Jalen Hurts goes off, Vikings go down

Vikings pass defense gets smoked by the Super Bowl champion quarterback

---

By Matthew Coller

MINNEAPOLIS — The next time you see somebody on TV or the internet claim that Jalen Hurts isn’t a great quarterback, unfollow, unsubscribe, turn the TV off, click out of the article. Whatever you gotta do because that is a bunch of bunk.

The Super Bowl champion, whose bad games are scrutinized more harshly than any QB in the NFL, absolutely smoked the Minnesota Vikings defense at US Bank Stadium — the same way he did versus the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl.

Hurts was untacklable in the pocket, buying time for himself over and over and delivering deep shots downfield to his two excellent receivers DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown. Every single time the Vikings had a chance to come back in Sunday’s game, Hurts stuck a dagger in them — right down to the final drive where he dropped a dime 40 yards downfield to Brown to close the game and reach 326 yards passing to go along with his three touchdowns.

While Hurts was the main source of Vikings pain, their own struggles on offense caused a lot of their own Hurts. They went 1-for-6 in the red zone, settling for field goals for a myriad of silly reasons. Once because they committed a holding penalty on a touchdown. Another time because Carson Wentz threw the ball into the ground for no apparent reason. Another time because of a sack. Another time where they stopped running on second-and-1 — or maybe two of those things happened on the same drive, it’s hard to remember.

The Vikings might have been semi-OK if Wentz hadn’t thrown a pick-six.

In the end, they were playing with a backup quarterback known for his inconsistency. It shouldn’t be a shock that there would be ups and downs and red zone struggles. The Vikings were supposed to have a defense that could win games where the offense struggled. Instead they were lit up like a Halloween pumpkin, showing that a lot of their success against the pass had been smoke and mirrors versus bad QBs like Jake Browning and Dillon Gabriel.

Now it’s hard to believe that either side of the ball is good enough to make an argument for them competing in the NFC North.

It’s not where they expected to be through six games and considering their upcoming schedule includes playing on Thursday night against the Chargers and then going on the road against Detroit in the next two weeks, this could get ugly.

If there is a silver lining, it’s that there should be no controversy over putting JJ McCarthy back in and hoping that he can find something to make this team halfway competitive down the stretch.

Here’s how it went down…