To say Week 7 of the 2025 NFL season went poorly for the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Chargers would be an understatement.
In Minnesota, the Vikings took on the Philadelphia Eagles in a rematch of the 2018 NFC Championship game, and just like in that contest, when Nick Foles punched his team's ticket to the Super Bowl, the Birds bested the boys in Purple and Gold in commanding fashion.
With Carson Wentz on the opposing sideline, the former No. 2 overall quarterback struggled to get much going on the offensive side of the ball, taking hit after hit from his former team while throwing multiple balls out of his receivers' reach that could have changed the final results in a major way. Another former Eagle, Isaiah Rodgers, who looked like the biggest steal of free agency, was cooked repeatedly by AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith on the way to a perfect passer rating by Jalen Hurts, and even though the Birds' pass rush remains a work-in-progress, they did enough to make their former franchise quarterback pay.
And as for the Chargers? Well, their narrow win in Week 6 looked like it was more due to the Miami Dolphins being really bad than Jim Harbaugh righting the ship after two straight losses to NFC East teams. The Chargers have given up 20 or more points in each of their last five games, and in Week 6, they surrendered a season-high 38, allowing Daniel Jones and Jonathan Taylor to ball out in a game where Justin Herbert threw for 420 yards and three touchdowns… plus three sacks taken and a pair of interceptions.
Needless to say, the Vikings and Chargers enter Week 8 looking to right their recent wrongs and get back on track heading into the 2025 NFL trade deadline. Fortunately, on Thursday Night Football, they will have their chance to do just that, with Kevin O'Connell and Harbaugh going head-to-head in a game some were calling a Super Bowl preview before the season began.
Justin Herbert throws like crazy against the Vikings' pass defense
In Week 7, Jalen Hurts, the starting quarterback who averages the fewest passing yards of any quarterback in the NFL, turned in the game of his life against the Vikings' pass defense, completing 19 of his 23 passes for 326 yards and three touchdowns. Hurts, one of the more athletic quarterbacks in the NFL, only ran the ball four times for -10 yards – mostly due to his three sacks – and didn't have a strong run game overall, with Saquon Barkley averaging 2.4 yards-per-carry, but still was able to do whatever he wanted through the air, with a backup center snapping the ball, no less.
While Hurts' success largely came down to a few big completions down the field, mostly against Rodgers and/or safety Josh Metellus, in the end, it's not a good sign that the NFL's seventh-ranked passing defense couldn't stop the NFL's 22nd-ranked passing offense for 60 minutes straight
In Week 8, that same defense has to face off against Herbert, who has turned himself into one of the best passers in the NFL over the past few seasons in LA.
In 2025, Herbert has thrown for at least 300 yards three times, first in Week 1 against the Kansas City Chiefs, then in Week 3 against the Denver Broncos, and finally in Week 7 when he went for 420 in a loss to the Colts. While Herbert can get a bit too optimistic in his arm strength and he can be goaded into making sub-optimal decisions, as his three interceptions against the Colts prove, few quarterbacks have his athletic gifts and thus can do what he does. If the Chargers and Vikings find themselves in a shootout on Thursday Night Football, Herbert might just have himself another signature passing performance.
The Vikings' passing offense continues to underwhelm
In Week 7, the Vikings technically had all three of their quarterbacks available to play against the Eagles, with Wentz earning the start, Max B serving as his backup, and 2024 first-round pick JJ McCarthy serving as the emergency quarterback who could only enter the game if the injury bug really came into play.
Wentz, to his credit, did throw for 313 yards, but was very inefficient, completing just 26 of his 42 attempts while throwing two not-so-good interceptions, including a pick-6 to Jalyx Hunt in the second quarter. Over four games in 2025, he's completing 66.9 percent of his passes, which would be among the best marks of his career, with 1,072 yards, five touchdowns, and four interceptions, but in Week 7, the cracks really started to show for Wentz, with many fans asking for a change under center as McCarthy nears a return.
Could McCarthy be back in Week 8 since Wentz is now on the injury report? Maybe, but it's a short week, against a very good passing defense with a running game that might still be without Aaron Jones as he recovers from injury. For a player who needs to put some early struggles behind him and really get back on the right foot at the NFL level, it's better to wait until Week 9, or even Week 10 against the lowly defense of the Baltimore Ravens, than throw the former Michigan man into the fire under suboptimal conditions.
A Chargers win sends the Vikings into full panic mode
Sitting at 4-3, the Chargers sit firmly in the middle of the race for the AFC West, tied with the Chiefs for the second seed behind a Denver Broncos team that has at times looked unbeatable, but ahead of the hapless Las Vegas Raiders, who look surprisingly bad under new head coach Pete Carroll.
A 5-3 record at the end of Week 8 would, at the very least, lock them into the playoff conversation if every other 4-3 team wins in the AFC and might even place them tied for the AFC West crown with the Broncos, should they lose to the Dallas Cowboys, even if Sean Payton would still hold the tiebreaker at this time.
And for the Vikings?
Well, a loss to the Chargers on national television would result in the team dropping to 3-4 in the brutally tough NFC North, at least 1.5 games behind the Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, and Chicago Bears before any other team takes the field in Week 8. Fans would start to speculate about being sellers at the trade deadline, or worse, make risky moves to try to win now at the expense of the future for what might just be a losing season, and O'Connell might just need to put McCarthy back into the starting lineup for a trial by fire as Sam Darnold continues to shine as a member of the Seattle Seahawks.
Could the Vikings get back on track, finding a way to win in Los Angeles and keeping their NFC North hopes alive? Sure, but if they don't, it's going to put the No. 1 seed in the NFC last year in a very interesting spot moving forward.
