Paul Krause arrived in Minnesota in 1968 after four seasons with the Washington Redskins and immediately became the centerpiece of the Vikings’ secondary. He had already led the NFL in interceptions as a rookie and earned All-Pro honors twice in Washington, but the bulk of his long career would unfold in purple. For the next twelve seasons, he patrolled the deep middle and gave the defense a reliable ball hawk behind the Purple People Eaters.

Krause relied more on range and instincts than pure physicality. He read routes quickly, closed on the ball in the air, and rarely took bad angles. That style produced consistent interceptions without requiring him to be a hard-hitting enforcer in the box. In his first year with the Vikings, he picked off seven passes. The following season he added five more, including a touchdown return, as Minnesota reached its first Super Bowl.

He started in all four of the team’s Super Bowl appearances in the 1970s and remained a fixture through every playoff run of that era. His presence forced quarterbacks to account for the free safety on every deep throw. Krause earned six Pro Bowl selections while in Minnesota and collected his third career first-team All-Pro honor in 1975. That season he intercepted ten passes for 201 yards, the second time in his career he reached double digits.

Those numbers matched another strong Vikings defense and another Super Bowl trip. He continued producing into the late 1970s even as the team’s championship window began to close, still relying on the same ball-hawking approach that had defined him from the start. Krause played through the 1979 season and retired after that final year.

In his last campaign, he recorded three interceptions, the final two of which pushed his career total past the previous record. With the Vikings, he finished with 53 interceptions across 12 seasons. Those picks, combined with the 28 he had recorded earlier in Washington, gave him the all-time NFL mark of 81, a record that still stands.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted him in 1998, the same year the Vikings placed him in their Ring of Honor.