Everything Ends Badly, Otherwise It Wouldn’t End

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Sure, the Minnesota Vikings weren’t going to go 14-3 again after the run they had in 2024, but surely they were going to be a solid contender again in 2025, weren’t they?

That’s what yours truly, and a lot of other people, thought going into this season. The team was ready to move in a new direction at quarterback, finally deciding to take a swing at developing a quarterback for the long term after years of going with short-term solutions at the position. To take advantage of the bargain-level contract at the game’s most important position, they had spent lavishly at other positions of need in the hopes that they had patched all of their weaknesses. They had a coach who was coming off a campaign that saw him take home Coach of the Year honors and a lead executive who had hit multiple home runs in free agency the previous year, despite having a spotty (at best) record when it came to the NFL Draft.

And tonight, after watching the Vikings fall to 4-8 after a thoroughly embarrassing 26-0 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, the first shutout the team had put up in nearly two decades, it’s starting to look like this team is every bit as far away from contention. . .and, perhaps, even farther. . .than they were when the Kwesi Adofo-Mensah/Kevin O’Connell regime took the reins ahead of the 2022 season. Meanwhile, the rest of the NFC North has lapped them. The Detroit Lions, though they’ve stumbled a bit this season, are still well ahead of the Vikings, and the Green Bay Packers are still solidly ahead of the Vikings as well. Perhaps the most telling is that the Chicago Bears, who have spent most of the last few years as the doormat of the division, would be the #1 seed in the NFC playoffs if the season ended today.

The Vikings found themselves under a lot of bad contracts when Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell got here, and to their credit, they got out from underneath a lot of it over the past couple of seasons. And to their. . .uh, not credit, I guess. . .the team is now right back in the same situation again. They’re currently projected to be more than $30 million over the salary cap going into the offseason, they’ve given a lot of money to players who have proven to be largely ineffective, and they still don’t know for sure whether or not they have a definitive answer at the quarterback position.

There isn’t really a lot of sunshine and lollipops to be had here, folks.

As far as the quarterback situation goes, I’ll say it again. I think it’s too early to throw in the towel completely on J.J. McCarthy. There’s talent there. He needs reps. Yes, some of the reps are going to be ugly, but you know what? This whole damn season has been ugly, and there’s a really good chance that next season is going to be ugly, too. And it’s not entirely J.J. McCarthy’s fault that this season has been ugly, despite the fact that he’s the guy that most of Vikings’ nation has been venting its collective spleen at for most of the last month or so. Sure, he’s been a part of it, but it certainly doesn’t rest entirely at his feet.

One way or another, you need an answer on McCarthy. And you’re not going to get an answer on him if he’s sitting on the sidelines wearing a baseball cap, watching Max Brosmer or John Wolford or whoever else this team drags in here to throw multiple interceptions in a game.

Beyond that, you need answers on a whole lot of other players. You need answers on a whole lot of coaches. And if you’re Mark and Zygi Wilf, there are questions that, hopefully, you’re getting ready to ask. Because, if you’re a Vikings fan, you might need to start bracing yourself for something that none of us have ever had to sit through as fans of this team:

A full-on, no-kidding, “blow everything up and start from scratch” rebuild of the entire operation.

I’m talking new GM, new coach, new faces of the franchise, the whole nine yards. No “competitive rebuild,” no “let’s have one or two good years and then keep our fingers crossed,” no “let’s hope we can make an NFC Championship Game once every decade.” I mean taking swings at actual, sustained, long-term success, and continuing to swing until you finally get there.

Is that what’s going to happen this offseason? I don’t know. I’m just saying that, given what has happened this season and how quickly this entire franchise has done a 180 from what we were experiencing less than 12 calendar months ago, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility.