By Matthew Coller
If you didn’t know the score and just looked at the comment section from any podcast or article about the Minnesota Vikings’ game against the the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you would have been absolutely certain that they lost by 36 points on Sunday.
Nay, they are 3-0 after a 23-16 win.
Why are fans so angsty then?
Well, because the Vikings went 2-for-15 on third down and gained just 230 yards of total offense.
If this was a one-off grind-it-out game, then everyone would be pretty forgiving. You need to win ugly sometimes. But in this case, it’s been a really, really long time since the Vikings put together an impressive offensive performance. They haven’t thrown for 300 yards since October 19, 2025 and arguably haven’t been exceptional since Week 17, 2024.
They are winners of their last eight games in a row entirely on the back of Brian Flores’ incredible defense, a magician masquerading as a professional kicker and in Sunday’s case, they also got an 85-yard punt return for touchdown from Myles Price.
Per ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, the Vikings have the second worst yardage differential (minus-244) in a 3-0 start in NFL history with only the 2020 Seattle Seahawks being worse.
For a couple of reasons, Sunday’s game was a particularly egregious example of the Vikings’ recent ability to win despite looking completely inept on offense. The first being that it was Kyler Murray’s first game where he played from start to finish (he was injured after 11 plays in Week 1). Murray has put together very good seasons in the recent past as a member of the Arizona Cardinals, so the expectation was that he would be able to instantly spark the offense to a different level from backup Carson Wentz.
Not only was that not the case, but it was actually worse.
Per Alec Lewis of The Athletic, the Vikings had a 21.7% offensive success rate Sunday, which is the lowest in a game in Kevin O’Connell’s tenure.
After starting 6-for-8 with a long touchdown to Jordan Addison, Murray went just 9-for-21 the rest of the way. He threw inaccurately, held onto the ball too long and didn’t seem to have “easy button” type options anywhere on the field.
At his postgame press conference, O’Connell’s explanation for the offense’s woes began with the early injury to superstar receiver Justin Jefferson.
“They made some adjustments when Justin went out and started playing us a little differently,” O’Connell said.
He pointed to making the Bucs pay on Addison’s touchdown and having several near misses, including a deep pass that hit Addison’s hands and a throw to TJ Hockenson on the sideline where he couldn’t keep his feet in bounds.
“We were just a little off,” O’Connell said. “I think that’s all of us. It’s not any one particular player.”
The Vikings were also playing with a banged-up Aaron Jones in the backfield, who carried basically the entire load again. He ran 17 times for just 58 yards (3.4 YPC) and the combo of DeeJay Dallas and Demond Claiborne gained three yards on four carries.
The lack of run game put Murray into a number of third-and-long situations, where life is difficult against a Todd Bowles defense that is filled with blitz packages.
With another bumbling showing, the shockingly poor offensive numbers are piling up. In the Vikings’ eight-game win streak going back to Week 13 last season, they have averaged 146 yards passing per game.
There are so many questions.
How can a quarterback who threw for 3,800 yards for the mediocre Cardinals two years ago struggle so much? Is he just rusty? Is he just new to the system? Was it just the circumstances and a tough matchup?
But if it’s just a tough day for Murray, what about all the other games? Is it all just circumstances?
There might be an argument for that. It has been a little bit of Final Destination with the Vikings’ offense, whether it was JJ McCarthy and the offensive line injuries last year or Murray, Mason and Jefferson’s injuries to start this year.
Whatever the explanation, one thing is clear: The Vikings can’t keep doing this.
There are only so many games they can win with great defense and kicking. We only see defenses like the 2000 Ravens or 2015 Broncos turn into serious Super Bowl contenders once a decade. The odds aren’t in your favor to throw for 146 yards per game and make it anywhere other than watching the playoffs from home.
“There’s a lot of football left, and we’re going to need to play better on offense to be the type of team that I think we can become,” O’Connell said.
On the other side of the coin, the Vikings’ defense isn’t going anywhere. We are now looking at a very large sample size going back to Week 9 of 2025 where the defense has driven the team’s success week after week with the combination of Flores’ scheme and a group of players that he has hand picked for the system.
On Sunday, we saw total dominance. They sacked Baker Mayfield six times and hit him a dozen more. Any time the offense put them in a tough position, they found a way to make a stop, particularly after a Murray pass pinballed around and turned into an interception.
It’s clear that the defense can keep doing this. They mauled good quarterbacks in the first three weeks of the season. Last year, largely this same group smashed guys like Jared Goff and Dak Prescott. They can beat anyone by themselves.
The answer seems simple: If Murray can just get the passing game going, the Vikings will be a team that can compete with anybody in the NFL and be a serious contender.
Does O’Connell have the answers? It doesn’t make much sense that he would have lost his ability to put a reasonably effective offense on the field, especially with the amount of financial and draft-capital investment that the team has made in talent around the QB.
“To be a 3-0 team with so much to still improve on, it’s great,” O’Connell said. “The goal is to go 1-0 every week. But I think our team knows our best football is ahead of us, and we’re finding ways to win games right now.”
Because every week is so important that it feels like the last game you’ll ever watch in your life, it’s easy to forget that there are 14 games ahead. Months of football for Murray to get comfortable with O’Connell and his teammates. He has the capability to play above-average football.
Here’s what we know: The entire season comes down to whether that happens or not.
If the Vikings’ offense can reach even the middling level, they are going to be a nightmare for opponents to face. Being up by two scores will feel like leading by 50. Any mistake by the defense won’t feel like it could bring the whole thing crashing down. Heck, they might even be able to control the clock.
One thing going for the Vikings in terms of playing their best football in the future is the schedule. Next week they face off with the 0-3 Miami Dolphins and then the 1-2 New Orleans Saints, who gave up 35 against the Raiders on Sunday.
Everything is out in front of this team. It’s not crazy to expect a 5-0 start before the bye week and then have a chance to play with anybody when they see teams like Detroit, Buffalo and San Francisco in the toughest portion of the schedule.
And I’m sure they would be happy to win another couple games over the next 14 weeks where Murray isn’t at his best. But they can’t win 10 more of them.
If it doesn’t start happening soon, then we’ll continue to be asking whether this team can ever make the most of a special version of the defense.
I was pretty disappointed the KOC`s game calling. Of course Kyler was far from great but it just seemed KOC was not adjusting
1. Run up the middle into the waiting arms of Vita Vea. Let`s face it, a Fries x Vea match up favors TB.. Why use that as your attack point? They actually did ok with tosses to the edge... Why not do what works???
2. The swing passes to Aaron Jones worked well. Why not focus on that (as they were working) at least until TB then focuses on stopping that.. We just did the same crap over and over and guys were not getting open (Kyler had time on a lot of the plays.
3. Kyler is mobile.. While it is good that most of the plays are from the pocket, rollouts and bootlegs would have given TB something to worry about. Mix it up.
KOC was serving plain vanilla over and over again and it was not working. Mix it up.
The one area where I would give Kyler credit for was he did not throw passes where you wonder why he threw it right at the DB. He took care of the ball (yeah, there was the interception but that was freak play with a very, very unlucky bounce