MINNEAPOLIS - The Minnesota Vikings didn’t exactly play a clean game Sunday. They didn’t run it well.
They gave up too many chunk plays. They leaned on a handful of breaks that aren’t going to show up every week.
And yet, when the moment turned, U.S. Bank Stadium turned with it.
That’s the part Harrison Smith was talking about after the Vikings’ 39-22 comeback over the Green Bay Packers. The building gets loud in a way that feels like it rolls through the whole place, and once Minnesota found its footing, the noise, the pressure and the turnovers all started feeding each other.
“The demeanor of everyone is infectious,” Smith said.
Kevin O’Connell called it the kind of game that lingers.
“There are just some games that will stick with you for a long time,” O’Connell said. “Today will be a special one.”
Special, yes. Sustainable, no.
That’s the tension hanging over this one for Minnesota. The Vikings won, but they also showed a blueprint that comes with some obvious cracks.
They were loose in coverage. They weren’t efficient on the ground.
And on one key fourth-quarter drive, they got a boost from three Packers penalties that helped keep things alive.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” quarterback Carson Wentz, who replaced injured starter Kyler Murray, said. “We had a couple of flags that kept our drive alive.
I threw one to their safety (Evan Williams) right in the chest, and it was a flag. So, praise God.”
That’s the kind of honesty that matches the rest of the afternoon. The Vikings found a way, but they also know they can’t keep asking for this exact script.
Especially not with Murray now hurt.
The early damage to Murray matters because the more the Vikings have to ride Wentz, the more they risk slowing Murray’s adjustment to the offense. That’s a real concern if Minnesota wants to hit its ceiling.
Still, there was enough in this one to show why the Vikings can be a problem when they get rolling. As linebacker Blake Cashman put it, once they’re ahead and Brian Flores can start dialing up answers midgame, the defense becomes a different animal.
“When we can get a lead,” Cashman said, “I don’t think there’s a scarier defense to go against. Especially with the group we have that understands what we’re trying to accomplish.”
That showed up in the second half, when Minnesota held Green Bay to just 3 points after allowing 19 in the first. Cashman said Flores and the defense identified some of the Packers’ answers to pressure and started working those weak spots. The result was a sharper, nastier stretch from the Vikings defense.
Green Bay still moved the ball. Jordan Love threw for 387 yards, and the Packers had seven plays of 20 yards or more, the second most in a game against a Flores-coached Vikings defense since he arrived in 2023. That’s a lot of fire to play with, and Minnesota can’t afford that kind of leakage if it wants games to stay within reach.
But the late swings went the Vikings’ way.
Cashman burst through unblocked through the A-gap at one point and got to Love, who was stripped by edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkel. Later, Cashman got a hand on another Love throw, and cornerback James Pierre came down with the interception. Those plays sent the sideline into a frenzy, with Flores high-stepping and O’Connell pumping his fist as the game flipped.
The offense needed that help because the run game never really got going. Minnesota came into the day talking about a revamped rushing attack, but Green Bay smothered it early. Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason had little room to work behind an offensive line that didn’t hold up cleanly.
“Even though we committed to the run,” O’Connell said, “it was not pretty.”
The Vikings finished with 3.6 yards per carry on designed runs and posted one of their lowest rushing-success rates in a game since the start of last season.
“They were blitzing from all edges,” right tackle Brian O’Neill said. “It slows you down a little bit, affects running off the ball and combo blocks. We were still worried about if they’re going to move (before and after the snap) because they did move so much on first and second down.”
That lack of traction on the ground put Minnesota behind the chains and helped create the kind of messy passing downs that can wreck an offense. It also led to the moment that changed the game’s tone early.
On a third-and-7 in the first quarter, Murray scrambled outside the pocket, slid toward the marker, and got hit by Javon Bullard and Lukas Van Ness. His helmet came off, and the Vikings quickly ruled him out with a concussion.
Wentz stepped in and had a rough start. But right before halftime, the game cracked open.
O’Connell thought a cadence tweak could catch the Packers off guard, and it did. Van Ness jumped across the line before the snap, giving Wentz a free play.
He took his shot, lofting a deep ball down the left sideline to Justin Jefferson, who toe-tapped it in the end zone. It was Jefferson’s first home touchdown since Week 15 of 2024.
“He’s unbelievable,” Wentz said. “The guy is so good. He’s the best in the world at what he does, and sometimes you’ve just got to give him a chance.”
That catch helped shift the mood, and Minnesota kept pressing from there. Wentz later found T.J. Hockenson for a 16-yard touchdown in the third quarter, but the Packers still led by a score at that point.
Then came the sequence that really turned the afternoon.
Green Bay had a successful field goal wiped away and chose to go for a Love sneak instead. It failed. On the Vikings’ next possession, the Packers handed Minnesota life with three separate penalties, all on third down, and the door swung wide open.
From there, the Vikings played with the kind of urgency that can overwhelm a team when the crowd gets locked in. They brought more pressure.
They made Love work harder to find anything downfield. Mason finally found space for a 28-yard run.
And when Minnesota got chances, it finished them.
That was the story of the second half: a messy team turning chaos into momentum, and a stadium full of people riding every swing with it.
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