ClutchPoints
To say Week 7 of the 2025 NFL season went poorly for the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Chargers would be an understatement.
In Minnesota, the Vikings took on the Philadelphia Eagles in a rematch of the 2018 NFC Championship game, and just like in that contest, when Nick Foles punched his team’s ticket to the Super Bowl, the Birds bested the boys in Purple and Gold in commanding fashion.
With Carson Wentz on the opposing sideline, the former No. 2 overall quarterback struggled to get much going on the offensive side of the ball, taking hit after hit from his former team while throwing multiple balls out of his receivers’ reach that could have changed the final results in a major way. Another former Eagle, Isaiah Rodgers, who looked like the biggest steal of free agency, was cooked repeatedly by AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith on the way to a perfect passer rating by Jalen Hurts, and even though the Birds’ pass rush remains a work-in-progress, they did enough to make their former franchise quarterback pay.
And as for the Chargers? Well, their narrow win in Week 6 looked like it was more due to the Miami Dolphins being really bad than Jim Harbaugh righting the ship after two straight losses to NFC East teams. The Chargers have given up 20 or more points in each of their last five games, and in Week 6, they surrendered a season-high 38, allowing Daniel Jones and Jonathan Taylor to ball out in a game where Justin Herbert threw for 420 yards and three touchdowns… plus three sacks taken and a pair of interceptions.
Needless to say, the Vikings and Chargers enter Week 8 looking to right their recent wrongs and get back on track heading into the 2025 NFL trade deadline. Fortunately, on Thursday Night Football, they will have their chance to do just that, with Kevin O’Connell and Harbaugh going head-to-head in a game some were calling a Super Bowl preview before the season began.
In Week 7, Jalen Hurts, the starting quarterback who averages the fewest passing yards of any quarterback in the NFL, turned in the game of his life against the Vikings’ pass defense, completing 19 of his 23 passes for 326 yards and three touchdowns. Hurts, one of the more athletic quarterbacks in the NFL, only ran the ball four times for -10 yards – mostly due to his three sacks – and didn’t have a strong run game overall, with Saquon Barkley averaging 2.4 yards-per-carry, but still was able to do whatever he wanted through the air, with a backup center snapping the ball, no less.
While Hurts’ success largely came down to a few big completions down the field, mostly against Rodgers and/or safety Josh Metellus, in the end, it’s not a good sign that the NFL’s seventh-ranked passing defense couldn’t stop the NFL’s 22nd-ranked passing offense for 60 minutes straight
In Week...
