4 Quick Takeaways from the Vikings’ Week 8 Disaster
The Vikings should apologize to everyone who watched this plane crash of a football game. The final score was 37-10, and quite frankly, that might have been too close for the game that aired on national television.
4 Quick Takeaways from the Vikings’ Week 8 Disaster
Usually, these takeaways include positive items even after losses, but it’s hard to find any this time. Someone is always playing well, but they surely hid it well on Thursday.
1. The team is broken beyond the QB.
It’s way too easy to point at the backup quarterback and suggest that the starter or even departed MVP candidate Sam Darnold could change much.
The Vikings have looked unprepared in six of the seven games, with the triumph over the Cincinnati Bengals being the lone exception. Suddenly, it’s fair to question whether they took the right approach throughout the summer, in which the decision-makers were cautious with players, regularly holding out starters for days or weeks over minor issues. Furthermore, the preseason snaps were so limited for the starters that they barely mattered.
Perhaps August should be taken more seriously next season.
2. Where is the elite defense?
Since the Bengals blowout in Week 3, the Vikings have one turnover in their resume. The Chargers had 419 total yards. Justin Herbert mostly had enough time to find a wide-open player 15 yards downfield, and that’s just four days after Jalen Hurts demolished the unit.
Against the Eagles, at least the running defense was present. The Chargers (mind you, a team with a subpar offensive line and starting their fourth running back) rushed for 212 yards.
In addition to all the yardage, the Chargers also converted nine of 13 third-downs, and the Vikings did not force a single punt. The offense didn’t help the defense with field position or time of possession, but the defense didn’t help itself much either.
Last year, the Vikings featured one of the league’s top defenses, and they invested big-time to fix the remaining weakness. Somehow, that created an average-at-best defense.
3. The offense is a train wreck, too.
If you think Carson Wentz (though he didn’t play well at all) is solely to blame for the offense, you haven’t been paying attention. Nothing is working for Kevin O’Connell’s group, and at some point, it’s time to hold him accountable.
Other teams around the league have backup linemen along the offensive line, but that doesn’t mean the quarterback is under immediate pressure all game long. Whenever Wentz had to hold the ball longer than he wanted to, the blockers had to pick him up after a huge hit.
The running game produced 34 rushing yards, and roughly half of it came in garbage time.
Inserting J.J. McCarthy into this offense might be a recipe for disaster.
4. There are ten remaining games.
The Vikings will play ten more games, and at 3-4, they need a 7-3 record in those games to have a realistic shot at the postseason. That’s the type of expectations the squad had for itself entering the season, but the operation just hasn’t looked like a team that can just go on a winning streak.
The Vikings won’t admit defeat, but at this point, it feels like all that really matters is how McCarthy grows from here. If he doesn’t show any growth over the next 2.5 months, the Vikings are in trouble for years to come.
Editor’s Note: Information from PFF, Over The Cap, and Sports Reference helped with this article.