Minnesota Vikings

There’s some positive news on the injury front for Minnesota’s starting quarterback.

Kyler Murray is set to be a limited participant in practice on Wednesday, head coach Kevin O’Connell told reporters in his press conference.

Murray is in concussion protocol after taking a hard hit while sliding early on in Sunday’s victory over the Packers.

“We’ll see how he responds and continue to rely on the medical folks in that regard,” O’Connell said. “The good thing is the amount of reps he got from obviously competing and then being named the starter, he’s got a lot of reps logged away. But, yeah, really we’re taking it kind of period-by-period as far as the plan we have. But we want to be monitoring how he’s doing from a standpoint of that limited participation.

“It’s a little bit more of a vague thing at the quarterback position, just because they’re in red jerseys anyway all the way up until game time. So we’ll kind of just deal with it as it comes to us.”

Murray was on the field for just 11 offensive snaps before exiting the contest. Carson Wentz came in and played the rest of the way, completing 12-of-19 passes for 133 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions.

Wentz would be in line to start on Sunday against the Bears if Murray does not clear the protocol.

Bears coach Ben Johnson is done talking about his offense’s impressive Week 1 output.

When a reporter started to ask Johnson today about the Bears’ 59-37 win over the Panthers, Johnson cut off the question and said the focus is on Sunday against the Vikings.

“We haven’t put up any points this week,” Johnson said.

Johnson also brushed off talk that he was considering a two-point conversion on the Bears’ last touchdown so they could score an even 60 points.

“I said other people brought up going for two,” Johnson said.

Johnson is laser focused on this week rather than resting on his laurels from last week, and he said that’s how his players are acting at practice.

“The look in our guys’ eyes was the right look,” Johnson said.

Most casual observers of the NFL were surprised to see quarterback Carson Wentz enter Sunday’s game for the Vikings after Kyler Murray suffered a concussion on the third drive of the game. There’s another potential surprise in the pipeline.

If Wentz keeps playing well and winning, he could end up hanging onto the job even after Murray is cleared to return.

Ian Rapoport of NFL Network floated that idea on Tuesday night. And it would be a stunner; Wentz was never in the competition to start, if the competition between Murray and J.J. McCarthy was even a real competition. (It likely wasn’t.)

Last year, when Wentz was playing in place of McCarthy, who suffered an ankle sprain in Week 2, there was a sense that Wentz could keep the job even after McCarthy was ready to play. The key factor in that was simple — Wentz and receiver Justin Jefferson had a more effective in-game connection than McCarthy and Jefferson.

A season-ending injury to Wentz’s left shoulder, through which he played for multiple weeks, ended that debate. This year, a fresh debate could emerge — if Murray can’t return for Sunday’s game against the Bears and if Wentz can engineer an upset at Soldier Field.

Rapoport calls the possibility an “excellent problem.” Still, the best problem is no problem at all. It won’t be easy to manage Murray if he believes he lost his job over a concussion suffered on the third drive of the opening game of the season.

In the end, however, it’s all about winning games. If Wentz keeps winning, maybe he’ll keep playing.

Either way, the Vikings have a pair of top-two draft picks who grew up rooting for the team. Murray, for now, isn’t healthy enough to play. Wentz is. He’ll get an opportunity to extend his run if he can continue to run the offense in a way that helps Minnesota score more points than the other team.

Which, in a numbers-driven league, continues to be the only statistic that matters.

Packers quarterback Jordan Love was pressured relentlessly by the Vikings’ defense in Sunday’s 39-22 loss, and Matt LaFleur said after watching the film that the pass protection needed to be a lot better.

“I saw some of the things we have to clean up,” LaFleur said. “What’s disappointing is, we had a few protection busts that should not and cannot happen. We knew that was the challenge going in. They were gonna give some tough looks. That’s the toughest test you’re going to face Week 1, to play that defense in that environment. I thought there was some really good stuff, but when your quarterback gets hit 15 times, that’s too many times. There are some things we could do schematically that we’ve got to do a better job with and there are some things we have to go out and execute. But we have to have everybody on the same page if we want to give ourselves a chance.”

LaFleur also noted that the Packers’ passing game had several explosive plays when they took advantage of the Vikings’ blitzing. Love finished with 387 passing yards and an impressive average of 18.4 yards per completion, but ultimately the Vikings’ defense got to Love too often.

“We had some great moments when we feasted on it, certainly, but at the end of the game when we needed to make plays, they did what they do,” LaFleur said.

What the Vikings do under defensive coordinator Brian Flores is relentlessly pressure the quarterback, and that happened a lot on Sunday.

Packers safety Javon Bullard got a 15-yard penalty for the hit that knocked Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray out of Sunday’s game. Vikings right tackle Brian O’Neill thinks Bullard should have gotten more than that.

O’Neill shoved Bullard after that hit, but after the game he said he wishes he had been more aggressive toward the opponent who just gave his quarterback a concussion.

“It was so bang, bang,” O’Neill said, via ESPN. “You don’t want to freak out if you’re wrong. I was probably wrong to not freak out more than that. So I kind of wish I took a shot at him.”

Bullard easily could have been ejected for the hit, and he’ll surely at least be fined by the NFL, if not suspended. But he escaped the Vikings dishing out any justice on the field, something that O’Neill regrets about Sunday’s game.

Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray was knocked out of Sunday’s game on the team’s third offensive possession and head coach Kevin O’Connell gave an update on his condition at a Monday press conference.

O’Connell confirmed that Murray is in the concussion protocol and said that the quarterback came in feeling “pretty good” on Monday. O’Connell said that the team will take it “a day at a time” with the medical staff as Murray recovers and progresses through the protocol.

Carson Wentz replaced Murray and led the Vikings to a comeback win over the Packers on Sunday. He would be in line to start if Murray does not clear the protocol in time to face the Bears in Week 2.

More updates on Murray’s status will come once the team resumes practicing this week, but the nature of the injury and the protocol means there’s a good chance Wentz is under center on September 20.

Late in the third quarter of Sunday’s Week 1 game at U.S. Bank Stadium, the Packers controlled the game, with a 22-10 lead.

Then came the latest melting of the cheese.

The Vikings scored the final 29 points of the game, becoming the first team who trailed by 12 or more with less than 20 minutes left in a game to win by 17 or more points.

It’s the most recent example of a very troubling trend for the Packers.

In last year’s wild-card game against the Bears, the Packers led at the half, 21-3. They were then outscored 28-6 in the second half before losing 31-27.

In Week 17 against the Ravens, the Packers trailed by three points after three quarters, 27-24. The Ravens outscored Green Bay in the final 15 minutes, 14-0.

In Week 16 against the Bears, Green Bay led by 10 after three quarters, 13-3. The Packers were outscored in the fourth quarter and OT, 19-3.

In Week 15 at Denver, the Packers led 23-14 in the second half. The Broncos outscored them the rest of the way, 20-3.

Much of it relates to the absence of linebacker Micah Parsons. The offense has had a hand in it, too. As Chris Simms pointed out on Monday’s PFT Live, the Packers often empty the tank with the best stuff in their game plan early, and then they don’t have answers as the game continues.

Whatever the reason, it has become a problem for the Packers. On Sunday, it robbed them of the opportunity to wrest a road win against the division rival who had lost its starting quarterback. Instead, the Vikings staged a dramatic turnaround that will leave the Packers searching for answers.

The good news is that they play the Jets on Sunday. If the Packers blow that one, there will be nothing good about the early weeks of their season.

As high-end analytics go, the Vikings make the playoffs every other year. At an even more complex mathematical level, the Vikings make the playoffs when the same quarterback starts and plays every game of the regular season.

Consequently, coach Kevin O’Connell had a simple goal for 2026: make it more like 2022 and 2024, when Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold, respectively, went wire-to-wire at the most important position on the field.

That plan went out the window on the third drive of the season, when quarterback Kyler Murray suffered a concussion.

Carson Wentz entered. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t pretty. They trailed with roughly 20 minutes to play, 22-10. In the fourth quarter, the dam broke — thanks to the defense.

After the game, O’Connell admitted that he has struggled in the past to overcome the unexpected issues of offense. He has now learned how to roll with the changes.

“Two of our years here, we’ve had our starting quarterback for essentially the whole season, and we won 14 and 13 games,” O’Connell told reporters after the game. “In some of the adversity, I don’t think I’ve coached very well. Trying to maybe worry about the stat sheet, worry about what it’s gonna look like when you pick up the paper.”

He’s now realizing that the only stat that matters is points scored versus points allowed. And he benefits from a defensive coordinator in Brian Flores, who has a plan for creating the kind of chaos that can pick up the slack for the offense.

The message became clear last year, when the Vikings ran the table for five straight wins after the playoff pursuit was essentially lost. This year, with the quarterback questions starting earlier than ever for O’Connell, he is putting the lesson into action.

With or without Murray, it’ll get tested next Sunday at Chicago.

Early in the fourth quarter, armed with a 22-17 lead over Minnesota, Green Bay head coach Matt LaFleur made a couple of decisions.

The result of those choices proved to be disastrous and allowed the Vikings to come away with a 39-22 victory to open the 2026 season.

On fourth-and-6 from Minnesota’s 22-yard line, Packers rookie Trey Smack hit a 40-yard field goal to give Green Bay an eight-point, 25-17 lead. But the Vikings were flagged for an offside penalty.

That induced LaFleur’s first choice — taking the field goal off the board to go for it on fourth-and-1.

The second choice was LaFleur’s play call: A QB sneak.

But quarterback Jordan Love failed to convert, with a virtual measurement confirming Love was short of the sticks.

Now with Green Bay holding just a five-point lead, the Vikings got down the field due to a cacophony of errors from Green Bay’s defense. It looked like the Packers would get off the field on third-and-11 with a sack of Carson Wentz, but Green Bay was flagged for illegal contact for a free first down.

On the next set of downs, when Wentz just avoided a sack by getting rid of the ball on third-and-3, Chris McClellan was flagged for a questionable roughing-the-passer penalty, as he braced himself before falling on Wentz with his full body weight.

Then when Wentz was intercepted by safety Evan Williams in the end zone, the Packers got flagged for defensive holding, giving the Vikings another free first down.

Finally, Aaron Jones ran it in against his old team for a 3-yard touchdown.

It got worse — or better, depending on your perspective — from there. Love was sacked twice in a row on the ensuing drive, with the ball coming out on the second. The Vikings started their next drive from the 1-yard line, with Jordan Mason powering it in for a touchdown on the first play.

And then Love tossed the first interception of his career at U.S. Bank Stadium, with the ball getting tipped at the line before going off of Harrison Smith’s hands and into the waiting arms of James Pierre.

Justin Jefferson caught his second touchdown of the game to finish that drive, giving the Vikings a stunning 17-point lead.

The Packers had led 22-10 in the third quarter and were outscored 29-0 for the rest of the game, including 22-0 in the fourth quarter.

It was a remarkable victory for the Vikings, who lost their starting quarterback on their third possession. Kyler Murray was hit hard in the head while sliding on a third down. The Packers were flagged for unnecessary roughness while Murray went straight to the locker room for further examination and was diagnosed with a concussion.

So Wentz came in and managed the game well, finishing 12-of-19 for 133 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. Two of his TD passes went to Justin Jefferson, who hadn’t caught a score at home since 2024. The wideout finished with eight catches for 92 yards with two TDs.

On the other side, things were going very well for the Packers before the ill-fated QB sneak. Love finished the contest 21-of-42 for 387 yards with two touchdowns and a pick. Christian Watson had six catches for 147 yards with two TDs, but five of those receptions and 131 of those yards came in the first half.

Now at 1-0, the Vikings will be on the road for another divisional game against the 1-0 Bears next week.

The 0-1 Packers, who now have a disturbing trend of blowing significant leads, will again be on the road to face the 1-0 Jets.

Christian Watson is going off and the Packers have a 19-10 lead over the Vikings at halftime.

After turning on the burners to get an 81-yard touchdown in the first quarter, Watson caught a 2-yard touchdown just before halftime to put Green Bay up by nine.

Watson has been quarterback Jordan Love’s top target, catching five passes for 131 yards with those two TDs in the first half.

According to the CBS broadcast, Watson is the first Packer with at least 130 yards and two touchdowns in the first half of a game since Jordy Nelson in 2013.

Watson’s second touchdown came with just 14 seconds left in the half — after Justin Jefferson caught his first touchdown of the season.

On first-and-10 from Green Bay’s 39, Carson Wentz drew the defense offside and took advantage of the free play by tossing it deep to Jefferson. The stellar wideout made an outstanding catch in the end zone to give the Vikings their first touchdown of 2026.

Minnesota had not thrown a touchdown pass since Week 15 of last season.

But the Vikings will be playing for at least the rest of Sunday without their starting quarterback, as Kyler Murray is out with a concussion. Murray was hit hard in the head while sliding on a scramble in the first quarter. He was able to walk off the field under his own power before heading straight to the locker room for further examination.

Murray’s first start with the Vikings ended with him going 3-of-5 for 18 yards with an interception. The pick came on Murray’s first pass.

Wentz ended the first half 6-of-10 for 79 yards with a touchdown.

On the other side, Love is 9-of-19 for 199 yards with two TDs.

While rookie kicker Trey Smack hit his first field goal from 59 yards and had another 43-yard field goal, he missed his first extra point wide right.

The Packers will receive the second-half kickoff with a chance to double up.