The Minnesota Vikings are about to find out whether their offseason gamble was smart aggression or a fast track to another reset.
This summer was all about turning the page. The team cut Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave, two expensive additions from last year’s roster, and traded Jonathan Greenard, clearing the runway for Dallas Turner.
Harrison Smith could still retire, which would only deepen the shake-up. In one offseason, Minnesota went from leaning on veteran name value to handing the keys to a much younger group.
That approach showed up in the draft, where Brian Flores was given real control over the defense. The Vikings used four of their first five picks on defensive players, and the expectation is that several of them will be needed right away.
Caleb Banks and Domonique Orange are expected to help on the defensive line, while Jake Golday is viewed as a versatile linebacker who should matter down the line. Jakobe Thomas could also be pushed into a major role if Smith does indeed walk away.
The safety picture is especially thin. Undrafted free-agent standout Jacob Thomas has a Grade 1 ankle sprain, Theo Jackson lost his starting job last season, and Josh Metellus is more of a hybrid linebacker-safety than a pure answer back there. That leaves Minnesota with a clear hole to open the year.
Rob Brzezinski said the Vikings were forced to think differently about how they spend.
“We have to allocate our resources the best that we see fit,” Vikings VP of football operations Rob Brzezinski said during the draft, which he ran as the interim general manager. “We’ve spent a lot of money the last few years, and the spending from a salary cap standpoint is not sustainable. Regardless of when people say the salary cap isn’t real, you might not be paying the bill the very day that you’re writing the check, but it comes due.”
Brzezinski, who has been with the Vikings since 1999, handled the draft after the team fired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in late January. Rather than rush into a replacement, Minnesota waited until May to hire Nolan Teasley, avoiding the kind of hurried draft setup they had in 2022.
Teasley arrived from Washington state after spending the previous stretch with the Seattle Seahawks, where he had been since 2013. The connection to Sam Darnold is obvious after the quarterback left Minnesota and won the Super Bowl in Seattle last year. More importantly for the Vikings, Teasley comes from an organization that built a title team through the draft, and Minnesota wants to follow that blueprint.
“We’re really lucky in this building that we have a coaching staff that has the ability to develop and the mindset to develop,” Teasley said on Wednesday regarding the Vikings. “We’ve seen all of our players improve on a daily basis, and so really excited about the trajectory of the draft class. That’s an opportunity to highlight the work done by Rob Brzezinski and the rest of the staff that was here that navigated a unique offseason.”
Now comes the hard part: proving all of it works when the games start.
The Vikings open with the Green Bay Packers, then face the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the road. Those three games will tell a lot about whether this new version of Minnesota is actually ready. Jordan Love and Caleb Williams are both in position to stress a defense that’s young, unsettled, and built around Flores’ blitz-heavy approach.
Love, now in his third year under Matt LaFleur, has enough around him to light up a defense that isn’t ready. Williams, heading into his second season with Ben Johnson, threw for 3,942 yards, 27 touchdowns, and seven interceptions last year. Minnesota’s young defenders are going to get tested immediately.
Flores usually prefers veterans in his system, and that’s part of the tension here. But with Harrison Smith possibly gone and Greenard no longer available as pass-rushing depth, he may not have the luxury of leaning on trusted old hands. He’ll have to trust the younger players the front office just brought in.
The offense has its own storyline, and it may end up mattering even more.
After falling out of the playoff race quickly in J.J. McCarthy’s first season, the Vikings have moved to Kyler Murray at quarterback.
Murray is 29, in his eighth season, and still in his prime. The Cardinals are paying him $36 million to play in Minnesota, and that makes this a high-stakes evaluation for everybody involved.
Murray’s future with the team could go two very different directions. If he fits Kevin O’Connell’s system and thrives, Minnesota could extend him. If he struggles in that structure, the Vikings could be back in the quarterback market before long.
Week 3 will offer another interesting checkpoint when Minnesota travels to Central Florida to face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Baker Mayfield did not get extended this offseason and is set to become a free agent next year. In an anonymous poll of 50 coaches and league executives, Mayfield was voted the league’s 14th-best quarterback, tied with Sam Darnold.
The Vikings’ start could shape the entire conversation around this team. A 3-0 or 2-1 opening would make it easy to believe the new core is taking hold after Adofo-Mensah’s firing. Minnesota also has Miami and New Orleans before its Week 6 bye, and two wins in the first three games could set them up to enter the bye at 5-0 or 4-1.
But the opposite is just as real. A 1-2 or 0-3 start would drag the season in a different direction fast.
Even 1-3 could still be salvaged if the Vikings reach the bye at 3-3. Start 0-3, though, and the conversations get much bigger, much sooner.
The team can’t afford to miss on the chance to draft a franchise quarterback the way it did with Drake Maye when it started 0-3 in 2023.
That’s why these early weeks matter so much. Minnesota’s new defense, its quarterback situation, and the direction of the whole franchise are all getting put on the field right away. Three games may not seem like much, but for the Vikings, they could tell the story of what comes next.
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McCarthy has already lost the starting job to Kyler Murray and is also dealing with an ankle injury, which has only fueled questions about where this goes from here. Kevin OConnell has said he wants to keep working with McCarthy, but there have also been rumors about a difference in how invested OConnell and former general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah were in the quarterback, adding another layer to a decision the Vikings did not appear to expect this soon. [Read more 🡒]
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Kick return duties could be the quickest way for Claiborne to get on the field, and that would fit the kind of multi-purpose value teams want from a late-round pick. The Vikings are still sorting out how he might fit into the offense as well, but special teams offers an immediate opening and a chance to turn his explosiveness into something more tangible while he waits for a bigger role in the backfield. [Read more 🡒]