Dustin Baker’s Official Win-Loss Forecast for the 2025 Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are about a week away from the regular season, taking on the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field on Monday Night Football.
Dustin Baker drops his official record prediction for the 2025 Vikings season. From roster changes to key matchups, here’s how the 2025 season is expected to unfold.
The club is expected to tally a 9-8 or 10-7 record in 2025, according to sportsbooks, after finishing 14-3 a season ago with Sam Darnold in charge.
So, with the season mere days away, let’s lock in a win-loss prediction.
Dustin Baker’s Prediction for Vikings’ Wins and Losses Is In
It all boils down to J.J. McCarthy’s game-readiness, folks.
The Prediction: 10-7
Minnesota will roll into 2025 with J.J. McCarthy in charge, a sweet change of pace for fans who were ready to end the Kirk Cousins era after six seasons. The team also built the trenches this offseason, signing offensive linemen Ryan Kelly and Will Fries, in addition to drafting Ohio State guard Donovan Jackson from Round 1. On defense, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah added Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave, Isaiah Rodgers, and Jeff Okudah.
It’s tempting to trust the Vikings with another overachieving campaign in 2025. They proved everybody wrong last year. Nobody anywhere foresaw or predicted a 14-3 record.
Still, the schedule is absolutely brutal, and unless other teams’ players suffer injuries, Minnesota doesn’t really have “easy games.” Mainly because of that schedule murderer’s row, staying at 10-7 seems sensible for a record prediction.
It’s 10-7 and a Wildcard Playoff berth.
How This Can Be Accurate
The 10-7 prognostication will be accurate if McCarthy performs at a Top 20 quarterback level. The rest of the infrastructure is in place: a sweet offensive line, a deep defensive line, and playmakers galore in Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, Adam Thielen, T.J. Hockenson, Aaron Jones, and Jordan Mason.
A winning record boils down to McCarthy. It’s really that simple. If he plays like an unprepared rookie, channeling the Christian Ponder days of purple football, 10-7 won’t quite cut it. The record would probably flip to 7-10.
A 10-7 mark is doable if McCarthy is semi-ready for the bright lights of the NFL. He’s allowed to make mistakes — probably many — but he can’t play buffoonishly and turn the ball over ad nauseam.
Why the Prediction Could Break Bad
This 10-7 forecast will die if McCarthy looks dreadfully unqualified for the regular season. Major injuries to Justin Jefferson, Christian Darrisaw, or Jonathan Greenard could also undo it.
There’s also a world where the Chicago Bears’ plan to restore winning ways moves too quickly for Vikings fans’ liking, and in unison, the Green Bay Packers, with Micah Parsons in the house, along with the Detroit Lions, plus the Bears, beat up on Minnesota.
That’s unlikely, but possible.
The short answer? These five items could produce a losing record:
- J.J. McCarthy is too raw for a Super Bowl-contending team.
- The defense experiences a weird regression.
- Injuries rattle the enterprise.
- The rushing offense still isn’t repaired.
- The NFC North turns into one of the most competitive divisions in NFL history.
Other Vikings Predictions
SI.com‘s Joe Nelson picked Minnesota to finish 14-3 again, much bolder than this prognostication.
He explained, “Last year, I predicted the Vikings to finish 12-5. While most people thought I was insane, I wound up shortchanging Minnesota because they went 14-3 and finished with the second-best record in the NFL.”
“Those predictions were made in early September, just before the season kicked off. We’ll certainly have to hit refresh on the predictions just before the 2025-26 season, but these are my way-too-early, game-by-game predictions for the Vikings — something I just had to do since the full schedule was released Wednesday.”
The Vikings have never won 14 games or more in back-to-back seasons.
“You think 14-3 is crazy? This team went 14-3 with Sam Darnold last season. The schedule is a bit tough on paper in 2025-26, but the weak spots on the roster have been addressed and the fact that Minnesota has been staunch in its belief in J.J. McCarthy is good reason to believe he’ll live up to the hype,” Nelson continued.
“You don’t pass on Aaron Rodgers unless you have a QB who you truly believe can take your team to the promised land. Kevin O’Connell won 13 games as a rookie head coach and then kept the Vikings alive with a smorgasbord of quarterbacks following Kirk Cousins’ Achilles injury in 2023. Fourteen wins later with Darnold, there’s just zero reason to think the Vikings won’t put together an even better season under O’Connell in 2025-26.”
Minnesota is favored by 1.5 points to defeat the Chicago Bears in nine days. The Vikings haven’t lost a game at Soldier Field since 2019, believe it or not. J.J. McCarthy at QB1 will mark the first time Minnesota has started a quarterback it drafted in the Top 10 — ever.
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