Vikings Legend · Cornerback · 1968–1980
Bobby Bryant
Vikings Ring of Honor, 2024 · 28th member, first cornerback
A seventh-round pick listed at 170 pounds who stayed at right cornerback for thirteen seasons, intercepted 51 passes in the regular season and scored the two most famous touchdowns any Vikings defensive back has managed in a conference title game.
Bobby Bryant at a Glance
Drafted 167th overall out of South Carolina, where he lettered in two sports and was drafted by two Major League Baseball clubs. He played his entire NFL career for one team.
Player Snapshot
- Full name
- Bobby Lee Bryant
- Born
- January 24, 1944, Macon, Georgia
- Position
- Cornerback
- Listed at
- 6 ft 1 in, 170 lb
- College
- South Carolina — football and baseball
- Drafted
- 1967, seventh round, 167th overall, by the Minnesota Vikings
- Teams
- Minnesota Vikings only; played 1968–1980
- Jersey
- No. 20
Bryant came to Minnesota in the seventh round of the 1967 NFL Draft and never played anywhere else. He did not appear in an NFL game as a rookie; his playing career ran from 1968 through 1980, thirteen seasons in which he appeared in 161 regular-season games and started 128 of them. The Vikings themselves count him as a member of the club for fourteen seasons, taking his 1967 draft year into the total.
He arrived out of the University of South Carolina, where he played both football and baseball, earning three letters in each sport. He was drafted by the New York Yankees after his junior year and by the Boston Red Sox after his senior year, and chose professional football instead. In his final college season he was named first-team All-ACC and a second-team All-American.
In Minnesota he settled in at right cornerback behind the Purple People Eaters front four and alongside free safety Paul Krause, whose 81 career interceptions remain the NFL record. Between them they gave Bud Grant’s defence a secondary that turned a relentless pass rush into turnovers. Bryant finished with 51 regular-season interceptions, second in franchise history behind Krause’s 53, and returned three of them for touchdowns.
He is not a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His honours are a Vikings story: two Pro Bowls, a place on the club’s 50 Greatest Vikings list in 2010, and the Ring of Honor in 2024.
“I had 51 interceptions, and that says a little bit, but I never did think I deserved to be in the Vikings Ring of Honor.”
Bobby Bryant, on his induction, quoted by the Minnesota VikingsOne Hundred and Seventy Pounds
Both the Vikings and the standard statistical record list Bryant at 6 ft 1 in and 170 lb — a slight frame for a professional cornerback, and one he carried through thirteen seasons of tackling NFL running backs.
The listed weight is the first thing anyone notices about Bryant’s record. Cornerbacks are the lightest players on a defence, but 170 pounds at 6 ft 1 in is thin even by that standard, and it is the figure that appears on the Vikings’ own profile of him and in his career statistical listing alike.
What it did not prevent was longevity. Bryant played into his thirty-seventh year, starting fourteen of his final sixteen games in 1980 at age 36. He did miss time: an injury restricted him to a single game in 1974, and he was limited to ten games in 1969, eleven in 1970 and twelve in 1976. But the seasons in between were full ones — sixteen starts in 1978, fourteen in each of 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 and 1979.
Two NFC Championship Game Touchdowns
Bryant scored twice in conference title games three years apart — a 63-yard interception return against Dallas, and a 90-yard return of a blocked field goal against the Rams. Both sent Minnesota to a Super Bowl.
1973 NFC Championship Game
Vikings 27, Cowboys 10- Bryant intercepted two passes in the game.
- He returned a Roger Staubach pass 63 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter, pushing Minnesota ahead 24–10.
- It was the only interception return for a touchdown of his postseason career, and his longest return at any level.
- The win carried the Vikings to Super Bowl VIII.
1976 NFC Championship Game
Vikings 24, Rams 13- With the Rams settling for a first-quarter field goal from the Minnesota two-yard line, Nate Allen blocked the kick.
- The ball bounced to Bryant, who returned it 90 yards for a touchdown.
- He added two interceptions off Rams quarterback Pat Haden in the same game.
- The win carried the Vikings to Super Bowl XI.
The Ninety Yards
The single most-replayed play of Bryant’s career, drawn here as a diagram rather than a photograph.
Los Angeles drove to the Minnesota two-yard line in the first quarter of the 1976 NFC Championship Game and, facing fourth down, sent on the field-goal unit. Nate Allen — a cornerback whose special-teams assignment was to rush from the outside and dive at the kick — got a hand on the ball. It came off the ground and into Bryant’s hands, and he ran it the length of the field. Ninety yards, and a 7–0 Minnesota lead instead of three Rams points. The Vikings won 24–13 in 19-degree cold at Metropolitan Stadium.
Diagram: Bryant recovers Nate Allen’s blocked field goal near the Minnesota goal line and returns it 90 yards to score. Decorative illustration; the yard markings are schematic.
Thirteen Seasons, Season by Season
Every year Bryant played, with games, starts, interceptions, return yardage and interception returns for touchdowns.
| Season | Games | Starts | Int | Int return yards | Int TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | 14 | 0 | 2 | 60 | 1 |
| 1969 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 97 | 0 |
| 1970 | 11 | 10 | 3 | 40 | 1 |
| 1971 | 13 | 6 | 3 | 51 | 0 |
| 1972 | 14 | 14 | 4 | 82 | 0 |
| 1973 | 14 | 14 | 7 | 105 | 1 |
| 1974 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1975 | 14 | 14 | 6 | 111 | 0 |
| 1976 | 12 | 3 | 2 | 30 | 0 |
| 1977 | 14 | 14 | 4 | 44 | 0 |
| 1978 | 16 | 16 | 7 | 69 | 0 |
| 1979 | 14 | 14 | 2 | 50 | 0 |
| 1980 | 14 | 12 | 3 | 10 | 0 |
| Career | 161 | 128 | 51 | 749 | 3 |
Postseason record
- Playoff games
- 14, across nine seasons
- Playoff starts
- 13
- Playoff interceptions
- 6, for 80 return yards
- Longest playoff return
- 63 yards, for a touchdown, 1973 NFC Championship Game
- Postseason touchdowns
- 2 — the 1973 interception return and the 1976 blocked-field-goal return
His best interception season was 1969, when he picked off eight passes in ten games and was named second-team All-Pro by the Associated Press. The seven-interception seasons of 1973 and 1978 came nine years apart, which is a fair summary of how long he stayed useful.
Beyond the interceptions, Bryant recovered 14 fumbles in the regular season and returned one of them for a touchdown, in 1972. He was also used as a return man early on, handling 69 punt returns and 22 kickoff returns across his career, most of them in 1968, 1973 and 1975. Four regular-season touchdowns in all: three off interceptions, one off a fumble.
Second Only to Krause
On regular-season interceptions recorded as a Viking, Bryant sits one place and two interceptions behind the man who played free safety next to him.
Interceptions as a Minnesota Viking
-
1. Paul Krause53
-
2. Bobby Bryant51
Krause was traded to Minnesota from Washington in 1968, the same year Bryant played his first NFL game. For the twelve seasons that followed they lined up in the same secondary: Krause at free safety reading the quarterback from depth, Bryant at right corner. Krause retired after 1979 with 53 Vikings interceptions and an NFL career record of 81. Bryant played one more year and finished with 51.
Counting playoff games as well, the Vikings credit Bryant with 57 interceptions, which they describe as a franchise best. Both framings are in the record; the difference is simply whether postseason games are included.
Honors, Super Bowls and the Ring
Two Pro Bowls, four Super Bowl teams that all lost, and a Ring of Honor induction that arrived forty-four years after his last game.
member, 2024
The Vikings announced on July 16, 2024 that Bryant would join their Ring of Honor. He was inducted at halftime of Minnesota’s Week 3 game against the Houston Texans at U.S. Bank Stadium on September 22, 2024, a 34–7 Vikings win. He became the 28th member of the Ring of Honor, its third defensive back and its first cornerback.
He remains the most recently inducted member. The club has announced that Adrian Peterson will become the 29th, in a ceremony scheduled for November 9, 2026 against the Buffalo Bills.
Pro Bowls
Two selections, in back-to-back seasons at the end of his twenties and start of his thirties.
- 1975
- 1976
All-Pro and club honours
Named second-team All-Pro by the Associated Press after his eight-interception 1969 season. Named to the Vikings’ 50 Greatest Vikings list in 2010.
- 1969 · AP 2nd team
- 2010 · 50 Greatest
Not a Hall of Famer
Bryant has not been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and does not appear among its members. His recognition is a club one: the Ring of Honor, the 50 Greatest Vikings list, and two Pro Bowls.
Jersey number
Bryant wore No. 20. It has not been retired by the Vikings; the club’s retired numbers are 10, 53, 70, 77, 80 and 88.
The four Super Bowls
Minnesota reached four Super Bowls while Bryant was on the roster — IV after the 1969 season, VIII after 1973, IX after 1974 and XI after 1976 — and lost all four. The franchise has never won a Super Bowl.
Bryant played in two of them. A knee injury kept him out of Super Bowl IV, and he appeared in no postseason games at all in 1974, the season injury limited him to one regular-season appearance, so Super Bowl IX passed him by as well. He started in Super Bowl VIII, following the 1973 season, and in Super Bowl XI, following 1976 — the two the Vikings reached by way of the NFC Championship Games in which he scored.
The Purple People Eaters front four he played behind — Carl Eller, Jim Marshall, Alan Page and Gary Larsen — is covered separately. Read the Carl Eller profile.
Forty-Four Years to the Ring
Bobby Bryant played his last game for Minnesota in 1980 and waited until September 2024 to have his name put on the wall at U.S. Bank Stadium. He was the 28th man to get there, and the first cornerback.