Francis Asbury Tarkenton (born February 3, 1940), nicknamed "the Scrambler", is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Minnesota Vikings.

[1][2][3] He played college football for the Georgia Bulldogs, where he was recognized as a twice first-team All-SEC, and was selected by the Vikings in the third round of the 1961 NFL draft.

[6] Under head coach Wally Butts and with Tarkenton as quarterback, Georgia won the Southeastern Conference championship in 1959.

[19] Tarkenton did not get along with team coach Norm Van Brocklin, who did not like his penchant for scrambling.

[21][22][23][24][24][25][26] In his first year with the Giants, Tarkenton passed for a then-career high 3,088 yards and a career high 29 touchdown passes en route to a 7–7 record, a huge improvement for a team that had finished 1-12-1 the year before.

After trailing 23–10 in the fourth quarter, Tarkenton threw two touchdown passes to secure a 24–23 comeback victory over his former team.

However, New York was routed 31–3 by the Los Angeles Rams at Yankee Stadium to finish at 9–5, one game behind the division champion Dallas Cowboys and the wild card Detroit Lions.

[32] On January 27, 1972, Tarkenton was traded back to the Vikings for quarterback Norm Snead, receiver Bob Grim, running back Vince Clements, a first rounder in 1972 (24th overall: Larry Jacobson, defensive lineman) and a second rounder in 1973 (40th overall: Brad Van Pelt, linebacker).

[40] He also is eighth on the all-time list of regular-season wins by a starting quarterback with 124 regular season victories.

During his career, Tarkenton ran for a touchdown in 15 different seasons, an NFL record among quarterbacks.

He ranks seventh in career rushing yards among quarterbacks, behind Randall Cunningham, Lamar Jackson, Steve Young, Michael Vick, Cam Newton, and Russell Wilson.

[41] He is also one of four NFL quarterbacks ever to rush for at least 300 yards in seven different seasons; the others are Cam Newton, Michael Vick, and Tobin Rote.

The Vikings finished the 1975 season with an NFC-best 12–2 record and Tarkenton won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and the NFL Offensive Player of the Year Award while capturing All-Pro honors in the process.

[52][53][54] Despite not winning a Super Bowl, he won six playoff games, and in 1999 he was ranked #59 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players.

Tarkenton co-wrote with Brock Yates a book in 1971 titled Broken Patterns: The Education of a Quarterback, a chronicle of the 1970 New York Giants season.

[60] In 1986, Tarkenton, with author Herb Resincow, wrote a novel titled Murder at the Super Bowl, the whodunit story of a football coach killed just before his team is to participate in the championship game.

[65] Mark McCormack helped Tarkenton invest, making him wealthy enough to "retire this week if [he] wanted to", as New York magazine wrote in 1971.

According to the L.A. Times, "In Tarkenton's case, the Hall of Fame quarterback and 10 other former executives of his computer software and consulting firm, KnowledgeWare Inc., were accused of inflating by millions of dollars the company's earnings in reports for its fiscal year ended June 30, 1994.