Daily Norseman
The Minnesota Vikings opened their preseason schedule at US Bank stadium on Saturday afternoon and cruised to a 20-10 victory over the Houston Texans. More important than the victory is how particular players and units looked overall. Here’s some notes and other insights on the Vikings’ first preseason game of 2025.
Kevin O’Connell gave J.J. McCarthy just one drive to start the game and he looked fine. He went 4/7 for 30 yards and a 67.6 passer rating, so nothing extraordinary, two of the incompletions came on a swatted down ball by an unblocking defensive lineman and a drop/PBU on an accurate short pass to Jordan Mason. The third was sailed a bit too high for Lucky Jackson to bring down although I’d have liked to see a bit more effort from him. He had three completions to Jordan Addison which, along with the run game including a key chain-moving one from McCarthy, allowed McCarthy to move the ball into field goal range before the drive stalled. He had a dump-off completion to C.J. Ham that went for a loss as well.
Overall his operations looked good, along with his demeanor and poise in the pocket. He generally had time to operate in the pocket and looked comfortable and able to manuever successfully to make a couple of the throws to Addison. Nothing earth-shattering, but no concerns either.
The most meaningful reps for McCarthy are likely to come this week in joint practices with the Patriots, and this was likely the plan for some time. Unless there is a need after that to play McCarthy in the third preseason game (he’s not going to play in the Patriots preseason game) those will be the last reps against another team he’ll have before the Monday night season opener in Chicago.
Rondale Moore suffered what looked like a season-ending knee injury after fielding his first punt on Saturday. There was some talk of whether it was an illegal hip-drop tackle that may have caused the injury, but after looking at it a couple times I don’t think that was the case- at least it wasn’t an egregious case by any means.
Kevin O’Connell didn’t go any further in his post-game comments about Moore’s injury other than to say he would have an MRI tomorrow. But there doesn’t seem to be any hope at this point that it isn’t a season-ending knee injury.
Moore’s injury will likely open up a spot on the wide receiver depth chart for another receiver to take advantage of- most likely whoever wins the punt returner job. Silas Bolden had three reps as punt returner after Moore went down. One was a fair catch in traffic, another was an 8-9 yard return, and the third landed inside the ten yard line so he faked like he was fielding it but let it go- as is the normal...
