The Minnesota Vikings have played just seven of 17 games in the 2025 season and already have more losses than they did throughout the entirety of last year.
The quarterback position is an obvious place to start searching for answers as to why, with Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones starting for the Seattle Seahawks and Indianapolis Colts, respectively — teams that are collectively 12-3 through Week 8.
Head coach Kevin O’Connell and general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah instead bet huge on J.J. McCarthy following an injury that cost him his entire rookie campaign.
“It was a defensible move, but it invited so much risk — not just that McCarthy was good, but that he would return from his knee injury healthy. And that the money saved at quarterback and spent elsewhere would actually improve the roster,” Ben Solak of ESPN wrote Tuesday. “Darnold’s departure from Minnesota reminds us about risk and uncertainty in the NFL — how hard it is to get the bona fide ‘guy’ at quarterback, and how easy it is to fool yourself that the next guy is bona fide just the same.”
Vikings’ Locker Room Lacking Joy From Previous Years
GettyMinnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell.
It may be the personnel changes or the fact that the O’Connell/Adofo-Mensah regime has hit its fourth season and perhaps some of the newness and excitement has worn off, but Alec Lewis of The Athletic said on his podcast Tuesday that the vibes in the locker room have changed in some distinct ways this season.
“It’s felt to me, really going back to the spring, that there’s been like an underlying tension with this team,” Lewis said. “The staff is a part of it, the players obviously. But you just get the sense that the joy that has been there in two of the three seasons where they have won double-digit games, you just don’t feel that.”
“Part of what has made Kevin O’Connell so great in his role is just the feeling that there’s always, like, there’s like an underlying joy,” Lewis continued. “There’s an awareness, there’s a calm within the storm, and you just haven’t felt that as much.”
Vikings Made Questionable Call by Starting Carson Wentz With Existing Shoulder Injury
GettyMinnesota Vikings quarterback Carson Wentz.
Beyond the locker room tension and the lack of joy that Lewis describes, O’Connell has faced scrutiny for his handling of McCarthy’s ankle injury, which he suffered in Week 2 and has sidelined him for the last five games, as well as the shoulder injury that Carson Wentz suffered a few weeks ago that has now cost him the remainder of the season.
During a Tuesday interview with Paul Allen on KFXN, O’Connell offered a justification for playing Wentz against the Los Angeles Chargers last Thursday, despite the shoulder issue already existing.
“There is a mentality to the quarterback position where when a guy is so committed and so all-in and does not want to be taken off the field, you have to honor that,” O’Connell said. “Knowing that he couldn’t make it worse and knowing, inevitably, he would have to get it fixed, and while J.J. was working his way back, you wanted to make sure we gave him every opportunity to do that.”
Some analysts have suggested that O’Connell soft-benched McCarthy (1-1) in favor of Wentz (2-3) due to McCarthy’s struggles early on. Minnesota has dismissed those claims, though the theory is worth mentioning considering Wentz is now out for the year and the Vikings are again looking for a backup QB, this time with a record of 3-4 and on the brink of letting the season slip away.
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