I'm back for another season! Cautiously optimistic. Big question, why did we trade Harrison Phillips for nothing? All we got was two late-round picks and paid half his salary this year? He was a great locker room guy — never missed a game and was a captain. Why didn't we just package him with a pick or another player to get a receiver or DE? Thought a trade like that to a team like the Bengals might have gotten more? Better have a move that really gets an impact player. As I said at the end of last year, this year's schedule is brutal. Our division is the best in football, and it will be a fight to make the playoffs. Hopefully these young guys on the D-line are as good as they think they are to give up Phillips for nothing. I'll be back as the season progresses, and hopefully I'll be happy with the outcome.
— Frankie in Connecticut
Clearly a bold decision to trade the youngest and healthiest member of the 3 DL starters for what could be thought of as basically "magic beans." Bold decisions are not necessarily good decisions — see passing on Kyle Hamilton in order to trade back in the [2022] draft.
Phillips was the biggest cap hit in 2025 of the three, but the smallest in 2026 by a wide margin.
It will be interesting to see how the bold decision of trading away a productive, healthy, well-liked team captain plays in the locker room and with fans.
It didn't play well with this fan.
— David Sinclair in Rio Rancho, New Mexico
Cautiously optimistic is my preferred setting before a season begins. Based on what I've seen from Minnesota's training camp practices, I believe this team will be tough for any other squad to beat. Hurdles can happen along the way, including if a team has a bad run of health.
Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave were added this spring after dealing with health challenges in 2024. That recent history, however, is something the Vikings believe each can avoid repeating. Both have impressed with their plays on the field, as well as their own leadership styles. Allen had some really interesting things to say about preferring standards over expectations. Hargrave seems to be a man of fewer words but a lot of pocket-collapsing action.
Their addition, combined with measured progress from younger players like Jalen Redmond, who did not play at Tennessee but showed up in Minnesota's scrimmage practice last Wednesday, as well as Levi Drake Rodriguez, Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins and Elijah Williams, who each made plays Friday, made the interior defensive line group one of the deepest I've seen in 15 years/16 seasons of covering NFL teams.
I've sincerely enjoyed covering Phillips for the past three seasons, whether he was doing "fire hydrant work" of an interior defensive lineman so a teammate could thrive, creating a sudden pre-snap movement to contribute to a fumbled Bills snap at Buffalo in 2022, looking sharp in London (after facing the Jets last year) or hosting Harrison's Playmakers for camps or special shopping events. His status made him an enticing player for the Jets and led to the trade that sent him and a 2027 seventh-rounder to New York in exchange for a sixth in 2026 and a sixth in 2027.
The Vikings on Sunday sent a 2026 sixth-round pick and Howell to Philadelphia in exchange for a fifth-rounder in 2026 and a seventh in 2027.