By Matthew Coller
The Minnesota Vikings are entering the 2026 with a Vegas over-under of 8.5 wins and are +4000 to win the Super Bowl on FanDuel. That’s the 18th highest odds in the NFL.
Nothing about that screams “true contender” but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Last year the Seattle Seahawks were +6000 and their over-under was 8.5.
In order for Seattle to get there, they had to put together an elite defense, a top-10 passing game by passer rating and EPA and a rushing attack that finished in the top 10 in yards per game.
So what would need to happen in order for the Vikings to follow in their footsteps?
Let’s have a look at the numbers from teams in the last 10 years that have reached the Super Bowl and the markers that the Vikings must reach in the regular season to enter the playoffs as a true Super Bowl contender.
(Yes, half of these years there were only 16 games instead of 17, so keep that in mind).
Offensive standard
Averaged 446 points scored
16 of 20 teams above 450 points scored
18 of 20 teams above 95 passer rating
17 of 20 teams over 1,700 rushing yards*
14 of 20 over 4.2 YPA
How they can get there:
Putting up 450 points would be good for the eighth best offense in the NFL. Likewise a 95 passer rating is top-eight.
*The rushing bar is lower as most 25 teams cleared 1,700 rush yards last year and 19 teams were above 4.3 YPC, however, that comes with an asterisk because five of the nine teams to make the Super Bowl with under 1,900 rushing yards were quarterbacked by Patrick Mahomes and two were Tom Brady.
We can conclude that most of the teams to make the Super Bowl in the last decade had their scoring driven by very efficient passing games. Murray’s career passer rating is sitting right on the bubble of the minimum for Super Bowl teams at 92.2 and he’s been close at 94.3 in 2020 and 93.5 in 2024 and cleared it once in 2021 at 100.6.
Arizona’s offense was just outside the bar for true contending teams in 2024, ranking 12th in scoring with Murray at the helm.
That tells us that Murray has proven to be in the ballpark of a Super Bowl-capable quarterback and that’s without mentioning the 572 yards that he had on the ground in 2024.
All the things that the Vikings have built around the veteran QB will need to push him over the hump from being considered a third-tier QB to a more consistent point producer. One area that could be a difference maker is the red zone. Murray’s Cardinals ranked 17th in 2024 in red zone touchdown percentage.
Clutch time performance will be big for Murray as well. In 2024, he only had a 77.2 passer rating in the fourth quarter and 39.5 rating when training with four minutes or less to go.
Keeping the QB away from pressure will also factor in enormously as he graded as the 30th best QB under pressure in 2024 and seventh best with a clean pocket.
The plus for Murray is that QBs throwing to Justin Jefferson over his career have a 102.4 rating and Addison isn’t far behind at 100.2. Jauan Jennings is at 94.1 and TJ Hockenson is 97.3. There’s a lot for Murray to work with.
In terms of the run game, the numbers here give us a hint that the running game’s purpose hasn’t always been to drive the offense for teams that reached the Super Bowl, it’s been as a support system. For example, the Seahawks ran for 2,096 yards at 4.1 yards per carry. They used it to control how often Sam Darnold would have to deal with third-and-long and to kill clock when they were ahead.
The run game has been very important to Super Bowl teams with non-elite QBs. Nine teams made the Super Bowl with 2,000 or more yards and they were led by Jalen Hurts, Jimmy Garoppolo, Brock Purdy, Jared Goff, Drake Maye, and Sam Darnold and the 2016 Atlanta Falcons had 1,928 in 16 games.
Last year the Vikings had 1,841 rushing yards at 4.5 YPC. If they can replicate that with another 500+ from Murray, they can be a dangerous offense and match the markers required for non-elite QBs on the ground.
Bottom line:
Murray’s history suggests that he’s had performances that have been within shouting distance of the average offense that reaches the Super Bowl. But he will need to be better than he’s ever been behind an improved O-line and outstanding receivers in order to make it happen. And the importance of the run game can’t be overstated. They need to be very effective to overcome some of the inconsistency in Murray’s game, especially when the other team is putting on pressure.