It was a rough night on October 23 for the Minnesota Vikings, who were handed a 37-10 loss by the Los Angeles Chargers on “Thursday Night Football” at SoFi Stadium.
There wasn’t much to take away for Minnesota in this one, as the team will need to assess what went wrong and quickly move on from the blowout. Once sitting at 3-2 in the 2025 NFL season, the Vikings have dropped two straight to fall to 3-4.
Despite falling below .500, veteran Carson Wentz is confident the group will bounce back heading into their Week 9 game against NFC North rival the Detroit Lions.
“I just know the guys in that locker room,” Wentz told reporters postgame. “I know the guys; I know the coaches; I’ve still only been here for a short period of time, but I know the resolve, the resiliency, and the character of the guys in there. That gives me confidence. I know coach being the leader in this building is as positive as it gets, and I know he’ll do everything he can in his power to get us right.
“I have a lot of confidence in the guys. Hopefully we can keep getting some guys back healthy, all that stuff. This was a short week. This was a tough one. We just didn’t have it tonight. The NFL is weird. It’s hard to win, hard to be consistent. So at the end of the day, just turn the page and go attack it next week.”
Will the Minnesota Bounce Back After Loss to Chargers?
Minnesota get a few extra days to get ready for the Lions. It won’t be an easy matchup, but Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell, much like Wentz, believes in the group’s ability to respond and make a push back to .500 while staying in the NFC playoff race.
“I believe in our players, wholeheartedly,” O’Connell said (h/t Pro Football Talk).. “I believe in every opportunity we have, we’re gonna go out there and put our best foot forward, both on the practice field and every opportunity we have as a team; I think we’ll be able to get, you know, healthy in some spots here that, you know, are critical for our ability to have success.
“But once again, injuries and any other excuse if you go looking for them you’ll find them. We will not be doing that. We’re going to meet this head on as an organization. And that’s what we’re gonna do.”
Vikings Will Need to Learn From Poor Performance
There are a lot of aspects of the Vikings’ game that they will need to improve on heading into Week 9. O’Connell was straightforward about the outcome, admitting the Chargers outperformed his team in every area.
“We got outplayed,” O’Connell added. “We got outcoached; we did not — there are no excuses. Injuries, short week, whatever it is, that is not in any way, shape, or form our standard of what we want to put on the field, and we’ve got — as I told our team — we’ve got an opportunity in front of us where we need to own this.
“This is not a bury the tape kind of time for our organization. This is a ‘watch it, view it, own it’. Every coach, every player. And it starts with me. I did not have our team prepared to play.”
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