MINNEAPOLIS — Aaron Jones, Sr., became the 69^th player all-time to reach 7,000 career rushing yards — and hit the milestone Sunday against his former team.

Jones entered the game with 6,986 in his career (2017-23 with Green Bay and this season with Minnesota) and with 1,046 on the season.

He passed the 7,000-yard mark on his third carry of the game. He finished the first half with 30 yards on eight rushes and added one catch for a gain of 6.

Jones had already joined John Gilliam (1972), Chuck Foreman (Rooke, 1973), Rickey Young (1978), Randy Moss (Rookie, 1998), Adrian Peterson (Rookie, 2007) and Justin Jefferson (Rookie, 2020) as the seventh player in franchise history to post 1,000-plus scrimmage yards in his first season with the team.

He opened his time as a Viking by crossing the 6,000-yard threshold with 94 yards in Minnesota's Week 1 win at the New York Giants.

Jones totaled 47 yards on 12 carries against the Packers and showed up multiple times in the pass game (he caught four passes for 30 yards and had a couple nice blitz pickups) before leaving the game with a quadriceps contusion.

Head Coach Kevin O'Connell announced he was awarding a game ball to every player after the game, but he also presented separate game balls to Jones, Sam Darnold, Jalen Nailor, Jerry Tillery and Blake Cashman.

Jones now has 1,093 rushing yards on the season and needs 29 more for a new single-season career high.

He said it was particularly sweet for the Vikings to go 2-0 this season against the Packers but more importantly that the Vikings improved to 14-2 on the season with the 27-25 victory.

"I did imagine sweeping my former team when I signed day one. That's what was my thought," Jones said. "And then, during camp, I'm like, 'Hey, we've got a chance to be really good, like, just after, after going back-to-back-to-back-to-back practices. And when you're really tested, you're tired in camp, that can really show you who your team is, or what kind of guys you have around you every day. When the camp got hard, we're in a grind of it. You never heard anybody complain."

Justin Jefferson Reaches 1,400 Yards for 4^th Time in 5 Seasons

There have been seven instances in Vikings history of a receiver recording at least 1,400 yards in a season.

Justin Jefferson has done so for a fourth time in five seasons (the only one he hasn't was 2023 when he missed seven full games due to injury but still cleared 1,000). Hall of Famer Randy Moss accomplished the feat the other three times.

Jefferson needed just 13 yards in Sunday's game and got exactly that on two catches (three targets) in the first half against Green Bay.

He added four more receptions for another 33 yards in the third quarter, and finished the game with eight catches for a game-high 92 yards.

Jefferson now has 100 receptions and 1,479 yards on the season.

If he gets 21 receiving yards next week, it will be the third time in his career with at least 100 catches and 1,500 yards, which would tie Marvin Harrison, Andre Johnson, Julio Jones and Antonio Brown for the most such seasons in NFL history. Jefferson would be the first to hit those marks within his first five seasons.

Sam Darnold Sets Record for TD Passes by 1^st-Year Viking

Sam Darnold threw three touchdowns, giving him 35 on the season, which is tied for second all-time by a Vikings QB (Kirk Cousins had 35 in 2020).

With his second touchdown pass of the day, an 18-yard beauty to Jordan Addison, Darnold passed the Vikings record set by Brett Favre in 2009 for touchdown passes by a player in his first season as a Viking. Favre threw 33 touchdowns in his first season in Purple, leading Minnesota to an NFC North title in 2009 and appearance in the NFC Championship Game.

This is just the third time in franchise history a Vikings quarterback has thrown at least 35 touchdowns.

Daunte Culpepper set the record with 39 in 2004. Cousins and Randall Cunningham (34 in 1998) are the only quarterbacks who have previously thrown 34 or more in a season.

This is Darnold's 12^th game of 2024 with at least two touchdowns.

He also threw for a career-best 377 yards and finished with a passer rating of 116.1 for his 13^th game of the season with a passer rating above 100.

Thirteen such games is tied this year with Lamar Jackson for the NFL lead and for second all-time (tracked since 1950) with Aaron Rodgers (13 in 2011) and Patrick Mahomes (13 in 2018). Darnold can tie Rodgers' NFL record of 14 (in 2020) next week.

Rodgers won NFL MVP in both of those seasons, and Mahomes also won it in 2018.

Darnold has 4,153 passing yards this season, which ranks ninth among Vikings QBs all-time.