Why the 2025 Vikings Will Steal Your Heart
Sportsbooks believe the Minnesota Vikings will win eight or nine games in 2025. Last year, the same folks said six or seven wins, and Minnesota won 14.
Most fans don’t need reasons to be excited about the 2025 Vikings, but just in case, these are eight.
It’s a new day in Minnesota, as the franchise let Sam Darnold leave via free agency and promoted J.J. McCarthy to QB1.
You may not need reasons to get excited about the 2025 squad, but here are several for the record. They’re listed with the bottom of the list as the No. 1 reason for excitement.
Coaching Continuity — Again
Remember the Mike Zimmer era? The Vikings kept losing their offensive coordinators to promotions and terminations, generating a new offensive system every offseason.
Thankfully, Minnesota retained Brian Flores this offseason, who didn’t land a head coaching job in Jacksonville or Chicago.
Unlike the Detroit Lions, who lost their offensive and defensive coordinators, the Vikings will boast almost complete coaching continuity, outside of assistant quarterbacks coach Grant Udinski, who skedaddled to offensively coordinate the Jacksonville Jaguars.
While often uncontrollable, coaching continuity is ideal and preferred.
14 Wins with Sam Darnold
One year ago, Minnesota won 14 games with Sam Darnold at quarterback, considered by most at the start of the season a draft bust and a lost cause.
If head coach Kevin O’Connell could win 14 games with Darnold at the helm, he can probably do something relatively similar with his handpicked quarterback of the future, J.J. McCarthy. At the very least, the Vikings should be in a playoff chase down the stretch of the season. It’s the Viking way.
Bevy of Offensive Weapons
List ’em: Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson, Aaron Jones, Jordan Mason, and rookie Tai Felton.
McCarthy will toss the ball to those men on Sundays, and even if he isn’t a Pro Bowler out of the gate, that sixsome will provide electricity on offense during McCarthy’s maiden voyage.
The firepower is there, and offense puts butts in seats.
Harrison Smith’s Last Ride
After Minnesota lost to Los Angeles in the playoffs four months ago, Smith sounded like a man mere days from a retirement announcement.
But that raw emotion burned off, and Smith is back for Year No. 14. Folks should interpret this season as his last, if only not to miss out on necessary farewells.
An Already Good Defense
Brian Flores and Co. ranked second in the NFL last year per EPA/Play and DVOA. The defense is already elite. The club lost Camryn Bynum, Stephon Gilmore, and Shaquill Griffin to free agency but signed Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave, and Isaiah Rodgers while promoting promising safety Theo Jackson.
If Minnesota’s defense were mediocre or bad to start the McCarthy era, this wouldn’t be quite as fun or alluring.
It’s not. The defense is already fantastic.
Genuine Super Bowl Contendership
General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah spent the last four offseasons preparing for this moment. The here and now is when the Vikings can go all in. And this isn’t an “all in” from the Kirk Cousins era, a period fans hoped “everything can maybe go right and perhaps they’ll win a playoff game or two.”
This is real Super Bowl contendership if McCarthy transforms into a Top 12 quarterback.
The competitive rebuild is finished, and Adofo-Mensah will watch the fruits of his labor unfold.
They Built the Damn Trenches
Out: Garrett Bradbury, Ed Ingram, Dalton Risner, and Jonathan Bullard. In: Ryan Kelly, Will Fries, Donovan Jackson, Jonathan Allen, and Javon Hargrave.
The Vikings’ trenches, on paper, now rival the NFC’s best.
J.J. McCarthy. Just in General.
A rookie quarterback organically drafted by the Vikings hasn’t worked in a quarter century. The last guy? Daunte Culpepper, a member of the 1999 NFL Draft.
After cycling through rookie passers who didn’t work out for various reasons — Tarvaris Jackson, Christian Ponder, Teddy Bridgewater, Kellen Mond, Jaren Hall — and countless veterans — Kirk Cousins, Brad Johnson, Sam Darnold, Sam Bradford, Gus Frerotte, Matt Cassel, Donovan McNabb — it’s McCarthy’s time for an audition.
Why is this so exciting? McCarthy is the first Vikings quarterback drafted with a Top 10 pick in franchise history.
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