After last week, the believers are dwindling
The playoffs start today! What is the best case scenario for the Vikings?
No. 5 L.A. Chargers (-3) at No. 4 Houston
I like the Chargers in this game. They play solid defense and run the ball. CJ Stroud has regressed this season and I am not sure he will snap out of it especially when he is missing Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell.
No. 6 Pittsburgh at No. 3 Baltimore (-9.5)
I am going with the Ravens in this one. The Steelers are reeling having lost 4 straight and their leading receiver, George Pickens, is having issues.
No. 7 Denver at No. 2 Buffalo (-8.5)
Denver and Box Nix have been a good story but I think it ends in Buffalo. Josh Allen is too much.
No. 7 Green Bay at No. 2 Philadelphia (-4.5)
I hate to say it but I want the Packers to win. But there head coach, Matt LaFleur, decided to play his starters last week and they ended up losing receiver Christian Watson for the season with a torn ACL and Jordan Love hurt his elbow. Jalen Hurts is going to play after missing the last two games. I think SaQuon Barkley could be the difference. But, in the interest of the Vikings, I am hoping the stinking Packers pull off the upset.
No. 6 Washington at No. 3 Tampa Bay (-3)
I think the Commandos can pull of the win in Tampa. They will have to stop the run though which is something they have not done well this season. I just like Jayden Daniels. I think he will make enough plays (kiss of death?) to get Washington over the hump.
No. 5 Minnesota (-1.5) at No. 4 L.A. Rams
I like the Vikings in this game. Duh! Sam Darnold is going to have to play smart and hit the throws. Defensively, they will need to do a better job containing Kupp and Puka.
If the Packers, Commandos, and Vikings all win, then the Packers will play the Lions and the Vikings will host the Commandos.
Then, the Vikings best the Commandos and the Packers upset the Lions and the Vikings host the NFC Championship game.
A man can dream right?
Minnesota Vikings News and Links
NFL playoffs: Vikings on upset alert and other predictions for wild-card weekend
Name a team on upset alert
Nadkarni: Minnesota. The Vikings are very slight favorites against the Rams, and I think Minnesota — despite its 14-3 record — is a team I’m definitely nervous about. First off, Los Angeles already beat the Vikings once at home this season, winning 30-20 in Week 7, a game in which Matthew Stafford threw for four touchdowns. And thanks to the NFL’s love of division winners, Minnesota is back on the road to start the playoffs.
Simply put, I’m nervous for Sam Darnold in his first ever postseason action, especially coming off a dispiriting outing against the Lions in the Vikings’ season finale. And though defensive coordinator Brian Flores can concoct a great game plan, there’s nothing Stafford hasn’t seen.
NFL Expert Picks: Opinions Divided for Vikings & Rams in Wild Card Round
Rams 28, Vikings 24 – Pete Prisco, CBS Sports
The Vikings didn’t play well in the Sunday night loss to the Lions that cost them a chance at the No. 1 seed. Now they face a Rams team that rested a lot of key players last week. Sam Darnold needs to respond after a poor showing last week. The problem is the Rams defensive front can get after him. Matthew Stafford will be challenged by the Brian Flores defense, but I think he will make enough plays to pull off the upset.
Rams 31, Vikings 30 – Staff, Bleacher Report
In Week 8, the Los Angeles Rams beat the Minnesota Vikings 30-20 at home. The referees missed a facemask infraction late in the game, but the Vikings needed a late touchdown drive to potentially tie up the score anyway.
The Rams pressured Sam Darnold in that contest, sacking him three times, and limited the Vikings explosive plays over the top. Los Angeles may have the blueprint to slow down Minnesota’s ninth-ranked scoring offense.
However, [Bleacher Report NFL analyst Brent] Sobleski picked the Vikings to flip the script on the Rams in this Monday Night Football matchup.
“When the Vikings traveled to the Los Angeles Rams in October, [Rams Head Coach] Sean McVay and Company emerged victorious,” Sobleski said. “Aside from the Detroit Lions, the Rams are the only team to have beaten Minnesota so far this season. An asterisk needs to be placed on that win, though.
“The game was on Thursday Night Football, four days after the Vikings faced the Lions. Meanwhile, the Rams hosted the Las Vegas Raiders the previous Sunday. Los Angeles caught Minnesota at exactly the right time,” Sobleski added. “Many will bet that history can repeat itself after the Vikings lost to the Lions in Week 18, whereas the Rams got to rest their stars. But the Vikings, who were clearly the better squad throughout the season, now have extra time to prepare with the game being on Monday. Vikings Head Coach Kevin O’Connell knows McVay as well as anyone in the game. It’s difficult to envision the Vikings faltering the same way twice.”
Rams 28, Vikings 27 – Bill Bender, Sporting News
Here is the “upset” of the week. The Rams are home underdogs against a Minnesota team coming off a brutal loss against the Lions. Los Angeles beat Minnesota 30-20 in Week 8. Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua combined for 12 catches for 157 yards and a TD in that game. Matthew Stafford had consistent home-road splits this season, and the Rams can win another close game here.
How will Sam Darnold respond after a brutal Week 18 performance against the Lions? This is his first playoff start, and it will be heavily scrutinized. The Rams were 3-3 as an underdog of four points or less this season, and we think they will generate just enough against the Vikings second-ranked run defense to spring the upset.
Vikings 20, Rams 17 – Vinnie Iyer, Sporting News
The Vikings lost to only two teams this season, the Lions (twice) and Rams. Before falling in Week 18 in Detroit, they lost back-to-back to Detroit and Los Angeles in Weeks 7 and 8. The Vikings just struggled playing all-out with Sam Darnold, while the Rams still looked good resting Matthew Stafford and other starters. That said, the Rams offense is a bigger issue than their defense in the second matchup, and this surprise low-scoring game will go to the savvier group in the rematch.
Newly minted All-Pro Justin Jefferson needs a playoff win with the Vikings next on his list of feats
Justin Jefferson has smashed all kinds of NFL receiving records over his first five seasons, and he was just voted as an unanimous selection for first team All-Pro.
Winning a playoff game with the Minnesota Vikings is the next — long overdue — feat on his list. A performance matching his superstar status would go a long way toward getting that done.
“It’s definitely important to have those moments,” Jefferson said after practice on Friday. “It’s win or go home. You have those moments, or you miss those moments and you wish had those moments after the season. So you definitely don’t want to have those type of conversations.”
“Our entire operation needed to have a reflection and a time period where we acknowledged what happened,” coach Kevin O’Connell said. “We tried to identify the things we absolutely need to fix, and that’s individual players like Sam and many others, and that’s coaches.”
Darnold went 18 for 41 overall and just 3 for 9 when targeting Jefferson, resulting in the second-lowest catch percentage of Jefferson’s career.
“It’s just a matter of me being able to trust the throws, trust my feet, trust my eyes, and just letting it rip,” said Darnold, who sailed several passes too high and out of reach of his receivers in an uncharacteristic display of inaccuracy. “I think that’s the biggest thing, when I see the throw there, just being able to let it rip and don’t think twice about it.”
If Sam Darnold struggles, could Vikings turn to Daniel Jones?
Now that the regular season has ended, Jones has gone all in with the Vikings by joining the active roster. He’ll be with the Vikings and only the Vikings for the postseason, however long it lasts.
The fact that the move happened only days after starter Sam Darnold found a moment that seemed a bit too big for his stunningly strong season has raised questions about whether Jones might be in line to play, if Darnold struggles in the postseason.
“It’s such a fluid thing here the rest of the way,” coach Kevin O’Connell said Thursday. “We’re gonna do whatever we think gives us the best chance to win.”
Vikings coaches commend Harrison Smith’s leadership as vet safety embarks on sixth playoff run
Harrison Smith resides in the Vikings’ secondary as one of the elders on the roster. He’s seen plenty in his 13 NFL seasons, including six trips to the Pro Bowl and one first-team All-Pro nod.
Smith has also been a part of five Vikings teams to reach the playoffs. The closest he came to the Super Bowl was back in 2017, the Minneapolis Miracle season in which the Vikings pulled off an unbelievable win over the Saints before falling to the eventual Super Bowl champion Eagles in the NFC Championship Game.
With his 36th birthday approaching in February, Smith knows his place as a veteran on an upstart team. In fact, he’s close enough in age to his coach, Kevin O’Connell, to have forged a unique bond with the leader of the 14-3 Vikings, meeting with him weekly over coffee.
“We’ve always had a more of a peer relationship,” Smith said recently, via The Associated Press. “He is my boss, but we’re closer in age. He kind of came into the league when it was a certain way, and it’s changed a little. I’ve definitely gotten to know more about him as a coach, a player, a person, the whole thing.”
“He can be such a good gauge of the locker room and the pulse of the building and all those things,” O’Connell said of Smith. “It’s not necessarily he’s telling me things that I need to know. It’s just his unique ability to be around guys who are a lot younger than him, or other veteran players, and just communicate. I do feel like in a lot of ways it’s a peer-to-peer type of relationship because of the respect level there, but it’s been a cool part of this year getting that time with him.”
“I love coaching him,” Flores said. “He’s allowed me to be more creative and attempt to do some things — because they don’t all work — because of his acumen, because of his leadership, because I think he can get us into some certain things that will help us.”
“You just respect everything about how he operates, how he treats people, how he communicates,” O’Connell said. “I don’t know if it’s being close in age or whatever it is, but I’ve really enjoyed the time that I get with him.”
Vikings’ Sam Darnold Set for Eye-Popping New Contract
The midseason expectations for Darnold would be a contract on par with Baker Mayfield‘s three-year, $100 million deal he signed with a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team that went 9-8 and won a playoff game with him a season ago.
Darnold has exceeded most of Mayfield’s marks from a year ago, begging the question of what Darnold’s price in free agency could be.
Spotrac updated its projection of Darnold’s value as the No. 1 pending free agent this upcoming offseason. Based on Darnold’s performance and recent contracts awarded for comparable quarterback seasons, Spotrac projected Darnold’s next contract to be a four-year, $218.7 million deal.
Considering Darnold’s potential value in free agency, the $41.3 million franchise tag is looking more reasonable than once expected.
It wouldn’t be the same as the one-year, $10 million deal Darnold signed last offseason, but the Vikings would be paying roughly the same amount at quarterback as they did this season.
While Minnesota only has $8.2 million of cap space sunk for their existing quarterback room, the Vikings did have to pay Kirk Cousins a remaining $28.5 million in dead cap this season as well. They essentially operated with $36 million spent at the quarterback position this season — $5 million off the cost of tagging Darnold for next year
Proposed Vikings, Giants blockbuster would send top-5 pick to Minnesota with one caveat
NFL Draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. dropped an eye-opening take on a recent episode of Unsportsmanlike on ESPN Radio. Kiper revealed that McCarthy would be his No. 1 graded quarterback in the 2025 draft class, and if he were a QB-needy team like the New York Giants, he would be monitoring Minnesota’s situation over the coming weeks to see if McCarthy could become available via trade.
In fact, when asked point-blank if he would trade this year’s No. 3 overall pick for McCarthy, Kiper basically cut off the question with his answer: “Yes.”
When asked if the Vikings should make that trade, Kiper changed his tone. There’s one caveat: Darnold’s performance in these upcoming playoff games. Here was Kiper’s take on the situation:
I don’t think you need to know that right now. That’s something, if I’m the Vikings, I’m letting that all play out because you have a 27-year-old Sam Darnold looking really good for (Kevin) O’Connell, and if he goes through the playoffs playing really well, Sam Darnold’s your quarterback. Then you could potentially look at trading J.J. If Sam Darnold isn’t at that level in these playoff games, then you keep J.J., you franchise Sam, you let it play out. You can’t go with J.J. and let Sam go, because J.J. is still a relative unknown coming off the injury. But you would then franchise Sam and let them both go into next year on that team with Sam being the starter, develop J.J. maybe as the heir apparent and see how Sam plays.
So, yeah, I think the playoff situation coming up for Minnesota will determine everything about how they handle their quarterback situation.
While Minnesota’s plan at the quarterback position for 2025 remains a mystery, this is an excellent problem to have. A large percentage of NFL teams need a quarterback, and the Vikings potentially have two on their roster. That’s a significant advantage for a team that’s already a legitimate playoff contender.
It’s probably too soon to go all-in on Darnold. He’s been great this season, but that Detroit game was a potential red flag. We still need to see how it looks when the team faces added adversity. Monday’s playoff game, against a Rams team that beat the Vikings back in Week 8, certainly qualifies. We’ll also want to see how he comes back and performs next season, after a full year in Minnesota’s program.
It’s equally too soon to move on from McCarthy, even for a top-five pick this year. We haven’t seen the former Michigan star take a real NFL snap yet. Moving on from him too soon could be an organization-wide blunder.
Experts break down all aspects of Giants potentially trading for J.J. McCarthy: Pros, cons, risks
Could the Giants find their quarterback of the future by revisiting their recent past?
The Giants bypassed J.J. McCarthy and instead selected receiver Malik Nabers with the No. 6 pick of the 2024 NFL Draft after conducting extensive in-person homework on the quarterback who guided Michigan to a national championship.
“Malik was our guy,” general manager Joe Schoen said when asked about choosing between those two prospects. “He was the guy we targeted.”
One year later, the Vikings, who drafted McCarthy with the No. 10 pick, could use him as a trade chip if they re-sign surprise Pro Bowler Sam Darnold to a massive extension instead of franchise-tagging Darnold.
Would the Giants offer the No. 3 pick in 2025? Should they?
Why the Giants should do it
If Sanders and Ward are going to be the top-two picks, the Giants will need to trade multiple picks to the quarterback-needy Titans (No. 1) or Browns (No. 2) to move up. It sounds like a big risk when the early consensus in scouting circles is that neither Sanders nor Ward would have been higher than the fourth-best quarterback in the 2024 class.
Swapping spots from No. 3 to No. 2 to secure a quarterback (Mitch Trubisky) cost the Bears two third-rounders and a fourth-rounder in a trade with the 49ers in 2017.
So, the Giants would acquire a better player in McCarthy for a lesser cost: just the No. 3 pick instead of No. 3 and more. And McCarthy only would be owed a bargain $8.3 million total over three seasons (instead of the standard four-year rookie contract).
“I would do it if it’s a given that I had him higher than this year’s quarterbacks — and some teams won’t have one or both of [Sanders and Ward] at that level,” an NFC executive said. “Once you get J.J., you find ways to keep good players. If you think a quarterback is talented, I don’t care if you get him for No. 3, No. 6 or No. 9.”
McCarthy also would arrive with the benefit of having spent his rookie year in head coach Kevin O’Connell’s quarterback-maker system. There was pre-injury buzz that McCarthy might win the Week 1 starting job after his impressive preseason debut.
“When J.J. got hurt, I thought it might have been the best thing that ever happened to him,” the executive said, “because he gets a redshirt year under Kevin.”
ESPN NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. said recently on “Unsportsmanlike” that the Giants should trade No. 3 for McCarthy.
“If you look at his grade last year compared to the grades this year of the quarterbacks,” Kiper said, “he would be the No. 1 guy.”
Why the Giants should not do it
Since the Giants passed on McCarthy, he has undergone two knee surgeries (torn meniscus) and hasn’t thrown a regular-season pass.
The unknown about the injury is a major drawback, but all trades are made pending physicals, so the Giants could bring McCarthy in for a medical evaluation before a final commitment.
“There’s no way to know for sure about his knee until he’s on the field,” one NFC scout said. “I wouldn’t do it. Would you buy a car if all you saw was a very nice picture on FaceTime and then were told, ‘It got in a minor fender-bender, but it’s good as new now?’ His ability to make plays with his legs was one of his main tools.”
“I like McCarthy as a prospect more than Sanders and Ward based on grades,” ESPN NFL Draft analyst Matt Miller said, “but I wouldn’t trade No. 3. I think it’s bad value for something you haven’t seen. How much was he really able to do this year to learn to put him in a position to play next year?”
The Vikings also could replenish their draft capital after two first-round trades in 2024 left them with just a first-rounder and two fifth-rounders in 2025.
But is it enticing enough to nearly double McCarthy’s salary-cap charge? Keeping him as a backup would cost $4.96 million while trading him would accelerate a $9.53 million dead-cap charge.
“I’m not doing it for them,” the NFC executive said. “It’s too hard to find your guy. If you think it’s McCarthy, I’m keeping both Darnold and McCarthy as long as possible.”
Yore Mock
This assumes the team extends Daniel Jones on a 1 yr 15M deal.
Trades
Trade Partner: Las Vegas Raiders
Sent: Sam Darold
Received: Round 2 Pick 5, Round 4 Pick 6
…
Trade Partner: Jacksonville Jaguars
Sent: Round 1 Pick 30
Received: Round 2 Pick 4, Round 4 Pick 30, Round 7 Pick 5
…
Trade Partner: Buffalo Bills
Sent: Round 2 Pick 4, Round 4 Pick 30
Received: Round 2 Pick 28, Round 2 Pick 30
…
Trade Partner: New York Jets
Sent: Round 3 Pick 33
Received: Round 4 Pick 8, Round 5 Pick 19
…
Trade Partner: Pittsburgh Steelers
Sent: Round 4 Pick 8
Received: Round 4 Pick 21, Round 5 Pick 20
…
37: R2 P5 DL Tyleik Williams – Ohio State 6’3” 327
60: R2 P28 G Donovan Jackson – Ohio State 6’4” 320
Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
62: R2 P30 RB Omarion Hampton – North Carolina 6’1” 220
107: R4 P6 CB Azareye’h Thomas – Florida State 6’2” 198
122: R4 P21 LB Chris Paul Jr. – Ole Miss 6’1” 235
138: R5 P1 WR Jack Bech – TCU 6’2” 215
156: R5 P19 S Jonas Sanker – Virginia 6’1” 210
157: R5 P20 C Cooper Mays – Tennessee 6’4” 310
Photo by Ian Johnson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
165: R5 P28 DL Aeneas Peebles – Virginia Tech 6’1” 290
Photo by Lee Coleman/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
220: R7 P5 DL Darius Alexander – Toledo 6’4” 310
Photo by Jevone Moore/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
236: R7 P21 TE Bryson Nesbit – North Carolina 6’5” 235
Again, we all know the rules, but in case someone is new:
- No discussion of politics or religion
- No feeding of the trolls
- Leave the gender hatred at the door
- Keep the bad language to a minimum (using the spoiler tags, if you must)
- Speaking of which, if discussing a newer show or movie, please use spoiler tags
- No pictures that could get someone fired or in serious trouble with their employer
- If you can’t disagree in a civil manner, feel free to go away
- While navigating the open thread, just assume it’s sarcasm