The Blueprint for Ending Vikings Drought vs. the Lions
A dirty little secret of Minnesota Vikings football? The team hasn’t won a game at Detroit in five years. The Lions have turned the tide on the Vikings in the scope of the rivalry’s history, and with the two clubs meeting in Week 9, here’s how Minnesota can return to normalcy.
It’s no secret — the Vikings haven’t topped the Lions in three years. They’ll get a chance on Sunday, and here’s just how they can pull off a dub.
It won’t be easy — at all — as Kevin O’Connell’s squad is nearly a 10-point underdog, but it can be done.
How the Vikings Can End the Streak at the Lions
All bad things come to an end.
1. Win the Damn Turnover Battle
The Vikings intercepted opponents’ passes 24 times last season — 24 times. This year, Minnesota has logged three picks. The discrepancy is glaring. The mission and outcome are pretty damn clear when O’Connell coaches a football team: when his squad wins the turnover battle or breaks even, it wins. When it doesn’t, they lose.
Every Vikings game since 2022 follows this blueprint.
Minnesota must force a turnover or two and protect the ball. J.J. McCarthy cannot turn into a turnover machine, his playmakers cannot fumble.
2. Run the Football, Do It Efficiently, and Don’t Abandon the Run
No Vikings tailback, fullback, or quarterback has topped 57 rushing yards in a game since Week 3. Put another way — it’s been six straight weeks without anyone cracking 60 on the ground.
When the team has fallen behind on the scoreboard — and even when it hasn’t — the Vikings abandon the run and throw the ball with a mediocre passer like Carson Wentz under center. This doesn’t work. Minnesota must run the ball efficiently and run it often.
Get Jordan Mason and Aaron Jones involved, and don’t stop unless the scoreboard quickly turns into a three-score deficit.
If McCarthy is asked to throw 40 times or more, the purple team will lose.
Our Brevan Bane opined on the rushing offense, “Looking at the numbers, regardless of who has actually been able to put on their shoulder pads on Sundays, the Vikings’ rushing offense has been completely irrelevant through the first seven games of their 2025 campaign. The Vikings’ ground game to this point is a bad omen for QB J.J. McCarthy.”
“A young signal caller’s best friend is a good running game, and as sad as it is for the kid, the Vikings don’t have that. Rather, they have a bottom-five rushing offense in the entire National Football League. The inability to run the ball must change with a quickness, because NFL defenses are going to let McCarthy try to beat them until he proves that he can.”
O’Connell has been preaching about rushing improvement for about three years now, to no avail. It’s his kryptonite.
“It’s nice to imagine the Vikings’ offense if they had a running game that resembled anything close to a quality one. Kevin O’Connell’s passing game mastery, paired with a running game with a legitimate threat to gash you, would give opposing defensive coordinators nightmares trying to gameplan for the purple and gold offensive unit,” Bane added.
“Sadly, the Vikings don’t have that, and the proof is in the pudding that defenses are just fine with letting Viking rushers try their luck on the ground.”
3. Competent Play from J.J. McCarthy
Speaking of McCarthy, good lord, does this man need an impressive game to tame the fears of Vikings fans. Everyone’s last memory of him was a heinous Week 2 showing, in which McCarthy looked lost, silly, and unprepared.
Folks can dissect Minnesota from head to toe this season, hoping to find out why it has a losing record. But the fact remains that quarterback play is the smoking gun. For example, if Wentz had not failed to see a couple of open receivers against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 7, his team would be 4-3 right now, not 3-4. The vibes would be markedly, markedly different.
McCarthy has to look the part of a franchise quarterback, delivering at least 200 passing yards, a touchdown or two, and one or zero turnovers. The man has to play smart and put the memory of the Falcons game on the ash heap of history.
4. Defensive Containment
The Lions have tabulated these point totals in the last five games against the Vikings:
- 31
- 31
- 30
- 30
- 34
Minnesota lost all five games.
Perhaps the magic potion is holding Detroit under 30 points. That would mean defensive containment is the answer. Fans should understand that the Lions will “get theirs,” but anything at 30 or more will result in another loss.
Contain the Lions’ offense; don’t expect to wholly stop it.
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