MINNESOTA (6-2) at GREEN BAY (6-3)
Associated Press
DAY/TIME/TV: Sunday, 12:00 p.m. CST, Fox.
LAST WEEK: Vikings lost 23-6 at home to Buffalo on Monday night; Packers won 45-27 at New England on Sunday. Packers beat Panthers 27-19; Patriots beat Dolphins 24-19.
LAST MEETING: Vikings beat Packers 39-22 on Sept. 13 in Minneapolis.
SERIES RECORD: Packers lead 67-62-3.
VIKINGS OFFENSE: OVERALL (31), RUSH (19), PASS (31), SCORING (29)
PACKERS DEFENSE: OVERALL (11), RUSH (15), PASS (11), SCORING (15)
VIKINGS DEFENSE: OVERALL (2), RUSH (18), PASS (2), SCORING (1)
PACKERS OFFENSE: OVERALL (12), RUSH (32), PASS (2), SCORING (9)
TURNOVER DIFFERENTIAL: Minnesota +5; Green Bay +8
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COACHES CAPSULES
Matt LaFleur: 82-43-1, .655; (3-6 postseason); 8th NFL season
Kevin O’Connell: 49-27, .645; (0-2 postseason); 5th NFL season
Head to Head: LaFleur 3-6 vs. O’Connell
vs. Opponent: LaFleur 7-8 vs. Vikings; O’Connell 6-3 vs. Packers
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PACKERS’ RECENT SURGE HASN’T HELPED THEM MAKE UP GROUND ON THEIR NFC NORTH RIVALS
Kirk Cousins’ career seemed at a crossroads when he tore his Achilles tendon during his last visit to Lambeau Field.
That he’s returning three years later, again as a member of the Minnesota Vikings, is a testament to the veteran quarterback’s tenacity. Five days after Minnesota reacquired him from the Las Vegas Raiders, Cousins will try to help the Vikings (6-2) snap a two-game skid on Sunday and complete a regular-season sweep of the Green Bay Packers (6-3).
“Knowing that that was where I was carted off and had thoughts of: ‘Is this my last game? And my last game as a Viking?’” Cousins said. “To be back there wearing the purple and gold, it has meaning. But you have to go make it mean something by the way you play.”
Cousins’ Achilles injury came during a 24-10 victory on Oct. 29, 2023, that marked his last game with the Vikings. He was in Atlanta from 2024-25 before spending the first half of this season at Las Vegas.
Now he will try to boost a Vikings offense that hasn’t scored more than 16 points in any of its last three games.
“He’s been calling plays in some different offenses over the last couple of years, so we’re working through just getting him comfortable, getting him up to speed,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said. “He’s really smart. A lot of things come back quick to him.”
The Vikings don’t have time to ease Cousins back into this role as they attempt to win the unforgiving NFC North, where the Packers are still in last place even after winning five of their last six games.
That puts divisional matchups at a premium, and Green Bay already lost 39-22 at Minnesota in the season’s opening week. The Packers gave up the final 29 points of that game as Minnesota’s pass rush continually got to quarterback Jordan Love.
Love believes he knows what it takes to beat this defense, but he also understands the enormity of the task.
“You’ve got to hit explosives, you’ve got to get a run game going and you’ve got to protect,” Love said. “Those are like the key things to playing this defense and taking care of the ball. I think all of those things are huge. Like I said, they live in the world of chaos and trying to make you confuse and get you in some third-and-long situations where I think that’s where they’re at their best.”
Winning five of their last six games hasn’t enabled the Green Bay Packers to make up any ground in the rugged NFC North.
The Packers (6-3) are in last place in their division despite having won twice as many games as they’ve lost. According to Sportradar, this is the first time every team in a particular division has owned a winning percentage of at least .667 this far into a season.
Since 1970, the only other time every team in a division has been at least three games above .500 was the AFC North through Week 12 of the 2014 season.
“There’s not a lot of room for error in our division right now, and that’s just the reality of it,” Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur said Monday, a day after the Packers’ 45-27 victory at New England. “And I think it puts a healthy kind of pressure on you, to make sure that you’re present each and every day, and you’re pouring everything you can into this thing.
“Because the one thing that is definitely true about our league is, anybody can beat anybody. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, when you’re playing, where you’re playing, you’ve got to bring it. And if you don’t, you will get beat.”
The Packers certainly have been bringing it lately. They produced arguably their best performance of the season Sunday by dominating the reigning AFC champions on the road.
Jordan Love, who has an NFL-leading 2,618 yards passing, threw for 372 as Green Bay scored the first 17 points and eventually led by as many as 28. Christian Watson and Matthew Golden combined for 335 yards receiving as they continued their transformation into one of the NFL’s top wideout tandems.
“You can’t let one game kind of lull you to sleep,” quarterback Jordan Love said after the game. “It was a great performance tonight, but you know it’s all about getting back to work and having a good game plan. But, yeah, this is what we talk about: stacking wins, get rolling as a unit, and that’s what we did.”
Now they need to keep it up, or risk falling further behind in the NFL’s toughest division.
Defense and running game. Green Bay forced four turnovers Sunday and has 19 takeaways this season to rank second in the NFL, behind Tampa Bay’s 21. The Packers sacked Drake Maye four times and have 10 sacks over their last two games.
A rushing attack that ranks last in the NFL performed better than expected Sunday. The Packers rushed for 129 yards – 43 more than their previous season high – on 32 carries. Kaleb Johnson rushed for a career-high 68 yards and scored his first touchdown.
WHAT’S WORKING
PACKERS: Defense and running game. Green Bay forced four turnovers Sunday and has 19 takeaways this season to rank second in the NFL, behind Tampa Bay’s 21. The Packers sacked Drake Maye four times and have 10 sacks over their last two games. A rushing attack that ranks last in the NFL performed better than expected Sunday. The Packers rushed for 129 yards – 43 more than their previous season high – on 32 carries. Kaleb Johnson rushed for a career-high 68 yards and scored his first touchdown.
VIKINGS: The pass rush generated by the relentless blitz calls from defensive coordinator Brian Flores and the smart and versatile players who carry them out is almost a given at this point. The bounce-back performance up front in slowing Buffalo’s rushing attack after a rough finish in Detroit stood out even more. James Cook needed 31 carries to reach 107 yards, and Josh Allen had only 15 yards on six carries.
WHAT NEEDS WORK
PACKERS: It’s hard to find anything to quibble about after such a dominant performance. The Packers did allow New England to rush for 94 yards on 16 attempts for an average of 5.9 yards per carry.
VIKINGS: Another sign of an ailing group came in the second quarter when the Vikings were flagged three times for false starts, playing in the comfort of their home stadium without the crowd noise working against them. With such a thin margin for error the offense is operating on, even those 5-yard penalties can be crushing.
STOCK UP
PACKERS: Watson, who had a career-high 171 yards receiving, has 879 yards receiving this season to rank third in the NFL… Golden’s 164 yards receiving also were a career high. Golden is fourth in the NFL with 783 yards receiving… S Xavier McKinney picked off two passes Sunday. He has five interceptions this season to tie Tennessee’s Amani Hooker for the NFL lead.
VIKINGS: Rookie Brett Thorson landed four of his five punts inside the 20-yard line and posted an average of 48 yards per attempt, with one downed at the 1-yard line midway through the second quarter.
STOCK DOWN
PACKERS: After playing every offensive snap in a victory over Carolina a week earlier, OG Aaron Banks was on the field for just 69.7% of the Packers’ plays Sunday as he was in more of a time share with Kevin Zeitler. LaFleur said Monday that Banks was dealing with a groin issue.
VIKINGS: The entire offensive coaching staff, from O’Connell to offensive coordinator Wes Phillips to quarterbacks coach Josh McCown, has failed to find a way to create productivity, let alone consistency. The promotion of Keith Carter to offensive line coach and the hiring of Frank Smith as assistant head coach were billed as impactful changes for that side of the ball, but the results have not matched the intent.
KEY NUMBER
PACKERS: 7 for 160 — Watson and Golden were the fifth pair of teammates in NFL history to have at least seven catches for 160 yards and a touchdown in the same game. The others were the Los Angeles Rams’ Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch and Tom Fears in 1951, Cincinnati’s T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Chad Johnson in 2004, the New York Giants’ Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks in 2012 and Miami’s Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle in 2022.
VIKINGS: 393 — Receiving yards for Jefferson, a stunningly low pace for under 800 yards for the season. He was targeted 11 times and had three receptions for 58 yards on Monday.
MATCHUP TO WATCH
Packers offensive line vs. Vikings pass rush. Although Love threw for 387 yards in Green Bay’s season-opening loss at Minnesota, he threw an interception and lost a fumble during the Packers’ fourth-quarter collapse as the Vikings didn’t give him any time to throw. The Vikings have 3.6 sacks per game to tie Houston for the NFL’s highest average. Love has thrown for an NFL-leading 2,618 yards.
STATS AND STUFF
— Vikings star WR Justin Jefferson has hit the 100-yard mark only once in his last 19 games. That came against the Packers in the final game of the 2025 season. Jefferson has only five touchdowns in his last 23 games, with two coming against the Packers in Week 1.
— Since the start of the 2025 season, the Vikings have 44 offensive touchdowns, the fourth-fewest in the NFL. They’re second-to-last in net yards over that span.
— The Vikings have at least four sacks in six of their eight games. They’re the only team in the league with that many four-sack games.
— Vikings LB Blake Cashman has at least seven tackles in 19 straight games, the longest active streak in the league. He began the week in the concussion protocol, putting his availability for Sunday in question.
— Love’s two highest passing yardage totals came against the Vikings, though both were in losses. He threw for 387 yards at Minnesota in this year’s season opener and had 389 yards passing in a 31-29 home loss to the Vikings in 2024.
— The Packers have 19 takeaways to rank second in the NFL, behind Tampa Bay’s 21. The Packers’ plus-8 turnover margin also ranks second, behind Jacksonville’s plus-9. The Packers have recorded multiple takeaways in six straight games.
— Packers WR Christian Watson ranks third in the NFL in yards receiving (879) and Matthew Golden is fourth (783). They’re the only set of teammates to be ranked in the top 10.
— Packers S Xavier McKinney has five interceptions this season to match Buffalo’s Amani Hooker for the most in the NFL.
— The Packers are last in the NFL in yards rushing per game (68.2). They average 3 yards per carry to rank ahead of only Las Vegas. Green Bay had a season-high 129 yards rushing at New England.
