Building on a 14-win season is a fascinating undertaking when a roster has as much uncertainty as the Minnesota Vikings’ roster has.
More than 20 meaningful contributors from 2024 are set to become free agents. The quarterback situation is an entire conversation unto itself. Minnesota does not have loads of draft capital, but it does have a significant amount of salary-cap space.
So, what should the plan be? Here is my 10-step roadmap to smooth over the Vikings’ weaknesses while aiming to sustain their level of success.
How we feeling this afternoon, #Vikings fans? 😎 pic.twitter.com/EGhpCmu0PX
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) January 21, 2025
1. Cut Ed Ingram and Brian Asamoah
The Vikings enter the 2025 offseason with plenty of cap space. But if there are easy ways to create more, why not explore them? Releasing Ingram and Asamoah would save Minnesota around $4.5 million.
Add that figure to the Vikings’ current cap projections, and the team would have about $62 million to spend on players, according to Over The Cap, the seventh most in the NFL.
Neither Ingram nor Asamoah is due to start in 2025. Ingram, whom the Vikings picked in the second round of the 2022 draft, was relegated to the bench after a Week 10 win. Asamoah, a third-round selection in 2022, played most of the special teams snaps this season. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores has only used him for 69 defensive snaps over the last two years, though, and the emergence of undrafted linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. pushed him further away from regular playing time.
Cutting these two would punctuate a putrid 2022 draft for the franchise. Of the 10 picks general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah made in his first draft, only wide receiver Jalen Nailor occupies a meaningful role. Five of those 10 picks have already been released or traded.
2. Extend Josh Metellus, Josh Oliver and C.J. Ham
This part of the plan has a dual purpose. Metellus and Oliver deserve new deals. Each has a contract set to void at the end of this season. Lengthening their contracts would be validating their impact. Extending them would also generate more cap space for 2025.
Ham is a different case in that he is not as young and his production is not as tangible. Still, the Vikings will likely want to keep him around both for the personnel diversity he provides the offense and his role as a captain.
Adding another year to Ham’s deal would strengthen the Vikings’ cap situation ahead of free agency. With these three moves, Over The Cap projects the Vikings would save about $10 million in additional room.
3. Let Sam Darnold test the market, move forward with J.J. McCarthy and veteran signing
Minnesota has needs on the interior offensive line, the interior defensive line, at cornerback, running back and potentially safety. Filling all of those holes with only four draft picks (and a dearth of young talent) means a need for cap space. Paying Darnold would shrink Minnesota’s options for strengthening the roster elsewhere. Hence, this decision.
Franchise-tagging Darnold is a lever the Vikings could pull. If they did so, would another team be willing to part with a draft pick to secure his services? It’s possible. Minnesota would then have to weigh how that potential draft pick return compares to a prospective compensatory pick for 2026.
That’s plenty to speculate on, so for this exercise, allowing Darnold to test the market is the simplest choice. In this scenario, the Vikings would move forward with McCarthy and a more experienced option like Daniel Jones, Jacoby Brissett or Justin Fields.
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4. Re-sign RB Aaron Jones
Here are some of the running backs expected to hit free agency: Jones, Najee Harris, Alexander Mattison, Javonte Williams, J.K. Dobbins, Kenneth Gainwell and Kareem Hunt. The point? It’s not a stellar list.
Jones is not without his flaws. Injuries limited him throughout 2024, and he will turn 31 in December. Yet he amassed 1,500 all-purpose yards, was admirable in pass protection and filled a leadership void in the locker room. Even if the Vikings draft a running back (or two) — and, considering the exceptional running backs in the draft, they almost certainly will — having Jones’ reliability would help.
5. Sign FAs Teven Jenkins and Will Fries to revamp interior of the O-line
Once the Vikings iron out their quarterback plan, which should focus on McCarthy’s readiness (or lack thereof), the attention should turn to the interior of the offensive line. Some Vikings staffers believe Walter Rouse can start at guard. Others feel strongly about Blake Brandel’s development. No longer, though, can the Vikings enter a season with major question marks at these spots.
Jenkins and Fries don’t rise to the tier of Chiefs guard Trey Smith. Neither is as young or as durable. However, they’re both versatile, proven and young enough to be worth investing in for the foreseeable future.
And what about center Garrett Bradbury? Would the Vikings benefit from cutting him and signing a center as well? At the very least, fixing two of these three spots feels mandatory.
6. Sign CBs D.J. Reed, Paulson Adebo and Noah Igbinoghene
Byron Murphy Jr., Stephon Gilmore and Shaq Griffin are set to become free agents in March, meaning the Vikings will have more than 2,000 snaps of cornerback play from 2024 to replace. The Vikings are optimistic about Mekhi Blackmon’s recovery from a torn ACL and Dwight McGlothern’s development, but they still need experience.
Reed, Adebo and Igbinoghene are prototypical Flores corners. They can play man coverage, they have length and they can run. Reed would cost the most. Adebo is a question mark in that he’s recovering from a broken femur. And Igbinoghene is an imperfect player for whom the Vikings would not have to pay a premium. Exchanging the 2024 trio for this one would come with uncertainty but offer the potential for an entire system evolution in speed and man-coverage ability.
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7. Sign P Riley Dixon and PR Greg Dortch
The Vikings need a special teams upgrade. They ranked 30th in the league in special teams DVOA in 2022 and 2023. This past season, they ranked 27th. Kicking was the primary issue in Kevin O’Connell’s first two seasons as head coach, but now it’s punting and punt returns.
Minnesota has the salary-cap space to replace Ryan Wright and Brandon Powell, and it should. Two sensible options are Dixon and Dortch, who led the Denver Broncos and Arizona Cardinals, respectively, to top-10 production in their specific categories.
8. Rethink and commit to the role of the run game
Running the football is much easier with a dual-threat quarterback — see: Eagles, Ravens, Bills, Commanders and Colts. Those teams had five of the 10 highest run rates in the league in 2024.
The other five in the top 10 were the Packers, Steelers, Lions, Falcons and Chargers. Some have elite running backs (Josh Jacobs, Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson), and some are coordinated by men who have made their careers running the football (Arthur Smith and Greg Roman).
With O’Connell at the helm, Minnesota might never hover near the top of this list. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be better on the ground.
Will a better interior help the run game? Yes. Will drafting a running back add to the dynamic? Certainly. Could the Vikings still better establish an identity, use more motion, create packages with extra linemen, etc.? They have to. That doesn’t have to mean changes to the coaching staff — Curtis Modkins has been the Vikings’ run game coordinator since 2022 — but it does mean making it one of the unit’s top priorities.
9. Trade back in the first round to add at least an additional third- or fourth-round pick
As things stand, the Vikings will likely have just four draft picks in 2025: a first-rounder, a third-round compensatory pick and two fifth-rounders. Generating picks should not come at the cost of taking the best player, but the Vikings need more darts to throw.
In 2023, the Jaguars traded back from No. 24 to No. 27 for an additional fourth-rounder, fifth-rounder and seventh-rounder. Trading back in the past (and whiffing on the picks) should not prevent the Vikings from trying again, but not at the expense of taking a premium talent.
10. Prioritize interior DL, RB, interior OL and DB in draft
Most NFL evaluators believe the 2025 class is strongest at two positions: running back and interior defensive line. The only three defensive tackles the Vikings have drafted in the first round since the turn of the century are Sharrif Floyd (2013), Kevin Williams (2003) and Chris Hovan (2000). As with everything for the Vikings this offseason, the trenches should be the main priority.
After the Vikings snag an interior force, they should turn their attention to running back. There are plenty of mid-round options such as Miami’s Damien Martinez, Kansas State’s DJ Giddens, Georgia’s Trevor Etienne and more. Rounding out the selections with an interior offensive lineman and a defensive back feels like the most advantageous way of supplying depth to a roster in need of it.
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(Photo of J.J. McCarthy: Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)