December 30, 1973. The NFC Championship game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings were leading 10-7 in the third quarter when a pass from Dallas quarterback Roger Staubach got deflected. Jeff Siemon collected the ball where it fell, not a read of the quarterback’s eyes, but a linebacker in exactly the right place. It was a kind of steady contribution that rarely led to a highlight reel, but that’s how Minnesota will remember him now.
Jeff Siemon, the four-time Pro Bowl linebacker who wore No. 50 for 11 seasons for the Vikings, passed away on March 28, 2026. He was 75, and no cause for his passing has been made public at this time. The Vikings confirmed his passing through a social media post.
“The #Vikings are mourning the passing of Jeff Siemon,” the team wrote in an Instagram post’s caption. “Siemon, a 1st round pick in 2971, was a 4-time Pro Bowler and was named one of the 50 Greatest Vikings in 2010.”
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Siemon arrived in Minnesota the same year quarterback Fran Tarkenton returned. The franchise had traded Tarkenton in 1967 and brought him back in 1972, a signal that they were chasing a championship window. Siemon, the 10th overall pick from Stanford, was drafted into it. For six seasons, Tarkenton improvised while Siemon ran the defense. Together, they reached three Super Bowls, but unfortunately couldn’t win a single one.
Behind the ‘Purple People Eaters’ line of Alan Page, Carl Eller, Gary Larsen, and Jim Marshall, Siemon called assignments and absorbed contacts. He played in 156 games (124 started) without missing one across nine consecutive seasons. The Vikings credit him with 1,375 career tackles, third-best in franchise history behind Scott Studwell and Matt Blair.
After playing for 11 years (1972 – 1982), Jeff Siemon didn’t pursue a broadcast career. He earned a master’s in Christian Apologetics from the Simon Greenleaf School of Law in 1984. He then led the Minnesota chapter of Search Ministries for the years that followed. He and his wife, Dawn, raised four children in Edina.
