On Sun, Nov 23, the Minnesota Vikings took on the Green Bay Packers for the first time in this 2025 NFL season. The Vikings were desperately looking for a win in order to keep themselves in the playoff chase for the NFC as the low benchmark heading into the day to be a Wild Card in the NFC was six or seven wins. After two straight losses at home by one possession, the Vikings were seeking their third straight win at Lambeau Field over the Green Bay Packers, who are one of those teams ahead of them in the NFC North standings and holding a playoff spot with a bizarre record of 6-3-1 entering this game. Green Bay had losses to teams under .500 such as the Cleveland Browns and Carolina Panthers along with a home loss on Monday Night Football in Week 10 against the Philadelphia Eagles. Along with that odd tie game against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 4, the Packers had an odd resumé of wins on their schedule, including tight road victories over the Arizona Cardinals and New York Giants. Green Bay has a fierce defense spearheaded by Micah Parsons, who they acquired in a preseason trade from Dallas. The offensive line for the Vikings would have to be well-prepared to block the ferocious young pass rusher along with all the other good defenders on the Packers. Thankfully, Minnesota would finally field a fully healthy offensive line for the first time this season.

Ryan Kelly was activated from injured reserve and would wear a helmet fitted with a Guardian Cap to protect him from potential concussions in the near future. With Kelly’s return, the powerful offensive line with him as the center with Christian Darrisaw and Donovan Jackson on the left side and Will Fries and Brian O’Neill on the right side would all finally play on the field in a game together. The only major inactive for the Vikings was Jonathan Greenard, who was out with a right shoulder injury for the second straight week. As for Green Bay, they were without two of their key offensive players in running back Josh Jacobs rookie wideout Matthew Golden. Jacobs was out with a knee injury and Emanuel Wilson would have to step up in his place as the main tailback for the Packers. Jordan Love was looking to break a trend of quarterbacks not named Aaron Rodgers being unable to win a home game at Lambeau against the Vikings. The last non-Rodgers QB to defeat Minnesota in the “Frozen Tundra” was Brett Favre in 2007. Backup QBs such as Matt Flynn and Brett Hundley were unable to win games that Rodgers didn’t start and in the first two home games that Love started against the Vikings in 2023 and 2024, Minnesota emerged victorious both times. J.J McCarthy was desperately seeking a powerful performance after having two straight inefficient games at U.S Bank Stadium. He had gotten road wins over the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, so J.J was looking to complete an NFC North conquest trifecta. All three aspects of the team execution had to be better for the Vikings in order for them to have a chance to win this one. So, let’s leap into it(no pun intended).

The game started with a touchback wisely taken by Myles Price and the Vikings’ offense started from the 35-yard line. Aaron Jones got two carries against his old team’s defense and picked up a first down past midfield. McCarthy then completed his first pass of the day to Justin Jefferson, who gained 15 yards for a first down in field goal range. McCarthy then threw three straight incomplete passes and on fourth down, Will Reichard came out and made a solid 52-yard kick to get the Vikings on the board with an early 3-0 lead.

The opening drive for Green Bay started with a seven-yard pass by Love to Emanuel Wilson, who was tackled for no gain on the first play of the drive. On third down, Love found Christian Watson for a gain of 12 yards and a Packers first down. After a four-yard run by Wilson, Love threw a deep pass towards Luke Musgrave(who is the starting tight end after Tucker Kraft’s season-ending ACL injury) and the pass sailed incomplete. But Joshua Metellus got called for a pass interference foul and the ball would be placed at the Vikings’ 23-yard line for an automatic first down. A four-yard run by Wilson was preceded by a Love pass to wideout Dontayvion Wicks, who nearly ran into the end zone for a touchdown but was stopped one yard short. The next play provided the score for Green Bay as Wilson muscled it in and the Packers had an extra point by Brandon McManus give them an early 7-3 lead.

The ensuing drive for Minnesota started at its 28-yard line and a McCarthy pass to Jones on second down set up an easy third-and-short run by Jordan Mason for a first down. But on the ensuing snap, McCarthy dropped the ball in aborting the snap from Ryan Kelly and he had to fall on the pigskin in being a few yards back from the line of scrimmage. A second down run by Jones for four yards set up a third down where McCarthy had to throw it, but he passed it well short of the line to gain as T.J Hockenson caught it and got banged down by Isaiah McDuffie for a five-yard pickup well short of the line to gain. The punting unit came onto the field and Ryan Wright booted a ball that bounced out of bounds at the 2-yard line.

The Green Bay offense picked up a couple of first downs, but they were stalled by a false start penalty and a couple of incomplete passes thrown by Love, who got sacked by Dallas Turner on third down. The ensuing punt by Daniel Whelan was a deep 63 yards and Price ran it back for 11 yards to the 24-yard line. To close out the first quarter, McCarthy completed a pass to Jefferson for 7 yards and Mason picked up four yards for a first down. At the 35-yard line to start out the second quarter, Mason got two extra carries that picked up five yards on the first and a big chunk of 22 yards on the second one. Back in Packers territory, the Vikings’ offense looked to score a touchdown. McCarthy kept handing the ball off to Mason, who had five consecutive carries that led to the ball being at the 26-yard line. McCarthy then threw a short pass to Josh Oliver for a gain of four yards, then Jones got a carry and ran for five yards. It was third and short in the red zone, with the offense getting into a weird formation where Hockenson was going to take the snap for a potential “tight end Tush Push”. But the play failed to gain any yardage as Hockenson got stood up by McDuffie for no gain. On fourth and short, the offense stayed on to go for it and McCarthy was under center, with him handing the ball off to Mason, who got taken down by linebacker Kingsley Enagbare for a loss of one yard. The Vikings had failed to score on this drive and even though the offense did some good things, bad playcalling in short-yardage situations by Kevin O’Connell doomed another scoring chance in the red zone yet again.

The Green Bay offense started their next drive by handing the ball off to Emanuel Wilson on five consecutive plays, with him picking up a couple of first downs. Wilson then came out and Love threw a short pass to backup running back Chris Brooks, who gained five yards on the catch and picked up a first down on the next carry. After a timeout was called by Matt LaFleur, Wilson came back in and ran the ball for a 10-yard gain for a first down. Love then threw a deep pass up the middle to Romeo Doubs, who gained 18 yards into the red zone and he caught another pass for five yards after a run for no gain by Brooks. After an incomplete pass thrown by Love on third down, the field goal unit came on for the Packers and McManus made a 32-yard kick to increase the Cheeseheads’ lead to 10-3. The drive took more than eight minutes off the clock and thankfully the Brian Flores defense did not give up a touchdown there. But there was less than two and a half minutes left and now the pressure was on J.J McCarthy to close the half out strong for Minnesota.

The ensuing kickoff was returned by Tai Felton to the 28-yard line and the drive started with an eight-yard run by Jones before the two-minute warning. A couple of more carries by Jones picked up a first down and McCarthy then threw an outstanding pass that was caught by Jefferson in Green Bay territory for 19 yards. With two timeouts left, O’Connell elected not to call timeout as the offense looked to get organized and they tried to run a play in no huddle formation. McCarthy hurled the ensuing pass incomplete towards Jefferson and then on the next play from scrimmage, the 22-year old J.J got split sacked for a loss of seven yards. O’Connell called a timeout after that as a third and long play had to be run to at least get the ball back into Reichard’s range. On the play, McCarthy passed the ball to Jones, who gained six yards and a timeout was oddly called by LaFleur, who was hoping for a missed kick by Reichard to put his offense in good position with little time left. The field goal unit came on and Reichard made a long curving kick of 59 yards. The Vikings were down 10-6 and the Packers offense took a knee to close out the first half.

This half was one of potential scoring opportunities and settling for long field goals was the best Minnesota could do. The red zone struggles continued to show themselves and the playcalling was slightly improved with the run game being involved to a good degree. McCarthy had thrown for very little pass yards by design and a couple of good completions to Jefferson provided some positive momentum for him. But the lack of spreading targets to other receivers was glaring. Jordan Addison had only one target for an incomplete pass and no balls were thrown towards Jalen Nailor. Something had to change and fast. The Vikings’ defense was at least holding the Packers offense in check. Love was throwing the ball less due to a shoulder injury sustained in the first half of the previous game for Green Bay against the Giants. But Emanuel Wilson was handling the bulk of carries well with Josh Jacobs out. The defense had to get a good stop to start out the second half on the field and the offense needed to follow that up with a solid strong drive that ended with seven points. Let’s see how it all played out.

After the kickoff by Reichard was returned by Savion Williams to the 28-yard line, the Packers picked up a first down on a pass by Love to Watson for 11 yards. Love then scrambled for a gain of 13 into Vikings’ territory for another first down. A couple of negative runs set up a third and long play, where Love threw an incomplete pass up the middle towards Wicks. On fourth down, the punting unit came on for Green Bay and Whelan booted the ball deep inside the ten-yard line, where the ball bounced backwards behind Myles Price, who turned around to have the ball hit off his helmet. The ball had not been touched by any Packers player beforehand, so the ball was live. A scrum occurred for possession of the ball and at the bottom of the pile a Green Bay special teamer named Zayne Anderson recovered the ball. It was a devastating turnover for Minnesota and now the Packers had a chance to push the lead to double-digits. A couple of runs by Wilson did the trick, as he scored his second one-yard TD of the day and the PAT by McManus gave Green Bay a 17-6 lead. An unfortunate turn of events there for the Vikings, who would struggle to get momentum back for the rest of this game.

The first offensive drive for Minnesota was short-lived as McCarthy got sacked by Micah Parsons and threw two short passes to Hockenson that didn’t get close to the line of scrimmage. A good punt by Wright pinned the Packers deep and there would be a couple of first downs picked up on Love passes to Watson, but a good stop on a third and short run forced the ball back to the Vikings. However, McCarthy got sacked two times in a row, first by Parsons and then by Devonte Wyatt. The Green Bay offense ran the ball down the throats of the Brian Flores defense as time wound down in the third quarter and into the fourth. After a red zone stop, McManus made a 30-yard field goal to push the lead up to 14 points.

The next drive for the Vikings’ offense was another abject failure as McCarthy threw a pass that was dropped by Adam Thielen and then he got sacked on third down near the end zone. The Packers got great field position on the punt return and then settled for another kick from McManus, who made a 40-yard field goal to push the lead to three possessions. At this point, it was pretty much over as the Vikings were having such an ineffective game on the offensive end of the ball. It only got worse when McCarthy threw an interception that was caused by a deflection of the ball from behind by Parsons and then he had another ball intercepted on a deep pass towards Nailor(Isaiah McDuffie and Evan Williams had the interceptions, respectively). The offense wouldn’t see the field again after that play as the Packers won a big game at home by a final score of 23-6.

It was a horrid defeat for Minnesota, which lost its third straight game to fall to 4-7. Still in last place in the NFC North, the Vikings have fallen to an even bigger deficit in the division as the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears won their respective games on their home fields by close margins. An overtime win for Detroit over the New York Giants and a tight and narrow win for Chicago over the Pittsburgh Steelers have the Vikings as many as three games back of a playoff spot currently. Overall, this game was lost due to poor offensive execution by J.J McCarthy and a bad special teams play for the third consecutive week. The defense did all it could to contain the Packers offense, but it meant nothing when the McCarthy-led offense only generated 145 total yards and went 2-for-9 on third downs. Only throwing for 87 passing yards(and having at least one scramble for 10 yards), McCarthy had probably the worst game of his career thus far. For the second time this year, the Vikings failed to score a touchdown and had a season-low six points(along with a scoreless second half). The offensive playcalling decisions weren’t much better, as McCarthy stayed mostly in the pocket and was given little room to throw the ball out of bounds when things went bad. To make matters worse, both Christian Darrisaw and Donovan Jackson left the game with late injuries. Also Metellus got hurt a couple of times, as the secondary continues to struggle defending against the pass and forcing a turnover.

The next time the Vikings play a game will be in the Pacific Northwest as they face the Seattle Seahawks, who are 8-3 and hold the top Wild Card in the NFC currently. A similar predicament as it was last season for Sam Darnold, who, as the QB of the Seahawks, has had a mixed bag of games this season. There has been a good version and bad version of Darnold. The good version came out in Week 12 as he relied on his main offensive target in Jaxon Smith-Njjgba for a couple of deep bomb TDs in a road game against the Tennessee Titans. The Week 13 game at Lumen Field will be a chance for Darnold to show the Vikings’ front office that they made a big mistake in moving on from him and investing in McCarthy, who looks like a massive mystery and potential bust through six games. For now, McCarthy is expected to still be the starter as he has shown resilience at times, specifically in the fourth quarter of the Week 11 game against the Bears that could have been a magical win. Max Brosmer has only put preseason reps and a couple of drives in garbage time on tape so far in the regular season. With Carson Wentz done for the year, there are no current options available for the Vikings to turn towards who have experience at the QB position. The job still belongs to McCarthy, who will have at least six more games to prove himself worthy of being the quarterback this franchise has been searching for so long to keep on a long-term basis. But the playoff odds are now greatly minimized in Minnesota and now seem like a distant destination compared to earlier in this season. A tough predicament to reckon with there for the Vikings.