A bunch of post-bye Vikings thoughts
From the QB situation to the trade deadline to Sunday's outcomes
By Matthew Coller
The Minnesota Vikings were off this week with the bye but that doesn’t mean it was uneventful. Let’s dive into what happened to their upcoming opponents and much more…
Notes on upcoming opponents
— The Philadelphia Eagles are coming to US Bank Stadium in panic mode. Their last two games have resulted in brutal losses, blowing a two-score lead against the Denver Broncos and getting crushed by the New York Giants. What do those two teams have in common: Really good defensive lines. Jalen Hurts was sacked nine times over the last two weeks and he only ran for a total of 16 yards.
The Eagles O-line has been much more vulnerable between the tackles as Landon Dickerson is dealing with an ankle injury and they haven’t had the same physical dominance without Mekhi Becton.
Saquon Barkley has been hit by a ton of regression bricks, averaging just 3.4 yards per carry after his historic 2,000-yard 2024. Historically speaking, this shouldn’t be a surprise because every 2,000-yard rusher from the last 30 years in the NFL has seen a massive drop in yards per carry the year after their accomplishment, including Adrian Peterson, who went from 6.0 to 4.5 YPC from 2012 to 2013.
On defense, we will be checking on the statuses of Jalen Carter and Quinyon Mitchell, who have been dealing with injuries.
Of course, the Eagles are still a good team overall roster wise, but an area to watch is the vibes department. There has been issues with Hurts and his receivers, which seem to be teetering on a blowup. If the Vikings can slow them down early, there seems like a decent chance of implosion.
— While the New York Giants don’t play against the Vikings until much later in the season, they now look very, very different than a couple weeks ago when it comes to degree of difficulty. Their defense is rolling and Jaxon Dart has taken them to a totally different level offensively. It will be interesting to see if Dart continues to take big strides forward under Brian Daboll and compete for a playoff spot.
— The Los Angeles Chargers ran into the right opponent after losing to the Giants and Commanders. They slipped by the Miami Dolphins 29-27 on the back of three interceptions and a strong performance from Justin Herbert, who went 29-for-38 with 264 yards and two touchdowns. Even with Omarion Hampton out, Jim Harbaugh was not backing off the run as 2024 sixth-round pick Kimani Vidal ran for 124 yards at 6.9 yards per carry. He had previously racked up 18 yards on the season.
L.A.’s weapons make them dangerous, despite their issues with playing backup offensive tackles. Ladd McConkey had seven catches for 100 yards and former Syracuse pass catcher Oronde Gadston II had seven for 68 yards. Keenan Allen is putting together another strong season. He has been known to crush the Vikings.
The injury to watch is Quentin Johnston, who was out with a hamstring. After a couple rough years, he has become a legitimate threat for Herbert.
The Chargers were only able to narrowly escape the Dolphins in part because they were shredded on the ground, giving up 128 yards on just 16 carries to De’Von Achane. They entered allowing 4.8 yards per carry, seventh worst in the NFL.
Especially on a short week, it stands to reason that the Vikings should want to lean into the run game against the Chargers.
— The Baltimore Ravens are expected to get Lamar Jackson back after their Week 7 bye week, which means he will be healthy to play (barring no other injury) against the Vikings in Week 10.
Baltimore dropped to 1-5 with a 17-3 loss behind a horrific performance by Cooper Rush against the Los Angeles Rams defense. The only silver lining was that Derrick Henry showed signs of life after struggling for the last few weeks, going for 122 on 24 carries.
The Ravens’ struggling defense was also good against the Rams, holding Matthew Stafford to 181 yards passing and L.A. to 3.2 yards per carry.
It’s hard to know what to make of the Ravens. It took Pittsburgh getting to 4-1 and them dropping to 1-5 in order for FanDuel to place the Steelers as favorites to win the division, which shows the benefit of the doubt that they have earned over the years. But there isn’t any evidence of them being a good team to this point. They are definitely way, way, way more dangerous with Jackson back but that doesn’t mean they are suddenly going to be fixed when he comes back.
This is why folks who try to calculate strength of schedule are wasting your time in the offseason.
— The Green Bay Packers played with their food at Lambeau against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday but eventually walked out of the contest at 3-1-1.
For much of the game Joe Flacco looked every bit of his age, checking the ball down or flinging it wildly into the general area of Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, yet Cincinnati was still able to hang around late into the fourth quarter due to the underwhelming secondary of the Packers. With under five minutes to go, Flacco hit Chase for a touchdown right in the face of corner Kesean Nixon and then converted a 2-point conversion that brought the game within six. If not for a big-time throw by Jordan Love on the following drive, the Bengals would have had a shot to pull off a wild upset. That wasn’t where they expected to be in a game versus one of the NFL’s saddest squads.
Coming off a game where the Pack got smoked by the Dallas Cowboys offense, there were more moments of vulnerability than you would have thought (yes, that is said with recognition that Flacco averaged under 5.0 yards per attempt), leaving question marks remaining about whether their defense can truly dominate based on their Micah Parsons-led pass rush.
The Packers’ offense did have a good day versus a Bengals defense that has been horrendous all year. Matt LaFleur’s offense got the ball into the hands of 10 different players on Sunday, including using WR-turned-CB Bo Melton at one point. They handed the ball to speedy rookie Matthew Golden a couple of times and hit him on a 35-yard deep shot down the sideline early in the game and then a 29-yard dagger at the end of the game. He hasn’t become a superstar immediately but he does have flashes.
Josh Jacobs entered the game with only 3.3 yards per carry as it seemed that he was hit by the same regression bug as Saquon Barkley but he had no troubles rushing on Sunday, averaging 5.2 yards per carry and scoring two touchdowns. It will be worth watching closely if he gets back in gear as the engine of Green Bay’s offense.
Overall, the Pack have been good. Are they scary? Not lately.
— The Detroit Lions could not keep up with a blazing hot Patrick Mahomes. With a nearly full group of weapons that included Hollywood Brown and Xavier Worthy, the Chiefs’ QB looked like years past. Part of the reason for Mahomes’ excellence was that Detroit was missing basically their entire secondary. Last year injuries eventually caught up with them and it seems to be happening again.
Being completely dominated by Kansas City’s offense left very little room for error. Despite a highly efficient day from Jared Goff, a penalty at the goal line and a drop from Amon-Ra St. Brown proved to be too much to overcome.
Detroit has a couple weeks before they face off with the Vikings so they can get healthier between now and then. At the same time, their run of impressive wins before facing KC came against some pretty mediocre teams in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Baltimore. They were probably never as bad as they looked against Green Bay and never as good as they looked against the cellar dwellers.
Navigating the QB situation
Last week, Kevin O’Connell laid out what he wanted to see from JJ McCarthy in practice. The main takeaway is that the young quarterback has to show that he has the fundamentals like footwork and timing down and he needs to display some progress from watching Carson Wentz operate the offense more efficiently.
Here’s a chart that tells the story of the difference between the two quarterbacks. While both players’ sacks took about the same amount of time, throws from Wentz have come out as quickly as anyone in the league, while McCarthy’s time from snap-to-release is the slowest in the NFL among QBs with at least 40 attempts.
Certainly O’Connell’s adjustments to the offense against the top-notch Browns defensive line helped improve his time-to-throw number but McCarthy’s mark was 30 seconds more than Sam Darnold’s in 2024. There is only so much the play caller can do.
If McCarthy looks sharp in practice and doesn’t suffer any physical setbacks, it makes sense to get him back into action, especially against a defense that just lost to Bo Nix and Jaxon Dart over the last two weeks.
As much as everyone wants McCarthy back in, one argument that I’m not buying as much as others is the “gotta find out” angle. The best reason to play McCarthy is because he gives them the highest ceiling on this season.
Carson Wentz deserves a massive amount of credit for the way that he’s played over the last three weeks — it’s not hyperbolic to say he saved the season with a game-winning drive against Cleveland despite playing with four backup linemen — but it’s tough to see him being able to do much more than keep them around .500 based on his recent history. With McCarthy’s depth of knowledge, playmaking and mobility, there is another level possible, especially with the schedule ahead looking less daunting.
With that said, if the Vikings were a young, up-and-coming team, then it would make so much more sense to “find out.” Think about Carolina last year with Bryce Young. They weren’t going anywhere and needed to get him back in the game to see if he could improve. The Vikings aren’t in that spot as a roster. They are in a position to compete with anyone in the NFC if their lineup is even in the ballpark of being healthy and they are receiving average quarterback play. KOC can’t prioritize one guy’s needs over the entire team’s chances at the postseason.
Will Reichard’s kick hit that wire
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