5 Red Flags for the 2025 Vikings
Vegas oddsmakers expect the Minnesota Vikings to cruise toward a 9-8 or 8-9 record in 2025, a vast departure from the 14-3 season one year ago.
From the rookie QB depth to the injury history, these are the top five red flags that could sully the Vikings’ season if a nightmare ensues.
Forecasters evidently see some red flags for the purple team, items mostly ignored by the team’s fans during a summer of intense excitement and hype.
But if sportsbooks have it right, and the Vikings are a good, but not a great team, these are the red flags to note. They’re ranked ascendingly (No. 1 = top red flag for 2025).
5. Hopeful Maybes for the Rushing Offense
For three consecutive offseasons, the Vikings’ brass has claimed it emphasized and fixed the rushing offense. To a degree, the plan worked heading into 2024, mainly because Aaron Jones stabilized the operation.
Still, the rushing offense wasn’t stellar in 2024; it was just improved.
Now, the team must take the next step and become a Top 15 or so rushing offense. Otherwise, Kevin O’Connell’s club will hit a wall. You can only go so far when you can’t run the rock.
The Vikings Have Some Concerns to Monitor, Not Unlike Other Teams
From rushing offense improvement to cornerback depth, a few things must go right for Minnesota this season.
4. A Murderous Schedule
From start to finish, the Vikings’ schedule is a deviant slate of opponents, with the only “easy stretch” maybe games against the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns overseas. And that’s thinking optimistically.
Most strength-of-schedule metrics deem the Vikings’ schedule as one of the NFL’s most difficult, and unless injuries beset other teams, the docket is just murderous.
Of course, the same scenario awaited Minnesota last year — and it finished the season 14-3.
3. Injured Newcomers
The Vikings notably signed these men in free agency:
- Jonathan Allen (DT)
- Will Fries (G)
- Javon Hargrave (DT)
- Ryan Kelly (C)
All four ended the 2024 season on injured reserve. Every single one of them. Minnesota will assume clean bills of health across the board and expect everybody to have healed just fine.
But what if lingering effects from those injuries persist? Fans want to avoid a Marcus Davenport situation from 2023.
2. Best-Laid Plans at Cornerback
With a Super Bowl-caliber roster, the Vikings will probably trot out these five cornerbacks this season:
- Byron Murphy Jr.
- Isaiah Rodgers
- Mekhi Blackmon
- Jeff Okudah
- Dwight McGlothern
Is that enough proven talent at corner? It just seems a little skimpy for a roster that otherwise has depth at every position.
It’s why you hear so many rumors about Minnesota involving Jalen Ramsey, Jaire Alexander, and Asante Samuel Jr., to name a few.
Our own Janik Eckardt wrote about Jeff Okudah this week, “It looks like one guy is just as good a bet as each of those guys: Jeff Okudah. A former third overall pick, Okudah has turned into a journeyman backup cornerback throughout the years as injuries have slowed down his progress.”
“Almost like Sam Darnold a year ago, in what might be his last chance to compete for a significant job on a defense, the 26-year-old seems to enter the summer in a good position to redeem himself. Okudah, meanwhile, got a fully guaranteed but cheap $2.35 million contract for one campaign. The veteran getting reps ahead of Blackmon is surprising. There’s no doubt about Okudah’s talent.”
The cornerback fears would be wholly solved if Okudah finally lived up to his 2020 draft stock.
Eckardt added, “He is long and has the strength to be a problem for wideouts, and his speed is helping, too. The Lions once drafted him third overall. Injuries have been a big problem for the former Ohio State standout. Some soft-tissue injuries limited him to nine games in his rookie season, a torn Achilles cost him all but one contest in 2021, and he played only six games last year because of a hip injury.”
“The Vikings seem to be big fans of their cheap signing. It remains to be seen whether he can repay that trust. Okudah will be a guy to watch this summer in matchups with Jefferson and Jordan Addison. At the age of 26, the Vikings hope they can finally unlock some consistency from the once highly-touted defender.”
1. Inexperienced QB on a Super Bowl Roster
The grandaddy of them all — this Vikings roster is ready to compete for a Super Bowl right now. There’s no waiting until 2026 or 2027. The depth chart has the juice for a deep postseason run.
Yet, at the top of the ticket, McCarthy is an unproven commodity. He’s the only thing standing in the way of an honest-to-goodness Super Bowl push. For example, if an average quarterback, like Tua Tagovailoa or Geno Smith, were on this roster as the QB1, some pundits would deem Minnesota a contender.
The Vikings can still be a legitimate contender; they just need McCarthy to accelerate his development.
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