DETROIT — The Vikings could have returned from their weekend off wearing blinders, retreating to standard-issue NFL banalities about how each game counts the same and refusing to peer into the ravine they seemed in danger of toppling down. The Vikings seemed to know that approach would not do.
Coach Kevin O’Connell met with the team’s eight captains early last week, when the Vikings’ 37-10 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Oct. 23 was still smoldering and the prospect of righting their season required a victory in a building where they hadn’t won since the 2020 season. Social media debates over the Vikings’ treatment of Carson Wentz’s shoulder injury dragged into a second week. With J.J. McCarthy set to return from his five-game absence, oddsmakers installed the Vikings as 8½-point underdogs against the Detroit Lions, the largest handicap they had received in O’Connell’s four years.
The coach held a long team meeting Monday and told players they likely wouldn’t hear from him much the rest of the week. The captains of the 3-4 team would get the floor Saturday night in Detroit, to say whatever was on their minds about the tipping point the Vikings faced and the prospects the 2025 season still held for them.
“We all just trusted how we were feeling,” safety Josh Metellus said. “I wouldn’t put too much weight into it. All I can say is, the reaction we got, giving our thoughts and feelings about how we should approach the rest of the season and how we should approach this game, the reception we got back — that’s what makes this team what we are.”
Minnesota’s Myles Price (4) is embraced by teammates before the Vikings played the Lions in Detroit on Sunday. (Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
They ended a five-game losing streak against Detroit that matched the one from their first three seasons as an expansion team as the longest in franchise history. They returned to .500 for the year and made up a game in the NFC North standings on both the Lions (5-3) and the Green Bay Packers (5-2-1), who lost at home to Carolina on Sunday. McCarthy, who threw two touchdowns and ran for a third in the win, is now 2-0 in road division games. The Vikings (4-4) are still at the bottom of the NFC North, but they’re only 1½ games behind Green Bay and a game behind the Lions and the Chicago Bears (two teams they have beaten) for the conference’s final playoff spot.
“They just wanted to make sure that everybody heard all eight of them individually stand up and deliver messages of encouragement of what we’ve built here, the things that matter,” O’Connell said. “Just find a way to have the performance needed, sticking to the principles that we thought were important, but then collectively, doing a lot of things out there at a high level for the guy next to you.