 celebrates a touchdown during the second half against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images</p>
<p>” data-medium-file=”https://vikingsterritory.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=788,height=444,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/USATSI_27372132.jpg” data-large-file=”https://vikingsterritory.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1180,height=787,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/USATSI_27372132.jpg”><figcaption><span>Oct 19, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown (11) celebrates a touchdown during the second half against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images</span></figcaption></figure><div class='code-block code-block-3' style='margin: 8px 0; clear: both;'>
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Shoulda, woulda, coulda. It’s the loser’s lament that haunts the Vikings after a game they had so many opportunities to win against the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles, but it wound up as a costly defeat. Now the Vikings are in a tough spot at 3-3 and headed to two difficult games on the road against teams with winning records–the Chargers and Lions.
Minnesota Vikings miscues and Jalen Hurts’ brilliance define loss to Eagles as winnable game slips away, raising QB and playoff questions.
There’s so much to unpack in breaking down the 28-22 home loss on Sunday.
The major points are the Vikings lost due to red zone inefficiency (one TD and five field goals in six trips inside the Philly 20), QB Carson Wentz’s inconsistency, losing the turnover battle 2-0, center Blake Brandel’s bad game with four major miscues, the outstanding play of Eagles QB Jalen Hurts and his star receivers DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown, the overall inability of the pass rushers to keep Hurts from extending plays (Andrew Van Ginkel is much needed) and some awful secondary play, some coaching mistakes by Kevin O’Connell and Brian Flores and a pair of highly suspect officials calls that wiped out two potential Vikings TDs.
Catch all that?
Heading into the short week Chargers game in L.A. on Thursday night, the biggest question is whether J.J. McCarthy will return as starting QB after Wentz’s wildly up-and-down performance against the Eagles. I say it’s time to get McCarthy back at the helm, which was the original plan. Wentz is a decent backup, but not good enough to start for a hopeful playoff team.
Put McCarthy back in if his ankle is in decent shape (or as soon as he reaches that point) and hope his play gets better and better as the season progresses to where the Vikings make the playoffs and then McCarthy will be in a much better position experience-wise for greater success as soon as next season.
Here are my other reactions to the Vikings’ frustrating loss to Philly
Addressing my above points in order:
1. Red zone inefficiency: one TD and five field goals in six red zone trips will usually get a team beat. The red zone failures were caused by a variety of issues: inaccurate passes from Wentz (missing Jordan Addison, C.J. Ham and Justin Jefferson for potential TDs), a terrible intentional grounding by Wentz on the play he missed Ham wide open in the flat, poor play calls (2nd and 1 from the 6-yard line and three straight pass plays called), a questionable holding call on Blake Brandel that nullified a TD pass to Jalen Nailor, a bad snap by Brandel over Wentz’s head on the first drive and a couple sacks in the fourth quarter with Brandel and Brian O’Neill beat on the plays.
 runs the ball during the second half against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images</p>
<p>” data-medium-file=”https://vikingsterritory.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=788,height=444,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/USATSI_27370231.jpg” data-large-file=”https://vikingsterritory.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1180,height=787,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/USATSI_27370231.jpg” src=”https://vikingsterritory.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=788,height=444,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/USATSI_27370231.jpg” alt><figcaption>Oct 19, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Jalyx Hunt (58) runs the ball during the second half against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images<span></span></figcaption></figure>
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<p><strong>2. </strong>Wentz’s inconsistency: see my above references to red zone inconsistency/failures, as Wentz made a lot of good throws between the 20s but couldn’t come through with TDs to finish drives. He did have a couple nice runs for first downs late in the game.</p>
<p>Wentz rushed a few throws and locked in on one receiver when he overthrew Nailor in the end zone. His two interceptions were terrible decisions and awful throws. He panicked under pressure on the Pick 6 in the second quarter and didn’t see linebacker Jalyx Hunt dropping into coverage.</p>
<p><strong>3. </strong>Losing the turnover battle: for the third straight game, the Vikings lost the turnover battle 2-0. They’re now minus four for the season after having the third-best ratio in the league last season at plus 12. The Vikings D has only seven takeaways after leading the league with 33 last year. They also led the NFL with 24 interceptions and have only two through the first six games.</p>
<p><strong>4. </strong>Blake Brandel followed up his fine initial start at center against Cleveland with a bad game. He had four major miscues: his bad snap for a 22-yard loss, getting beat by Jalen Carter for the pressure that caused the Pick 6, his questionable holding call to nullify Nailor’s TD and getting beat for a sack on 3rd-and-5 from the Eagles 10 with 10:49 remaining to force another field goal. </p>
<p>But the Vikings coaches should not have put Brandel in a position of having to block the Pro Bowler Carter one-on-one on any snap, since it’s obvious Carter is a game-wrecker. </p>
<p>With Ryan Kelly’s concussion problem landing him on I.R. for at least two more games and Michael Jurgens shaky play when he’s been in there, it appears Brandel remains the best option, but he has to play better even if center is not his best position compared to being a backup guard or tackle.</p>
<p><strong>5. </strong>Great games from Hurts, Smith and Brown coupled with Vikings pass rush issues and some bad coverage by the DBs: the Vikings D did a great job stopping Saquon Barkley and the Eagles rushing attack (18 carries for 44 yards with a 2.4 average for Barkley; 45 rushing yards total for Philly). </p>
<p>But it came with the Vikings often putting extra defenders in the box and opening the door for the passing game to finally emerge, with a 326 yard game for Hurts, nine catches for 183 yards and one TD for the speedy Smith and four catches for 121 yards and two TDs for Brown.</p>
<p>Hurts extended plays by escaping pressure on several of his big plays, including the 3rd-and-13 completion to Brown that kept the drive alive and led to Brown’s 26 yard TD (beating Byron Murphy) for a 28-19 lead with 6:35 left.</p>
<p>The Vikings need more sacks from Jonathan Greenard (none in this game and only one in six games after he had 12 as a Pro Bowler last year). Dallas Turner had a half-sack, but he allowed Hurts to get outside on the 3rd-and-13 play and was not very effective overall against all-pro tackle Lane Johnson. </p>
<p>Van Ginkel is definitely missed, as a pass rusher and overall playmaker on defense, and when he’s playing, Turner can be on the field with Van Ginkel and Greenard on obvious passing downs. The Vikings are certainly hoping Van Ginkel (neck injury) can return for the Chargers game.</p>
<p>Javon Hargrave had too quiet of a game with only one assisted tackle as he played only 36% of the defensive snaps. Much more is expected from a $15 million per year player.</p>
<p>As for the Vikings DBs, what a rough day. As good as Isaiah Rodgers was against the Bengals with his two defensive TDs, he was just as bad in allowing two long pass plays on double moves—the 79-yard TD to Smith and the 45-yard game clincher to Brown on 3rd-and 9 with 1:45 left (but he should have had safety help on the Brown play as Flores guessed wrong that the Eagles would run the ball and not risk an incompletion to stop the clock… credit to Eagles Coach Nick Sirianni for that gutsy call).</p>
<p>I don’t blame safety/LB Josh Metellus for being beat by Brown on the opening drive TD (on 4th-and-4 from the Vikings 37). Brown is an elite wide receiver who should be covered by a corner (not a safety who often lines up as a linebacker) and on that play, the Vikings had a three-man rush, so where were the corners and safeties to put a double team on Brown and Smith in this situation? That’s either a really bad coaching move by Flores or one of the DBs blew an assignment to double Brown.</p>
<p>There also was the fourth-quarter 21-yard pass to Smith where he was open by 10 yards and that led to the last Eagles TD on the next play to Brown when he beat Vikings Pro Bowl corner Murphy.</p>
<p>Going into the season, I thought the Vikings pass rush would be so good it could compensate for potentially suspect corner play, even as I felt the Vikings were undermanned at corner with Rodgers never having been a full-time starter and Jeff Okudah frequently injured or not effective enough. Okudah was beat by Brown on the big 3rd-and-13 play. The Vikings secondary had played much better over the first five games.</p>
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Jeff Diamond is a former Vikings GM, former Tennessee Titans President and was selected NFL Executive of the Year … More about Jeff Diamond