All Things 2025 Minnesota Vikings Off-Season Thread

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TNGophfan said:
I don't think Jones was among our major problems.
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Exactly.

Jones set career highs this year in: carries and rushing and yards form scrimmage, while averaging 4.5 yards per attempt.

If anything, he outperformed his contract. I’d thrilled if they could get him back on another two year deal.

You can fix everything on one offseason; the IOL and DBs got first dibs.
TNGophfan said:
He's ok. Replace 2 of 3 interior offensive linemen, add a couple DB's so we can play man and maybe an interior defensive run stopper and let's go. Getting Darrisaw back will help. If you can find an upgrade at RB in free agency without breaking bank, go ahead.
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Gopher_In_NYC said:
Exactly.

Jones set career highs this year in: carries and rushing and yards form scrimmage, while averaging 4.5 yards per attempt.

If anything, he outperformed his contract. I’d thrilled if they could get him back on another two year deal.

You can fix everything on one offseason; the IOL and DBs got first dibs.
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I had to look that up because I didn't believe you. Crazy.
 

Fixing this offensive line is easier said than done. The middle has been ill for years.

Teams are keeping their good lineman....that's guards and centers.

There aren't many really good ones in free agency, and to top it off, teams like Chicago are very weak in their middle and you don't think they want help for Caleb Williams.

I think we are kind of screwed.

Not to mention, we help on the defensive side of the ball.

I look at next year as a rebuilding year.
 



forever a gopher said:
For everybody clamoring for IOL help, pickings are likely to be a bit slim. If they want to take a guard at 24, there are only two highly ranked guards in the draft. As far as free agents, there are a couple of bigger names that are old, and then a bunch of Dalton Risner-level guys.

Will Hernandez PFF of 69.3 (60 is average), James Daniels PFF of 92.9. Both were injured in 2024. The rest are mid-60ish grades or below.

For reference, Dalton Risner had a PFF of 67.

2025 IOL Free Agent list:

View attachment 35368

2025 Draft Rankings, at or above where the Vikes are picking at #138:

View attachment 35369
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For some reason Trey Smith left off the list. Projected to be $20 million per year.
 


GopherWeatherGuy said:
Expected wins coming into the season doesn't matter to anyone except gamblers. If that matters, then PJ Fleck is the greatest football coach in the B1G because he beats vegas win expectations every year. The 2017 Vikings weren't supposed to be a 13-3 team and make it to the NFC championship either.

This team looked like it could and should be a championship contender most of the season as it played out, that's all that matters. Then they were thoroughly out played and out coached in the games that mattered most.

I'm tired of empty regular seasons that look great but still result in zero chance of winning a championship.
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I don't know what to tell you. The team had over $70M in dead cap, the roster had a lot of holes, including at QB. They happened to absolutely NAIL just about every FA signing they made, and had a great regular season.

The Flores defense just isn't set up to be good against the best QBs in the league. It's essentially a 5-man rush defense with 6 in coverage; if that pass rush doesn't get home, a good QB is going to eat that defense up alive. The QBs that Flores could fool pre-snap, the Vikings ate those teams alive. The QBs that know what they are doing, like Goff and Stafford, weren't fooled, and absolutely destroyed Flores' defense.

I enjoyed a remarkable season that was a tremendous ride for 16+ weeks, what happened the last 9 days was far from enough to destroy that. Sorry.
 
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kg21 said:
Pay him 25 if you have, too.
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Can you even imagine how frustrating it would be if we come back next season with the same interior oline.

Guess I'm feeling two new guards are a 100% given. Perhaps with two excellent guards at his side, Bradberry could be serviceable?
 
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Ogee Ogilthorpe said:
I don't know what to tell you. The team had over $70M in dead cap, the roster had a lot of holes, including at QB. They happened to absolutely NAIL just about every FA signing they made, and had a great regular season.

The Flores defense just isn't set up to be good against the best QBs in the league. It's essentially a 5-man rush defense with 6 in coverage; if that pass rush doesn't get home, a good QB is going to eat that defense up alive. The QBs that Flores could fool pre-snap, the Vikings ate those teams alive. The QBs that know what they are doing, like Goff and Stafford, weren't fooled, and absolutely destroyed Flores' defense.

I enjoyed a remarkable season that was a tremendous ride for 16+ weeks, what happened the last 9 days was far from enough to destroy that. Sorry.
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Great post. I agree 100% with your assessment of the defense. I would also say that we relied too much on forcing turnovers. While obviously a great trait for a defense, it can serve to gloss over chunk yardage and can be an unreliable tool. I would prefer a more stingy defense, if I had to choose.

I also enjoyed an unexpectedly fun season. I choose to think of that rather than the collapse. Let’s face it, we outkicked our coverage almost as much as @Ogee Ogilthorpe. Look on the very bright side.
 

GopherJake said:
Great post. I agree 100% with your assessment of the defense. I would also say that we relied too much on forcing turnovers. While obviously a great trait for a defense, it can serve to gloss over chunk yardage and can be an unreliable tool. I would prefer a more stingy defense, if I had to choose.

I also enjoyed an unexpectedly fun season. I choose to think of that rather than the collapse. Let’s face it, we outkicked our coverage almost as much as @Ogee Ogilthorpe. Look on the very bright side.
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Full disclosure, I got that defensive evaluation straight from Luke Braun, on Locked On Vikings earlier today.

And as much as I love KOC, his being allergic to running the ball is a major problem. I didn't watch the game, I was paying attention to the box score and various other things; every time I looked at the Vikings box score, they were averaging over 5.0 YPC running the ball and yet refused to run it more often. There needs to be some serious self-scouting in the offseason in this regards.

Anyone can call fancy impressive pass plays; the truly elite play-callers can run the ball, and run the ball when the other team knows you're going to run the ball.
 

Ogee Ogilthorpe said:
I don't know what to tell you. The team had over $70M in dead cap, the roster had a lot of holes, including at QB. They happened to absolutely NAIL just about every FA signing they made, and had a great regular season.

The Flores defense just isn't set up to be good against the best QBs in the league. It's essentially a 5-man rush defense with 6 in coverage; if that pass rush doesn't get home, a good QB is going to eat that defense up alive. The QBs that Flores could fool pre-snap, the Vikings ate those teams alive. The QBs that know what they are doing, like Goff and Stafford, weren't fooled, and absolutely destroyed Flores' defense.

I enjoyed a remarkable season that was a tremendous ride for 16+ weeks, what happened the last 9 days was far from enough to destroy that. Sorry.
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I don't disagree on the dead cap issues, the roster holes, and the FA signings last off season. But don't those holes still apply to the defense this season too? Flores D only gave up 20 last night and 3 in the second half. They only gave up 17 through 3 quarters against the best offense in the league last week. If the Vikings offense does anything the last two weeks, they are in both of these games thanks to Flores defense.

My frustration is mostly aimed at KOC. I think he's a great QB coach, but the jury is still out on him as a head coach/OC. They had an extra day to prepare for Detroit last week, and didn't look prepared at all. They looked equally unprepared last night, despite knowing LA was going to do the same thing Detroit did last week. How did KOC respond? With zero adjustments.

Washington was only supposed to win 6.5 games this year, and they're still playing. Tampa 7.5, Denver only 5.5. The Vikings aren't the only team that overachieved this year. It happens to multiple teams every year.

It's great that you found a lot of enjoyment this season, I enjoyed some parts too. But at the end of the day when Minnesota has the longest championship drought by far of any city, good regular seasons followed by getting your ass kicked in the playoffs does very little for me anymore. We see this almost every year.
 

golf said:
Can you even imagine how frustrating it would be if we come back next season with the same interior oline.

Guess I'm feeling two new guards are a 100% given. Perhaps with two excellent guards at his side, Bradberry could be serviceable?
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Get rid of Bradbury too. He is always getting pushed back.

They save 4 million if they cut him, too.

It's too bad it's 3 spots that need to be fixed. That's extremely hard to do .

Also, KOC, who never calls out anything anyone, called out the interior of the line after the game. That was a shot at management to do some fixing.
 



Apologies if someone has already posted this, but a primary priority this offseason needs to be an honest and thorough assessment of coaching methods and preparation. O'Connell has now coached three huge games in his career (including the Lions game a week and a half ago), and his team has laid an utter egg in each of them. He and his staff are doing something wrong.

This is very reminiscent of Denny Green. He lost his first four playoff games, all underperformances. In 1992 and 1994, they got dominated by teams they had beaten in the regular season. His entire career was characterized by playoff underperformance. I think he was too proud/arrogant to question his approach. My hope is that KOC is more humble and committed to improvement.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Apologies if someone has already posted this, but a primary priority this offseason needs to be an honest assessment of coaching methods and preparation. O'Connell has now coached three huge games in his career (including the Lions game a week and a half ago), and his team has laid an utter egg in each of them. He and his staff are doing something wrong.

This is very reminiscent of Denny Green. He lost his first four playoff games, all underperformances. In 1992 and 1994, they got dominated by teams they had beaten in the regular season. His entire career was characterized by playoff underperformance. I think he was too proud/arrogant to question his approach. My hope is that KOC is more humble and committed to improvement.
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Personally, I think it's too small of a sample size. This year they got beat by 2 better teams. Twice.

2022 was not surprising either. It was smoke and mirrors. They were outscored in the Regular Season. It was 2 average teams playing and they lost a toss-up game.
 

Ope3 said:
Personally, I think it's too small of a sample size. This year they got beat by 2 better teams. Twice.

2022 was not surprising either. It was smoke and mirrors. They were outscored in the Regular Season. It was 2 average teams playing and they lost a toss-up game.
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Yes and no, IMO. It was disturbing to me watching them not rising to the level of preparation and intensity that's obviously necessary in big games. Disturbing to see players' performance drop off precipitously. Disturbing to see them get outschemed when the Vikes' reputation is to outscheme their opponents.
 

I just think it’s weird that the 4 losses this year were back to back losses to the Lions and Rams twice.

I’m not trying to draw anything from that…just mentioning a weird coincidence.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Yes and no, IMO. It was disturbing to me watching them not rising to the level of preparation and intensity that's obviously necessary in big games. Disturbing to see players' performance drop off precipitously. Disturbing to see them get outschemed when the Vikes' reputation is to outscheme their opponents.
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The intensity seemed fine on Monday Night until Darnold was strip-sacked and the Rams scooped and scored to go up 14. Failed on 4th down later in the 2nd Quarter. Game over.

They just aren't as good as either the Rams or Lions as currently constructed. That's my opinion.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Yes and no, IMO. It was disturbing to me watching them not rising to the level of preparation and intensity that's obviously necessary in big games. Disturbing to see players' performance drop off precipitously. Disturbing to see them get outschemed when the Vikes' reputation is to outscheme their opponents.
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Blame has to be assigned to coaching, QB, and oline. But I think people differ in the amount of blame to each. My distribution of blame would be:
70%. QB
20%. Coaching
10%. Oline
 
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Gopher_In_NYC said:
Exactly.

Jones set career highs this year in: carries and rushing and yards form scrimmage
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That's actually why I don't want him back. This was as healthy as he's ever been and he still missed large chunks of multiple games. Get someone younger/faster and get a decent screen game going.
 

howeda7 said:
That's actually why I don't want him back.
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Thanks for sharing 🤗


howeda7 said:
This was as healthy as he's ever been and he still missed large chunks of multiple games.
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He finished 9 in carries and yardage, so in the top 3rd of starting backs in The League🤷‍♂️

That works in my mythical GM World.

howeda7 said:
Get someone younger/faster and get a decent screen game going.
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The priority in my said mythical world is the OIL and DBs.

I’d put replacing him on the bottom of the proverbial totem pole, if it happened fine, if it doesn’t, its not a big whoppie ding dong to me.
 



reading an article about "what's next for the Vikings" - one number just jumped out at me.

if you take the 53-man roster for the final game of the season - 23 of those players will be free agents now or at the start of the new league year. that's 43% of the roster that could potentially leave.

now, it's likely that some of those players will return. but I believe the Vikings have one of the largest % of free agents in the NFL, because they had so many players on 1-year contracts.

this team could - and likely will - look a lot different next season.
 

golf said:
Blame has to be assigned to coaching, QB, and oline. But I think people differ in the amount of blame to each. My distribution of blame would be:
70%. QB
20%. Coaching
10%. Oline
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I would say
50% coaching
40% QB
10% OL
 



Slim Tubby said:
Clearly, trading KOC for draft picks and hiring OC Ben Johnson away from DET should be our approach. 😎
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More chum for the delusional sharks, circling the S.S. Skol dingy.

Next let’s debate if those 14 wins actually count?
 
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