The NFL’s wild-card weekend slate of games gave Vikings fans the opportunity to operate mostly as football agnostics when it came to rooting interests.
I would even dare say that even the toughest game of the weekend to stomach — rival Chicago vs. rival Green Bay — ended with a result that pleased the vast majority of the purple faithful.
But it’s also hard to watch playoff football without trying to apply the things you see as they pertain to a potential path forward for the Vikings, who are entering the offseason with a boatload of questions, the biggest of which is at quarterback.
Patrick Reusse and I talked through some of what we saw on Monday’s Daily Delivery podcast.
Let’s get into some more specifics at the start of today’s 10 things to know:
- Quarterback play obviously matters a lot in the NFL, particularly in the playoffs. The two frontrunners for NFL MVP this season, Matthew Stafford and Drake Maye, helped their teams to victories over the weekend. Stafford did it with a last-minute TD pass. Five of the top seven quarterbacks in terms of Total QBR this regular season led their teams to the playoffs. And four of those five QBs played and won this weekend (Maye, Stafford, Brock Purdy and Josh Allen).
- So, the Vikings need an elite QB. J.J. McCarthy was about as far from that as possible this season. Clearly, they need to go a different direction. Well ... Allen was similarly awful in his first year as a starter. He turned into a perennial MVP candidate and led Buffalo past Jacksonville this weekend. Bryce Young looked like a No. 1 overall bust in 2023, but he has bounced back enough to lead Carolina to a division title (albeit at 8-9 in the comically week NFC South) and came within that Stafford comeback of leading the Panthers to a playoff win. Caleb Williams led a masterful comeback victory over Green Bay and has found his footing in Year 2. Not everyone takes the same path.
- Among the other losing QBs: Jordan Love put up big numbers but couldn’t make enough plays in the second half. He and coach Matt LaFleur, whose tenure in Green Bay is shaky though perhaps headed for a continued marriage, have been a mediocre playoff combo. Jalen Hurts and Philadelphia were bounced by San Francisco a year after winning the Super Bowl. Trevor Lawrence’s big season in Jacksonville ended with a playoff defeat.
- And Justin Herbert dropped to 0-3 all time in the playoffs when the Los Angeles Chargers put up just three points at New England. Reusse came out swinging at the start of Monday’s podcast, wondering whether the Chargers might be ready to punt on Herbert and trade him to the Vikings while reuniting McCarthy and Jim Harbaugh with the Chargers.
- While the Chargers have big questions, a blockbuster like that feels far-fetched on both ends. Thinking about it, though, does underscore how fragile things can be. Even teams that seemingly have QB figured out like the Chargers, Philadelphia and Baltimore (the Ravens didn’t even make the playoffs) can still find themselves suddenly facing crossroads questions.
- The Vikings, of course, will get a couple more looks at what-ifs in the coming days. Aaron Rodgers-led Pittsburgh hosts Houston on Monday night. The Vikings might be in the playoffs this year had they signed Rodgers in the offseason. Meanwhile, 2024 Vikings QB Sam Darnold and Seattle won’t play until next weekend after having the NFC’s first-round bye as the No. 1 seed. The Vikings probably judged both quarterbacks to have limited ceilings: good enough to make the playoffs but not win it all. As they continue to chase that elusive Super Bowl, the Vikings should know this: They need to get it right at QB, but even after that there is a lot of work to be done.
- Andrew Krammer took a good long look at three of the Vikings’ underwhelming big money free agents from 2025. They, too, were part of the reason Minnesota came up short this year.
- The audacity of Gophers women’s hockey star Abbey Murphy to even attempt this sort of move was eclipsed only by the sheer perfection of her execution. The end result was one of the most gorgeous goals you will ever see at any level.
- The Timberwolves had a thrilling comeback win over San Antonio, 104-103, but it came with a price: Rudy Gobert committed a flagrant foul and will miss Tuesday night’s game at Milwaukee. He’s also subject to miss two games for every subsequent flagrant foul this year.
- The Gophers women’s basketball team had an impressive win that stopped a puzzling streak. Their 63-62 win over No. 21-ranked USC ended a 36-game skid against ranked opponents dating back to November 2019. The Gophers haven’t been great in that span, but they haven’t been that bad.
