Eliminated Vikings aiming for smooth landing with McCarthy to finish turbulent season

EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota Vikings will finish their sixth straight season without winning a playoff game, eight years removed from their last NFC championship game appearance and almost a half-century since they last made the Super Bowl.

Their head start on roster planning for 2026 is going rather well, at least.

With the stakes pared down and his body finally back to full health, quarterback J.J. McCarthy has turned in consecutive promising performances for the Vikings (6-8). Too little and too late for 2025 contention, but important toward influencing how the front office and coaching staff will approach a tricky offseason of adding and subtracting players with a bleak salary cap outlook.

McCarthy passed for a career-high 250 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another score in the 34-26 victory at Dallas on Sunday night, with his second straight 100-plus passer rating. McCarthy logged his 11th interception in eight games, but that was a batted ball pinballed around the line before defensive tackle Quinnen Williams grabbed it.

“We’re building up to a little bit more experience, a little bit more time on task, a little bit more understanding of what the play at the quarterback position at the NFL level is. It’s a decision-maker position,” coach Kevin O'Connell said. “With his ability to throw the football from an arm-strength standpoint, he’s going to have a chance to touch every blade of grass and allow us to be explosive. I think he’s made some big-time throws in some big moments.”

As with the 31-0 win over Washington on Dec. 7, McCarthy and the Vikings thrived against one of the league's leakiest defenses. The Commanders are buried in the standings, and the Cowboys are on the brink of elimination. But they simply needed to start stringing together the positive plays and productive drives that have been missing this year more often than not.

After largely leaning on running plays and lower-risk, quicker-read throws to beat the Commanders, though, the Vikings turned McCarthy loose against the Cowboys. He posted a personal-best 10.4 yards per attempt as the downfield passing attack central to O'Connell's playbook was finally able to be dusted off again.

The best reward for the renewed trust in McCarthy came on fourth-and-3 from the 37-yard line late in the third quarter with the Vikings trailing by six points, when he lofted a perfectly placed pass to Jalen Nailor's back shoulder on a fade route for a 20-yard gain.

“The guys are always going to get open, so it’s just a matter of me putting it in the right spot and having the time allowed to put in the right spot,” McCarthy said. "Everything goes hand in hand. I feel like we were very in sync as a whole tonight.”

The pass protection was impeccable against an imposing Dallas defensive line that's as experienced and accomplished as any in the league, with no sacks allowed for just the second time all season. McCarthy was hit only once.

The Vikings have allowed an average of 4.7 yards per rush over the last two games. They rank 13th in the NFL this season (4.1) in yards allowed per rush.

Nailor had his first career two-touchdown game plus the clutch fourth-down catch, continuing a strong season as the third wide receiver. Unfortunately for the Vikings, he can become an unrestricted free agent in March and will command a much higher salary than the bargain $1.15 million cap hit he's carrying now on the final year of his rookie contract.

Left tackle Christian Darrisaw missed his fourth game this season because of the bothersome left knee he had surgically repaired last year after a torn ACL and MCL midway through the season.

The first year back from knee reconstruction is a tough one, and by all accounts Darrisaw beat the timetable projection by arduously and relentlessly working through his rehab. But the up-and-down nature of how the 2021 first-round draft pick has reported feeling this season has made it difficult for the Vikings to manage an offensive line depleted by injuries at multiple positions.

The Vikings will finish the season with only one game using their full starting lineup on both sides of the ball. Edge rusher Jonathan Greenard, arguably their best defensive player, aggravated the shoulder injury that kept him out of two games last month and will have season-ending surgery.

Darrisaw was inactive on Sunday after swelling in his knee kept him from practicing last week, but O'Connell said he'll continue to have an opportunity to play over the final three games as he's able to manage his discomfort.

Defensive lineman Javon Hargrave (groin) and right tackle Brian O'Neill (ankle) each missed time with minor injuries sustained during the game and will be day to day this week.

5 — The Vikings defense has not allowed a passing touchdown over five straight games. They've given up 14 this season, tied for the third fewest in the league.

The Vikings play their final road game on Sunday at the New York Giants (2-12), whom they beat 28-6 at MetLife Stadium in their 2024 season opener. Then they'll have the opportunity to play spoiler against NFC North rivals Detroit and Green Bay, with both teams chasing first-place Chicago and likely only one wild card spot to be had within the division.

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Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Jalen Nailor hauls in a touchdown catch in the end zone as Dallas Cowboys safety Donovan Wilson defends during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy throws a pass during the second half of an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) and wide receiver Jordan Addison celebrate after a touchdown by wide receiver Jalen Nailor during the second half of an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy looks on during the second half of an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy runs the ball into the end zone for a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

TEL AVIV, Israel & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 16, 2025--

Dux, an agentic exposure management platform built for the speed of AI-driven cyberattacks, today emerged from stealth with a $9 million seed round led by Redpoint, TLV Partners and Maple Capital, with participation from leading cybersecurity executives from CrowdStrike, Okta and Armis.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251216193951/en/

Dux was created to eliminate exposures before they become attacks — by uncovering what's actually exploitable and finding the fastest path to safety. Already supporting major U.S. enterprises, the company was founded by Or Latovitz, Amit Nir and Nadav Geva, all graduates of the IDF’s elite Talpiot program who led large-scale offensive and defensive cybersecurity and AI initiatives for national agencies. Their work earned multiple national innovation awards and involved building operational systems deployed at a national scale.

This significant seed financing will support the expansion of Dux’s R&D team in Tel Aviv, grow its U.S. go-to-market organization, and accelerate development of the platform’s agentic capabilities across exploitability analysis, lightweight mitigation and continuous exposure management.

The Problem: Exploitation Now Moves Faster Than Remediation

Enterprises have long struggled with an increasing volume of assets, scanners and vulnerabilities — more than teams can realistically triage. AI has exacerbated this problem by dramatically increasing the speed at which vulnerabilities are exploited. Mandiant reports that, in just two years, the average time-to-exploit has collapsed from 32 days to just 5 days. Earlier this year, Anthropic documented the first real-world, AI-orchestrated cyber-espionage campaign where attackers used agentic AI not just for guidance but to execute attacks autonomously.

“These attacks don’t wait for patch cycles,” said Or Latovitz, co-founder and CEO of Dux. “Defenders need rapid insight into what’s actually exploitable and the means to reduce those exposures effectively, at the pace modern attacks demand.”

Dux’s Solution: An Agentic Approach Aligned to CTEM

Dux aligns with Gartner’s Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) framework, but applies it through agentic AI workers designed to reason like expert analysts at scale. Instead of generating more findings or another prioritization layer, Dux focuses on the essential question: What matters now, and what’s the fastest path to safety?

Dux’s AI-workers continuously analyze exploitability across the entire environment, determining whether existing controls already block a potential attack path, surfacing lightweight mitigations that can eliminate risk faster than a full patch and routing targeted remediation to identified owners only when necessary.

“Most scanner findings aren’t exploitable once you account for real context,” said Amit Nir, co-founder and CPO. “But discovering that manually takes expert judgment and deep knowledge of the environment. Agentic AI lets teams apply that level of reasoning across every vulnerability and asset, every time.”

The Shift: A New Operating Model for Vulnerability Management

“Attackers are moving faster than ever, and defenders need a platform built for that pace,” said Erica Brescia, managing director at Redpoint. “Dux puts vulnerabilities in the context of their actual threat to a business, and then uses AI agents exactly where speed and precision matter most to resolve them. At last, and with Dux, vulnerability management is something teams can finally get ahead of — overcoming what was an insurmountable hurdle during my time at GitHub.”

Dux represents a shift from periodic scans and manual triage to continuous, agentic investigation. The platform determines what’s viable for an attacker in a given environment and moves organizations toward the fastest safe fix, whether that’s a configuration change, a control update or a targeted patch. The result is a materially smaller attack surface and a far shorter path from vulnerability discovery to resolution.

“Every time a zero-day drops or a critical vulnerability hits the news, teams need answers fast. Our customers spin up AI-workers to investigate those vulnerabilities across their environment within minutes,” said Nadav Geva, co-founder and CTO. “That’s a level of rapid, environment-specific research that simply wasn’t possible before.”

“Most security tools show you what’s vulnerable. Dux shows you what attackers can actually use — and that’s a game changer,” said Rona Segev, co-founder and managing partner at TLV Partners. “Their AI agents bring a perspective that’s been missing from exposure management, and the Dux team has precisely the kind of experience you want steering a shift of this magnitude.”

About Dux

Dux is an agentic exposure management platform that rapidly uncovers what is truly exploitable in an environment and eliminates it fast. The platform uses AI-workers to perform continuous exploitability analysis, surface control-based mitigations and accelerate remediation across the entire environment. Founded by veterans of national-scale cyber and AI programs, Dux is backed by Redpoint, TLV Partners and Maple Capital and operates in the United States and Israel.

Learn more at https://dux.io/.

Dux founders (left to right): Amit Nir, CPO; Or Latovitz, CEO; and Nadav Geva, CTO