Rock bottom
The Vikings no show in Seattle, marking another low point for a massively disappointing season
By Matthew Coller
It doesn’t get much worse than that folks.
There have been plenty of low moments in this brutal 2025 season. From Carson Wentz hobbling to a 27-point loss in Los Angeles to JJ McCarthy getting smashed by the Green Bay Packers defense but it’s hard to go much lower than Sunday’s utter no show against the Seattle Seahawks. Being shut out for the first time since 2007? Woof.
The hope for that Vikings was that Max Brosmer could give them a little bit of a spark by playing with more urgency than McCarthy, who was holding onto the ball too long and taking sacks like they were Thanksgiving leftovers. But rather than get the Vikings offense back in rhythm, the undrafted free agent from Minnesota made several catastrophic mistakes that gave the Vikings zero chance to win. By the end of the game, he looked completely in over his head.
They had a chance to get into the game early but on fourth-and-1, Kevin O’Connell decided to trust his young QB and called a rollout pass. Brosmer got pressured, panicked and threw it right into the hands of linebacker Ernest Jones, who returned it for a touchdown. It would be easy to criticize KOC for ignoring Jordan Mason in a short-yardage situation for the 1,000th time this year but I’m sure he dialed up a beautiful play that had somebody open. It’s just second guessing, right?
Actually, there’s no point in being snarky now. The Seattle defense mutilated the UDFA QB. They sacked him, picked him off, stripped and injured Aaron Jones, body slammed Justin Jefferson, who found himself sitting alone on the water coolers sadly by the early part of the fourth quarter. Remember when KOC used to talk about “play style?” That was some play style by the Seahawks.
The gross irony of their irredeemable loss was that the defense played pretty well against Sam Darnold. He took a few lumps. Had a few passes batted down. Dallas Turner played really well again. The defense didn’t allow the league’s best receiver this season to do much.
It was the type of defensive performance that would have had the Vikings winning handily last year. If they only had a chance to get a quarterback like...
The sorry showing in Seattle was another floodlight on the franchise-imploding decision to let Darnold walk. The Vikings could have been the Seahawks this year. Are they perfect? Doesn’t look like it. Are they a legitimate contender with a quality QB who smacks down teams with really bad quarterback play? Yeppers.
When the year began, we thought we’d be talking about an epic “revenge” game. Instead it’s right back to all the same conversations that started happening last week. Who’s the quarterback next year? Who’s responsible for this?
JJ McCarthy will presumably be back next week against the Washington Commanders — a team so bad that the Vikings have a chance against them. But nothing that can happen going forward can erase all of this. Whether it was the handling of the offseason or the complete inability to find even the smallest shred of offensive competence from the alleged “QB Whisperer,” even a few victories down the stretch will be meaningless. The damage is done.
It is amazing though, right? This team seemed impervious to having garbage seasons like this. The team was too talented. The coaching was too good. The culture. The offseason spending. Even the worst-case scenario felt like they would still be in a lot of games like 2023. This hasn’t even been close to that.
You can officially put the 2025 season amongst the most epic fails in team history. Seattle will head to the playoffs. Coping Vikings fans will root for Darnold to fail in the big games so they feel better about him being elsewhere. At least he’s playing in the big games this year. The Vikings looked about a million miles from those on Sunday.
Here’s how it went down…
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