On a cool and cloudy Sunday afternoon at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, England, the Minnesota Vikings played their second straight game away from the Western Hemisphere as they took on the Cleveland Browns, who hosted the game as the “home team”. This was the third time in four seasons that the Vikings had played in the capital of Great Britain(and the fifth overall, the most among NFC teams) and it was a rematch of a 2017 game against the Browns, who were the “home team” at a game held in Twickenham Stadium(which was a dominant Vikings win). The only players left on the Vikings’ roster from that game are Harrison Smith and C.J Ham(who was activated off injured reserve for his season debut) and the only man left on Cleveland’s roster is monstrous defensive end Myles Garrett, who was a rookie as the number one draft pick for that season. Now with a load of new faces and a battle between two coaches with the same first name, the Vikings and Browns were set for a London rematch in Week 5 of the 2025 season.

Before the game summary, the injury situation for the Vikings will be broken down. Specifically on their offensive line, which suffered two massive injuries in the loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers last week in Dublin, Ireland. Brian O’Neill suffered a sprained MCL and wouldn’t be available for the London game. The same went for Ryan Kelly, who suffered his second concussion of the season and the fifth documented concussion of his career. For his own good, the Vikings placed Kelly on injured reserve and that automatically rules him out for the next four games played by the team. Michael Jurgens was supposedly going to start at center, but he suffered a hamstring injury during practice at Hanbury Manor, where the Vikings were staying for the entire week in the London metro area. Because of that, Minnesota was down two centers and O’Neill at right tackle, so that meant that Blake Brandel, who had to start in place of Donovan Jackson at left guard, had to step in as the center. Backup guard Joe Huber would be starting at left guard and Justin Skule had to start at right tackle for Sunday’s game. This was an untenable situation for Carson Wentz, who had a big 350-yard two touchdown/two interception game against Pittsburgh the week before. Could this patched-up offensive line step up to defend against a young but strong Browns defensive line group? They would have to protect Wentz well, especially considering they also made a roster move that waived Desmond Ridder off the roster as the third-QB, so the Vikings only had two active QBs for this game with J.J McCarthy still being held out of game action with his ankle sprain(sprinkled in with some practice as the scout team QB due to the passer that Cleveland would start this week). Max Brosmer was the only available backup behind Wentz, who has been susceptible to injuries with a documented history of them throughout his career. The only major defensive inactives for the Vikings were Andrew Van Ginkel with his neck injury and Blake Cashman, who is still on IR with a hamstring issue.

As for the Browns, they made a change in who their starting QB would be going forward. Joe Flacco hadn’t provided offensive consistency for Cleveland in their first four games, winning only one game and only averaging 14 points per game. So, they went to their rookie backup in Dillon Gabriel, who set plenty of offensive records as a QB in NCAA Division I FBS while playing for the University of Central Florida, Oklahoma and Oregon. Gabriel was drafted by the Browns as a six-year starter and was taken before Shedeur Sanders, who has served as the Browns emergency third QB. Gabriel played in a garbage-time drive for Cleveland in their Week 2 game at the Baltimore Ravens and that drive resulted in a touchdown, so he already had professional experience. Now he was making his first ever start in an NFL regular season game thousands of miles away from his native hometown on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Gabriel has a load of good pieces around him, including rookie running back Quinshon Judkins, wideout Jerry Jeudy and tight end David Njoku. With a good defense as well, the Browns were hungry for their second win of the season and first ever in London. But the Vikings were already adept and adjusted to the time zone change in having spent a week’s worth of time in this European time zone before the orange-helmet team took off for London. Whether that had an impact or not is unknown, but the Vikings were looking to keep their perfect record in London intact after their first ever international loss to the Steelers at Croke Park. Three of the four previous London games had dramatic endings, with a Jared Allen sack on Ben Roethlisberger in 2013 sealing off a 34-28 win at Wembley Stadium, a double-doinked missed field goal by Will Lutz concluding a victory over the New Orleans Saints in 2022 and a Stephon Gilmore interception off Aaron Rodgers wrapping up a grinder of a win over the New York Jets last year. Let’s see how this fifth London game for the Minnesota Vikings played out.

The Cleveland offense started the game out with possession and they had good field position following Will Reichard’s opening kick landing short of the 20-yard line, making it a landing zone penalty. A couple of runs by Judkins featured an offensive holding penalty that forced Gabriel to throw a completed pass to Njoku for 12 yards. But that was not enough for the first down as Gabriel threw an incomplete pass to receiver Isaiah Bond(an interesting surname to have in Britain). The Browns punted and the Vikings offense started out from the eight-yard line, where Jordan Mason had a couple of good rushes and Carson Wentz completed a couple of passes for a pair of first downs. After Wentz threw an incomplete pass towards Justin Jefferson, Mason got a carry on second down, but he would have the ball punched out by Cleveland defensive end Alex Wright and the loose ball would be recovered by safety Grant Delpit. That was a very tough turnover by Mason, who had his second fumble in as many weeks and this one was a lost ball. The Browns responded with a solid drive fueled by a big run by Judkins for 32 yards into the red zone, where he picked up a first down on a running play on fourth and short. A run by Jerome Ford set up a Gabriel play-action pass to tight end Harold Fannin Jr for a touchdown. The extra point was good and Cleveland got seven points off the fumble by Mason.

The Vikings started their second drive of this London game at their 18-yard line, where Zavier Scott got a couple of carries with Mason on the bench following the fumble. Wentz completed a big pass to Jefferson for a first down and aimed another ball to the best receiver in the league for another good gain that moved the chains. Wentz then spread the ball to T.J Hockenson and Jalen Nailor and that got the team into Browns territory. On the next play from the Cleveland 32-yard line, the Minnesota offense lined up in an interesting setup that had Cam Akers(who was just recalled from the practice squad again) in wildcat formation to receive the snap. With Wentz off to the side, Akers fielded the snap from Blake Brandel and ran with the ball out of the pocket. But then Akers did something extremely unexpected, which was aim the ball in a throwing motion downfield to a wide open target. That happened to be Josh Oliver, who caught the pass thrown by Akers and ran all the way into the end zone for the score. An amazing trick play got the Vikings on the board in this Tottenham game. This was an interesting trick play, since Akers was the perfect guy to run it with. Being a former standout high school quarterback, Akers hadn’t thrown a single pass in his NFL career until this successful one to Oliver that led to a tie score with the PAT being made by Reichard. Oddly enough, the non-QB player who has thrown the ball the most on the Vikings is Justin Jefferson, who has attempted quite a few trick play passes when catching laterals from some of the many quarterbacks he has worked with. Seeing another Viking get involved in the trickery of the offensive playcalling from Kevin O’Connell was satisfying for a lot of fans to witness.

Before the first quarter ended, the Browns had a massive touchdown run by Judkins nullified due to two offensive holding fouls on two separate players and one of them was accepted to take the score off the board. The Cleveland offense was unable to overcome that foul along with a false start and they had to punt the ball back to the Vikings. In the second quarter, there would be six consecutive drives that ended in punts before somebody managed to score again. Drives stalled and a couple of significant moments happened. One of them was a completed pass from Gabriel to Jeudy being challenged by O’Connell and the ruling on the field was changed to clearly reflect the visuals on the replay cameras, which showed the ball hitting the turf in coming out of Jeudy’s grasp. Another one was where Wentz had to scramble to try and pick up first downs on third down plays. Wentz’s scrambling abilities have been massively depleted since he suffered that devastating ACL/MCL tear against the Los Angeles Rams in the 2017 season. The decline of Wentz’s running skills have led to many closed doors in his career. But in trying to turn back the clock, Wentz got banged up on one of the tackles that had him come up a little short of the line to gain. While the Browns were driving for a score before halftime, Wentz was taken to the X-Ray room to get proper imaging done by the Vikings’ training staff on the part of his body that got dinged.

Meanwhile, the Cleveland offense went on a long drive that featured a bold fourth and short conversion from inside their own territory and a couple of big pass completions by the left-handed throwing Gabriel, who happens to be the third active starting QB in the NFL using that left-arm to launch footballs. The Vikings already saw one of those southpaw passers in Michael Penix Jr in Week 2 and lost that game to his Atlanta Falcons. Meanwhile, Gabriel’s Browns got down into goal-to-go range and after using all of his team’s timeouts, the rookie was unable to finish the drive in the end zone. Instead, Cleveland’s field goal unit came onto the field and kicker Andre Szmyt attempted a 31-yard kick, which he made to give the Browns the lead back before halftime. When the Vikings received possession with only nine seconds left, Max Brosmer came in to take a kneel down snap to conclude the first half. The Vikings were down 10-7 and all things considered it could have been better. But this situation could also have been worse. Wentz was receiving proper care in the medical tent and he was clearly spreading the ball to Jefferson, who reaped those benefits by getting three early catches from 38 yards. The rhythm would hopefully not be disrupted by an injured QB and getting the ball back to start the second half, the Vikings were seeking to establish some offensive rhythm in this game. If Wentz was seriously hurt, the team’s only score of the first half showed who the emergency third-QB would be in Cam Akers, whose impressive TD pass to Oliver continued a trend of low scoring in the first halves of four of the first five games played by the Vikings this season. Clearly against better teams, slow starts cannot occur and in the next few games out of the bye the opponents in those games will take advantage of a flat-footed offense. Whether J.J McCarthy’s return to action makes the offense more efficient or not is unknown, but the bottom line is that more points need to be scored in the early parts of a game by this team.

Anyway, to start out the second half the Vikings had a strong response with Carson Wentz returning to the field and wearing a brace on his non-throwing shoulder. Wentz threw a couple of incomplete passes, but drew a flag for pass interference on Greg Newsome II for an automatic first down. Wentz then targeted Jefferson again and a big gain of 21 yards was picked up for a first down in Cleveland territory. On the next play, Wentz found Jordan Addison for a 15-yard gain and a first down in the red zone. Mason had a big run that got the Vikings to goal-to-go range and after a short pass by Wentz to Oliver came up a few yards away from the end zone, Mason got a handoff and ran the ball in for his third score of the season. The Vikings had successfully gotten an opening drive TD to start out the second half and they now held the lead in this one. The PAT by Reichard made it a 14-10 score for Minnesota, whose defense now needed to keep up the work of holding down the Browns offense.

For their opening drive of the second half, Cleveland’s offense ran the ball down the Brian Flores defense’s throat, with Quinshon Judkins and Jerome Ford running the ball into Vikings’ territory in picking up first downs. Dillon Gabriel finally threw a pass and found Judkins, who had a big gain of 18 yards that got the Browns back into the red zone. Gabriel then passed the rock to David Njoku, who hurdled over Ivan Pace Jr and got pushed out for a six-yard gain. After a couple of short runs stopped by the defense, it was fourth and short. Kevin Stefanski, once the former offensive coordinator of the Vikings and longtime offensive assistant for nearly 15 seasons as well, decided to have his offense go for it. Judkins got the ball and ran into Byron Murphy, who tried to take down the rookie short of the line to gain. But Judkins powered through and lunged across the ten-yard line for a big first down. A couple of goal-to-go failed plays led to a big 3rd and goal snap, where Gabriel found Njoku barely open in the end zone and the ball was caught by the star tight end. The Browns had retaken the lead and now were up 17-14 after a long, eight-plus minute drive against the Vikings.

The offense couldn’t respond right away as Wentz was sacked for the first time in this game and an injury to Mason stopped the clock with a third and long failure occurring as Wentz was caught trying to scramble for yards by Myles Garrett. Ryan Wright had an amazing 77-yard long punt that was downed at the Cleveland 2-yard line and the ball got pushed to the one-yard line after a holding penalty was enforced half the distance to the goal line. The drive for the Browns was shortened due to the defense containing Judkins and forcing a three-and-out. This was a field position game now entering the fourth quarter and the Vikings had excellent field position after a short punt by Cleveland punter Corey Bojorquez and a good return by Myles Price. At the Browns’ 42-yard line, the offense had a golden chance to take the lead, but unfortunately something bad happened on the next play.

Zavier Scott got the handoff from Wentz and he ran into trouble as defensive end Isaiah McGuire forced the ball out of his grasp and it was a loose ball. The fumble was recovered by linebacker Mohamoud Diabate and the Cleveland defense had forced another turnover against the Vikings. A tough fumble there by Scott as both running backs for Minnesota had lost the ball. Thankfully for the Vikings defensively, the Browns would be backed up by an unnecessary roughness penalty on Shelby Harris after the play was over. So, instead of their 45-yard line Cleveland would be starting this next drive from their 30-yard line. On the drive, Gabriel threw an incomplete pass, Judkins had a six-yard rush and on third down Gabriel was sacked by Pace. Another three-and-out for the Browns forced another punt and the Vikings offense went back onto the field immediately looking for redemption after that tough fumble.

On the third play of the drive, Wentz threw a deep pass to Jefferson, who caught the ball and went into Cleveland territory for a big pickup of 38 yards. Right inside field goal range for Reichard, the Vikings looked to cash in on this opportunity. But very little yardage was gained and Wentz got sacked on third down by Maliek Collins. On fourth down the field goal unit came on to have Reichard attempt a 51-yard field goal. The ball was snapped and held, with Reichard kicking the ball up. But the ball took an odd turn and swerved wide right of the goalpost in the eastern end zone at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the kick was no good. Reichard had his first missed kick of the season, and it seemed that the ball was deflected. But not by a Browns defender, by a low-hanging cable line of the drone cam used by broadcasters to show the offensive huddles on that part of the field. If the officiating crew or Vikings sideline saw that potential interference on the kick, then the kick could have been re-attempted. But replay assist nor the officiating crew led by referee Scott Novak saw that the kicked ball had its trajectory altered by the cable. Another tough gizmo at an international stadium could potentially have come back to haunt the Vikings in this game after last week’s misplaced play clock at Croke Park causing a delay of game before the final snap by the offense. So, a potential game-tying field goal was ruined due to a low-hanging drone cam cable, something that doesn’t occur often but when it does a redo of the kicking attempt is done. Not here, though.

The Stefanski-coordinated offense for Cleveland was unable to capitalize on the missed field goal and good field position, as a holding penalty was overcome but on the next set of downs only a couple of yards were gained. The punt by Bojorquez went into the end zone for a touchback and with under seven minutes left, the Vikings needed a strong long drive from their offense in order to milk the clock down and score a potential game-winning touchdown. A first down was picked up on a Wentz pass to T.J Hockenson, and a massive run by Mason past midfield seemed to create some positive momentum. But that latter play was called back due to an offensive holding foul on Joe Huber at left guard. The penalty proved to be costly as a negative yardage pass by Wentz and a sack on third down proved to end the drive. With under four minutes remaining in regulation, the Vikings had to punt and the return by Browns punt returner Gage Lavradain would have the ball positioned at the 41-yard line. So, the Cleveland offense had a chance to get into position to close out the game, but the Vikings still had all three of their timeouts and the two-minute warning as options to stop the clock. The ending to this game would be undoubtedly tight.

The Browns would not be very efficient on this drive as a couple of runs by Judkins resulted in timeouts taken by Minnesota and an incomplete pass was thrown by Gabriel on third down. So, the Vikings still had one timeout left as they received the ball back with around three minutes left. From their 20-yard line, the offense for Minnesota had to go a long way to get into position to win the game or at the very least tie it up. The drive started with a good nine-yard run by Mason and then Wentz threw a good three-yard pass to Nailor for the first down. One last play before the two-minute warning occurred when Hockenson caught a pass for six yards. Now at the 38-yard line, the Vikings were closer to field goal range, but still could get into a position where they would force Stefanski to call all of his team’s timeouts in stopping the clock as the end zone was in sight. That’s exactly what happened as Wentz completed another big pass to Hockenson and then in no huddle formation he completed one last big pass to Jefferson, who gained 21 yards as the Vikings were now back in field goal range. Stefanski called the first timeout of the second half for the Browns with one minute and ten seconds on the clock. The next play was a Wentz completion to Nailor that gained four yards and Nailor went out of bounds to stop the clock. So, that wasn’t an ideal end result as staying in bounds would force Cleveland to call their final two timeouts. On second down, Wentz found Mason for a short gain and Mason was ruled out of bounds for only a two-yard gain. However, the replay booth took an extra look at the play and the footage showed that Mason’s knee was down in bounds before the ball in his hand went out of bounds. So, the ruling on the field was changed and that forced Stefanski to call the second timeout of the half for Cleveland. That lost timeout would be critical as a big third down play was on tap for the Vikings.

With under a minute left on third down, Wentz found Addison for a gain of four yards, which was just enough for a first down. Addison was taken down in bounds and that forced Stefanski to call the final timeout of regulation for the Browns, who now had no means to stop the clock as the Vikings could wind down time and go for the game-winning score with little time left for the Cleveland offense to respond. On the next play, Wentz threw another short pass to Addison, who caught it and was taken down in bounds for a five-yard gain. The clock wound down as the Minnesota offense wanted to be sure that they didn’t score “too soon”. The next snap was taken with roughly 30 seconds left and Wentz stepped back to pass and aimed the ball to the right, where Addison was running a route and the he made a huge catch that had him go into the end zone with both feet down in bounds and the ball crossed the plane. The Vikings had gotten the go-ahead score and Addison had his first touchdown of the season, something he should have attained in Ireland the week before. This was better late than never, as Wentz threw the second touchdown pass of the game(the first being by Cam Akers) for the Vikings. An incredible drive was concluded with a huge made extra point by Will Reichard and the Vikings had a four-point lead with 25 seconds remaining. The Browns had no timeouts to work with and would likely have less time on the clock after the dynamic kickoff return.

The kickoff by Reichard landed down within the landing zone and was caught by Jerome Ford, who ran to the 29-yard line. With 21 seconds left, the Cleveland offense needed a holy miracle in order to win this game. They got a good setup with a Gabriel pass to Isaiah Bond for 22 yards and they rushed to spike the ball with only seven seconds left. The final play had to occur at this moment, or the Browns could opt for a quick pass out of bounds to get themselves closer to the end zone. But the Vikings defense was playing in Hail Mary defensive formation and Cleveland unsurprisingly tried a deep pass by Gabriel, who launched the ball towards the end zone and it was intercepted by Isaiah Rodgers to end the game. But it wasn’t over yet, as whistles had blown right as the play occurred and referee Scott Novak announced that the crew had acknowledged a timeout attempt taken by the Vikings. Oh boy. O’Connell was rushing down the sidelines in begging for a timeout to the side judge, who granted it right as the ball was snapped. O’Connell was actually dumbfounded when his timeout had been granted and after seeing how the uninterrupted play went, he was nervous that he had made a huge mistake. So, on the second take of the final snap, Gabriel stepped back but didn’t throw the ball deep, instead finding receiver Jamari Thrash on a short route and Thrash tried to run to the end zone on his own volition after making the catch. But he was caught by Jeff Okudah in being way short of the goal line(by like 30 yards) and the game was over. The Vikings had won and successfully conquered London for a fifth time, keeping their undefeated record on British soil intact. An amazing victory that required fortitude and grit and only three scoring drives that all resulted in touchdowns were what was needed to win. The defense did their part in spite of not forcing a turnover for the second straight game as they held the line and only surrendered 10 points after that first quarter touchdown that came after Jordan Mason’s fumble. Brian Flores continued his good nearly perfect record against rookie QBs either as a head coach or defensive coordinator, as Dillon Gabriel’s debut had a good stat line but not enough scoring to garner a win.

The offense scored the same amount of points that they did in Dublin against the Steelers, but this time it was enough for a victory. Wentz did well in working with an offensive line combination that hadn’t been used ever and threw for 234 yards and completed 25 of his 34 passing attempts, the biggest one being the game-winning catch by Jordan Addison, who had five catches for 41 yards. The big offensive performance of the day had to undoubtedly be from Justin Jefferson, who contributed to his dominant international game statline with seven catches for 123 yards. Jefferson still holds the all-time record for most receiving yards per game in a receiver’s career in the NFL with 96.5, well ahead of legendary names such as Calvin Johnson, Julio Jones and others. Even though he didn’t get to do the Griddy overseas this year, Jefferson continued proving why he is the best wideout in the game. Other good offensive performances occurred with T.J Hockenson(six catches, 38 yards), Cam Akers(one passing TD for 31 yards), Jordan Mason(13 rushes for 52 yards, one rushing TD) and Josh Oliver(caught his second TD of the season from Akers) all having good days in Great Britain. In spite of a fumble each from the top-two running backs, the Vikings remained strong and the unsung hero of the day had to be the offensive line. With major injuries forcing unexpected changes(including signing an offensive lineman named Matt Waletzko, who had to come over to England to be on the practice squad for the week), the O-Line stepped up big in only allowing three sacks on Wentz, who nearly fooled around and found out that his scrambling abilities aren’t what they used to be. The defense was clutch as well in spite of no turnovers and only two sacks on Gabriel. Being aided by some penalties by Cleveland, the Vikings’ defensive stars stepped up. Eric Wilson was the leading tackler and five guys had at least one tackle for loss. Sacks by Ivan Pace and rookie defensive tackle Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins helped as well.

So, going into a Week 6 bye the Vikings stand at a 3-2 record, one game behind the Detroit Lions, who won on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. Remaining behind the Green Bay Packers(who had a bye week and have that bizarre tie against the Dallas Cowboys from Week 4 on their record) and ahead of the Chicago Bears(also on bye this week), the Vikings had an international split on their two-country world tour. Coming out of the bye, they will be facing three formidable opponents in a two-week span(three weeks technically, but two of them are on a short time period). They will host the Philadelphia Eagles at U.S Bank Stadium in Week 7 in facing the defending Super Bowl champions. J.J McCarthy could be ready to make his return by then, but Carson Wentz might have a chance to face the team that he helped lead to a few playoff appearances(and set up their first Super Bowl run in 2017). Either Week 7 or Week 8 could be a realistic target date for McCarthy as the Vikings have to play on a short week out of the bye as well when they travel out west for the second straight year in late October to Southern California to face the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium on Thursday night football. Then in Week 9, they must go into hostile territory to face off against the Detroit Lions, who will be coming off a mostly full bye week to host the Vikings. This three-week gauntlet will be huge and show how good this team can actually be. Late starts offensively won’t be easy to overcome against each of these three opponents that have a good chance to be Super Bowl contenders this year, with two of them being in the NFC. This bye week is well-deserved for this team, but after that they will have their work cut out for them. For now, the Minnesota Vikings can be satisfied that they are above .500 heading into the bye and getting their third win of the season against a .500-or lower opponent is a good way to do that. Also, cheerio to all the fans wearing purple who showed up at Tottenham as well to make a “home game” for the Browns feel like a road environment, as there are far more Vikings fans in the United Kingdom than most other NFL teams. Definitely the reverse from the Dublin experience. It was another successful victory in the evening conditions of the British capital and the next time the Vikings play in London, they will still have a perfect record to defend playing in one of the oldest active countries on the face of the Earth.