It was easy to shrug off the Minnesota Vikings’ slow start to 2025. The team absorbed what felt like a season’s worth of injuries before the calendar even flipped to October.
But now 10 weeks in, it’s become painfully obvious that the real wounds plaguing the Vikings are the self-inflicted ones.
At 4-5, Minnesota has little margin for error entering what feels like a must-win home game against the Chicago Bears. The Vikings will enter that one ranked near the top of the NFL in two inglorious categories that link directly to bad football: penalties and turnovers.
Minnesota enters Week 11 as the league’s second-most penalized team, trailing only the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Vikings are averaging 8.3 penalties per game; they were flagged 13 times for 102 yards in Sunday’s home loss to the Baltimore Ravens, with eight of them inexplicably falling on the offense for false starts.
After committing *8* false start penalties today, the Minnesota Vikings lead the NFL with 33 pre-snap penalties on the season.
— Phil Mackey 🎙 (@PhilMackey) November 9, 2025
The communication issues can be chalked up to a young quarterback making his fourth career start, and an offensive line that’s down to its third-string center. The Vikings have the luxury of one of the best coaching staffs in football, so it’s a good bet that all the pre-snap issues get sorted out.
More alarming are the turnovers, which continue to pile up at an alarming rate — and could doom the Vikings in Week 11, especially.
The Minnesota Vikings might be catching the Chicago Bears at the worst possible time
Vikings fans have reason to be optimistic about Sunday’s home game against the Bears. Minnesota beat Chicago back in Week 1, with quarterback J.J. McCarthy leading the team back from an 11-point deficit in the fourth quarter.
Earning a season sweep of their division rival will be difficult, though. The Bears aren’t only playing much better football, but they lead the NFL in turnover differential by a wide margin at plus-14.
The Vikings rank in a tie for 31st in that category, at minus-7. The defense certainly isn’t creating the kind of havoc plays (like sacks, forced fumbles, and interceptions) that became their norm in 2024; more concerning is an offense that ranks second-highest in football with 16 total giveaways (11 interceptions, five lost fumbles) entering Week 11.
McCarthy has thrown at least one interception in all four of his starts this season. He’s thrown multiple picks in a game twice, and he’ll need his best performance against Chicago on Sunday; the Bears currently lead the NFL in both interceptions (13) and total takeaways (20).
The Vikings will need to be better in a lot of areas on Sunday, with coach Kevin O’Connell’s questionable play calling and the team’s high flag rate both high on the list.
The football also can’t be thrown into harm’s way or put on the ground as often as it has been this season — and you can bet the Bears are liking their chops entering Sunday’s showdown at The Bank.