The Minnesota Vikings spent the offseason refining their roster for a Super Bowl push.
They’re now set to enter the final six weeks of the 2025 regular season staring down an unfortunate reality.
With their third straight loss on Sunday, and fifth in six games, the Vikings (4-7) suddenly find themselves in the bottom third of the NFL standings, a spot no fan saw coming back in March for a team coming off a 14-3 season.
Minnesota’s 27-24 win at Detroit in Week 9 felt like a season-saving moment for this Vikings team, which battled through a ton of injury (and travel) adversity over the first half of the season. But Sunday’s dismal performance against the Packers at Lambeau Field gave doomsday vibes.
Young quarterback J.J. McCarthy’s growing pains have manifested into legitimate fears of regression. The Vikings are averaging 14.0 offensive points per game over their last three, and unless McCarthy miraculously improves overnight, Minnesota could soon be forced to start seriously looking ahead to 2026.
The four-win Minnesota Vikings are suddenly in range for a top-10 2026 draft pick
It’s become natural for NFL fans, in the midst of a lost season, to immediately look ahead to the updated draft order.
No Vikings fan should be rooting for their team to "tank" — that’s the kind of mindset that takes a team from a Super Bowl window to the dregs of the league — but still stuck at four wins with six games left to play, the potential for Minnesota to land a top-10 draft slot for 2026 is now impossible to ignore.
The only silver lining I got is that a top-10 pick in April is now well within play.
— Thor Nystrom (@thorku) November 23, 2025
Last 6: at SEA, vs WAS, at DAL, at NYG, vs DET, vs GB pic.twitter.com/aoZCXdPIGH
If the season ended today, the Vikings would pick 12th in the 2026 NFL Draft. They’ll enter Week 13 tied with both Atlanta (4-7) and Miami (4-7) in the standings, while sitting one game back from Arizona, Cincinnati, Washington, and Cleveland who all sit at 3-8.
That’s not the kind of company the Vikings want to keep — and there’s potential for the vibes to get even worse this weekend. Minnesota travels to face the surging Seattle Seahawks, who have scored the third-most points in football with ex-Viking Sam Darnold under center; Seattle’s defense is also top five in the NFL in both opponent yards and points per play.
Vikings’ leadership, especially wide receiver Justin Jefferson, has tried to maintain a positive attitude. Certainly, no one inside the organization is projecting panic publicly, even with an obvious must-win game (for multiple reasons) looming on the Thanksgiving weekend.
The grim picture? This 2025 Vikings season is slipping away at an alarming rate, and with the potential of a higher-than-expected draft pick will come some franchise-altering discussions.