We now have a start time for Sunday's season finale for the Minnesota Vikings.
The Purple will play the Packers at U.S. Bank Stadium Sunday at noon. The game will be on CBS (WCCO-TV).
The NFL announced the schedule for the final week of the regular season last night, slotting consequential games into prime spots on Saturday afternoon and evening and Sunday night.
While Minnesota has won four in a row, they've been eliminated from playoff contention for a few weeks. The Packers won handily over the Vikings earlier this season at Lambeau Field, 23-6.
The Packers, meanwhile, have dropped their last three games but are locked into the seventh seed heading into the NFC's postseason.
Since Green Bay can't change their playoff seeding, the game is meaningless for both teams. The Packers come into the game extremely beat up.
Their head coach, Matt LaFleur, said he hadn’t yet decided on how or if he will play his starters. Quarterback Jordan Love didn't play in Saturday night's loss to Baltimore after suffering a concussion. Malik Willis, his backup, left the game late after aggravating a shoulder injury.
Green Bay is likely heading to Chicago for the Wild Card round, but could also end up playing at Philadelphia who knocked them out of the playoffs last year. If the Bears beat Detroit, they clinch the 2-seed and a date with their rival Packers. But if Chicago loses that game and Philly beats Washington, it would push the Eagles into the 2-seed and a date with the Green and Gold.
Heading into the postseason, the Packers are really on the struggle bus. They've lost three straight games after emerging as a Super Bowl contender after knocking off the Lions on Thanksgiving and the Bears on December 7.
Then a loss in Denver, where defensive stalwart Micah Parsons was lost for the year with a torn ACL, derailed things. They were beat late by the Bears who recovered an onside kick for a miracle OT win, and on Saturday Baltimore and Derrick Henry ran the ball all over the Packer defense on the way to a 41-24 victory.
As for the Vikings, it's been four straight wins but too little, too late. Even if they beat the Packers, they will fall short of a playoff spot by half a game thanks to the Packers tie in Dallas earlier this year.
The two biggest questions the Vikings will answer this Sunday is whether or not second year QB J.J. McCarthy will play, and where they'll end up in the draft order.
McCarthy has a hairline fracture in his hand and missed last week's game against the Lions, a 23-10 win where undrafted rookie Max Brosmer and the offense did next to nothing. But the defense carried them to a victory forcing six Lion turnovers.
Viking coach Kevin O'Connell has not ruled McCarthy out for Sunday's game against Green Bay, saying it basically comes down to whether or not McCarthy has the strength in his hand to grip the ball, adding it would "be nice" to get him one more chance to play this year.
McCarthy has missed a number of games this year with a sprained ankle and a concussion, after missing his entire rookie campaign after knee surgery in the preseason. The Vikings have been committed to giving the former first round pick a shot to be the franchise QB for the near future but losing more time to evaluate McCarthy is proving to be a major challenge.
McCarthy has struggled mightily at times this year, but has also show some flashes he could develop into an NFL-caliber quarterback. The team has a winning record, 5-4, in games McCarthy has started in 2025. He played very well recently in wins at Dallas (250 yards, 2 touchdowns), and against Washington (163 yards, 3 touchdowns).
But injuries have once more derailed any momentum for the Vikings and McCarthy. What has become obvious is how much better the offense is when McCarthy is under center compared to Brosmer, however. A shutout loss at Seattle and the defense-dominated win last week against Detroit have shown Brosmer is not ready to run an NFL offense.
As for the draft, the way it sits right now, the Vikings would pick 17th. There are numerous teams with a similar record so how week 18 shakes out will determine their draft fate which appears to be anywhere from 12th to 20th.
Packers are struggling on defense after Parsons injury
For the second straight year, the Green Bay Packers are heading in the wrong direction as the playoffs approach.
They’ll be staring at the likelihood of a second straight one-and-done postseason unless they shore up their run defense.
“Everybody has to acknowledge it and accept it and accept it for what it is, and then you’ve got to learn from it,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said Sunday, a day after the Packers allowed Derrick Henry to rush for 216 yards and four touchdowns in a 41-24 loss to Baltimore. “We cannot put ourselves in that situation again. Otherwise, it’s going to be the same song and dance.”
Green Bay (9-6-1) has dropped three straight games and will be the NFC’s seventh and final playoff seed for a third straight season. Last year, the Packers lost their final two regular-season games, then were eliminated by the eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card round.
Now the Packers must figure out how to stop the run, something that hadn’t been a problem for much of the season. It’s become an issue since defensive linemen Micah Parsons and Devonte Wyatt were lost for the season to injuries.
Wyatt injured his ankle in a Thanksgiving Day win at Detroit and Parsons tore an ACL in a Dec. 14 loss at Denver.
Green Bay was ranked eighth in the NFL in run defense heading into its game at Chicago last weekend. The Packers gave up 150 yards on 26 carries as the Bears won 22-16 in overtime.
Then the Packers allowed Henry to rush for the most yards by visiting player at Lambeau Field.
“There was way too many mistakes in regards to misalignments and missed assignments, and when you do that against a good football team, you see the results,” LaFleur said. “That was what was probably the most disappointing thing after watching the tape is just how many times we weren’t playing the right technique or just in the right position to make a play.”
Green Bay hadn’t been making those types of errors for most of the season. Before Saturday, the only player to run for as many as 100 yards against the Packers was Carolina’s Rico Dowdle.
“That’s what was so baffling, I would say, is sitting in there with the defensive staff today,” LaFleur said. “That hasn’t been a trend, that hasn’t been something that has really happened throughout the course of the season. For it to show up in that game, it was really bothersome.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.