paul Bunyan's Axe, and that is against the University of Wisconsin.

The club is now owned by Zygi Wilf, who bought it in 2005, and Kevin O'Connell has been head coach since 2022. The Vikings began as an expansion team, and the men who secured the franchise were Max Winter, Bill Boyer and H.P. Skoglund. They had first been part of the rival American Football League (AFL) and then withdrew from it. Their team played its first season in 1961.