If one stat tells the story of the 2025 Minnesota Vikings and their sputtering offense, it’s passing play percentage.
Through 11 games, head coach Kevin O’Connell has called for a pass on 60.8 percent of the Vikings’ offensive snaps, which ranks as the fifth-highest rate in football, per teamrankings.com. While it’s common for sub-.500 teams to rank higher in total pass attempts, as more often than not, they find themselves playing from behind, O’Connell’s love of the forward pass has left fans frustrated this season.
Some patience with first-year starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy was expected, given his lost rookie season to a torn meniscus in his right knee. Minnesota’s front office acted accordingly by beefing up the offensive line, both via free agency and the draft, while also adding bruising running back Jordan Mason in a trade with the San Francisco 49ers.
Vikings fans thus expected a new version of the O’Connell offense, one that leaned heavier into ground-and-pound, and less on the more complex, longer-developing routes that have defined Minnesota's scheme over the years.
But despite inconsistent and erratic play from the quarterback position, Minnesota’s rushing attack never came into focus. The Vikings enter Week 13 ranked 30th in average rush attempts per game, despite ranking ninth overall in total yards per attempt.
Kevin O’Connell just made a major play-calling adjustment, and it could be a sign of things to come for the Minnesota Vikings
It’s hardly a secret that McCarthy was struggling entering Minnesota’s Week 12 road game against Green Bay. Adding to that problem was an aggressive Packers defense led by edge rusher Micah Parsons.
O’Connell adjusted by dialing up 16 run plays against the Packers during Sunday’s first half, including on 11 of 12 plays bridging the first and second quarters. According to ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, the Vikings’ 58.6 percent rush rate was the highest of any half during O’Connell’s four-year tenure, and only the third time he’s called over 50 percent runs.
A good way to understand how manageable the Vikings tried to make things for J.J. McCarthy yesterday: Kevin O'Connell called the highest rate of designed runs in the first half in his 4-year tenure (58.6%). Only the 3rd time he has been over 50% since 2022. https://t.co/Ky1LMQkVRx
— Kevin Seifert (@SeifertESPN) November 24, 2025
The strategy kept the Vikings in the game early, as they only trailed 10-6 at halftime. That includes the team getting stuffed on fourth-and-short — on a rush attempt up the middle — from the Green Bay 17 early in the second quarter.
Another special teams blunder, and an abysmal second-half showing by McCarthy and the offense as a whole, crushed any hopes of Minnesota leaving Lambeau Field with a win. But with McCarthy now working his way through concussion protocol, and undrafted rookie Max Brosmer the next Vikings QB in line to start, O’Connell could continue that same first-half cadence in an effort to shorten the game, protect the football, and help out his defense.
The Vikings have the 8-3 Seattle Seahawks up next, inside the hornet’s nest known as Lumen Field. That’s a tough place for any veteran quarterback to play, let alone the potential for Brosmer to make his first start in a deafening environment.
Jones’ hamstring injury definitely tossed a wrench into things over the first month of the season, but both backs looked fresh as a 1-2 punch against the Packers; Mason averaged 5.3 yards per carry on Sunday, and Jones averaged 4.6.
The Vikings are going to need more of the same to survive Seattle, and whether it’s McCarthy or Brosmer under center, O’Connell has little choice but to continue this revised trend (whether he likes it or not).