EAGAN, Minn. — Home is where the SKOL Chant is loudest.

For the first time in 28 days come Sunday, the Vikings will grace the U.S. Bank Stadium turf and play reigning Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia in an atmosphere that is practically unrivaled in the NFL.

Minnesota's season so far has been a journey of historic proportions and of adverse circumstances. Five games in three different countries. Three wins and one in London. A near fortnight outside of the United States. A constant fight to get healthy. Comebacks and clinkers. And last week a timely bye to recharge the batteries. The Vikings aren't the team they want to be, yet. But they're persevering on their journey.

And so is Carson Wentz, who reminded Twin Cities media this week he's "along for the ride, so to speak."

This specific mile marker pits him against the club that drafted him 2^nd overall in 2016 and eventually moved on when it felt confident enough about transitioning to 2020 second-round draft pick Jalen Hurts.

Five years from that fallout in Philly, the 32-year-old Wentz is subbing again for 22-year-old Vikings starter J.J. McCarthy, who returned to practice Monday but isn't fully recovered from a high-ankle sprain. Wentz will be backed up by UDFA rookie Max Brosmer, and McCarthy will be Minnesota's emergency QB.

Wentz is 2-1 with the Vikings. In his Purple debut on Sept. 21 he threw two touchdowns in a 48-10 victory. He's treating start No. 4, at noon Sunday for the team he grew up lionizing, like another game.

"Maybe earlier in my career, maybe I had a different feeling, but at the same time, you know, you look over there and I'm not even sure there's anybody on the defensive side that I played with," Wentz said Wednesday about his approach for Sunday. "It just looks different. So it's another opponent. A lot of respect for those guys. There's still guys in that organization, there's a lot of good people that I still have a lot of care for and respect for. But at the same time, that feels like multiple lifetimes ago at this point."

Vikings Uniform

Minnesota will wear its standard home uniform consisting of purple jerseys and white pants.

3 Vikings Storylines

1. Post-bye week reset

Are the Vikings healthier? Yes. Are they at full strength? Not yet.

Running back Aaron Jones, Sr., (hamstring) is on Injured Reserve and continued his rehab separate from practice, and right tackle Brian O'Neill (knee) and outside linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel (neck) were limited participants this week. Blake Cashman (hamstring) had his evaluation window opened and is on track for activation. Therefore, getting "healthy" is a work in progress — par for course for each NFL club.

The consummation of Minnesota's identity also is underway.

Offensive and defensive coordinators Wes Phillips and Brian Flores spoke about that topic Tuesday.

On offense, the Vikings want to protect the football, stay on top of down and distances and involve playmakers such as Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson – and let them go do their thing.

Phillips evaluated that group's first-five-game performance through the prism of an old adage.

"You lose more games than you win. And offensively, as a microcosm of that, a lot more often than not, you can look back and you can say, 'OK, we turned the ball over here, or we had an early down penalty that set us behind the sticks,'" Phillips commented. "That's [why], ultimately, we feel it's a little more about us, [and] when we haven't had those things, we've moved the ball fairly well throughout the year.

"More than anything," he said, "it's about not hurting ourselves."

Defensively, Flores wants his unit to be tough, smart and physical, as well as mindful of points and situations. He said, "We've done some good things, but I don't think we've played our best football yet."

What will the Vikings "best" on defense look like? For one, fewer missed tackles; they whiffed on 4.6 tackle tries per game in 2024 and are averaging 7.0 misses this year. Also, firmer edges, which should shore up a leaky run defense; opponents are averaging 40ish more yards rushing in 2025 than in 2024.

Again, Flores cited the importance of doing all the "non-sexy" stuff at a higher level.

2. Finding Brandel's best spot

With second-year center Michael Jurgens back at practice, the Vikings have two viable options to substitute for starting center Ryan Kelly, who is on Injured Reserve after suffering a pair of concussions.

Blake Brandel, originally the team's emergency third center, if you will, will stick as a starter for Sunday.

A 17-game starter at left guard in '24 and initially a backup in '25, Brandel stepped up before the bye week and anchored Minnesota's offensive line versus Cleveland (the league's No. 1 defense at the time).

He played well, yielding three pressures on 45 pass blocks per PFF, against a daunting defensive front, and in doing so stabilized a line that's less-than-ideally played musical chairs due to an early injury bug.

And now Brandel will be tasked with repeating his effort against an Eagles defensive line that features a couple of "different" defensive tackles in Jalen Carter (6-foot-3, 314 pounds) and Jordan Davis (6-6, 336).

Phillips explained that it's sometimes easier for an offense to stall a single edge rusher – with chips, double teams or other schematics – than it is to block two larger-than-large, explosive pocket-pushers.

"If you've got two big guys inside, you can't slide [the protection] to both of them," he said.

Although the London game was Brandel's first official taste of playing center in the NFL, he's been prepped for a situation like this over the years, because it's common practice for interior linemen to learn all three spots; Brandel has drilled QB-C exchanges in practices and taken reps at the position here and there on the "look" squad. Amazingly, he has game experience at each OL position but right tackle.

Based on his smarts, size and performance in Week 5, center could wind up being Brandel's "best position of all five across the line," Phillips said after touting his communication as an impressive piece.

3. Heat check

Nine straight games with at least two sacks is a feather in the cap for Flores' defense.

In fact, it's the longest active streak of 2-plus sacks in a game in the NFL. It's also a very encouraging metric with the Eagles coming to town because they're tied for the fifth-most sacks allowed in 2025 (18).

After games against passers who've fervently gotten rid of the ball – Aaron Rodgers (2.63 seconds avg. time to pass) and Dillon Gabriel (2.58) – Hurts is a more favorable foe for the Vikings pass rush, since he's averaging the third-slowest TTT (time to throw) in the NFL this year (2.98), according to Next Gen Stats.

Hurts obviously can elude initial pressure and impact the flow of games with his feet, but in losses the past two weeks, he's been rather one-dimensional, totaling 16 rushing yards on nine combined attempts. For what it's worth, the dual-threat rushed at least nine times in each of Philadelphia's first four games.

Jonathan Greenard (hamstring) popped up on Thursday's Injury Report, but he did not receive a game status designation Friday. One of our favorite NGS insights shared Greenard is the quickest player to the QB, with an average pressure time of 2.34 seconds, among on-ball defenders with at least 15 pressures.

Furthermore, his 12 pressures within 2.5 seconds eclipses the total pressure tally of any other Viking. Due to his disruption, Greenard has been chip-blocked 17 times; he's the spark of Minnesota's pass rush.

2 Things 'Bout the Eagles

1. The deets of a Vic Fangio defense

Fangio is in his 25^th NFL season as a head coach (2019-21) or defensive coordinator (22 seasons). His defense is known for disguised structures and playing with a tarp over the top, wanting to limit big plays.

The 2025 Eagles defense has blitzed and created pressure on 23.7 and 17.5 percent of dropbacks. That blitz frequency is an increase from Fangio's first season in Philly (19.1%) – pressure is comparable (17.9).

Vikings Head Coach Kevin O'Connell associated Fangio's freeform defense to Flores' designs.

"He's a really, really good football coach, has been for a long time," said O'Connell, praising the Eagles front seven and their young secondary. "They've got a really good mixture of instincts and ball skills and then just flat out, you know, good football players. So he's got the tools to do what he's always done in the league, which is – it's difficult to play against, a variety of fronts that they can get to with the versatile pieces that they have, linebackers getting on the ball, four-down, five-down, six-down structures that require you to have a pretty good understanding of the plan and the play.

"But then the adjustments that have to take place amongst the players out there to find success because, really, a lot of the defense, whether it's pre-snap and some of the things that they do stemming and moving around, it's similar to our defense in a lot of ways," O'Connell continued, appreciating Fangio's tactics. "But then post-snap, similar to our defense, they're changing the picture. You think it's this coverage and it ends up being a totally different kind of a structure of the defense. And that's what he's made so teams and defenses so successful with. And they're doing the same types of things. And we've got to have a good plan for it. And we've got to execute."

2. Saquon Barkley's slow(er) start

Sorting through the most prolific 2025 NFL runners … where's Saquon?

Last year, Barkley averaged 5.8 yards per rush on his way to 2,005 yards and a third-place finish in the Most Valuable Player race. (Barkley is the fourth RB since Vikings Legend Adrian Peterson won the 2012 award to receive Top 3 consideration after DeMarco Murray in 2014, Todd Gurley in 2017 and Christian McCaffrey in 2023.) He averaged 3.8 yards before contact, as well as a broken tackle every 18.2 attempts.

It's been a starkly different story for Barkley six games into his second season with the Eagles, though.

The eighth-year pro picked No. 2 overall by the Giants in 2018 is averaging 3.4 yards per carry and 4.1 yards per touch for the defending champions – his lowest averages since posting two-game marks of 1.8 and 3.8 yards before a season-ending knee injury in 2020 interrupted consecutive 1,000-yard campaigns.

Entering Week 7, Barkley ranks 22^nd in the league in rushing with 325 yards, trailing leader Jonathan Taylor (603) and the likes of fellow once-upon-a-time cast-aside running backs Javonte Williams (476) and Rico Dowdle (472), in addition to rookie thumpers Quinshon Judkins (383) and Cam Skattebo (338).

One regression from Barkley's historic year and quiet encore is his explosive outcomes. After tying for the NFL lead in 2024 with 25 run plays of 15 or more yards, and generating a breakaway run percentage of 41.6, Barkley has produced four such rushes in 2025 and a 21.2 BAY%, according to Pro Football Focus.

He's also dealing with contact earlier in his runs.

Barkley is averaging 1.9 yards before that first pop this season, which ranks 27^th out of 37 players with at least 50 attempts. Comparatively, his mark of 3.8 yards last season was the highest for a running back with 200 or more carries since pro-football-reference.com began tracking that stat in the 2018 campaign.

Barkley's decrease in rushing YPG (minus-71.1) is on track to be the largest from one season to the next since 1933 per NFL Research (among guys playing in 75-plus percent of his team's games in each season).

Nevertheless, he's "the best back in the league," Flores remarked.

He's fast. He's physical. He has fantastic vision. And he can burn defenses in the pass game.

"We know what type of player Saquon is," said Flores, adding Barkley's 2025 totals are irrelevant to preparations. "It's just the history and the talent that's there; the explosiveness that's there. We've got a big, big challenge ahead of us. And I can't speak to what's going on. I'm expecting their very best effort and them at whatever their highest capacity is. I think that's what we're going to get.

"We've got to get more than one guy around him — two, three, four, five, as many guys as possible," Flores continued about the challenge Barkley presents. "Crowd noise – we could use that, too."

1 Key Matchup

Vikings CB Isaiah Rodgers vs. Eagles WR A.J. Brown

No, Rodgers most certainly won't follow Brown across the formation, though they both primarily align out wide. And there's no bad blood in this reunion of former teammates who won Super Bowl LIX in Eagles threads. But Rodgers and Brown are elite competitors, special playmakers and good bets to shine.

Therefore, it's important to know where things stand for them as we approach Sunday.

Earlier this week, we checked in on Rodgers’ elite speed and historic ball skills. Based on Next Gen Stats data, the 27-year-old cornerback is one of two secondary players in the NFL who've been targeted in coverage 20-plus times and kept quarterbacks below a 50.0 passer rating (also LAC safety Derwin James).

Brown, akin to Barkley, isn't producing right now at his normal level, enduring single-season career lows in receiving yards per game (45.7), catch percentage (55.6), yards per target (6.1) and receiving success rate (44.4). (Pro Football Reference qualifies receptions as successful when they gain at least 40% of the yards required on first down, 60% of the yards to go on second down and 100% on third or fourth down.)

None of that changes the fact Brown wins reps with physicality and cashes checks after the catch.

Since entering the NFL in 2019, Brown has accumulated the fifth-most receiving yards (7,300) and touchdowns (50), and ranks eighth at his position with 2,588 YAC and 331 receptions for first downs.

Again, this isn't an every-down battle between Rodgers and neither Brown nor Rodgers is focused on proving Philadelphia wrong. But it's absolutely going to feature both players battling for the ball, and it's definitely an opportunity for Rodgers to further prove himself right – that he's a high-end NFL starter.

"I'm not trying to make the game bigger than it has to be," Rodgers said this week. "It's not an Isaiah Rodgers revenge game or anything like that. It's all love for me over there, and I know it's vice-versa."

Top Quotes of Week 7

Defensive Coordinator Brian Flores on overcoming unfavorable momentum swings

"I think it really boils down to relationships. I think the best teams that I've been a part of have had great relationships within the team. And those relationships allow them to overcome the adversity that's going to hit within the football season. We know it's going to happen. It's not going to always be 30-to-nothing. That's just not this league. It's hard. There's adversity. There's frustration. There's stress. There's anxiety. All those things occur in the National Football League, and really in life. And so you lean on the people to your left and your right, your teammates, the guys in the locker room, in our meeting room; I know we talk about that quite a bit. And so the ebbs and flows of a season, of a game, I think you get through those with the people around you, well, through the people around you and with the people that are around you."

Offensive Coordinator Wes Phillips on defenses shifting to contain a plethora of playmakers

"I think coaches, as they watch tape, have a lot of respect for what Jordan Addison does, and I think if you really watch the tape they should have a whole lot of respect for what Jalen Nailor has been doing out there. With all that being said, I still think you're going to get most of the attention, as far as game-plan type things, where 'Who are we going to roll the coverage to? Who are we going to double potentially on third down?' If teams have a match corner, 'Who are we going to travel with?' Those things are still going to be in tune to Justin Jefferson. But it makes it much harder to do when you see Jordan Addison making the plays that he's made; Adam Thielen making some clutch third-down conversions for us; Jalen Nailor winning all over the tape, whether he got the football or not on those particular plays. They're watching that tape and they're seeing those matchups that they also have to account for if [they're] going to take multiple people and [try to limit the impact of] Justin Jefferson."

Special Teams Coordinator Matt Daniels on the league-wide uptick of blocked field goals

"It's probably the highest it's been in a long time. … And maybe it's more of an emphasis on it, more starters out there doing it, or [it] could be the amount of time that's being put into coaching it, as well, just in terms of the field goal protection standpoint because of how involved the kickoff and kickoff return play is starting to become in our phase. What's happening is maybe you spend more time on kickoff and kickoff return. So as a result, you're losing time spending, trying to emphasize field goal protection in that instance. And maybe that might be the case, or maybe it's just the fact that you've got guys like Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter out there now who are getting a good beat on it. You're starting to see a lot of guys really locking in on the actual signal and cadence of holders, which is allowing them to get good BGO (ball get-off) jumping off the football. … So that could be a good portion of it as well. But I think guys are just being a lot more intentional about just firing the ball and understanding that this is a huge, huge play in the football game. And, obviously, points always matter."

From the Inbox | by Craig Peters

With the crazy amount of injuries we have been dealt, do we feel confident going down the stretch here against some of the premier teams in the league (Eagles, Chargers, Lions, etc.)?

— Max from Fonda, New York

The Vikings could envision being battle-tested when the schedule was first announced, and that held up through the first five games of 2025.

Minnesota probably didn't envision the number of injuries, especially those that have been several weeks of rehab for multiple players, especially when heading for the international double dip.

The Week 6 bye was well-timed, but not fully restorative for the roster. The good news is progress is happening, and there's a lot of football to go. The road doesn't get easier. Some metrics released this week view the remaining slate for Minnesota as the NFL's toughest, but so much can happen in October, November and December to change the early part of the season.

After the comeback against Cleveland, O'Connell and players mentioned how he had told the team that people who look for excuses find them. Part of that speech is featured in the latest episode of The Voyage. It's absolutely worth viewing if you haven't seen it yet.

Coaches and players are excited to return to U.S. Bank Stadium for the lone home game between Week 3 and Week 10.

View the 2025 Vikings Schedule.

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