Wide Receiver Vikings 1976–1982 No. 28 Ring of Honor, 2017
Born Robert Earl Moore · Portland, Oregon
Ahmad Rashad
Drafted fourth overall as Bobby Moore, discarded twice before he turned 27, and then the most dependable receiver in Minnesota for seven straight seasons.
He arrived in Minnesota in 1976 as a reclamation project who had just missed an entire season with a knee injury and failed his physical with his new team. Over the next seven years he caught 400 passes for 5,489 yards and 34 touchdowns, went to four consecutive Pro Bowls, and caught the single most replayed ball in franchise history on the last play of a December afternoon at Metropolitan Stadium. Then he spent three decades on national television.
- 7Seasons in Minnesota
- 400Vikings receptions
- 5,489Vikings receiving yards
- 4Consecutive Pro Bowls
Robert Earl Moore, and the Name He Chose
The player Vikings fans know as Ahmad Rashad spent his first NFL seasons under the name he was born with.
He was born Robert Earl Moore on 19 November 1949 in Portland, Oregon, and he was known as Bobby Moore through his years at the University of Oregon and into professional football. That is the name on his 1972 draft card, on his two seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, and in the box scores of his first NFL catches.
He converted to Islam in 1972. A year later, in 1973, he legally changed his name to Ahmad Rashād — an Arabic name that Wikipedia's biography of him renders as “admirable one led to truth.” Every season he played in Minnesota came under that name, and it is the name he has used in public life ever since.
Both names belong to the same career, and the record books reflect that: search a Cardinals roster from 1972 and you will find Bobby Moore; search a Vikings roster from 1979 and you will find Ahmad Rashad. There is one player, ten NFL seasons and one set of statistics behind them.
Bobby Moore
Oregon · St. Louis · 1968–1973Four years at the University of Oregon, then the fourth pick of the 1972 NFL Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals. He caught 29 passes for 500 yards as a rookie, carried the ball nine times and returned 20 kickoffs for 437 yards — a genuine all-purpose back before the league settled him at wide receiver.
Ahmad Rashād
From 1973 onwardThe legal name change followed his conversion to Islam the previous year. Under it he played one season in Buffalo, lost a year to a knee injury, and then built the entire Minnesota body of work that put him in the Vikings Ring of Honor in 2017.
Four Teams in Five Years
Oregon, a top-five draft slot, St. Louis, Buffalo, a lost season, a Seattle training camp — all before the first snap in purple.
He played his college football at the University of Oregon from 1968 to 1971, after high school at Mount Tahoma in Washington. The St. Louis Cardinals took him in the first round of the 1972 NFL Draft with the fourth overall pick, and he spent two seasons there: 59 receptions, 909 yards and six touchdowns across 27 games in 1972 and 1973.
He moved to the Buffalo Bills for 1974 and started all 14 games, catching 36 passes for 433 yards and four touchdowns, plus one catch in Buffalo's playoff game. Then came the interruption that shaped the rest of his career: he missed the entire 1975 season after a knee injury suffered in the final preseason game.
In 1976 he was in the training camp of the expansion Seattle Seahawks, having signed there as a free agent. Days before the regular season began, Seattle traded him to Minnesota for a future draft pick. He failed the Vikings' physical — and stayed anyway, a decision Wikipedia's biography attributes to the intervention of quarterback Fran Tarkenton. He never played a regular-season game for Seattle.
The Minnesota Ledger, 1976 to 1982
Fifty catches or more in each of his first six Vikings seasons, then back-to-back 1,000-yard years that no Minnesota receiver had strung together before.
Rashad caught passes from Tarkenton in 1976 and 1977 and from Tommy Kramer through the seasons that followed. The pattern barely moved: 53 catches, then 51, then 66, then 80, then 69, then 58. Minnesota's leading receiver in 1977, 1979 and 1980, he became the first Vikings receiver with consecutive 1,000-yard receiving seasons, in 1979 and 1980. His seventh season, 1982, was cut to seven games by the players' strike, and it was his last.
| Season | G | Rec | Yards | Avg | TD | Yards, to scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | 13 | 53 | 671 | 12.7 | 3 | |
| 1977 | 14 | 51 | 681 | 13.4 | 2 | |
| 1978 | 16 | 66 | 769 | 11.7 | 8 | |
| 1979 | 16 | 80 | 1,156 | 14.5 | 9 | |
| 1980 | 16 | 69 | 1,095 | 15.9 | 5 | |
| 1981 | 16 | 58 | 884 | 15.2 | 7 | |
| 1982 | 7 | 23 | 233 | 10.1 | 0 | |
| Vikings total | 98 | 400 | 5,489 | 13.7 | 34 |
Season figures from the Pro-Football-Reference career record; the Vikings' own Legends profile lists the same seven-season totals of 400 receptions, 5,489 yards and 34 touchdowns. The 1982 season was shortened league-wide by a players' strike. He added 20 postseason catches for 278 yards and one touchdown across four Vikings playoff runs.
The Miracle at the Met
Cleveland led by a point. Minnesota had the ball at midfield with seconds showing. What happened next decided the NFC Central.
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Late 4th
Trailing 23–22
The Vikings were a point behind the Cleveland Browns at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, out of timeouts on the clock that mattered, and needing to cover most of the field.
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:05 left
Hook and lateral
Tommy Kramer threw to tight end Joe Senser, who immediately lateraled to running back Ted Brown. Brown ran to the left sideline and stepped out of bounds at the Cleveland 46 — a 39-yard gain — with five seconds left.
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Last play
One hand, at the one
On the last play of the game Kramer launched a 46-yard Hail Mary toward the right corner of the end zone. The ball came down in a crowd and Ahmad Rashad caught it one-handed at the 1-yard line and carried it in. Vikings 28, Browns 23.
MIN 28 – CLE 23 Clinched the NFC Central title
Vikings Production, and the Full Career
Roughly four-fifths of everything he did in the NFL happened in Minnesota.
Minnesota Vikings, 1976–1982
Full NFL career, 10 seasons
The difference between the two columns is his time in St. Louis (1972–1973: 59 catches, 909 yards, six touchdowns) and Buffalo (1974: 36 catches, 433 yards, four touchdowns). He played ten NFL seasons across eleven years, missing 1975 entirely with a knee injury. He also carried the ball ten times for 52 yards and returned 21 kickoffs for 437 yards, all of that return work coming before he reached Minnesota. For the Vikings receiver who later rewrote these franchise marks, see the Cris Carter profile.
Pro Bowls, a Ring, and What He Is Not
Four consecutive Pro Bowls, one Pro Bowl MVP award and the 23rd place in the Vikings Ring of Honor.
Four Straight Pro Bowls
- 1978 season 66–769–8
- 1979 season 80–1,156–9
- 1980 season 69–1,095–5
- 1981 season 58–884–7
Pro Bowl MVP
His first Pro Bowl was also his best. Rashad was named the most valuable player of the Pro Bowl played on 29 January 1979, the game following the 1978 season.
Ring of Honor, 2017
Inducted as the 23rd member of the Minnesota Vikings Ring of Honor in 2017, in the same class as Randy Moss. His No. 28 is not among the six jersey numbers the franchise has retired.
To be clear about Canton
Ahmad Rashad is not a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He does not appear among the enshrinees listed by the Hall in Canton, Ohio, and he has never been inducted there. The Vikings Ring of Honor is a team award, voted and presented by the franchise, and is a separate thing entirely. Vikings receivers in the Hall of Fame are a much shorter list — see Cris Carter, enshrined in 2013.
Three Decades on National Television
The second career outlasted the first by a wide margin.
Rashad moved into television after retiring and worked for NBC and later ABC as a studio anchor and game reporter across NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball coverage, including a spell as a panellist on NBC's NFL Live pregame show. For Vikings fans of a certain age, the odd sensation was hearing a familiar Metropolitan Stadium voice introduce the rest of the league.
His longest-running assignment was basketball. He hosted the weekly NBA digest NBA Inside Stuff for 16 seasons, from 1990 to 2004, and then NBA Access with Ahmad Rashad on ABC from 2005 to 2011. He has narrated the NBA's annual championship-team highlight films since 2012, and in May 2021 joined the New York Knicks' digital content team producing video for the club's YouTube channel.
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1949
Born in Portland
Robert Earl Moore, born 19 November 1949 in Portland, Oregon.
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1968–1971
University of Oregon
Four years in Eugene as Bobby Moore, used as both a running back and a receiver.
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1972
Fourth overall pick
Selected by the St. Louis Cardinals in the first round of the 1972 NFL Draft. He converted to Islam the same year.
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1973
Name legally changed
Bobby Moore legally became Ahmad Rashād, a year after his conversion.
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1974–1975
Buffalo, then a lost year
One full season with the Bills, then the whole of 1975 missed after a knee injury in the final preseason game.
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1976
Traded to Minnesota
Signed by the expansion Seattle Seahawks, traded to the Vikings days before the season for a future draft pick, and kept despite failing his physical.
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1978–1981
Four straight Pro Bowls
Including the MVP award in the January 1979 game and consecutive 1,000-yard seasons in 1979 and 1980.
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1980
The Miracle at the Met
The one-handed Hail Mary catch from Tommy Kramer on 14 December 1980 that beat Cleveland 28–23 and clinched the division.
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1982
Final season
Seven games in the strike-shortened season closed a ten-season NFL career.
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1990–2011
NBA Inside Stuff and NBA Access
Sixteen seasons hosting NBA Inside Stuff, followed by NBA Access with Ahmad Rashad on ABC.
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2017
Vikings Ring of Honor
Inducted as the 23rd member of the Ring of Honor, alongside Randy Moss.
Where these records come from
Career and season statistics on this page are taken from the Pro-Football-Reference career record, cross-checked against the Minnesota Vikings' own Vikings Legends profile and the club's 2017 Ring of Honor announcement. Biographical details, the name change and the broadcasting career come from Wikipedia, and the 14 December 1980 game from Wikipedia's Miracle at the Met entry. His absence from the Hall of Fame was checked against the enshrinee list at profootballhof.com. Anything we could not confirm against those sources has been left off this page rather than estimated. This is an independent fan site with no affiliation to the Minnesota Vikings or the NFL.
Seven Seasons, One Unforgettable Second
Ahmad Rashad played more football somewhere else than most fans remember, and none of it mattered as much as the seven years he gave Minnesota. He is 76 years old and still working in sports television.