Already this week, I’ve received emails from a reader/podcast listener asking if the Vikings would consider using their franchise tag on cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. and another querying whether I’m “hearing anything about the Vikings plans for upgrading the offensive line.”
RandBall: Who do the Vikings want to be in 2025?
Vikings fans are already attuned to Minnesota’s many offseason questions. But the biggest one covers a larger picture.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
February 6, 2025 at 5:11PM
Those are good and specific questions, as is the watercooler chatter about what the Vikings might do at quarterback.
La Velle E. Neal III and I tackled that one on Thursday’s Daily Delivery podcast, agreeing generally that it is unlikely the Vikings will retain Sam Darnold as their 2025 starter while disagreeing on the degree of likelihood.
All of this early offseason hand-wringing underpins a grander and more philosophical question: Who do the Vikings want to be in 2025?
They have a greater measure of control over the answer than they have in quite some time, thanks to careful steps they have taken in the past few years to carve out roughly $60 million in salary cap space — among the most in the NFL, particularly among teams that seriously contended in 2024.
Having agency over your destiny, though, creates a certain pressure to use it wisely. Adding to that pressure, one supposes, is doing it after quite surprisingly going 14-3 in a season in which the Vikings had far less control over their roster and by many measures doubled their expected win total.
So many things went right in 2024. Now the Vikings need to decide how much of it is a repeatable product of superior roster construction and performance and how much was the confluence of unrepeatable outliers.
Their answers should be revealed in their offseason moves, culminating in a conclusion to that question I already posed about who they want to be.
A good guess: The Vikings will be prepared to take a step back in terms of their record. Going 14-3 and again winning so many close games is highly unlikely, even if head coach Kevin O’Connell has a growing body of work suggesting he is excellent in those situations.
They will spend wisely and with purpose, but $60 million can go fast and hitting on virtually every free agent (as they did in 2024) is rare.
Want to tag Murphy or sign him to a long-term deal while also bolstering the interior of your offensive line? Depending on how those deals are structured, that could be one-half to two-thirds of your space.
Thinking of trying to keep Darnold? That’s also probably more than half of your cap space, which is why I put the likelihood at around 5-10%.
And presumably they would still need a running back, more defensive backs, maybe some interior defensive line help and other small-to-medium-sized plugs for roster holes.
Who do they want to be, then?
- A team that continues to be a factor and has a good chance at returning to the playoffs, but probably does so while learning more about the floor and ceiling of second-year QB J.J. McCarthy.
- A team that starts to lean more on younger players instead of expensive veteran stop-gaps.
- A team that doesn’t go all-in for 2025, knowing that their best window for true Super Bowl contention is probably between 2026 and 2028, then perhaps beyond depending on McCarthy’s ceiling.
It’s a good place to be. They’ve nailed the “competitive” part of Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s plan, but work remains on the “rebuild.” They have the agency to execute it; now they will find out if they have the right players.
Vikings fans are already attuned to Minnesota’s many offseason questions. But the biggest one covers a larger picture.
