The Minnesota Vikings will be down five starters on offense in Sunday’s matchup against the Cleveland Browns. Blake Brandel, who has never played center, will be snapping the ball. Rookie Joe Huber, who has never started, will start. And of course, Carson Wentz, who has been with the team for less than six weeks, will handle quarterbacking duties.
It might be time for Kevin O’Connell to finally admit he can’t feasibly run his preferred offense.
Or is it?
Injuries have decimated Minnesota early on in 2025, and the offense has struggled to overcome them. The Vikings have yet to play a game with all five of their starting offensive linemen and have been forced to rely on a newly acquired quarterback who probably still needs his teammates to wear name tags.
The Vikings’ 13.2% sack rate ranks last in the NFL, and their five total interceptions are the third-highest in the league. It hasn’t been pretty for the typically brilliant coach, and the calls for a more simplified and quicker offense have been raining down from fans. Still, Cleveland’s stellar defense presents a unique challenge, and one that might actually allow O’Connell to continue his usual ways.
Despite the injuries, O’Connell has continued to call long-developing pass plays and hasn’t leaned into the ground game. While the Vikings have had some decent success with explosive plays, ranking in the top half of the league, they’ve also lost yards on passing plays more than any other team in the league.
It makes all the sense in the world to make a change, especially with the best defensive player on the planet, Myles Garrett, lined up on the other side. But while Cleveland’s defense is one of the league’s best, it’s not without weaknesses, and those weaknesses happen to favor O’Connell’s rose-colored offensive vision.
The Browns boast the top run defense in the league this season, allowing just 70 yards per game, so it could be tough sledding if the Vikings try to take sacks out of the equation and employ a power rushing attack. While it’s challenging to get sacked while rushing the ball, ramming the ball into the teeth of the Cleveland defense feels like a losing strategy, especially with a banged-up O-line.
If the Vikings want to agree to a ground-and-pound slugfest and hope that the defense can make some key plays in London, so be it. But if the Browns are who we think they are, we can’t afford to let them off the hook.
Although Cleveland also ranks fourth in pass defense, they haven’t been immune to giving up big plays this year. The Browns have allowed 16 pass plays of at least 15 yards. It’s not unfathomable to think that the Vikings could hit several shots to Justin Jefferson or Jordan Addison despite Wentz facing pressure on nearly every play. And of course, sacks have been a big factor in a lackluster offense. The bigger culprit might be pre-snap penalties, something O’Connell has vowed to clean up after reaching a league-worst 18 of them.
“If somebody were to tell me, ‘Hey, I know you’ve had a couple centers in there, a couple quarterbacks, different cadences.’ I don’t buy into any of that,” said O’Connell. “I think we’ve got to find a way to execute at a higher level, and we’ve had some of the critical offensive penalties that we’ve seen have been in the pre-snap variety, where they come on a third-and-six, then all of a sudden you’re third-and-11.”
That doesn’t sound like a man who believes all his issues stem from an inability to protect.
Generating turnovers is another significant area where the Browns have struggled. Through four games, they’ve only nabbed two interceptions and recovered no fumbles. There’s a clear advantage to taking chances against a team that isn’t good at forcing the big mistakes.
Despite his unremarkable start to this year, Wentz’s career 2% interception rate is good enough for 13th all-time. Of the 20 longest passes in the league this year so far, the Vikings have thrown two of them. While some of that has come at the cost of a high sack rate, it would also be foolish to abandon their big-play opportunities against a defense that is not particularly great at stopping them.
The bottom line is that Cleveland would gladly participate in a defensive slugfest and is probably betting on just that. For the Vikings to come away with their most important win so far this season, they’ll need to fight the urge to throttle down the offense and instead take the necessary chances to open this game up. While I’m not advocating that they completely do away with any sort of quick game, the Vikings must maintain their rate of big plays to break the game open, or suffer a brutal 6-10 loss to the Browns.