Last night’s shocking Thursday Night Football game in which the New York Giants stunned the Philadelphia Eagles commenced week six of the 2025 NFL season. The week is a meaningful one for the state of Minnesota because the Vikings don’t have to play a game this weekend.
Reeling with injuries and marred with uncertainty at the QB position, the wounded Vikings limp into the bye with a fortuitous 3-2 record. I use that adjective because when watching these games, this doesn’t look like a team that should have more wins than losses.
If a caged prisoner in some underground cave was forced to watch all 20 quarters of Vikings football in a row, without a score bug on the screen, their impression would be that this team surely has a losing record. If you remove the Cincinnati game from the equation and run that same exercise, their impression would be that this team stinks.
This admittedly limited five-game sample size has presented mostly bad tape; two of the three wins required late game heroics against objectively bad teams. I don’t care if the Browns have an elite defense, I don’t care that the Browns beat the Packers. It’s the Browns, the most inept organization in pro sports. Cleveland started Dillon Gabriel in London on a few days notice and almost won.
This is what I’ve taken away from this team game by game. I’m not looking back at highlights or pulling up stats, just going off the cuff.
Game One: Win at Chicago
McCarthy’s first NFL play was almost a delay of game, the Vikings seem to be playing with fire when it comes to the play clock, it’s infuriating to watch. They go three and out. For three quarters, they go three and out often, I think it took them three or four drives to get a first down. McCarthy is having balls tipped at the line, throwing passes into the dirt, taking sacks, looking completely unprepared for what playing in the NFL requires.
Then, the pick six. In classic Vikings fashion, our young franchise quarterback throws his first NFL TD pass to the other team. Maybe Jefferson messed up on the break of his route. Doesn’t matter, I will never blame number 18 for any of this team’s blunders.
It seems all is lost, the Bears look awesome, Caleb is making crazy, off-platform throws. Then the fourth quarter begins and McCarthy turns it on. Two passing touchdowns and rushing touchdown to dagger Chicago. The young QB made some awesome throws. He fit that touchdown ball to JJ in a tight window under pressure. The rushing touchdown was so fun to watch after a half decade of Cousins. JJ McCarthy wins NFC offensive player of the week. We have our guy, the new Vikings have finally arrived. Onto Atlanta.
Is McCarthy a clutch performer, a guy who will dig deep and pull out a win when it matters most? Or do the Bears just stink. 1-0.
Game Two: Loss vs Atlanta.
Sunday Night Football, at home, wearing the classic jerseys from the Tarkenton days, all the hype and optimism in the world. They host Atlanta; a team largely perceived as being not very good. Minnesota beat them with Jaren Hall and Josh Dobbs less than two years ago.
Even more interesting is that the Falcons have fully committed to QB Micheal Penix Jr., a guy that a lot of people wanted Minnesota to draft (myself included) but Atlanta beat them to the punch. Penix also started for a Washington Huskies team that lost to McCarthy’s Michigan Wolverines in the 2023 national title game. You think this wasn’t a bit personal for him?
Thinking back to 2023, Penix was more impressive than McCarthy in every facet of throwing the football. His drawbacks? Very suspect injury history, two ACLs I think. He’s also a lefty which freaks a lot of talent evaluators out. Most importantly, he’s not known as a runner whatsoever. He looked to be an ideal replacement to fill the void left by Cousins. I guess he did end up doing that.
Ironically 18 or so months after that fateful draft, it’s McCarthy who’s fledgling career is riddled with injuries while Penix has unlocked the Falcon offense, getting Pitts, London and Bijan involved, something they haven’t been able to figure out until now.
This game was an extension of the first game if you take out the fourth quarter of the Bears game. McCarthy is a deer in headlights, they get nothing done offensively and only muster up six points in the home opener and don’t even score a touchdown. Is the offensive line bad? Yes. Were we sold a bill of goods that this offensive line would be awesome and that JJM has the best scenario ever handed to a rookie QB? Also yes.
The Falcons went on to lose by like 40 to Carolina the next week. I’m not even sure they scored a point, a real quality club, those Panthers.
So that’s eight quarters of football. Seven of them looked horrific, sloppy, stagnant, soul-draining. One quarter was admittedly awesome and is the only tangent of hope any Vikes fan can cling onto at this juncture. 1-1.
Game Three: Win vs Cincinnati
McCarthy suffers an ankle injury and will miss time. Just like the preseason injury from last year, we find out after the fact and it’s difficult to pinpoint the play where it happened; he didn’t leave the game. Then, JJM misses practice that week because he has a child at 22 years old. Not even married, quite ungodly if you ask me.
So now we have a very young quarterback who’s dealt with injuries throughout his brief pro career after never having dealt with that before. Throw in the obstacles of becoming a father while the mental health of 5.5 million Minnesotans rides on his success as a quarterback. Most 22 year olds crumble under these circumstances. We will find out soon enough if this kid is half as tough as Michigan fans insist he is.
Dark clouds loom in the distance once again. It’s Carson Wentz time.
The game was over before it started. Jake Browning and the Bengals are so bad that Minnesota’s offense could have knelt the ball out every drive and the Vikings still would have won.
Watching the defensive performance gave me a lot of hope for the team going forward. Maybe the team plays lights out and minimizes what they task McCarthy with and they stay afloat that way.
Carson Wentz got to pad his stats in a game where every snap he took was virtually meaningless. This would have been an awesome game to have JJ start. Allow the kid to make some successful throws and play carefree football against an NFL defense and put some good tape out there. Wentz got to do that instead. 2-1.
Game Four: Loss in Dublin to the Steelers.
Rodgers did Rodgers things; he was cerebral, he got the ball out fast all game and the Vikes just didn’t have a chance. A late comeback allowed for some hope but a few fluky plays kind of kept them in it. In the end, they don’t get it done. 2-2. It was 7:30 am where I live and I was at work. I didn’t get much out of this one.
Game Five: Win in London vs Browns.
Dillon Gabriel was accurate in short passes but his deep ball is just brutal. Losing to the Browns would have been such a kick in the dick and it took them almost four quarters to finally figure it out. A few 50-50 balls to number 18 kept them alive. I seriously can’t fathom what this team would look like without Justin Jefferson. We owe Rick Spielman an apology; a thanks at the very least. 3-2.
Now it’s the bye week and the Vikes are 3-2. It’s an ugly 3-2, admittedly, but they have a winning record. For now.
Decimated by injuries already, a millions question marks regarding the offense and a pissed off Philly team on the horizon. Now the Vikings are tasked with navigating what I’d call the teeth of the schedule. The next four games go as such: Eagles at home, at Chargers, at Lions, Ravens at home.
Call me a pessimist but I don’t expect Vegas to have the Vikings favored in any of those games, especially if McCarthy’s play doesn’t improve dramatically.
That’s assuming he plays at all.
If the vikings are lucky, they steal one of those games and sit at 4-4. Mind you they still have the Lions once and the Packers twice still on the schedule. We will unfortunately (or maybe not) be forced to see what this team is made of.
Jaxson Dart looked so composed yet imposing last night, the opposite of what JJM has shown us, a lot of parallels can be drawn between the Vikings and Giants. Watching New York, a largely inept organization as of late, succeed in what we failed to do, was frustrating at the very least. New York used two first round picks on a QB and highly regarded defender In their case: Dart and Carter. In Minnesota’s case: McCarthy and Turner.
Abdul Carter is a monster. Nobody expected Dallas Turner to be that kind of player but considering the draft capital management relinquished in order to draft him, you kind of need him to be that kind of gamebreaking player.
One could argue that draft capital is virtually worthless to this team because Kwesi has done absolutely nothing to show the fan base that he has any talent evaluation skills whatsoever. They might as well give up five, six, seven first round picks for a top tier veteran QB. What’s the point of having picks if none of them ever pan out?
Lets look at some Kwesi first and second rounders.
- Lewis Cine: No longer on the team. That was a huge miss considering they traded back to get him, passing on Kyle Hamilton.
- Andrew Booth Jr: No longer on the team.
- Addison: Hit. Off the field issues could be, well, an issue.
- JJ McCarthy: jury is out but not looking good.
- Turner: same as McCarthy.
- Donovan Jackson: Has already had a surgery five games into his career.
- No second round pick in 2025 because of Turner.
There have been some diamonds in the rough like Reichard and Nailor. That’s three whole drafts and they have three productive players to show for it.
Seeing Minnesota’s draft picks and FA signings flop should make the fanbase extremely skeptical, even hostile towards Kwesi’s handling of the team. He brings in all these guys that are supposed to create the greatest offensive line in the history of Vikings football and it’s all but certain those five guys will never, ever take the field at the same time.
Is it Kwesi’s fault they all got injured, no. Did he know a lot of these guys had injury history and still went all in with them, he absolutely did. That’s why they were available to begin with.
Is it Kwesi’s fault they all got injured, no. Did he know a lot of these guys had injury history and still went all in with them, he absolutely did. That’s why they were available to begin with.
Throw in the fact that Daniel Jones and Sam Darnold, both on this team last season, look like sure pro bowlers? I don’t see how anybody can have trust in KOC or Kwesi right now.
Maybe McCarthy comes form and makes me look like an ass. I hope that’s the case. I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong. I hope more than anything I have to eat these words. I just don’t see it.
Expect another rebuild. This time, it won’t be a competitive one.
mitchlinsley.com 
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