The Minnesota Vikings and the Dallas Cowboys will battle in primetime on Sunday night in a game that very few people want to see. The playoff odds for the Vikings and Cowboys are dropping every week, so Sunday’s game may just be a primetime filler in the same way that local networks air Frosty the Snowman or A Charlie Brown Christmas.
With the 2025 season fading further into irrelevancy, many wonder if the Wilf family will get involved. As an ownership group with the desire to be “super competitive,” Minnesota’s 5-8 season has to have tested their patience and perhaps inspired them to take a hands-on approach … or made a silent threat that a mob boss would be proud of regarding Kevin O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s employment.
But before they do, Sunday’s game will give them a front-row seat as to what happens if ownership gets too involved and a warning of what their 2026 season could look like.
Jerry Jones has turned the Cowboys into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, and that success didn’t happen overnight. He went from an Arkansas oil tycoon to one of the most recognizable owners in all of sports after Dallas won three Super Bowls in the 1990s. It’s part of the reason why Jones already has a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
But for as rich as the Cowboys’ history is, Jones’ meddling has marred the current team.
The Cowboys last won the Super Bowl at the end of the 1995 season, and that’s the last time they’ve even appeared in a conference championship game. Dallas has won 10 or more games in a season just 11 times since the last time Jones hoisted the Lombardi Trophy. Three of those seasons came under Mike McCarthy, with whom the team parted ways at the end of that season.
Brian Schottenheimer is on the sidelines now, and the Cowboys are still focused on staying relevant in NFL circles.
The latest chapter started when this season began. The Cowboys traded star edge rusher Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers, a move most people still don’t understand. Although Jones said it was to improve their run defense, Parsons is having a season worthy of Defensive Player of the Year, and transformed the Packers into legitimate Super Bowl contenders – something the Cowboys have rarely been over the past three decades.
The Cowboys have tried to cover this up with even more splashy moves at the deadline, including acquiring defensive tackle Quinnen Williams from the New York Jets. But it’s been as effective as the lipstick on the pigs Jones probably wrestled growing up in Arkansas. There are other instances where Jones’ presence has caused more harm to the Cowboys than good, and it’s a main reason why national TV force-feeds them to the common fan.
Of course, the Wilfs may not get as involved as Jones is with the Cowboys to fix Minnesota’s mess. But there is a world where they could have the same impact.
Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, the Vikings are in a transition year. J.J. McCarthy hasn’t played well in his first season, but Minnesota would be wise not to completely pull the plug next season. That doesn’t mean the Wild should hand McCarthy the job in training camp like they did this summer, but it also doesn’t mean that signing Aaron Rodgers would solve all of their problems.
They could fire Adofo-Mensah over his poor roster-building over the past four seasons. While the Vikings have had 13- and 14-win seasons under his tenure, repeated draft misses and poor free-agent decisions have left Minnesota devoid of depth and starting-caliber talent at several positions. As a result, they’ve turned what they believed was a Super Bowl contender entering the year into a team that’s playing for draft position.
Then there’s O’Connell’s fate. The Wilfs probably aren’t thinking about firing O’Connell after this season. Still, they may run out of patience watching his offense hit rock bottom in Seattle two weeks ago. If they push for the veteran quarterback, it could disrupt the Vikings’ long-term trajectory, sending them back into the “in the hunt” category they’ve been in regularly.
Then again, it’s felt like that’s been the bar for this ownership group. They didn’t want to embark on a full rebuild when Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman were fired after the 2021 season. Although O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah maximized what they could get out of that group, it’s turned into a situation where there’s not much juice to squeeze out of the orange.
It’s the situation the Cowboys are in right now, hoping that the shiny new objects (or, in this case, players) are enough to help them lead off First Take every morning. While they are a more prestigious franchise, they find themselves in the same spot the Vikings should try to avoid as they make their offseason decisions.
Perhaps seeing it up close will be one of the most meaningful aspects of a primetime matchup America doesn’t want, and keep the Vikings on a path to becoming a sustainable, long-term contender.
