**EAGAN, Minn. —** Will Fries is a mountain of a man and has been a mainstay of the Vikings offensive line.
Signed by Minnesota in free agency March 11, after starting 31 of 41 games in four seasons with Indianapolis, the 6-foot-6, 321-pound right guard has played 537 snaps on offense in 2025, more than every other offensive player and second on the Vikings roster overall, factoring in special teams (576).
A heckuva feat for a fella who broke his leg 13 months ago and is figuring out how to be himself, again.
"It can be really frustrating," Fries shared wholeheartedly.
"It was really hard to come back and not feel like the way you've been feeling when you come off a couple of games in 2024 – when you feel like you're playing some of your better football – and then you come back and you're not playing as crisp, or it's not working the same way you want to," Fries detailed. "But when I first got here, my first six months, having Coach Kup' (Offensive Line Coach Chris Kuper) and Coach Phillips (Offensive Coordinator Wes Phillips) having your back and realizing, you know, it's not going to be perfect right away, it takes a big weight off your \[shoulders\]. Because I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform well. I want to do well and I want to perform for the guys next to me on the team."
That's a mountainous incentive for Fries – to be available and to be better tomorrow than today.
"He's the epitome of a football dude," right tackle Brian O'Neill assessed. "This might be a weird thing to say, but he loves _playing_ football, not just _being_ a football player. He loves practice, he loves meetings, he loves everything about it. And it's (been) a ton of fun to watch him come back from the injury he had.
"He got married this summer and then left his honeymoon after two days to come back and rehab," O'Neill added. "They postponed the honeymoon, you know, the real honeymoon, until next year because it's important to him to do it and do it right, and he's willing to sacrifice and lay it on the line."