What was that?
The Vikings completely fall apart, pushing the season to the edge of total collapse
By Matthew Coller
LOS ANGELES — There are things you can control and things you can’t control.
You can’t control that Christian Darrisaw’s return from an ACL injury has gone poorly. You can’t control that Ryan Kelly got hurt. You can’t control that Brian O’Neill got hurt. You can’t control that Aaron Jones was just coming back from injury. And you especially can’t control that you have to play a QB who has played for six teams in six years because he can’t fend off a pass rush.
But you can control having one of the most expensive defenses on earth completely collapse against the same gameplan that was deployed against you two years ago. You can control misevaluating the secondary. You can control taking risks on free agents that weren’t going to be worth it. You can control trading the farm for an outside linebacker who hasn’t had much impact against the run or pass and thinks headbutting is allowed.
You can control committing a penalty on literally every single kick return.
You can control the level of fight and resilience of a team.
The Minnesota Vikings failed in every single area that they could control on Thursday night against the Los Angeles Chargers and pushed the season to the brink.
The combination of bad luck and outrageously disappointing results from so many players that were expected to make this team a contender added up on Thursday night to one of the worst performances that we have seen from the Vikings since Kevin O’Connell took over as head coach.
In the past, we have seen some losing streaks. In 2023, the Vikings started the year tough and got back to .500. They ended the year tough, but played in a bunch of close games. There was always reason to think that they would remain in the fight, even until last week versus the Eagles when they were one stop away from getting a shot to win at the end. But this? Noncompetitive.
A normal loss in L.A. would have been understandable considering the offensive tackles going out and Wentz generally being the same Wentz that was once benched for Taylor Heinicke but this wasn’t an understandable loss. This was a shameful effort that should leave everyone questioning everything.
How did they miss so badly on so many things? Is there any path back, even with JJ McCarthy, if they are still getting so many sub-par performances and facing teams like Detroit and Baltimore?
It’s hard not to think about the big picture. The plan was hatched. The money spent. This was supposed to work. A loss like this makes it look like they aren’t just a few good breaks away from things going right — it makes them look like they couldn’t see competitiveness with a telescope. It makes them look like they misjudged every single facet of this thing following a 14-3 season in 2024.
If they had been able to find a way to reach 4-3, then they would have felt like a team directly in the NFC race. Instead, they felt much closer to the race for a top draft pick. The dream of a turnaround died in Inglewood.
From here on, the season is about JJ McCarthy. How good is he? If they can answer that question by the end of the year, then it will be some type of accomplishment. It doesn’t matter if they lose every game from here on out.
Here’s how it went down (if you dare)…
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