Minnesota Vikings

The NFL plays games overseas primarily to attract new fans in other countries, but those games still draw healthy TV audiences in the United States.

NFL Network drew 6.4 million viewers for Sunday morning’s broadcast of the Vikings-Browns game. That made it NFL Network’s most-watched game from London. The total viewership was actually higher than 6.4 million, as that number does not include the fans in the Minneapolis and Cleveland markets who watched the game on over-the-air local TV.

Although many American fans don’t like the Sunday morning kickoff time, it provides content for NFL Network at an hour that NFL games aren’t otherwise on, and plenty of American fans will watch. The Vikings-Browns audience suggests that more Americans are growing accustomed to Sunday morning football.

Sunday’s viewership total represented a 21 percent increase over the viewership for last year’s Week Five London game, which was the Vikings against the Jets.

Some of the fans who were trying to enter Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday to watch the Vikings-Browns game encountered delays due to the reported malfunction of the OnePass ticketing app.

Via the Associated Press, Ticketmaster (which “powers” the OnePass app) has now apologized and offered partial refund “credits” to those who were affected by the snafu.

Per the report, Ticketmaster posted to certain accounts a 50-percent credit for the face value of the ticket for what the company described as a “ticketing issue.” The number of fans who received the credit isn’t known, and both Ticketmaster and the NFL declined to disclose to the AP the number of fans who were impacted by the glitch.

“The experience fell short of our standards and the service we aim to deliver on behalf of the NFL,” Ticketmaster said in an email to the affected fans.

Ticketmaster will allow the partial refund to be used for tickets to Sunday’s Broncos-Jets game. Otherwise, the amount “will be converted into a Ticketmaster gift card” that can be used “across our site for future events.”

In other words, it’s not a refund. The fans will only benefit from the gesture by giving more even money to Ticketmaster.

“The operation to safely admit ticket holders was fully coordinated with NFL and Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium operations team,” both entities said in identical statements to the AP. “Ticketmaster, the NFL, and Tottenham Hotspur were able to verify ticket holders using a secondary form of verification. The situation was addressed as efficiently as possible and all fans entered the stadium safely.”

Regardless, it shouldn’t have happened. And things like this didn’t happen back when tickets were tickets and not images stored on a phone. But, hey, it’s a lot easier for Ticketmaster and similar entities to now facilitate widespread legalized and normalized scalping of ticket (and to wet their beak with each and every transaction) if it’s all done electronically only.

For that reason, the refunds should be real dollars returned to the impacted customers. And the refunds should be full, not partial.

Those folks paid for access to the game. All of it, not part of it. If, as it appears, Ticketmaster’s technology prevented that, they should receive a full refund in the form of the face value of the ticket.

Sunday’s NFL games had not one but two incidents of Skycam interference. In any week, one incident is one too many.

In the latest edition of SiriusXM’s Let’s Go! podcast, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford addressed the intersection between enhancing the at-home viewing experience and preserving the integrity of the on-field product.

“I understand being able to bring the fans the unbelievable angles that [TV] does,” Stafford told Jim Gray. “And sometimes, even as a player, I’m like, ‘Man, that’s a cool shot of what just happened,’ and you really appreciate that. But at the same time, we’ve got to find a way to make sure that those things aren’t playing a role in the outcome of the game.

“I remember I was in college and I’m warming up for the Outback Bowl and I drop back to pass and I’m just throwing it and I blow the camera up. I mean, hit the lens, blew the camera up, and thought to myself, ‘Man, I didn’t even see it there, didn’t even feel it there.’ . . . If it’s gonna be there and the ball’s gonna hit it or whatever, we’ve gotta find a way to review that, overturn it, whatever it is. . . . It could be a wide-open touchdown and we’re hitting a wire somewhere, and you can’t just replay that and act like it wasn’t gonna be points for one team or the other.”

The rulebook requires a do-over for any play in which a live ball strikes the Skycam or the cables supporting it. On Sunday, when a batted pass thrown by Jets quarterback Justin Fields smacked into the Skycam, the Jets should have gotten another shot at scoring on third and goal from the Dallas seven. While everyone saw the ball strike the floating camera, the ultimate ruling of incomplete pass was incorrect. (And the Jets failed to use a challenge flag.)

Earlier in the day, a 51-yard field goal attempt by Vikings kicker Will Reichard in London seemed to strike one of the cables that move the Skycam. It was missed in real time, by everyone.

It’s a simple pass-fail proposition. And it’s a failure any time the ball hits part of the Skycam apparatus. It’s a double failure when the do-over rule is improperly applied.

Here’s a fair question. Do we really need it? How many times does it create a truly memorable video clip?

Then there’s the availability of drones. Smaller device, no wires. And it presumably can be programmed to sense an approaching ball and zip away.

Here’s hoping the notoriously reactive NFL treats Sunday’s incidents as the impetus for taking a fresh look at the Skycam protocols. And here’s hoping it happens before the 45-pound device falls and hits someone — as it nearly did during a 2007 NFL game.

The NFL has a history of winning in court. Lately, it hasn’t been.

On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied a request by the league for an “en banc” (full court) review of the August 2025 decision from a three-judge panel denying the NFL’s effort to push pending legal claims filed by former Dolphins coach Brian Flores against the NFL, the Giants, the Broncos, and the Texans to arbitration.

Last week, the Nevada Supreme Court denied the NFL’s request for rehearing of the full-court decision to allow former Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s lawsuit against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell to proceed in court, not arbitration.

In September 2025, Flores filed a separate motion with the federal trial court handling the case for reconsideration of the original order sending Flores’s claims against the Dolphins to arbitration. Flores focused on the portion August 2025 appellate decision invalidating the Commissioner’s ultimate control over arbitration claims filed against the NFL. It also argued that the arbitration process has been at a “complete standstill” since November 2024.

The September 2025 motion includes the claims of Steve Wilks against the Cardinals and Ray Horton against the Titans.

The Flores case was filed in February 2022, with Wilks and Horton later joining the litigation. The lawsuit has still not moved to the merits of the dispute, more than three-and-a-half years later.

Flores currently serves as the Vikings’ defensive coordinator, and Wilks was hired earlier this year to be the Jets’ defensive coordinator.

In Week 2 against the Falcons, Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy suffered a high-ankle sprain. With the Vikings entering a bye and due to return in Week 7 against the Eagles, will McCarthy be ready to go?

As explained on Football Night in America, McCarthy’s status remains “up in the air.” That’s because the original timeline for McCarthy’s recovery and rehab was four-to-six weeks. The next game will happen five weeks from the date of the injury.

In a Monday press conference, Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell addressed McCarthy’s status.

“We’ll be able to get him some extensive work, you know, kind of as a lead in to next week,” O’Connell said. “And then I anticipate his workload building up. We’re going to really take advantage of that bonus Monday, not only with him but with our whole team. We’re going to spend some time as a coaching staff, making sure we’re self-scouting and taking a look at exactly, you know, what we’ve been, how much of what we are is tied to the adversity, we’ve kind of dealt with with injuries, and then what do we want our identity to be as a team here, as we attack the post-bye part of the season and we’ve [got] a lot of work to be done for sure. But yeah, I’m excited to, you know, get back here. You know, J.J. got some work today and he’ll get some work throughout the rest of the week. We got some other guys he’ll be getting some work with on the field, and then we’ll pick it up officially next week. But I’m encouraged about where he’s at right now.”

McCarthy has not practiced in the three weeks since suffering the injury, despite some optimism that he’d practice last week, in the period between games at Ireland and London.

O’Connell has previously made it clear that McCarthy’s return won’t simply be tied to him getting healthy on the Saturday before a game. He’ll need to be able to devote an entire week to practice and preparation before he’ll return to action.

After the two-week break before the Philadelphia game, the Vikings make a short-week trip to L.A. for a Thursday night game against the Chargers.

The Vikings waived rookie guard Vershon Lee on Monday, the team announced.

They signed Lee to the 53-player roster on Saturday, and he played four special teams snaps against the Browns on Sunday.

It was the first regular-season action for Lee.

The Vikings also announced they released veteran tight end Nick Vannett. Vannett played one offensive snap and eight special teams snaps against Cleveland, and he has totaled four offensive snaps and 20 on special teams in three games this season.

In 10 seasons since the Seahawks made him a third-round pick, Vannett has played 114 games with 53 starts. He has 108 catches for 1,012 yards and nine touchdowns.

Vikings quarterback Carson Wentz only missed one play in Sunday’s win over the Browns in London, but he’s still getting a little extra medical attention now that the team is back in Minnesota.

Wentz injured his left shoulder before halftime and went to the locker room a little early to get it checked out. He returned for the second half and led a game-winning touchdown drive in the fourth quarter, but head coach Kevin O’Connell said at his press conference that Wentz is going for further consultations about the injury.

“He’s still getting further evaluation, but he’s pretty sore in that left shoulder,” O’Connell said.

J.J. McCarthy has missed the last three games with an ankle injury. O’Connell said last week that there was hope he would practice, but that didn’t happen. The team has a bye this week, so both players will have some time to work their way back ahead of a Week 7 game against the Eagles.

Sunday’s game included not one but two incidents involving footballs striking the apparatus that captures overhead video.

In the Cowboys-Jets game, the deflected pass clearly struck the Skycam. The rule, however, was improperly applied. The officials ruled that the pass was incomplete; it should have been a do-over.

In the Vikings-Cowboys game played in London, a would-be game-tying field goal by kicker Will Reichard struck a camera cable and went wide. No one noticed it when it happened.

Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the NFL concluded that it had no clear view of the ball striking the cable. You can make your own assessment as to whether it was, or wasn’t, clear.

The Vikings still won the game. But they apparently should have gotten another chance to make the field goal after the first one hit the cable.

Fans in London for today’s Vikings-Browns game complained of long queues to get into the stadium and ticketing apps that weren’t working.

The Daily Mail reports that the OnePass ticketing app wasn’t working, causing big crowds outside the entrances to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Fans on social media shared images of the malfunctioning app and videos of long lines. Some fans reported that they were being allowed entry by showing their email confirmation of ticket purchases, while others said gate agents were telling them they could only gain admission via the app.

The NFL will be back at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium next week for the Broncos against the Jets.

Before the Vikings scored a game-winning touchdown with 25 seconds to play, they had a chance to tie the London game against the Browns at 17 with just under 10 minutes to go.

The 51-yard field goal attempt by Vikings kicker Will Reichard went wide right.

Videos of the kick seem to indicate that the kick struck a camera cable. The ball moves, and the camera wobbles.

If noticed — and if the rule had been correctly applied — Reichard would have gotten another opportunity to convert.

If the Vikings had lost the game, it would be a much bigger issue. It should still be a thing. The cable shouldn’t have been in the way, and it should have been noticed, by the officials or replay review of the Vikings, that it did.

And that’s twice today that overhead interference was not properly handled, by anyone.