The Minnesota Vikings have scored just 125 points in six games this season, but the team is undefeated and head coach Kevin O’Connell isn’t worried.
O’Connell said after the Vikings’ 16-10 win over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday that the offense only needs to capitalize on a few missed opportunities on the margins to turn the ship around.
“[I] thought there were some great performances,” O’Connell said. “There were nine [explosive plays] on offense, but we left a lot out there, and I think our guys are very confident that we’re not far off.”
O’Connell said he would like to have run the ball better: The Vikings finished with 29 rushes for 136 yards, while the Colts ran the ball 33 times for 154 yards and a touchdown. He credited the special teams unit for helping them win the battle of field position, and the offense for not turning the ball over.
In terms of total offense, the Vikings finished with 275 total yards to the Colts’ 218. The Colts actually won the time of possession battle, with their offense on the field for nearly 32 minutes, to Minnesota’s 28 minutes.
Winning in spite of an anemic offense has been the story of the Vikings’ start. Among the league’s 32 teams, Minnesota currently ranks 29th in average yardage on offense at just 281.7 yards per game; they rank 23rd in scoring at just 20.8 points per game. To put that in perspective, the Vikings started 5-0 in 2024 and finished the season 14-3; that year, they finished 12th in the league in yards per game at 346.9, and ninth in scoring at 25.4. The Vikings have the second-fewest points (125) of a 6-0 team since 1940; their 10 total touchdowns are the third fewest by a 6-0 team in the entire history of the NFL.
The Vikings’ success is almost entirely due to Brian Flores’s defense. Minnesota currently ranks second in the league in yards allowed per game at 252.8; they are first in the league in scoring, allowing just 12.3 points per game.
But O’Connell noted Sunday that they had plenty of chances to put up more yards and points. Wide receiver Jauan Jennings had a deep pass go off his fingertips in the second quarter, the offense had two costly penalties on their final field goal drive in the fourth quarter, and some short runs late in the game put them into longer third downs.
Penalties also negated some chunk plays, including a deep pass from quarterback Kyler Murray to wideout Jordan Addison that could have flipped the field in the fourth quarter. O’Connell also pointed to an incompletion intended for superstar WR Justin Jefferson that could have been a huge gain.
He concluded that minor tweaks—a route combination getting a receiver open, Murray controlling his ball placement a little better, and stacking one good play on top of another—would go a long way toward sustaining drives and scoring touchdowns.
O’Connell said the offense has more than enough time to find its footing.
“You can’t get down on it right now, just because it’s still relatively early enough that we’re catching our stride,” he said. “But at the same time, we know with the type of people and teams that are going to be on our schedule the rest of the way and where we want to go with this team, we’ll keep progressing, and all the while not turning it over.”
The Vikings will have to find a way to score soon, because they play four of the NFL’s top 10 scoring offenses in the next five weeks: the second-ranked Detroit Lions in Week 8; the top-ranked Buffalo Bills in Week 9; the third-ranked San Francisco 49ers in Week 11; and the No. 10 Atlanta Falcons in Week 12.
