Unfortunately for the Minnesota Vikings and their fans, history repeated itself in more ways than one in the Vikings’ playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Minnesota started this season on a five-game win streak, only to lose back-to-back games against the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams. After those two losses, the Vikings bounced back to reel off nine straight victories. Only to drop back-to-back games against the Lions and Rams again. The first to cost them the #1 seed in the NFC, and the second to bounce them from the playoffs entirely.
Minnesota has a lot of questions to answer in the offseason. The embarrassing loss may have made Some of those questions easier to answer. There was a lot of chatter about the possibility of keeping quarterback Sam Darnold around next season and delaying the transition to first-round pick J.J. McCarthy — or even scrapping that idea all-together and trading McCarthy to recoup some NFL Draft capital. With Darnold’s performance the last two weeks, it’s hard to imagine that’s still on the table — if it ever truly was to begin with.
Beyond the quarterback position, the Vikings have real questions to answer along their offensive line, which simply was not good enough at protecting Darnold or opening up rush lanes for their running backs throughout the season. They also need to figure out what they’re doing in the defensive backfield, with only safety/linebacker/defensive chess piece Joshua Metellus under contract going forward.
But before all of those questions are answered, let’s put a bow on the 2024 season and take a look at the Studs and Duds from a disappointing Wild Card loss.