The Vikings Don’t Get Through 2025 without These Unsung Heroes
On Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings will decide if they finish the 2025 campaign with a winning or losing season, taking on the Green Bay Packers. The season has been a rollercoaster experience, and a handful of Vikings don’t get enough credit for their efforts.
Minnesota’s 2025 ride got stabilized by role players who quietly swung games, plugged injuries, and held the roster together all year.
The following is a list of unsung performers who kept the season afloat in a mighty way, especially compared to how folks envisioned their roles four months ago.
The Unsung Vikings Who Propped Up 2025
Listed alphabetically, these are the Vikings’ unsung heroes of 2026.
1. Blake Brandel | OL
A fun fact about Brandel? He’s a reserve lineman for the Vikings who has played 64% of all offensive snaps in 2025. The veteran do-everything trenchman has seen action in 16 games and started nine.
Brandel has produced a 60.4 Pro Football Focus grade along the way, which is not elite, but his versatility and availability have been paramount. The guy can play guard, tackle, and center — that we know of. He might even be able to field some tight end snaps given his current modus operandi.
Any time a player from any OL position has gotten hurt, Brandel has been there to work as a substitute. Most linemen can’t do that, play left tackle and center.
Slowly, Brandel is becoming one of the longest-tenured Vikings on the roster, drafted in 2020, the same event that netted Justin Jefferson.
2. Fabian Moreau | CB
When Minnesota entered the 2025 regular season, fans worried about the cornerback depth. Only Isaiah Rodgers, Byron Murphy Jr., and Jeff Okudah represented serious starting options, with players like Dwight McGlothern and rookie Zemaiah Vaughn on the practice squad.
Well, Moreau lived on the practice squad, too, and the Vikings promoted him to the active roster over McGlothern when Okudah succumbed to multiple concussions.
The result? A 70.9 PFF grade and a fantastic 47.4 passer-rating-against on 19 targets. Even now, most fans don’t consider Moreau really all that productive, but for his role, the Vikings’ CB3, he has overdelivered.
Moreau is the kind of player the Vikings should keep around in 2026 as the CB4, for example, if one assumes that general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah finds and signs a tried-and-true CB1, or drafts one. Moreau will turn 32 this offseason and should have a year or two left in the tank.
He was basically everything that fans hoped Okudah would be. It all worked out.
Our Kyle Joudry wrote about Moreau in November, “Coach Flores runs a sophisticated scheme, one that requires players to make adjustments in real time. Accordingly, the players need to have a level of sophistication, as well. Maybe not at the same level as Flores, but capable of getting into the conversation, comprehending what’s said, and then competing after the communication gets passed along.”
“So, a veteran such as Fabian Moreau has his appeal. His NFL career has featured jumping into 115 games, starting 56 of those games. There have been 308 tackles, 5 tackles for loss, 7 interceptions, 43 passes defended, and 3 forced fumbles. Fabian Moreau isn’t going to be the silver bullet. No one will watch him play and begin thinking back to Darrelle Revis. Proving capable of being a sturdy CB3, though, does have its value.”
3. Carson Wentz | QB
Wentz certainly wasn’t a Vikings savior, but he kept the team afloat when J.J. McCarthy suffered a high ankle sprain. Wentz’s assignment lasted five games, and his team won two of them.
He averaged over 243 passing yards per game, which, in retrospect, made McCarthy and Max Brosmer look silly. Hell, Brosmer had three net passing yards on Christmas against the Lions, as Minnesota won by 13.
Vikings fans will always remember Wentz as a gutsy passer who played through a torn labrum for 2.5 starts. Had Minnesota made something of this season — basically not losing four games in a row after hitting a 4-4 record — Wentz would’ve been credited as the guy who held up his end of the bargain.
4. Eric Wilson | LB
This guy has morphed into a machine. No exaggerations.
Among all off-ball linebackers this season, Wilson ranks first in sacks, first in quarterback pressures, second in forced fumbles, 13th in defensive stops, and 32nd in tackles. He wasn’t supposed to be this good when general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah signed him in March. Hell, he wasn’t even supposed to start until he proved to be “too valuable” to sit on the bench.
Wilson is 31 years old and could be a merchant of Brian Flores‘ fancy ways, but no matter what, the guy has balled out this season. If Flores returns as the 2026 defensive coordinator, it’s damn near mandatory to bring Wilson along for another year.
The veteran linebacker even stole Ivan Pace Jr.’s job, and Pace Jr. was beloved entering the 2025 season.
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