It wasn’t necessarily pretty, but the Minnesota Vikings did just enough to get a victory on Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field, knocking off the Chicago Bears by a final score of 9-3. It was their seventh consecutive victory in Chicago and their seventh straight victory dating back to last season, but it also allowed them to do something that no team in NFL history had ever done before.
According to CBS Sports researcher Doug Clawson, the Vikings are now the first team in NFL history to win four consecutive
games with four different starting quarterbacks, going back to last year.
Now, it’s important to note that the rules for quarterback wins in the NFL are different from those in, say, pitchers in Major League Baseball. In baseball, whoever is on the mound whenever a team takes the lead for the last time gets credit for the win. In the NFL, whichever quarterback takes the first snap of the game gets credit for the win, regardless of how the ebb and flow of the game works out.
In the case of the Vikings, here’s how that winning streak has gone:
- Week 17, 2025: Max Brosmer starts vs Detroit, Vikings win 23-10
- Week 18, 2025: J.J. McCarthy starts vs Green Bay, Vikings win 16-3
- Week 1, 2026: Kyler Murray starts vs Green Bay, Vikings win 39-22
- Week 2, 2026: Carson Wentz starts at Chicago, Vikings win 9-3
(Hey, all those games were against division rivals, too. That’s neat.)
So, by NFL rules, it doesn’t matter if the Vikings were trailing when Murray went out of the Week 1 game, and Wentz led the comeback for the victory. Murray still gets credit for the win.
Unless the Vikings sign a street free agent and throw him out there next week, however, they won’t be extending that streak to five wins in five weeks with five different quarterbacks. But I think we can all agree that’s probably a good thing.
Incidentally, the 56-point difference between the Bears’ scoring output in Week 1 and Week 2 that the Vikings’ defense was responsible for represents the second-largest drop-off in NFL history by one team from one week to the next. The largest drop-off belongs to the 1973 Atlanta Falcons. That team put up 62 points against the New Orleans Saints in Week 1 of that season. . .and proceeded to get shut out by the Los Angeles Rams the following week. But holding a team completely out of the end zone after they crossed the goal line eight times the previous week is a damn impressive feat, even if it isn’t an NFL record.
