Sports

After the 2024 season ended with the offensive line being overwhelmed by Jared Verse and his Rams teammates for nine sacks, the Vikings decided to overhaul the all-important interior of their five-man wall. (In today's NFL, every position is as important as left tackle, because any weakness will be exploited.)

The tackles aren't the problem, per se. They decided to keep Christian Darrisaw (who was lost to a torn ACL in second-quarter garbage time during the 2024 regular-season game against the Rams) and Brian O'Neill.

At center, former Vikings first-rounder Garrett Bradbury (who's doing well in New England) was jettisoned for former Colts first-rounder Ryan Kelly. Former Colts guard Will Fries came with Kelly, and former Ohio State standout Donovan Jackson was picked in the first round to play the other guard position.

So that was the plan. Darrisaw and O'Neill on the outside; Kelly, Fries, and Jackson on the inside.

Then came the games that count. Darrisaw wasn't ready. Kelly suffered multiple concussions, before landing on injured reserve.

During a Sunday morning interview during NFL Network's GameDay Morning, Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell made a point that was both surprising and deflating: The Week 12 game at Green Bay will be the first time all year that the Vikings will have all five of them on the field at the same time.

Will it matter? We'll find out at 1:00 p.m. ET. The up-and-down Vikings tend to do well when they're not expected to. And they're expected to lose to the Packers in Green Bay.

It could be a close one. The Packers' offense has struggled at home lately, averaging 10 points per game in a pair of losses. If the intended five-man front can help the Vikings get something/anything from their offense, maybe they'll be heading to Seattle at 5-6 and hoping to become a contender.

The alternative is 4-7 and, as a practical matter, continuing their recent pattern of playoffs, no playoffs, playoffs, no playoffs.

After the Bills capped quarterback Josh Allen's seventh season with yet another failure to make it to the Super Bowl, Bills G.M. Brandon Beane was defiant about the challenge the team faces.

“Keep kicking the door, keep kicking the door and you’re going to knock it down,” Beane said in his 2024 season-ending press conference. “That’s my mentality.”

As the Bills sit two full games and a tiebreaker behind the Patriots in the AFC East — and as Buffalo deals with the distinct possibility of closing out its current stadium with not only no home playoff games but no playoff games at all — only one person's mentality matters.

What does owner Terry Pegula think about the current situation? What, if anything, will he want to change for 2026?

On one hand, it's possible that the first season of a new stadium with $245 million in PSLs already sold will be a celebration, not a fresh start. Who gets a divorce right before moving into a brand-new house?

On the other hand, Allen's prime is being frittered away. After owning the AFC East for each of the first five post-Brady seasons, the Bills have seen the Patriots develop a new franchise quarterback in Drake Maye, and Buffalo's stranglehold on the division has ended.

The deeper question is whether it's an issue of talent (which points to G.M. Brandon Beane) or an issue of coaching (which points to coach Sean McDermott). The properly-functioning NFL franchises don't treat it as an either/or proposition, because that sets the stage for finger pointing and blame shifting.

Consider the status of 2024 second-round receiver Keon Coleman. Inactive for two straight games, is his current status a product of a bad draft pick by Beane, or a failure to properly develop Coleman by McDermott?

Regardless, only Pegula knows what he'll do after the season. And the season is far from over. The Bills can still get hot. Tyler Dunne can still post another article that lights a fire under the locker room. They can still win the division. They can still get to the Super Bowl. They can still win it.

Or they can continue to struggle. They can relinquish the AFC East to the Patriots. They can go one-and-done as a road-team wild-card. They can miss the playoffs altogether, despite having the 2024 NFL MVP as the centerpiece of the team.

These are fair questions to ask. The Bills are one of the 15 hotspots identified a week ago today. And this is the business they've chosen.

Yes, the job is in many ways easier with a franchise quarterback. It's also in many ways harder, because the bar is always higher. So far this season, after starting 4-0 and slumping to 3-4 since then, the Bills are falling short of the bar that having Josh Allen sets.