The Minnesota Vikings have a very interesting year up ahead, and they certainly have people in the NFL curious about how the season will pan out. The Vikings are coming off a successful 2024-25 season, which saw them at No. 2 in the NFC North, and now, they’re back with their new quarterback J.J. McCarthy.
So, there are a lot of expectations on McCarthy to deliver this season, and he has a lot riding on his shoulders. Aside from McCarthy, the Vikings have also made a ton of decisions regarding the 2025 NFL draft, trades and free agents. So, it’s been a whirlwind of an offseason for the Vikings.
Now, one NFL analyst is talking about the Vikings’ decision heading into the 2025-26 season, and while he’s cool with some of the choices, he’s not as hot on others. Thankfully, he gives the team props for making their most important decision of the season, and for that, he gives them two thumbs up.
Vikings Made a Great Decision
Kevin O’Connell is making some good decisions during the offseason, and one has to do with McCarthy. In a piece published on Thursday, July 10, by ESPN, Seth Walder grades each NFL team for their offseason moves.
He says that the move that he likes the most is “sticking with McCarthy,” which he calls the biggest decision for the team.
“What to do at quarterback was the biggest, most important decision the Vikings had to make,” Walder stated. “There were essentially three options — retain Sam Darnold, sign Aaron Rodgers or start McCarthy, their 2024 first-round pick. They chose the last option, which I feel is correct. Darnold was coming off a career season, but his performance was overrated by the win-loss record.”
He adds that “despite having an elite playcaller as head coach and the league’s best wide receiver, Darnold ranked 14th in QBR last season — a number that includes his disastrous Week 18 game against the Lions but doesn’t factor in his similarly dreadful wild-card game against the Rams.”
So, above all, Walder thinks that McCarthy will be a step up from Darnold and that McCarthy will surprise people this season, in a good way. On the flip side, though, Walder says he “wasn’t a fan” of the Vikings’ draft. Plus, he gave them a C+ for an offseason great, which isn’t great.
“No team needed to trade down more, given Minnesota’s dearth of picks, yet they picked guard Donovan Jackson in Round 1 even though they had a good deal available from the Giants and a great one from the Falcons, who traded up for each of the next two picks behind Minnesota,” he says.
A Possible Struggle for the Minnesota Vikings
When it comes to the Vikings’ offense, that’s up in the air this season, according to Gennaro Filice of NFL.com. He has a June 11 piece out, where he ranks the Vikings as the No. 9 best offense in the NFL for 2024 but doesn’t have them in the top 10 for 2025.
“On the surface, that seems like a straightforward question,” he states. “But considering how many different ways you can slice up offensive production — total offense, yards per play, DVOA, EPA and additional acronymed statistics my feeble mind cannot comprehend — that initial query needs refinement.”
