Where did all the feelings go? What about that happy glow? Was that so long ago, when we were first in love?
-Neil Young, Mr. Disappointment
When J.J. McCarthy hit Jalen Nailor on a 3rd-and-5 to seal a victory at Ford Field over the Detroit Lions, it really felt like the Minnesota Vikings had finally found their footing for this 2025 season and were, potentially, getting ready to turn the corner.
That was three weeks ago. At this point, it feels like about three years ago.
After losing a couple of winnable games against Baltimore and Chicago, the Vikings decided to just not even show up for yesterday’s game at Lambeau Field, falling by a score of 23-6 in a game that, honestly, never really felt that close. The loss dropped them to 4-7 and, effectively, ended the competitive portion of the 2025 season. Even if this team does manage to run the table. . .and there’s, essentially, no chance of that happening. . .a seven-loss team is not going to make the playoffs in the NFC this year. We’re not going to insult everyone’s intelligence with playoff pictures or anything like that, because this team isn’t in that picture, and they’re not going to find their way into it going forward.
This is season number twenty for this website covering this football team, and while there have been some bad seasons in the past, I don’t think I can recall a season as disappointing as this one. You can maybe make a case for 2010, but at least 2010 wound up being one of the weirder seasons in franchise history, at least towards the end. This season, on the other hand, has just turned into something dreary and dreadful.
Yes, the reason that everyone is going to focus on is going to be McCarthy, and that’s completely understandable, given the position he plays and the way that he’s looked. Again, barring an injury, I still think the Vikings stay with him for the rest of the season, so take that for what it’s worth. The talent is in there. We know the talent is in there. We’ve seen it. But, for whatever reason, it’s not happening. It has happened, but it’s not happening consistently enough. We’ve beaten that horse to death and, in all likelihood, will continue to do so until it turns completely into glue over the coming weeks and months.
Having said that, there are a lot of other issues at play here as well, as nearly every other big move the Vikings made this offseason has backfired spectacularly. In no particular order:
- The Vikings made Byron Murphy Jr. one of the ten highest-paid cornerbacks in the NFL this offseason. Maybe my memory is fuzzy, but I’m having trouble recalling one meaningful play he’s made this season.
- The Vikings spent big money on Jon Allen and Javon Hargrave in the hopes of upgrading their pass rush. There have been multiple weeks where they’ve been outplayed by Jalen Redmond, Levi Drake Rodriguez, and Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins. They also traded away Harrison Phillips, who seems like a guy they could use.
- Will Fries and Ryan Kelly were supposed to solidify the interior of the offensive line. Fries has fallen well short of expectations, while Kelly has once again been plagued by the concussion issues he dealt with in Indianapolis.
I won’t say all the moves have been bad because Jordan Mason is doing alright for himself so far, I think. Donovan Jackson appears to have been a really solid draft pick, too.
On top of that, nobody appears to really be afraid of the Brian Flores defense anymore. The splash plays that this defense has been known for over the past couple of seasons are now basically non-existent. The Vikings haven’t forced a turnover since Blake Cashman forced a fumble from David Montgomery in the third quarter of the Lions game in Week 9. In fact, for the entire season, the Vikings’ defense has forced just nine turnovers. And of those nine turnovers, five of them came in one game. . .when the Vikings blew out the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 3. And of those five turnovers, four of them came in one half. So, the Vikings’ defense generated nearly half of their turnovers for the season thus far during one thirty-minute stretch of football that occurred over two months ago.
Week 3 was also the last time this team won the turnover battle this season, if you’re scoring at home.
Outside of those two quarters, they’re averaging around one turnover every two weeks. In contrast, through the first 11 games of last season, the Vikings’ defense had generated 22 turnovers. The Vikings’ offense was still turning the ball over at a decent clip last season. . .through the first 11 games of 2024, they had turned the ball over 18 times. But, they were still a +4 in turnover ratio through those 11 games (18 turnovers, 22 forced) as opposed to the whopping -12 they’re at this season (21 turnovers, 9 forced). So far this season, the entire cornerback depth chart has managed one interception: the Isaiah Rodgers pick-six back in Week 3. Last year, the team’s cornerbacks combined for nine, including six by Murphy.
For some more perspective on the nine forced turnovers. . .the Bengals, who have three wins this season and, by most measures, are considered to be a historically bad defense, have ten. The Tennessee Titans, who have won one game this season, have ten. The Las Vegas Raiders and New Orleans Saints, both of whom have won two games this year, each have thirteen. None of those defenses has the reputation that the Vikings’ defense has.
Then there’s special teams, which seems to contribute at least one “what the hell are you doing” moment per game at this point.
Whether it’s committing dumb penalties to take big returns off the board or doing any number of other dumb things, the special teams has had its fair share of issues this season, too. Except for Will Reichard, who can apparently only be stopped by camera wires. Man, remember last year at this time when we were all worried about Will Reichard?
So, where do we go from here? I don’t know. The Kwesi Adofo-Mensah/Kevin O’Connell regime had built up a lot of goodwill coming into this season, but it appears that they’ve blown through most of it faster than Tyrone Biggums blows through lottery winnings. I don’t know if anyone is in danger of losing their jobs or anything like that, but at the very least, the whole plan needs to be re-evaluated going into 2026. This team needs to find McCarthy a physiologist or a psychologist or a witch doctor or something in order to get whatever issues he has figured out, and they have to have a better second option to turn to in the event that they can’t fix him.
Beyond that, as much as it saddens me to say it, the rest of this season for the Vikings is about evaluation. They need to figure out who’s going to be a part of this team next year and beyond, because this season is officially a lost cause. We’ll still be here, though, come hell or high water, and we hope that you’ll continue to hang with us as well.
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