The Answer To The Vikings’ Biggest Offseason Need Is Beyond Obvious
Credit: Mark Konezny-Imagn Images
Kevin O’Connell‘s coaching style is that of relentless positivity. If you’re down, O’Connell’s going to talk you up, and he’s going to get the very most out of you. He almost wills it into being. Example No. 1 is, of course, Sam Darnold, the journeyman high-profile bust of a quarterback that O’Connell got to throw for 4,300 yards and 35 touchdowns in 2024.
Breaking from that isn’t something O’Connell does, and when he is negative, he often directs it toward himself. So it was a bit shocking when he called out one area of his team after dropping losing home field advantage in Week 18, then losing the season in the Wild Card Round.
“There’s no question that we got to be able to find a way to give a quarterback time,” O’Connell said after the playoff loss. “Especially with players like Jordan Addison, Justin Jefferson, T.J. Hockenson, we got to find a way to solidify the interior of the pocket, starting first and foremost.”
Singling out the interior offensive line — center Garrett Bradbury and guards Dalton Risner and Blake Brandel — isn’t something O’Connell does. But it’s been such an obvious flaw on the team for so long that it even wore down O’Connell’s positivity.
It also sent a message to Kwesi Adofo-Mensah: This is what I need to fix this team in the offseason. Get it done.
To that, Vikings fans everywhere say, hear, hear!
The interior offensive line isn’t the only reason Minnesota lost those two games. They don’t even deserve all the blame for Darnold’s nine sacks on Wild Card Weekend. But there’s no doubt that their weaknesses of allowing pressure up the middle has put a ceiling on the offense, and has for some time now.
In fairness, they weren’t universally terrible. Risner, in particular, finished the season ranked 24th of 83 guards in terms of PFF Overall Grade, which includes being the eighth-best pass-blocker at his position. Maybe Minnesota can still work with him.
But the rest of the field? Yeesh. Brandel ranked 68th among guards in PFF Overall Grade, while the Ed Ingram experiment finally came to an end after ranking 71st. In the middle, Garrett Bradbury finished 30th in Overall Grade among 43 centers, finishing in the bottom half of the NFL in five of his six seasons.
There’s a ton of room for improvement, and a candidate to help who is beyond obvious: Trey Smith.
Smith is a guard whose name you know, which is a strong indicator of being good. The Kansas City Chief is gunning for his third Super Bowl ring before turning 26. Again, that’s a solid resume. PFF ranked Smith as their No. 2 free agent this offseason, behind only Tee Higgins. That’s lofty praise for a guard, but as elite offensive lines are propelling teams to new heights, top young players like Smith are going to get a ton of attention.
Especially for a team like the Vikings, who have both the need and the cap space to make a splash in the offseason. As much as Darnold’s sacks stole the show in Minnesota’s two highest-profile losses, their Achilles Heel might have been their inability to trust the run. O’Connell didn’t have anything left in his bag of tricks once Darnold started going haywire, and while most fans and analysts piled on the coach for abandoning the run, KOC may have had a point.
Risner was the head of the Vikings class for PFF Run Blocking Grade, ranking 53rd of 83 guards with a meager 58.3. Brandel was 58th (57.7). The only teams that had a worse guard tandem were the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, who only beat the Steelers in the playoffs.
Take out Cam Akers‘ 58-yard scamper against the Lions, and Vikings running backs only had 139 rushing yards on 33 carries. There wasn’t much of a run game to abandon in the first place.
That’s where Smith comes in, as he’s finished in the top 10 among guards in PFF Run-Blocking Grade in each of his four NFL seasons. Combine that with a healthy Christian Darrisaw, who’s a top-10 run-blocking tackle, and suddenly, Minnesota has an elite tandem on the left side of their line.
The Vikings have about $60 million of cap space to play with, and Smith will cost about a third of that total. On one hand, that’s gonna give people sticker shock, but here’s a counter-argument: Who cares? The cost is the cost, and any Millennial-or-older Vikings fans will know how much of a game-changer an elite guard can be.
Back in 2007, the Vikings gave Steve Hutchinson the richest contract a guard ever got to entice him to jump from the Seattle Seahawks. The 29-year-old spent six seasons in Minnesota, most notably paving the way for Adrian Peterson in the early part of his career. But while AD’s numbers were insane, he also elevated Chester Taylor from a no-name backup running back to a 1,200-yard starter and got Toby Gerhart to look half-decent for a minute after Peterson tore his ACL in 2011.
Smith has had a similar effect in Kansas City without ever having someone half as talented as Peterson to work with. Instead, Smith has taken a team that’s had Isaac Pacheco as his lead back to back-to-back Super Bowls, and might get a third one in a season where his RB1 is a washed-up Kareem Hunt. As badly as the Vikings should want to upgrade at running back, bringing back a 31-year-old Aaron Jones and Akers might be an improvement.
The money is there, the need is there, and the will (at least from the coach) is there. The Vikings can sell Smith as being a missing piece to an offense that just won 14 games. Smith to Minnesota makes too much sense for the front office to not get it done.
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