Minnesota Vikings linebacker Jonathan Greenard hopes he and his teammates don’t have to play back-to-back games in Europe again any time soon.
Sunday saw the Vikings’ double-headed 10-day European tour come to an end, with Minnesota escaping Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with a 21-17 win over Cleveland, having lost a week prior in Dublin to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Heading into the final throes of the fourth quarter in North London, Carson Wentz connected with wide receiver Jordan Addison on a game-winning touchdown pass with just 25 seconds left.
With the overseas trip now in the rearview mirror, head coach Kevin O’Connell and his team will spend the next week resting on their bye week ahead of taking on the Philadelphia Eagles next time out.
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Such is the popularity of the NFL, it does not seem unthinkable that a team could end up doing another double header overseas in the future, with Minnesota having become the first team in league history to play back-to-back games in different European countries.
However, in Greenard’s mind, he hopes the Vikings won’t be heading overseas for an extended period of time again anytime soon.
“I’ll be the first to say I would not like to do back-to-back, but that’s not in my control,” said Greenard when asked by Mirror U.S. Sports if he would prefer to play two games overseas consecutively, rather than have to make two trips.
“Ultimately, man, somebody had to do it. It was us, but at the end of the day, we made the best of it. We could sit here, like I say, Kevin is always making a point of all week of, ‘You want an excuse, you’re going to find it. You go looking for it, you’re going to find it.’
“We didn’t let that affect us. Obviously we took an L in Dublin. Came back down here and was like, listen, we have to get back right coming into the bye week, and it always feels better to have a W coming into the bye week.”
The trip did have its benefits for the Vikings, at least in the eyes of star receiver Justin Jefferson. Asked about the identity of the 2025 Vikings by Mirror U.S. Sports, Jefferson explained that Minnesota is still searching for it, but they are closer to finding it after their European adventures.
“What I can say is there’s a lot of character traits about this team that are phenomenal, and I’m very, very happy to be a part of it,” said Jefferson.
“Of course, being with everybody and in the mix, the characters that we have on this team it’s definitely great to be a part of.
“Of course, being here for ten days and just bonding with everyone and spending that extra time communicating and connecting with each other, it definitely was a great trip, even though it was very long and a little tiring, but it was just great for everybody to come together through adversity, through the difficulty of being in Europe and a whole different environment, atmosphere, and to come out with this W today was very, very big.”
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