The bye week is a good time for self-reflection, both for the team and for us fans. I voiced a handful of opinions and hot takes at the beginning of this season, some of which are looking pretty good, some of which are not. Here are receipts for my top 3 hits and misses of the 2025 NFL season so far.
Hits:
1. The Eagles are not dominant
It’s very possible that by the time you’re reading this, the Eagles will have trounced our beloved Vikings. Still, they aren’t what they were cracked up to be.
Virtually every preseason power ranking put the Eagles at number 1—the team won the Super Bowl and boasts a talented roster at almost every position.
Yet, by far the most dominant team in 2024 was the Detroit Lions, and even with the loss of some key players and coaches, it was hard to believe that they would suddenly disappear.
The Lions and Eagles have both started the season 4-2, but the Lions are tied with the Seahawks for the best point differential in the NFC, while the Eagles have a negative point differential after a 3-score loss to a hapless Giants team. As of today, the NFC is still wide open, and many different teams could represent the conference in the Super Bowl.
2. Vikings look to be on the fringe of a playoff berth
Before the season, I predicted that the Vikings would most likely find themselves outside the playoff picture. So far, that prediction is looking just about right, with the team tied for the 8th seed but facing a rather daunting schedule ahead. The Vikings still have a path to greatness, but J.J. McCarthy needs to take a big step forward for that to happen, and it’s a bit hard to expect that sort of rapid change from a player with two career starts.
3. Rookie QB Contracts aren’t the golden ticket
For years now, I’ve been a staunch critic of the hypothesis that a rookie QB contract is really the “cheat code” that so many analysts have made it out to be. The data shows clearly that QB play is a great predictor for team success; QB pay, on the other hand, has little to no bearing on team performance.
The 2025 NFC is a perfect illustration of this. None of the most likely conference champions—the Lions, Eagles, Packers, Bucs, Rams, Seahawks, or 49ers—feature a QB on a rookie contract, and it’s hard to argue that any NFC QB really belongs in the “elite” category of NFL passers.
The lesson is pretty simple: the better your QB, the better your chances of winning. If McCarthy can ever lead the Vikings to the promised land, it won’t be because he’s cheap; it will be because he’s good.
Misses
1. The Vikings’ Defense Still Looks Stout
Defense is inherently more unstable than offense in the modern NFL, and turnovers are more unstable yet. I expected the Vikings’ defense to regress after a strong 2024 that was built largely on generating turnovers.
Yet the 2025 Vikings rank 2nd in the NFL in EPA/play, and they’ve done it largely through turnovers. True, most of that comes from their dominant performance against the Bengals, highlighted by two Isaiah Rodgers TDs, but I’m not about to criticize a unit that single-handedly has won one out of the Vikings’ five games so far. Brian Flores and his chaos-inducing defense have still got it.
2. Max Brosmer is (Deservedly) QB3
I was skeptical of the Max Brosmer hype after the first preseason game. He had a decent game but not a great one, and Gophers fans were probably too quick to crown their former QB an NFL-caliber player.
But Brosmer earned the QB3 job through steady performance. He still has a way to go to develop into a long-term fixture of the QB room, but he clearly outplayed Sam Howell and Brett Rypien and now has a chance to develop with one of the best QB coaching staffs in the league.
3. Sam Darnold is still lighting it up.
Admit it, after the way last season ended, you wanted the Vikings to get rid of Darnold, too.
The problem for me wasn’t so much the price tag (see point 3 of my “hits” above). It’s more that I expected Darnold’s stats to settle in somewhere between his great performance last season and his poor performance in the years before that.
Instead, Darnold has managed to take yet another step forward and currently leads the NFL in EPA/play. Of course, roster decisions are always easy in hindsight, but so far, it looks like the Vikings have made a mistake in letting Darnold walk.
