By Matthew Coller
MINNEAPOLIS — OK this is a new one.
We thought we had heard every excuse and explanation under the sun by the Minnesota Vikings head coach and players for why their offense has been bumbling for the last 26 football games but following the Vikings’ sad showing against the Buffalo Bills in a 23-6 loss, the narrative was that it looks good in practice and it’s not carrying over to the games.
“The issue right now is our preparation is not coming to the stadium with us and there’s a little bit of a void of — if we could bring some of that and what we see on the practice field to the stadium,” Kevin O’Connell said.
Practice? Practice. Practice. Not a game. We’re talking about practice? Not a game. Practice.
“Practice was great all week,” Wentz said. “The gameplan was great. Felt confident with the game plan, everything. Tough, tough result the way the way it transpired out there.”
To be fair, O’Connell did put the loss on himself and his play calling, admitting that he should have run the ball more because his quarterback was struggling as much as he was. But running more on second down and putting Wentz into third-and-long isn’t really an answer either.
“The biggest issue with tonight was if we got into the run, run, pass, we’re trying to get a quarterback into into a little bit of a rhythm on third down, which was an incredibly difficult down for us tonight, both from a standpoint of throwing completions, putting the ball in play,” O’Connell said.
Last week, O’Connell dialed up a number of second-down runs that put Murray in those third-and-longs.
That’s the trouble with every conversation about the Vikings offense. “Run more! No wait, pass more! No wait, throw screens! No, wait, not those screens! Throw it to Jefferson! No, not OVER Jefferson!”
All the buttons are getting mashed. Nothing is clicking. Wentz went 8-for-25 with two interceptions and an 8.9 passer rating.
It’s not like handing off to Jordan Mason a few more times would have changed the outcome. The only thing they should have tried was maybe going to Max Brosmer after the second INT. Or JJ McC… nevermind.
From the outset of the game, it was clear that something was wrong when it came to Wentz’s accuracy. His first pass went flying about 10 yards over the head of TJ Hockenson and they went three-and-out. The first play of their second drive, Wentz ran a quick screen to Justin Jefferson and threw the ball way too high. For whatever reason, he threw it backward and the Bills recovered it for a turnover.
O’Connell said that he never threw it backward in practice, so that’s good.
The worst part of the offense’s issues is that they continually got the ball either in Buffalo territory or darn near it to begin drives. The defense and special teams were outstanding and they only needed a couple first downs to get into Will Reichard’s range and couldn’t do it.
When they did get something going, it petered out pretty quickly. In the second quarter they arrived at Buffalo’s 37-yard line but then committed a false start and then Wentz took a sack. On third-and-21 they couldn’t get back into field-goal position and had to punt.
The crazy part is that even kicking field goals might have been good enough to win. The Bills didn’t break through until late in the game. It was somehow a 4-point game coming out of halftime.
They got the ball to the Buffalo 37-yard line with a chance to cut the lead to 10-9 on the opening drive of the second half and give themselves a shot to score.
But O’Connell went for a deep pass down the seam to TJ Hockenson. Picked off.
“When you feel like early on in the game, maybe your quarterback’s a little unsettled, you go through the different phases, whether it’s just some quick game, some ball-out plays and you try to give him a chance to get into a rhythm,” O’Connell said. “I thought it looked like it was happening there at the two minute, maybe at the end of the half. We just couldn’t carry it over.”
Tossing a pass 25 yards in the air might not have been the way to carry over the rhythm.
Second guessing is always second guessing but asking Wentz to make a high difficulty pass when all they needed was a couple handoffs to close the gap to one point — it’s hard to make sense of a pass downfield like that.
Which brings us to O’Connell as a play caller. He was asked if play calling has ever been this challenging for him before.
“No,” he said flatly.
For a coach that had seemed to have solved the grind-it-out victory during an 11-game win streak, it was perplexing to see aggressive plays in some situations when Wentz was having so many issues.
But he has now gone to the podium after every game and hunted for different ways of explaining why their Pro Bowl-laden offense can’t get anywhere. At one point, he was using the phrase “ascending” to describe it. Instead the descent has been nothing short of shocking.
Wentz’s previous worst game ever was a 24-10 loss to Cleveland in 2023 in which he posted a 31.4 passer rating and had three INTs. On Monday night it was an 8.9. That disaster contest vs. the Chargers last year? A 67.5 rating. Keep in mind that league average is 91.3.
I’ll give them this: What’s anybody supposed to say? They’ve done press conference after press conference on how the offense is struggling. What more words are there?
“Honestly, I don’t know how to explain it,” Hockenson said. “It’s not fun for us to be out there doing that going three-and-out or doing whatever. Yeah, it’s just frustrating.”
When a team goes an entire quarter without a pass completion, how can that really be explained?
Jefferson went with a classic: “Simplify.”
“We just gotta find ways to simplify it and make it easier for everybody and just go out there and execute the plays, not thinking, just go out there and play ball,” Jefferson said.
All said and done, the Vikings defense sacked Josh Allen four times and James Cook only averaged 3.5 yards per carry and the Bills only broke through at the end of the game. The defense couldn’t have done any more.
“At the end of the day, when they’re playing as good as they have been…I feel terrible… I let those guys down,” Wentz said.
The reality is, the Vikings could have beaten the Bills and put themselves in a great spot to compete for the NFC North. But now with a brutal division and difficult games against Green Bay and San Francisco on the way, a total meltdown from 6-0 is on the table.
What do they do? We’ll find out on Tuesday if that answer is acquiring more players. It’s really hard to say what more the offense needs than a Pro Bowl left tackle, Pro Bowl right tackle, running back who averaged 4.8 YPC last year, All-Pro receiver, first-round pick receiver and Pro Bowl tight end but maybe one more guy will make the difference.
Maybe that guy is a QB. Who knows.
To be honest, media, fans, national analysts — everyone is at a loss after a game like that.
O’Connell and Nolan Teasley are the ones in charge of figuring it out before it’s too late. Somehow they are still 6-2 and they only count the last two games as one loss even if they feel like 50.
They are either going to find the answers or put another notch in the history books. It’s that simple.