A Fascinating Stat About Minnesota Vikings Quarterbacks

Credit to the folks from Reddit’s NFL page for finding this one.

We know that the Minnesota Vikings have, historically, not had a lot of stability at the quarterback position over the years. They’ve had a couple of historically great seasons from certain quarterbacks they’ve employed, but it seems like the quarterback position changes a lot more frequently in Minnesota than it does for other teams. But this sort of crystallizes how bad it’s been.

Since the advent of the 16-game NFL schedule in 1978, the Minnesota Vikings have not had the same quarterback start 16 games in back-to-back seasons. In fact, in the 34 seasons since the 16-game schedule began, the Vikings have only had a quarterback start all 16 games in a season nine times overall.

I went back through the archives at Pro Football Reference to verify this and, sure enough, it turns out they’re correct. Here’s a look at the Vikings’ quarterback starts over the years since the 16-game schedule came into being.

• 1978 - Fran Tarkenton (16 games)
• 1979 - Tommy Kramer (16 games, following Tarkenton’s retirement)
• 1980 - Kramer (15 games), Steve Dils (1 game)
• 1981 - Kramer (14 games), Dils (2 games)
• 1982 (strike year) - Kramer (9 games)
• 1983 - Dils (12 games), Kramer (3 games), Wade Wilson (1 game)
• 1984 - Kramer (9 games), Wilson (5 games), Archie Manning (2 games)
• 1985 - Kramer (15 games), Wilson (1 game)
• 1986 - Kramer (13 games), Wilson (3 games)
• 1987 (strike year) - Wilson (7 games), Kramer (5 games), Tony Adams (3 games)
• 1988 - Wilson (10 games), Kramer (6 games)
• 1989 - Wilson (12 games), Kramer (4 games)
• 1990 - Rich Gannon (12 games), Wilson (4 games)
• 1991 - Gannon (11 games), Wilson (5 games)
• 1992 - Gannon (12 games), Sean Salisbury (4 games)
• 1993 - Jim McMahon (12 games), Salisbury (4 games)
• 1994 - Warren Moon (15 games), Salisbury (1 game)
• 1995 - Moon (16 games)
• 1996 - Moon (8 games), Brad Johnson (8 games)
• 1997 - Johnson (13 games), Randall Cunningham (3 games)
• 1998 - Cunningham (14 games), Johnson (2 games)
• 1999 - Jeff George (10 games), Cunningham (6 games)
• 2000 - Daunte Culpepper (16 games)
• 2001 - Culpepper (11 games), Todd Bouman (3 games), Spergon Wynn (2 games)
• 2002 - Culpepper (16 games)
• 2003 - Culpepper (14 games), Gus Frerotte (2 games)
• 2004 - Culpepper (16 games)
• 2005 - Johnson (9 games), Culpepper (7 games)
• 2006 - Johnson (14 games), Tarvaris Jackson (2 games)
• 2007 - Jackson (12 games), Kelly Holcomb (3 games), Brooks Bollinger (1 game)
• 2008 - Frerotte (11 games), Jackson (5 games)
• 2009 - Brett Favre (16 games)
• 2010 - Favre (13 games), Joe Webb (2 games), Jackson (1 game)
• 2011 - Christian Ponder (10 games), Donovan McNabb (6 games)
• 2012 - Ponder (16 games)
• 2013 - Ponder (9 games), Matt Cassel (6 games), Josh Freeman (1 game)
• 2014 - Teddy Bridgewater (12 games), Cassel (3 games), Ponder (1 game)
• 2015 - Bridgewater (16 games)
• 2016 - Sam Bradford (15 games), Shaun Hill (1 game)

If history is any indicator, Bradford won’t be affected by this “curse” or whatever you might want to call it. After all, he didn’t start 16 games in 2016.

There really isn’t a whole lot more to this post. I just saw the stat on Reddit and thought it was something that needed to be looked into further.