The competitve part of the season is pretty much over and was over before the Seahawks game. Nothing that happened in that game is that big of a deal to me including the 4th down play that resulted in the pick six. The team would only have a 11% chance of making the playoffs if they had somehow won the game.
The season has been a disaster. Injury to offensive linemen and a couple of key defenders (for a little bit) really have hurt. But the play of the Quarterbacks has been the main reason why the offense is abysmal. You really could not have expected too much better either. I did expect to see JJ play decently though. His high ankle sprain that kept him out of 6 games certainly has not helped his development.
I see all of the chatter about KAM and KOC being on the hot seat and even some folks calling for one or the other or both getting fired. I do not believe they will or should be fired. Yes, the QB decision is on them and now they have to fix it. I am not sure what that will be right now. These next five games will be critical for JJ. First, he simply must remain healthy. Second, he has to be more accurate. I am hoping he does these two things and gives the team (and us fans) something to be hopeful about for 2026. It is going to be tough though. The Cowboys, Giants, Lions, and Packers will all likely have something to play for.
So, why do I think KAM should keep his job. First, the Wilfs just extended him. That should be enough reason right there.
Most fans think his drafting is terrible. 2022 was bad for sure. But he is not that bad since then compared to other teams. A lot of teams only have 2 to 3 players from their 2022 draft class remaining or likely to be retained.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/draft.htm
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/dal/draft.htm
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/jax/draft.htm
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nwe/draft.htm
All he has left from the 2022 class is Nailor and Chandler both of whom can be gone next offseason.
In 2023, he has Addison, Hockenson (have to count the trade), and Ward.
In 2024, he has JJ, Turner, Rouse, Reichard, Jurgens, and Rodriguez. This was a very strong draft as long as JJ and Turner pan out.
He should get better though. He missed out on trading down last year with the Falcons which would have given him two first round picks this year. If he did that though, who would be the left guard? Brandel?
I do not think his free agent pickups have been bad either. Hargrave and Kelly got 2 year deals with significant cap savings in 2026 if they are let go. Allen got a 3 year deal and they would save 18.34M if they let him go in 2027. Rodgers only got a two year deal. Fries is the only one to get a 5 year deal. I would have preferred for him to try and sign Drew Dalman for 14M per year rather than Kelly for 9M per year.
I think they can have a strong draft and decent free agency with a handful of moves.
I do not think it is worth discussing KOC. Plenty of folks were shooting down the thought of trading him away to another team before the season started. Others are questioning his QB whispering abilities. I am not even sure where that onikor came from. Probably some doofus like myself wrote about it and then it took off. As usual, the sheep gobbled it up.
He is in his fourth year as a head coach and has had very good results when he did not have injuries to his QBs. Can he get better? You betcha. Will he get better? I would bet on it.
I seriously doubt either one of these two will be going anywhere this offseason. Thus, I am not going to write about it any more.
What can the team do next offseason and especially at the QB position. It all depends on JJ these next 5 games. The free agent QBs next year do not look very promosing. I have to believe that Indy will offer Jones and decent enough deal to keep him. That leave Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Marcus Mariota, Zach Wilson, Tyrod Taylor, Joe Flacco, and some others that are not very interesting. I doubt the 49ers will trade Mac Jones either. They need him in case something happens to Purdy. They will have massive leverage too. I do not think the Giants will trade Jameis Winston (some of you would not want him anyway). They need him to backup Dart. I think Mariota will stay in Washington but he might come here especially if he thinks JJ might struggle.
I cannot see drafting another QB early either. The pickings look very slim. It would not surprise me to see a lot of players remain in school.
We really need JJ to pan out. If they cannot trade for any QB then I could live with Rodgers or Russell Wilson.
It is interesting to read all the comments from people who believe the team needs to tear it down and build it back up with a different contractor. I think many fans got caught up in the McCarthy hype and believed the season would be successful. The comments now reveal that most fans are not patient and do not want to wait a young QB to develop or not. Cant blame them for that because winning games is all that is important.
Minnesota Vikings News and Links
And soon, O’Connell and general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah will have to decide: Can the 22-year-old quarterback, six starts into his NFL career, be fixed, or is it already time to hit the reset button and move on?
The complication: O’Connell’s words before the season.
“I’ve thought a lot about this,” O’Connell told The Athletic back in early September. “And I’ve realized the most important part of a quarterback’s development is when it doesn’t go right. When there are growing pains, when there are struggles, that’s when you have to buckle up and put on your big-boy pants as a coach. You have to have a clear-cut plan on how you’re going to improve: what film to watch, what drills to do, how to measure progress, even if it’s really small.
“It’s our job as coaches to look inward first and exhaust every resource possible to get these guys to play like the best versions of themselves.”
…
Eye test aside, the data is even harsher — and it puts McCarthy in a category reserved for the NFL’s biggest quarterback misfires.
Stacked against every first-round QB since 2016 who saw consistent playing time in their first two seasons, McCarthy’s first six starts paint a stark picture. He ranks 34th out of 35 QBs in EPA per dropback (-0.34), 32nd in completion percentage (54.2%), 34th in turnover-worthy throws (7.5%), and dead last in interceptions (10) and passer rating (57.9).
(In its simplest form, EPA per dropback is the average number of points a quarterback creates [or loses] for his team every time he drops back.)
There’s more: while McCarthy has the best time-to–pressure numbers (2.73 seconds), he has one of the worst sack rates of all 35 QBs (11.2%, which ranks 31st), and his sacks-per-pressure rate of 25.3% is seventh worst. Without even watching a single snap, these metrics tell us that McCarthy holds the ball too long, drifts in the pocket, and when pressure finally gets home, he melts. He’s basically creating his own sacks. The protection is good; the decision-making isn’t.
If you’re looking for a glimmer of hope in the table above, Jared Goff might be it. He is the only quarterback in the past 10 drafts to get off to a slower start over his first six games than McCarthy, according to EPA per dropback. And like McCarthy, Goff struggled with completion percentage (53.5%), interceptions (seven) and passer rating (61.7).
To understand how first-round quarterbacks overcome early struggles, I compared their first six starts to their next 11 — which works out to a full 17-game season.
Goff didn’t truly become “Jared Goff, one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks,” until his 2021 breakout in Detroit, his sixth year in the league. But even in starts 7-17, he showed significant progress compared to his rocky first six outings.
Across those next 11 starts, Goff posted the largest EPA per dropback improvement of any of the 35 quarterbacks studied — nearly a half-point jump. Only Lamar Jackson (+0.35), Bo Nix (+0.33) and Baker Mayfield (+0.24) were even close. His completion percentage climbed from 53.5% to 61.5%, his TD-INT ratio improved from 5-7 to 16-4, and his passer rating skyrocketed from 61.7 to 97.9.
The McVay Factor: Improvement by design
Goff deserves credit for the quick improvement, but Sean McVay’s contribution was arguably more important. (Goff’s first seven starts came during his rookie season with head coach Jeff Fisher; starts 8-17 came in Year 2 with McVay, when the Rams went 11-5 and Goff made the Pro Bowl.) Essentially, McVay made it a priority to simplify the offense for Goff, never giving him more than he could handle. In fact, the first-year coach would err on the side of being too conservative over putting too much on the second-year quarterback’s plate.
If this sounds familiar it’s because it’s the same strategy Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels has used for young quarterbacks — most recently, Drake Maye, the No. 3 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. (He went seven spots ahead of McCarthy.)
“I always talk about it … you guys all had a bucket,” McDaniels told Julian Edelman last offseason. “And yours was a big bucket at the end like you could handle whatever we gave you. Well, when you take a young quarterback, it’s more like a cup. …
Most QBs in this hole never climb out
The answers to all these questions, based on what we’ve seen through six games from McCarthy, are not encouraging — not even a little bit. Goff is the only modern quarterback who climbed out of a hole deeper than McCarthy’s. Everyone else in this range — from Zach Wilson to Justin Fields to Paxton Lynch — stayed stuck.
Even Darnold, who won 14 games a season ago, and Daniel Jones, who spent the final six weeks of 2024 with the Vikings, had much better starts to their careers.
Neither quarterback improved over their next 11 starts — but they didn’t get worse, either. And sometimes just navigating your way through the growing pains of a full NFL season is reason enough to remain hopeful about a young quarterback’s prospects for success. And even then — and as O’Connell made clear in his comments before the season — you have to be patient enough to let that quarterback develop.
Sometimes that happens immediately (see Jayden Daniels, who balled out as a rookie but has struggled to stay healthy in 2025), sometimes it all comes together in Year 2 (Drake Maye is a legit MVP candidate), sometimes it takes several years and several teams for it to all come together (Mayfield, Darnold, Goff). And more often than not, it never works.
…
Let’s revisit the first table above and again look at those QBs with the lowest EPA per dropback over their first six starts.
Of the 12 names — all drafted between 2016 and 2025 — only four are with their original teams. All four were drafted in 2023 or later and are still on their rookie deals. (Bryce Young, Bo Nix, J.J. McCarthy and Cam Ward, and Young was benched two weeks into his second season before regaining the job several weeks later, and he’s remained the starter ever since)
The seven others not named Goff?
Mayfield lasted four seasons in Cleveland; Fields and Wilson lasted three seasons in Chicago and New York; Pickett and Lynch lasted two seasons in Pittsburgh and Denver; Haskins (who passed away in April 2022), didn’t last two full seasons in Washington; and Rosen lasted exactly one season in Arizona.
“I believe organizations fail young quarterbacks before young quarterbacks fail organizations,” O’Connell said last fall on “The Rich Eisen Show.”
There is a lot of truth to O’Connell’s words — and patience can save a young quarterback. But it can also sink a franchise. The Vikings have to decide which future they’re willing to bet on.
During the December 1 edition of “Get Up,” ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter weighed in on the possibility of Jefferson being fed up with the Vikings’ quarterback situation and demanding a trade.
“They’re going to speak to him, I’m sure, at some point in time and get some feedback and input as to the player that he would want,” Schefter said. “It’s hard to imagine that they would trade Justin Jefferson, but then again, a year ago, I would have said it’s hard to imagine the Dallas Cowboys would have traded Micah Parsons, and they did.
“I still don’t think they’re trading Justin Jefferson. I think he’s clearly miffed, disappointed, and bewildered by the way this entire season and offseason, losing Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones is gone. But I don’t think it’s going to change as much and I don’t think they’re going to be moving off Justin Jefferson this offseason.”
“I know this is gonna sound bold, but I think our offense is broken,” Leber said. “I think systemically, our offense is broken, and I’m not sure what it’s gonna take to fix it.”
“You know that line in Dumb & Dumber when one of them says ‘Just when I thought you couldn’t get any dumber, you go and do something like this?’ This is how I feel about this Vikings offense right now,” he said. “After last week to this week, just when I thought the offense couldn’t get any worse, they go out and have a performance like they did today.”
“Our offensive line is beat up, we’re injured, we missed the left side of our offensive line, we missed Ryan Kelly again in this game because of a hip injury, so we had three backups playing on our offensive line against maybe the best defensive front that we’ve played this whole season,” Leber said. “It’s not gonna work. Midway through the fourth quarter, we had 11 yards rushing. Awful. I know that we want to run the football, but it’s hard to when our offensive line can’t block anybody. They had seven guys in coverage most of the time, didn’t have to blitz. Brosmer’s out there running for his life, and then when he wasn’t he was throwing to guys that were covered.”
Normally, a team wouldn’t end up getting anything positive out of cutting a player with a $4 million cap hit before per-game roster bonuses, with a $1 million signing bonus and $3 million in base salary fully guaranteed.
When the NFL released the transaction wire, it wasn’t just a normal release, the Vikings released him with a non-injury settlement. What does that mean? Well, the Vikings could end up getting a reprieve on the salary cap.
…
With a non-injury settlement, it can mean several different things, including potential offset language that will allow the Vikings to recoup salary cap space. With five games to go, that number would be close to $1 million, and that will go a long way toward fixing the salary cap next year.
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