Shortly before 1 a.m. Tuesday, the Vikings agreed to terms on a three-year, $51 million deal with former Commanders defensive tackle Jonathan Allen, making the two-time Pro Bowler the first defensive tackle to get a deal worth more than $10 million per season from the Vikings since Linval Joseph in 2020.
Less than eight hours later, they gave the Colts' Will Fries the biggest deal they’ve ever awarded to a guard, beating out several teams for the free agent with a five-year deal worth up to $88 million. Fries, who becomes one of the highest-paid guards in the NFL, will line up between four-time Pro Bowler Ryan Kelly (his former Colts teammate) and right tackle Brian O’Neill, who’s played next to eight different guards in his seven seasons with the Vikings.
The moves were as emphatic as they were unavoidable: A nine-sack playoff loss had highlighted the Vikings' need for interior offensive line improvements (which coach Kevin O’Connell pointedly underlined in his postgame comments). On the other side of the ball, the Vikings had lacked a disruptive every-down pass rusher in the middle of their line for more than a decade, at a time when teams like the Chiefs, 49ers and Eagles were making multiple Super Bowl appearances with the help of defensive tackles who could get to the quarterback.
The Vikings have done little to shy away from their needs at both positions, meeting with several guards in the pre-draft process and talking to Oregon defensive tackle Derrick Harmon at the NFL combine. But their free-agency investments represent a more significant commitment, at two positions where they’d rarely, if ever, spent this kind of money. In less than eight hours Tuesday, they agreed to deals worth more than $130 million to address a meager midsection they could no longer hide.
They might not be done, either: Assuming the 49ers release two-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Javon Hargrave on Wednesday, the Vikings are expected to pursue a deal with the 32-year-old, who played on back-to-back NFC championship teams in Philadelphia and San Francisco in 2022 and 2023. And with executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski and senior manager of football administration Emily Badis constructing deals that help the Vikings conserve cap space, they’re still believed to have more than $30 million of room available to pursue additional upgrades, with more space available through additional roster moves or contract restructures.
For as much as O’Connell talked this year about “play style” — the coach’s shorthand for an aggressive approach that emphasizes physicality on the line of scrimmage — the Vikings seemed unable to carry out the coach’s directive without significant upgrades on both lines.
Ed Ingram, the team’s second-round pick in 2022, lost his job at right guard this season to Dalton Risner, whom the Vikings brought back on a one-year deal and moved to right guard after giving his previous left guard job to Blake Brandel. Ingram, who’s due to count $5.2 million against the cap this week, could be released this week; according to Sports Info Solutions, he’d blown 5.9 percent of his pass blocks in 2024, the 11th-highest rate in the league among guards. Risner didn’t allow a regular-season sack last year, according to Pro Football Focus, but Brandel had allowed seven, before the Rams beat the two guards for three of their nine sacks in the NFC wild-card win over the Vikings.
And while Harrison Phillips had two sacks in the Vikings' first five games, he registered only four pressures in the final 10 games of the season, ranking last in pressure rate among NFL defensive tackles, according to SIS. The Vikings had pursued Christian Wilkins (who’d played for Brian Flores in Miami) during free agency last year but lost out to the Raiders. Once Allen’s release from Washington meant he wouldn’t hurt the Vikings in the compensatory pick formula, the team’s interest in the 30-year-old picked up, with Minneapolis-based agent Blake Baratz finalizing the deal with the team early Tuesday morning.