My wife asked me this morning when she woke up how the Minnesota Vikings game turned out.
I was tempted to go into a long diatribe about how beat up they were, with three replacement offensive linemen, a backup quarterback with a debilitating shoulder injury, and missing one of their best pass rushers on defense.
I thought about the schematic failure to continue to get gouged on quarterback runs, the inability to cover the tight end, and the inability to make opponents earn their yardage in the running game. I also felt compelled to mention that the offensive game plan that had managed to cobble together something akin to a workable unit with Carson Wentz at the helm against the Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles had devolved into a complete aberration that neither played to Wentz’s limited skill set nor sought to hide it in any meaningful way.
Ultimately, though, brevity won out.
“They’re a bad football team,” I said, “and they got beat like one.”
Those who follow this franchise are no strangers to complete, unmitigated disasters in primetime. Much had been made online this week about their terrible 0-7 (now 0-8) record on the road on TNF, but even those 0-7 losses weren’t all complete dumpster fires like yesterday’s poor showing. That was a primetime embarrassment of Josh Freeman in 2013-esque proportions.
It’s the type of disaster that demands answers. Fans are looking at both playcallers with disdain — and with good reason. That was one of KOC’s worst games as a playcaller that I can remember, even considering the incredibly bad hand he’d been dealt from a health standpoint.
All of the rollout, play-action, and pocket movement that Carson Wentz had shown some comfort with was absent. Despite having a quarterback whose already-suspect accuracy got increasingly more compromised by the minute as a result of his injury, there was no attempt at any sort of balance tonight. They ran the ball a total of nine times tonight, before Zavier Scott’s two carries for 16 yards in complete garbage time.
Surprising but unsurprising stat: the Vikings offense has the highest negative play rate in the league
— Ted Nguyen (@FB_FilmAnalysis) October 23, 2025
Going into this game, the Vikings’ run/pass rate was around 40/60%. Lower run rate than last year. This Chargers run defense also 30th in success rate. https://t.co/uqEbCiakvi
— Alec Lewis (@alec_lewis) October 24, 2025
At least KOC can play the injury card when the blame game starts. Brian Flores isn’t so fortunate.
Minnesota’s defense got smoked, even with most of its pieces in place. The Los Angeles Chargers’ interior defensive line was repeatedly blown off the ball in the running game, the linebackers and safeties had no answers for rookie tight end Oronde Gadsden or slot receiver Ladd McConkey, and they made Kimani Vidal look like an All-Pro running the football. LA’s offense is talented, and Justin Herbert has been on a heater all season, but that still doesn’t excuse them from moving the ball as effortlessly as a hot knife through butter.
Justin Herbert finished 13 of 15 for 162 yards, 2 TDs & INT against the Vikings’ blitz, his fourth-most yards against the blitz in his career.
The last time Herbert faced the Vikings (Week 3, 2023), Herbert was 32 of 38, 301 yards & 3 TDs against the blitz.
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— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) October 24, 2025
Despite the many failures in game plan, play calling, and execution, I’d argue that Thursday night ultimately came down to one thing above all else: personnel. The Vikings failed in all aspects of personnel: acquisition and utilization.
The defining trait of the Kwesi Adofo-Mensah era in Minnesota has been his efforts to find positive value in the pro-personnel department. We all know how spotty Adofo-Mensah’s draft record can be, but this team has still been competitive under this regime primarily due to their continued hits in free agency and the trade market.
And they’ve managed to do so because of a market inefficiency clearly identified by Kwesi early on in his tenure: Injured players are a good deal.
Injuries are random. Healthy players get hurt all the time, and so-called “injury-prone” players bounce back and sometimes stay healthy. When they do, the bargain-bin shopping at another team’s rehab center can work out to a really positive return on investment. Look at Byron Murphy as a prime example.
However, this season has also shown how that philosophy can backfire. This season has been plagued by veterans in prominent positions on this team being sidelined by health issues. When your roster is this old and has this much injury risk, it’s bound to catch up with you eventually.
But there’s also just some misplaced faith in healthy players that is now haunting this team. Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen have had their moments, but have really disappointed overall on the interior. Jeff Okudah is not good enough to be the third cornerback on a team looking to contend. Theo Jackson and Josh Metellus have not been able to fill Cam Bynum’s void. It’s led to a defense that isn’t generating any pressure without blitzing, can’t cover checkdowns and outlets when they blitz, and can’t stop the run.
Vikings basically used the money they would have had to pay Sam Darnold to overhaul their OL this offseason.
They haven’t had Darnold OR a solid O-line yet this season.
— Sam Monson (@SamMonsonNFL) October 24, 2025
The offense isn’t much prettier. Will Fries has been quietly disappointing, and Ryan Kelly has been sidelined. Sam Howell and Brett Rypien were never good enough to be the backup quarterbacks to a player with J.J. McCarthy’s health concerns, and making a desperation pivot to Carson Wentz clearly wasn’t sufficient either. No one’s offense looks great with a backup quarterback, but the truncated version KOC has had to run with a guy who didn’t have an offseason to learn it is particularly awful, especially with half the offensive line out each week.
Just as puzzling as the personnel decision by the front office are the utilization decisions by the coaching staff.
It looks like Minnesota’s coaching staff has mismanaged Darrisaw’s strange injury situation from the get-go. Whether they naively thought he’d be back to start the season or believed Justin Skule could suffice in his absence, both have turned out to be completely wrong. Darrisaw’s injury situation seems to be devolving rapidly, and they don’t have viable starters to play behind him. If they’d simply rested him throughout the preseason rather than getting him back to practice so soon, or planned to let him sit until he was truly 100%, they might not still be in limbo in Week 7.
I understand Michael Jurgens is no savior in Ryan Kelly’s stead, but why are they still so fixated on this Blake Brandel experiment at center? Snaps have been inconsistent, there’ve been missed blocks, and you’re asking a guy to play out of position compared to a player in Jurgens that repped there all offseason. If Brandel had been some grand revelation at the position, I’d understand, but they seem infatuated with a passable performance a few weeks ago and now refuse to stick to their original plan.
Then there’s the McCarthy circus, which, if they had effectively messaged the injury timeline to the media, wouldn’t have turned into such a mess. Instead, we’ve got local and national media arguing over whether the quarterback of the future has been “soft-benched.” I’m not advocating for rushing McCarthy out before he’s truly healthy and set up for success. Still, they’ve bungled the situation from the start, with mixed messaging and the decision to fly him overseas while he was still nursing the injury.
I still think Kevin O’Connell and Brian Flores are good coaches and quality play-callers. I think Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has a track record of building competitive rosters during his tenure with the Vikings. But if they can’t find a way to resolve their problems with the bodies in the building, whether that’s bringing quality ones in, showing others the exit, or figuring out what the hell your plan is for the ones you’ve got, this season could get even uglier.
The bones of the roster are worth investing in. This isn’t a tear-down situation. But they need to take a hard look in the mirror and figure out how these pieces either fit together or don’t. And they need to do it quickly.