Daily Norseman
I have some good news and some bad news to share. Let me start with the bad: the Vikings offense has played 7 out of 8 quarters of terrible football so far this season. The offensive line is in shambles and J.J. McCarthy’s accuracy has not been up to NFL standards. The defense gave up way too many rushing yards to Atlanta, on a night where the offense was almost completely stagnant, which led to a very unbalanced game for Minnesota. There were many missed opportunities in Sunday night’s game as well, particularly on offense. One was a pass on third and one that J.J. sailed over the head of Jalen Nailor. Another was a 20-yard run by Jordan Mason that was called back by a holding penalty on left tackle Walter Rouse.
McCarthy was inconsistent with his accuracy during a game where his line wasn’t giving him the protection he needed. Kevin O’Connell has his work cut out for him and I think this loss falls predominantly on his shoulders. We have seen no type of rhythm from this offense, except for one quarter against what appears to be, especially after the 52-21 drubbing against Detroit, a below average to bad Bears team. As a staunch believer in this Minnesota team, I was thoroughly disappointed with the performance against the Atlanta Falcons, who appear to be a strong squad in their own right. The start of 2025 is quite the contrary to how the 2024 campaign started. However, there is a silver lining: we hit rock bottom.
The good news is that, although the Vikings were terrible on Sunday night, it can’t get any worse. (After I wrote my first draft of this piece, we got news that McCarthy is possibly out 2-4 weeks). I am not making excuses by any means. Injuries happen and teams have to find ways to win regardless of who they have on the field. It is not an easy task, but it is something that is expected of professional football teams. There is, what I believe to be, an obvious reason for the lackluster week 2 performance. At the end of the game, the offensive line consisted of Walter Rouse, Donovan Jackson, Michael Jurgens, Will Fries, and Brian O’Neill. That is ONE starter carried over from the 2024 season.
In a previous article, I mentioned that offensive lines take some time to jell but thought that curve would be flattened by the fact that Ryan Kelly and Will Fries had played together for many seasons previously. However, my analysis was flat out wrong, and this offensive line still needs to find its identity as a unit, which is a difficult thing to do when you have two backups and a rookie in for most of the game. The unit’s poor play has to improve, obviously. Christian Darrisaw is a top-5 left tackle in the NFL and the...
