Top Concerns Lurking Beneath the Surface for the Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings may have their best opportunity since 2017 to break their oft-mentioned Super Bowl drought, which has plagued the franchise since its inception.
Some have great expectations for the 2025 Vikings, but a few hidden concerns could derail things. Here’s what fans should monitor.
The 2025 campaign might be a little optimistic for fans to pound the table for a Super Bowl, but if quarterback J.J. McCarthy evolves into a top-tier quarterback, the next few years could open a championship window.
Still, some concerns linger beneath the surface, and these are those items for 2025. They’re listed ascendingly (No. 1 = top concern).
Concerns to Track for the Vikings
There aren’t many, but there are a few meaty ones.
3. Leveraging Too Much for the 2025 Season Alone
The Vikings spent over $350 million in free agency, a jaw-dropping figure that proved the purple team is “in it to win it” as early as this season. Fans rejoiced — as they should. General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is serious about pushing his chips into the middle of the table for a Super Bowl run.
Yet, the spending spree, at least to the extent of 2025 free agency, is a one-hit wonder. Already, Minnesota is scheduled to be $61 million in the hole for next offseason. That is — when the next offseason rolls around, Adofo-Mensah must clear $61 million in cap space by releasing players or reworking contracts to even think about signing one single free agent.
It’s the Rick Spielman era while Kirk Cousins’ contract hogged the salary cap — but on human growth hormone.
Our own Kyle Joudry wrote about the cap situation this week, “With roughly $363.3 million in cap commitments for 2026, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is staring down a slow-moving crisis. The fine folks at Over the Cap insist the Minnesota is in debt by roughly $60.8 million, so we’re dealing with an issue that’s going to be in the back of the front office’s mind until next March.”
“Solutions do exist — painful ones, such as cutting O’Neill, Kelly, as well as moving on from others, which is to say nothing of the possible extensions, restructures, etc. — but those things are a work in progress. Plus, extending Josh Metellus still needs to happen (his final Vikings season is currently in 2025) and the team will need to make at least some additions, moves that involve having open cap room.”
It’s a bit of an undercover Vikings storyline, really.
Jourdry continued, “The Vikings are fortunate to have Kwesi Adofo-Mensah steering the ship, someone who has proven to be adept at moving around a budget. He knows about the difficulty that’s ahead and is surely working on solutions even if the external outlook is dire.”
“In fact, some of the solutions are already hiding in plain sight, such as the carryover money (north of $23.5 million) that’s present alongside the extension/cut/restructure/trade candidates.”
If you expected the J.J. McCarthy era to be accompanied by fresh free-agent spending annually, you were wrong. March — so four months ago — was the Vikings’ one big adventure into spending freely on the open market.
2. What if J.J. McCarthy Is Terrible?
The heinous concern: What exactly do folks do if the J.J. McCarthy hype train was all for naught? Fans have lived through the Christian Ponder era, watched Kellen Mond turn into nothing, and dreamed big about Tarvaris Jackson, etc.
All signs point to McCarthy developing much more competently than those examples. But let’s face it. Adofo-Mensah surrounded McCarthy with a Super Bowl-caliber roster. The anxiety is that he could be too raw to capitalize on it.
It’s why sportsbooks don’t really know what to do with the Vikings, assigning an 8.5-win forecast for 2025 and moving on to the next team.
Minnesota and its fans must deal with the weight of expectations for the next few years and merely hope that this leadership regime picked the right guy in McCarthy.
Spoiler alert: It will probably be okay.
1. The Cornerback Room
The Vikings will trust the defensive enterprise with these cornerbacks:
- Byron Muphy Jr.
- Isaiah Rodgers
- Mekhi Blackmon
- Jeff Okudah
- Dwight McGlothern
- Ambry Thomas
Murphy Jr. is a Pro Bowler, and folks need not worry about him. After him, well, Rodgers has started 13 games since 2020. Blackmon has three career starts. Okudah hasn’t been a full-time starter since 2022. And McGlothern + Thomas are battling to make the roster at CB5.
Most Super Bowl-contending teams have better cornerbacks than this, at least on paper. Perhaps Rodgers, Blackmon, and/or Okudah will totally ball out this September, but for now, the CB room is a roster concern.
Vikings Linked to Big-Name Free Agent
You must be logged in to post a comment.