Vikings must prove prove that they’re capable of even putting a scare into the NFL’s best teams in January

The Vikings haven't won a playoff game since the 2019 season or a divisional-round playoff game since the 2017 season. Coach Kevin O'Connell, left, and wide receiver Adam Thielen will try to help end those streaks this season. (Carlos Gonzalez/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Vikings fans seem to be surfing a wave of optimism, buoyed by coach Kevin O’Connell’s quarterback whispering, a roster filled with quality players and the arrival of the most hope-inspiring figure in modern American sports — the first-round quarterback.

But can I inject a small dose of reality into your pregame cocktail?

Before the Vikings prove they can win big games, they might need to prove that they’re capable of losing big games.

Scratch a Vikings fan, or employee, and they’ll tell you how much they crave just one Super Bowl title. I’ve had longtime Vikings employees tell me they can die happy with just one, which they would view as much a salve to the great players who came before them as they would view it a personal accomplishment.

Here’s the dose of reality:

For all of this team’s promise, and despite winning 13 or more games in two of the last three regular seasons, this franchise has done almost nothing in the postseason for quite a while.

This franchise hasn’t won a playoff game since the 2019 season. The Vikings haven’t won a divisional-round playoff game since the 2017 season, and they needed a play that would become defined as a “miracle” to win that one.

They haven’t won a divisional-round playoff game without benefiting from a “miracle” play since the 2009 season.

The primary complaint of Vikings fans — that this team always lets them down in the big games — is no longer accurate.

This team doesn’t even get to the big game anymore.

Here’s a fact that no one in Minnesota wants to be reminded of: The Twins — our very own pariahs — have won a playoff game much more recently than the Vikings. The Twins swept Toronto 2-0 in an American League wild-card series in 2023.

As the Vikings open the 2025 season Monday night in Chicago, they are promising in many ways, but they have to prove a lot more than J.J. McCarthy is a good NFL quarterback.

They have to prove they’re capable of even putting a scare into the NFL’s best teams in January.

Last year, the Vikings went 14-2 before New Year’s Day and 0-2 after.

They didn’t look like they belonged on the same field as the Detroit Lions in the last game of the regular season or the Los Angeles Rams in the wild-card round of the playoffs. Anyone who watched those games in person knows that Sam Darnold was responsible for the offense failing, but that doesn’t change the results.

This season, the Vikings should be better along both fronts. They should be more capable of running the ball with power. They should be better able to stop the run and generate an interior pass rush.

They are not as good in the secondary, and their injuries and suspensions created such a crisis at the wide receiver position that, in late August, they traded for Adam Thielen, a 35-year-old coming off a season in which he played in his fewest games and produced his fewest yards since 2019.

The secondary lost Stephon Gilmore, Cam Bynum and Shaq Griffin and cast off another draftee, with Mekhi Blackmon joining Lewis Cine and Andrew Booth as draft misses.

Theo Jackson might be as good as Bynum, but Bynum had a knack for clutch plays. Starting safety Harrison Smith is 36 and dealing with an illness that will keep him out Monday night.

If McCarthy can perform like Darnold, minus the late-season choke, the Vikings offense should be more than good enough.

Questions in the Vikings secondary make the pass rush even more important. If Brian Flores, the Vikings defensive coordinator, finds Turner to be a dynamic chess piece, then opposing quarterbacks might not have time to exploit the Vikings secondary.

This team probably won’t go from being non-competitive in the playoffs to winning the Super Bowl in one year with a virtual rookie at quarterback.

First, let’s see the Vikings get back to losing the big one. Which would require getting to a big one.