It’s 5 o’clock somewhere…
The 5 O’Clock Club
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2026 opponent preview series: Wk 1 Eagles | Wk 2 Cowboys | Wk 3 Seahawks | Wk 4 Colts | Wk 5 Giants | Wk 6 49ers | Wk 9 Rams | Wk 11 Bengals | Wk 12 Cardinals|Wk 13 Titans | Wk 14 Texans | Wk 15 Falcons
Previewing Washington’s 14 opponents of the ‘26 season — one at a time
In 2026, the Commanders will, like every other team in the NFL, play 17 games against 14 opponents. With the amount of roster change that NFL teams undergo annually along with the unusually large number of head coach and coordinator changes in 2026, it seems useful to spend some time to review each of Washington’s regular season opponents.
VIKINGS
The Commanders complete the trifecta of 2026 games played against teams whose head coaches were once offensive coordinators in Washington by taking on Kevin O’Connell after having gone head-to-head against Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers in Week 6 and Sean McVay’s Rams in Week 9.
Week 16 Preview: Washington Commanders at Minnesota Vikings
Date: Date & Time TBD
Location: US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota
The Vikings had a very successful regular season in 2024, winning 14 games behind Sam Darnold before ultimately losing to the Rams on the opening weekend of the playoffs. It may have been the failure in that playoff game that led to Darnold’s departure to the Seahawks, where he led his team to a Super Bowl championship in February.
The Vikings entered the 2025 season with sky-high expectations that did not come to fruition as the team stumbled to a 9-8 regular season 3rd place finish in the NFC North, missing the playoffs.
They now find themselves caught between two timelines: trying to win right now with veteran Kyler Murray, who has durability concerns, while simultaneously sheltering a young quarterback, JJ McCarthy, whose developmental timeline may have stalled.
“Justin Jefferson should never have a season like the one we saw last year.”@minakimes needs to see better QB play from the Vikings this season ✍️ pic.twitter.com/ONFoZppIGW
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) July 10, 2026
The Commanders and Vikings will both enter the 2026 season with memories of magical 2024 seasons that ended in ultimate playoff disappointment followed by more or less forgettable 2025 seasons. The Commanders have re-tooled the coaching staff and are running it back with Jayden Daniels. The Vikings appear to be flailing about a bit at quarterback, but have stood firm with their coaching staff.
Dan Patrick wasn’t having any of Kevin O’Connell’s coachspeak on QB1 pic.twitter.com/JAgCXyT0mT
— The Coachspeak Index (@CoachspeakIndex) July 10, 2026
By the time the game is played in Week 16, all the questions about these two rosters and coaching staffs are likely to have been answered, but right now, in mid-July, those questions abound.
Will this be a matchup between two NFC powerhouses jockeying for better playoff seeding? Will it, rather, be a meaningless game between two teams suffering through another disappointing season? Or will it end up being a painful, one-sided affair akin to last year’s contest, with one team trying to secure a playoff berth while the other team’s fan base is thinking primarily on the game’s effect on draft position?
The All-Time Series Numbers
Recently
Washington heads to Minnesota trying to break a long losing streak on the road. The burgundy & gold has lost four straight games in the Twin Cities, with its last victory there coming back in 2007. Dan Quinn’s roster now faces the challenge of winning inside U.S. Bank Stadium to erase nearly two decades of road struggles against the Vikings.
The most recent game (which I referenced in the introduction above) was a 31-0 shellacking put on the Commanders in December 2025. Many fans feel as if Kliff Kingsbury sealed his doom in DC with a series of 3 incomplete passes after the Commanders faced 2nd & goal at the Vikings 2 yard line on Washington’s first possession of the game. Washington turned the ball over to the Vikings just before the end of the 1st quarter, then the defense allowed a 98-yard TD drive to make the game 14-0 and the rout was on. Washington’s subsequent offensive drives comprised 3 punts, 2 interceptions, and a fumble — with Vikings QB JJ McCarthy taking a knee on the final 3 snaps of the game to run off the final 2 minutes in a humiliating Week 14 defeat of Dan Quinn’s team.
Historical series
Although the Vikings inaugural season was 1961, they didn’t play the Redskins until November 1968. The Vikings got off to a hot start, winning the first two games in the series, and 5 of the first 7 before the Redskins turned things around with 7 straight wins — including a pair of overtime games and 3 playoff victories — from the 1982 postseason to the 1992 postseason.
It’s been mostly downhill since that time, however, as the Vikings have won 11 of 15 games played since ‘93, and 8 of 10 since 2010.
The Vikings lead the all-time series 16-13, though Washington won 3 of 5 playoff games between the two teams in the 20-year stretch from the ‘73 season to the ‘92 season.
Vikings Coaching Staff
While there were some staff changes, the Vikings coaching staff returns for the 2026 season substantially the same as it was in 2025, with the same head coach and coordinators. Perhaps the most significant coaching staff change was the hiring of Assistant Head Coach Frank Smith to replace Mike Pettine, who retired.
Head Coach: Kevin O’Connell
Offensive Coordinator: Wes Phillips
Defensive Coordinator: Brian Flores
Special Teams Coordinator: Matt Daniels
Washington & Minnesota: Contrasting offensive philosophies
While Minnesota’s offensive designer — head coach Kevin O’Connell — and Washington’s new OC David Blough are both seen as young, creative and intelligent former players and offensive innovators (and Blough was in Minnesota briefly as a player under KOC), they take different approaches to offensive design.
O’Connell, who had a successful 3-year stint in Washington that saw him rise in 3 seasons from QB coach to offensive coordinator, is a direct branch of the dominant Sean McVay coaching tree. His foundational philosophy was cemented while working under Jay Gruden in Washington and later as Sean McVay’s offensive coordinator with the Los Angeles Rams. His system relies heavily on West Coast timing, mid-zone/outside-zone run principles, and a heavy volume of 11-personnel groupings to stress the defense through the air.
Like KOC, David Blough has risen rapidly through Washington’s offensive coaching ranks, moving from Assistant QB coach to OC, also in 3 years. While both O’Connell and Blough trace elements of their offensive identity to the same schematic roots, they prioritize entirely different mechanics. Because Blough spent time as a practice squad player directly under O’Connell in Minnesota in 2022, the foundational DNA of the two systems shares a heavy West Coast influence, but his — that is Blough’s — implementation of that system for the 2026 season is expected to differ significantly from that of his old coach. In fact, many people expect his years playing under Ben Johnson in Detroit and working for Kliff Kingsbury in Washington to heavily influence the Washington offensive philosophy, making it a hybrid of multiple successful offensive philosophies.
Here’s my best attempt to compare and contract what we know about Kevin O’Connel’s scheme and what we expect David Blough to do in Washington.
The Shared DNA: Play-Action and Rhythm
Blough’s anticipated 2026 Commanders playbook shares two massive commonalities with O’Connell’s Minnesota Vikings offense:
- High Play-Action Volume: Both coaches rely on heavy play-action concepts. While Washington ranked near the bottom of the league in play-action under Kliff Kingsbury, Blough has explicitly noted that he will implement a system mirroring O’Connell’s and Ben Johnson’s propensity to freeze linebackers with run fakes.
- Under-Center Mechanics: Under Kingsbury, the Commanders operated almost exclusively out of the shotgun and pistol. Blough is transitioning Jayden Daniels into a more old school, under-center NFL offense to build intermediate passing windows—a staple of O’Connell’s structural rhythm.
The Key Differences: Personnel and Identity
The divergence comes down to the primary mechanism used to stress defenses:
- Kevin O’Connell (Aerial/11-Personnel Focus): O’Connell favors an aerial-first attack that spaces the field. He operates heavily out of 11-personnel, utilizing precise route timing and horizontal stretches to get his elite playmakers, like Justin Jefferson, isolated in space.
- David Blough (Heavy Personnel/Physical Run Focus): Blough’s scheme is expected to be a hybrid heavily influenced by Ben Johnson’s physical run game. In Washington, Blough says he plans on introducing heavier personnel groupings. Expect the Commanders to use 2- and 3-TE sets to establish a dominant wide-zone rushing offense that sets up the pass, rather than using the pass to set up the run.
Ultimately, Blough is taking O’Connell’s under-center, play-action passing structure and wrapping it inside a more physical, run-heavy zone blocking framework.
This appears to be at least partially personnel-driven. The Commanders do not have an elite WR group – Terry McLaurin is the only proven producer in the unit, and he is 31-years-old this year. The RB group is young, strong and deep, and the Commanders offensive line appears to most Washington fans to be a core strength of the offense – much more so than the national narrative would indicate. Finally, the unique mobility and passing skill of Jayden Daniels, combined with an attempt to avoid the kind of injury-ravaged season that he suffered in 2025, calls for a new approach.
Two teams, one defensive philosophy
Just as we have assumed that David Blough’s Washington offense will look a great deal like the Ben Johnson offense, it is widely assumed that Washington’s defensive coordinator Daronte Jones will implement a defensive scheme with the Commanders that will be heavily influenced by his most recent boss, Brian Flores.
As it happens, Flores is the defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings.
Commanders offense vs Vikings defense
The battle between the Washington run game and Brian Flores’ defense hinges on which team can dictate the tempo at the line of scrimmage. Washington hopes to rely on establishing a physical, downhill ground attack to keep opponents honest and protect their quarterback. However, Flores runs a defensive system specifically designed to take away standard run keys. By constantly shifting players before the snap and overloading gaps, the Vikings force offensive lines to make split-second communication adjustments, often rendering traditional blocking schemes useless.
This schematic chess match carries an extra layer of strategic interplay because of the coaching connection between the two sidelines. Washington defensive coordinator Daronte Jones spent the last two seasons working directly under Flores as his defensive backs coach/pass game coordinator in Minnesota. Jones is now expected to implement a similar hyper-aggressive defensive identity in Washington. This means that Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels will spend every week in practice navigating the exact same disguised pressures, simulated blitzes, and rotating coverages that Flores will throw at him on game day.
Because Daniels will routinely practice against an expected Flores-inspired system, the young quarterback might possess a deeper understanding of how these looks operate. He will have spent months learning where the soft spots are in an aggressive defense and when to pull the ball down to exploit vacated space with his legs. If Washington’s offensive staff can use Daniels’ familiarity to their advantage, they can anticipate Minnesota’s pressure looks and counter them with quick perimeter passes or designed quarterback draws.
Ultimately, Washington’s success on the ground will determine whether they can neutralize Flores’ pass rush, and the team will rely on a distinct committee of running backs to do so.
Second-year back Bill Croskey-Merritt is expected by many to handle the primary workload, using his speed and open-field burst to stress Minnesota’s boundary discipline on early downs – though developments in training camp may determine the roles of each member of Washington’s running back by committee.
When Flores unleashes third-down blitzes, veteran Rachaad White should act as the crucial counterweight. His elite pass-protection skills and familiarity with Jayden Daniels—stretching back to their college days at Arizona State—make him an ideal safety valve in the screen game to punish aggressive linebackers.
To wear the defense down late, rookie Kaytron “Fatman” Allen brings physical, between-the–tackles power that may earn him a larger-than-expected slice of the RBBC pie, especially by the time of this Week 16 game. Allen’s ability to move the ball forward for tough yards can keep the Commanders ahead of the chains and out of predictable passing situations.
Vikings offense vs Commanders defense
The tactical mirror image of this game features a Minnesota offense trying to decipher a Washington defense that uses its own Brian Flores’ designed playbook against them. Because Commanders defensive coordinator Daronte Jones has apparently brought Brian Flores’ hyper-aggressive, amoeba-like defensive scheme with him to Washington, the Vikings offense finds itself in the unique position of playing against its own practice tape. Minnesota head coach Kevin O’Connell must design a game plan that beats a system he watches every day in training camp, knowing that Jones understands exactly which route concepts and protection slides give this specific defensive structure the most trouble.
The burden of executing this plan could fall squarely on Kyler Murray, whose mobility and pre-snap recognition will be tested by Washington’s disguised looks – IF he ends up playing quarterback in this game. It could be JJ McCarthy, or even former Commander Carson Wentz!
Jones is expected to frequently show zero-blitz alignments before dropping defensive backs into coverage, forcing the Vikings QB (whoever it turns out to be) to make lightning-fast post-snap reads. To counter this, Minnesota will lean on their veteran backfield pairing of Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason to stabilize the offense. Jones provides the steady pass protection and reliable check-down option needed to punish Washington’s blitzing linebackers, while Mason’s physical, between-the-tackles running style and elite yards-after-contact ability can absorb the brunt of the Commanders’ aggression, grinding out tough yards to keep Minnesota ahead of the chains.
If Murray (or McCarthy or Wentz) can navigate the initial waves of pressure, the focal point of the passing game will be isolating Justin Jefferson against Washington’s secondary. While Jones’ defensive scheme is designed to create chaos up front, it naturally leaves cornerbacks like Mike Sainristil and Trey Amos on islands downfield. O’Connell will likely use maximum-protection schemes to give his quarterback the extra second required to let Jefferson’s intermediate and deep routes develop.
DJ in DC
Daronte Jones is our new defensive coordinator pic.twitter.com/rz6fweCEom
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) January 30, 2026
Ultimately, this matchup will come down to discipline and execution rather than schematic surprises. Both coaching staffs know the strengths and weaknesses of this defensive system inside and out, meaning the game will be won by the players on the field. If the Vikings QB and his offensive line can handle the pre-snap noise and identify Washington’s actual rushers, Minnesota has the explosive playmakers out wide to turn Jones’ aggression into big chunks of yardage. However, if the Commanders can generate quick pressure and force the passer into hurried throws, Washington’s Flores-inspired defense could successfully shut down the dangerous Kevin O’Connell offense.
Key statistical 2025 rankings
It’s clear that, en route to a 9-8 season last year, the Vikings relied on their defense to do the heavy lifting as the offense ranked in the bottom-10 of most traditional statistical categories. Minnesota finished the season with a +11 point differential for 2025 despite fielding a defense that held opponents under 20 points per game on average (Take out the 31-0 beatdown of Washington, and the Vikings were -20 point differential in their other 16 games).
Offensive Rankings (2025 Season)
- Total Offense: 28th in yards per game (275.0 YPG)
- Scoring Offense: 26th in points per game (20.2 PPG)
- Passing Offense: 29th in total passing yards (166.7 YPG)
- Rushing Offense: 23rd in total rushing yards (108.3 YPG)
Defensive Rankings (2025 Season)
- Total Defense: 3rd in total yards allowed per game (282.6 YPG)
- Scoring Defense: 7th in points allowed per game (19.6 PPG)
- Passing Defense: 2nd in total passing yards allowed (158.5 YPG)
- Rushing Defense: 21st in total rushing yards allowed (124.1 YPG)
Roster Moves: Trades, Free Agency and the Draft
Trades
The headline trade of the Vikings offseason came on Day 2 of the Draft, when the Vikings traded standout OLB Jonathan Greenard + the 244th overall pick to the Eagles. In exchange, Minnesota received the 2026 98th overall pick and a 2027 third-round selection. While moving Greenard thinned out Brian Flores’ edge-rushing depth, the trade freed up massive financial flexibility against the salary cap and cleared the way for 3rd-year pass rusher Dallas Turner to step into a permanent starting role.
The Vikings front office also made several other draft day trades.
Free Agency
The Vikings had a rather muted offseason. Outside of the very significant Jonathan Greenard trade and some extensions, the key veteran moves were the loss of DT Javon Hargrave and the signing of WR Jauan Jennings.
Key Free agent signings
- WR Jauan Jennings
- TE TJ Hockenson (extension)
- LB Eric Wilson (extension)
- RB Aaron Jones (extension)
Free agent losses
- DT Javon Hargrave
- WR Jalen Nailor
- P Ryan Wright
The 2026 NFL Draft
Round 1, No. 18: Caleb Banks (DL, Florida) – A supremely talented defensive lineman with elite size and high upside who enters the league working his way back from a left foot injury.
Round 2, No. 51: Jake Golday (LB, Cincinnati) – A big, versatile 6-foot-5 off-ball linebacker and former edge rusher drafted to bring size to the run defense.
Round 3, No. 82: Domonique Orange (NT, Ohio State) – A classic 322-pound, run-stopping nose tackle selected to explicitly rebuild the interior of the defensive line.
Round 3, No. 97: Caleb Tiernan (OT, Northwestern) – A massive 6-foot-8, 323-pound offensive tackle who showed steady conceptual improvement over his college career.
Round 3, No. 98: Jakobe Thomas (S, Miami) – A highly intelligent, versatile safety who logged five interceptions and 10 quarterback pressures last season.
Round 5, No. 159: Max Bredeson (TE/FB, Michigan) – A rugged, run-blocking tight end who is expected to essentially operate as a fullback following a veteran retirement.
Round 5, No. 163: Charles Demmings (CB, Stephen F. Austin) – A highly athletic developmental cornerback who posted a 42-inch vertical and a 4.41-second 40-yard dash at the combine.
Round 6, No. 198: Demond Claiborne (RB, Wake Forest) – An explosive backfield weapon who adds dynamic speed to the roster after running a 4.37-second 40-yard dash.
Round 7, No. 235: Gavin Gerhardt (C, Cincinnati) – A late-round center prospect added to camp to compete for depth and a potential starting role following a veteran vacancy.
Betting Lines
Oddsmakers have established the home team as the favorite for this matchup.
- Point Spread: Commanders +2.5
- Game Total (Over/Under): 46.5 points
A 2.5-point spread favoring the home team is less than standard, indicating that bettors lack complete confidence in the Vikings in this late-season home game. The point total is set at 46.5, reflecting expectations of moderate scoring by at least one of the two teams. Concerns may include the Vikings’ QB situation on the one hand, and Washington’s reliance on two first time NFL coordinators and play callers on the other.
CONVERSATION STARTERS:
Which quarterback will be starting for the Vikings in Week 16, Kyler Murray, JJ McCarthy, or Carson Wentz?
Do you expect this Week 16 game to matter to either or both teams in terms of qualifying for the playoffs or improving playoff seeding?
