Posted October 16, 2025
The Minnesota Vikings held their season opener on August 9 at U.S. Bank Stadium. The preseason matchup versus the Texans gave Minnesota fans their first look at the 2025 roster. In the 20-10 win, multiple Vikings rookies got their professional debut, including first-round draft pick J.J. McCarthy.
The Vikings relied heavily on their most tenured quarterback, former starter Sam Howell. He threw for over one hundred yards and an 85% completion percentage.
J.J. McCarthy is currently listed first on the Vikings depth chart, leading most to believe he’ll be the team’s regular season starter. This was supported by his limited reps in the game, throwing just seven passes for thirty yards.
Vikings 2025 first-round draft pick Donovan Jackson was a full participant. However, he received one of the lowest PFF (Pro Football Focus) grades of the week with a 55.9 rating. The organization later said, “He has room to improve.”
The Vikings saw a disappointing finale to their 2024 season. Their impressive 14-3 record saw tumultuous final weeks that prevented them from any postseason advances. Their last win at U.S. Bank Stadium came on December 29, 2024, versus the Green Bay Packers.
Following the victory, they saw back-to-back blowout losses, first to the Detroit Lions, then a massive playoff defeat against the Los Angeles Rams.
Following the loss, Minnesota pivoted off their MVP finalist quarterback Sam Darnold, who was soon traded to the Seattle Seahawks.
The trade left a massive hole for the organization to fill over the next six months. 2024 first-round draft pick J.J. McCarthy was the natural choice for the Vikings week one starter, and he has since stepped into the starting role. Without any veteran quarterback talent, McCarthy is under heavy pressure to perform, despite having no regular-season NFL experience.
McCarthy’s last performance was in August of last year, when he saw limited snaps in the preseason. He suffered a torn ACL in practice and missed the entirety of the 2025 season.
Preseason matchups generally don’t carry the energy that regular-season games do, but downtown Minneapolis was alive and well for the Vikings’ return. Bars were packed with some fans, even repping J.J. McCarthy jerseys.
One fan inside Maxwell’s American Pub had some choice words for his team, specifically about last year’s playoff ending. “The Rams game was maybe the worst Vikings experience I’ve had over the last twenty-seven years,” said Michael Green. “You’d be purple too
if you’d been choking for fifty years,” he later added.
Despite the tough ending last year, 66,000 fans filled U.S. Bank Stadium for their first preseason game, one of the highest preseason attendances nationwide.
One fan in section 341, Terek Thomas, said, “You know, I mean, we’re excited to be back, just not that hopeful, honestly. We’ll see.”
Minnesota will play two more preseason games before its regular-season opener against the Chicago Bears. Unfortunately, for Vikings fans, the odds are against them, as only one rookie quarterback has won a week one matchup in the last two decades. That quarterback is current Bears starter Caleb Williams.
The article may be found online at https://uwrfjournalism.org/2025/10/minnesota-vikings-begin-2025-campaign/.