GREEN BAY, Wisc. — Once again, Justin Jefferson stood on the Minnesota Vikings’ sideline, tugging on his jersey.
The thoughts going through his mind? All negative. His team lost. The offense looked unprofessional. The measure of hope, which had already reached concerning levels, felt almost completely shut off.
“I hate to lose,” Jefferson said. “I hate to be in this type of situation. I hate feeling the way we feel. I hate coming into this locker room, seeing the down faces and the down energy.”
Another Sunday, another mess. This time, the rival Green Bay Packers did the honors. Only the setting of the familiar scene changed, as Sunday’s 23-6 beatdown came at Lambeau Field.
The simmer has yet to turn into a full-on boil, but the rage on Jefferson’s face as he stood alone told the story. He is like most who have gone on the 2025 ride with this 4-7 team: frustrated, exhausted, annoyed.
Some of the Vikings’ other team leaders discussed finding a fix and creating more urgency. It wasn’t the first time. It likely won’t be the last. Minnesota is staring down a matchup with the Seattle Seahawks, maybe the most vaunted defense in the NFL. The Athletic’s playoff simulator gives the team less than a 1 percent chance to make the playoffs.
This train began skidding off the tracks a month ago, on a Thursday night in Los Angeles against the Chargers. Beating the Lions in Detroit provided a nice reprieve, but the Vikings have now lost three games in demoralizing fashion, with untenable play from quarterback J.J. McCarthy, miserable offensive execution next to him and undisciplined sequences on special teams.
On Sunday, the Vikings generated 4 yards of offense in the second half. Four.
When the Packers weren’t bulldozing the Vikings’ offensive line — which, ironically, started its intended starting five for the first time this season — the linemen were being turnstiled like the entry gate at an amusement park. Minnesota allowed five sacks and an astronomical 48 percent pressure rate. It was a Micah Parsons showcase.
Minnesota punt returner Myles Price collided with teammate Jay Ward while trying to let the ball go over his head and into the end zone. The ball bounced and hit Price, and the muff was recovered by the Packers at the Vikings’ 5-yard line. Two plays later, they were in the end zone.
The previous quarter, Vikings linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. trotted off the field before a play, thinking he was the 12th man — only to discover he was the 11th.
“There was just too much bad football,” coach Kevin O’Connell said, summarizing the day and the season.
The Vikings spent the offseason thinking they had designed a team that could paper over McCarthy’s inevitable mistakes. He has performed worse than even the most cautious expectations. On Sunday, he completed 12 of 19 passes for 87 yards and two interceptions. But the rest of the team — both coaches and players — has matched McCarthy in its lack of reliability and consistency.
That’s how you arrive at what O’Connell called “a razor-thin margin for error.” That’s what makes a team feel like it has just one formula for winning.
These Vikings entered Sunday’s game wanting to generate a lead or at least keep the score close. They know they have to be careful, as they hope to prevent McCarthy from turning the football over even more. The coaches and players spoke constantly about the importance of limiting negatives like turnovers, penalties and field position gaffes.
It’s almost as if they have to be perfect to mask their offensive inferiority.
“It’s about not putting the game in (McCarthy’s) hands where the variance of a young quarterback will cost our whole team,” O’Connell said. “There’s a needle to thread there.”
You could see O’Connell attempting to thread the needle with his play calling early in the game. Two of the team’s first four passes were screens. McCarthy only threw past the sticks five times, and two of those passes were intercepted. The last was the most jarring. McCarthy violently climbed up in the pocket, overrotated and threw a flat deep ball toward receiver Jalen Nailor that sailed over his head and into the hands of Packers safety Evan Williams.
This was only McCarthy’s sixth NFL start, but his performance this season is one of the worst of the last 20 years. Among the 813 quarterbacks who have attempted 150 passes in a season since 2005, McCarthy’s completion percentage (54.1 percent) ranks 771st. His EPA per dropback (-0.34), which is perhaps the most advanced down-to-down measure of success, ranks 807th out of 813.
Placing the ball accurately and with the appropriate amount of touch remains difficult. In their various news conferences, both McCarthy and O’Connell spent the last week offering a free course in quarterbacking, with a lot of mechanics minutiae. Yet McCarthy still looks paralyzed by the speed of the NFL game. He progresses too quickly at times. He’s too slow at others.
“I ain’t going to lie,” safety Josh Metellus said, “I think (No.) 9 is playing great. When you don’t play as a full team and we don’t give each other a chance to win, quarterbacks get the blame — it’s never one guy.”
His final point, at the very least, was correct. McCarthy was one of many culprits in a game that will be tucked away inside the folder harboring the memories of one of the organization’s more disappointing seasons.
Protection continues to be a problem. Left tackle Christian Darrisaw, whom the Vikings made one of the highest-paid tackles in the NFL last summer, couldn’t give Parsons a fair fight. During a critical fourth-and-1 in the second quarter, Packers edge rusher Kingsley Enagbare slipped past right tackle Brian O’Neill and snatched running back Jordan Mason behind the line. Once, Parsons obliterated center Ryan Kelly, who looked like he’d been blasted backward by a cannonball.
Early this season, the Vikings could blame their blocking issues on injuries. But Justin Skule and Joe Huber are no longer starting. If they were, the team’s historically poor eight false starts at home two weeks ago would’ve made more sense.
Then there’s the special teams struggle. Three weeks ago, Price fumbled a kickoff return. Two weeks ago, Pace left his gap, allowing the Bears to set up a game-winning field goal. This week, O’Connell was forced to call a timeout because Pace thought he was the 12th man on the field. Price’s inability to avoid the punt early in the third quarter put a finer point on what can happen when you build a unit mostly around undrafted youth.
“We’ve got some rookies as part of that phase, so to a certain extent, you know there’s going to be some variance,” O’Connell said. “But at the same time, it’s what are we doing to emphasize playing smart football as a starting point?”
You might have found yourself thinking about the following question Sunday afternoon: What do the 2025 Vikings do well? Defensively, they make it tough on opponents, but not tough enough to force turnovers. Offensively, they can run the football, but that only matters when a staff commits to it in the form of extensive practice time. Defenders Eric Wilson and Jalen Redmond are disruptive. Kicker Will Reichard can bury field goals from just about anywhere.
And really, that’s the type of season it’s been — enjoying Reichard’s 59-yarders like they’re the pinnacle because the highlights are so sparse everywhere else.