By Matthew Coller
MINNEAPOLIS — Are we living in a simulation? Every Minnesota Vikings game is the same and somehow they are 6-0 despite trying to lose every single one of their contests in 2026.
The Indianapolis Colts came into US Bank Stadium leading the league in “down bad.” They fired their GM last week after losing to the winless Titans and lost two star players to injury in Sauce Gardner and Tyler Warren.
Yet the Vikings did everything they could to keep them in the game. They struggled to run the ball despite Jordan Mason’s return. Kyler Murray lost the precision that he had in the Miami and New Orleans games, throwing inaccurately a number of times on plays where receivers were available. Kevin O’Connell seemed to struggle to decide what he wanted the day’s identity to be and they made some sloppy miscues that killed drives.
On the defensive side, they only seemed more vulnerable than usual because one of the NFL’s top running backs Jonathan Taylor put together a seemingly unstoppable day as he bolted for a touchdown to open the game and then repeatedly grinded them to a pulp.
But when the dust settled, the Vikings got a huge run from Murray that set up a TJ Hockenson touchdown and their defense bowed up and closed out the win against Daniel Jones via a Harrison Smith interception.
Do style points matter when you are 6-0?
Actually, yes. When the next four games are against outstanding teams with great offenses, it feels nearly impossible for the Vikings to remain in the top position in the NFC if they are going to play like this on offense. If it wasn’t going to get going against a very mediocre defense without Gardner, then when will the offense start looking good? It feels like 2024 is far away now.
For the entirety of the first half of the season, we heard that it was injuries holding the offense back, yet they had everyone and still no answers for consistency.
How many times can we hear “we were close to some plays?”
Maybe the answer is in a trade. Maybe the answer is that they’re just going to have to keep playing this way and hope that it gels eventually — it’s a long season.
You never want to be the “they can’t keep getting away with this” team but that’s exactly who the Vikings are right now.
It’s great to be 6-0 but they’ve reached a point in the coming games where the offense is either going to start putting up points or they are going to sink like a rock, no matter how good their defense is.
Here’s how Sunday’s game went down…