Monday night’s loss was a toughie.
Normally, I’m the type of sports fan who can’t resist digging into every bit of media and analysis after a game, for better or worse. I trust my eye, so I want to go back and rewatch and take my time garnering insights from people I respect. Even when it hurts, that’s my process.
Monday night hit different.
It wasn’t until Wednesday that I could stomach a rewatch of that performance. It was such an unsettling, catastrophic failure at all levels. I’ve had people ask me if this was some kind of inside job or points-shaving scheme — which, no, it was not — but they just couldn’t believe how bad it was. Many of them were simply unfamiliar with the trials and tribulations of Minnesota sports fans, doomed like Sisyphus to push the boulder of hope up the hill only so that it can build greater momentum when it crushes us later.
So, more like Sisyphus meet Wile E. Coyote.
Just as the organization must move forward and turn the page, so will we. Upon a rewatch, looking ahead at the work ahead of the team this offseason, it’s abundantly clear that this front office has a lot of tasks on their to-do list. But above all else, without a doubt, they must do whatever they can do to make sure J.J. McCarthy never sees a pocket like the one Sam Darnold played from on Monday night.
Darnold played terribly on Monday. According to Football Insights, he had an abysmal 71.4% pressure-to-sack rate. That’s inexplicably bad, especially considering several plays where there were open receivers downfield if he had simply kept his eyes up. The Rams pressured him on 24 of 40 passing plays, compounding the issue. Some quick math shows that 22.5% — that’s over one in five of all passing plays — resulted in a sack.
That’s non-functional. That’s the kind of stat line you’d expect from a D-2 school on the road in Tuscaloosa. It’s a coaching and personnel failure. The time will come for Kevin O’Connell to look in the mirror and figure out how to ensure that never happens again. For now, it’s Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s turn to get to work.
The Vikings have holes and pending free agents up and down the roster, and they’ll need every cent of their projected $73 million in cap space to put this thing together. Assuming the roadmap is now clear to move on from Darnold and invest in the roster around McCarthy — which, while a bit presumptuous, seems to be the conventional wisdom coming off the recent performances — they’ve got the spending power to make a real push here.
That’s good because even if you’re banking on a third-round compensatory pick for Kirk Cousins, you’re looking at a draft with a first, third, and two fifth-rounders. That’s not many darts to throw in hopes of hitting on some young talent, so they must invest wisely and effectively this offseason.
If you’re looking for reasons for optimism, it should be Adofo-Mensah’s free-agency record in his young tenure as a GM. Free agency has proven to be more productive than the draft thus far under his tenure, highlighted in particular by a home-run free-agency class last offseason. Nearly every major signing was a hit, and players like Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Aaron Jones, and Blake Cashman really elevated this roster. They’ll need a similar success rate in 2025.
While the offensive line is at the forefront of my concerns headed into this offseason, it’s far from the only pressing need. Not only must the Vikings re-sign a good number of their 21 pending free agents, but they must completely revamp the cornerback room and the interior defensive line. They’ll also need to make decisions about running backs Aaron Jones and Cam Akers, who both came to Minnesota on one-year contracts, not to mention the dilemma about whether to invest in a bridge quarterback if there’s any uncertainty about McCarthy’s ability to reasonably be a Week 1 starter.
That’s a whole whack-a-mole of problems, but they’re still secondary to the offensive line issue. Even if we can assume that Christian Darrisaw will return to form swiftly and without any complications and that Brian O’Neill’s poor performance against the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs was an aberration and not indicative of any sort of major decline, the combination of Blake Brandel, Garrett Bradbury, and Dalton Risner on the interior is simply untenable.
A lot of Darnold’s worst plays came as a result of the interior rush up the middle when he simply couldn’t operate in a clean pocket. He couldn’t step up — there was nowhere to escape to — and he panicked. His eyes dropped, open receivers streaked down the field as he backpedaled and turtle-shelled like your little brother playing Madden. I don’t know about you, but I’d do anything to ensure those bad habits never become a part of J.J. McCarthy’s game.
Vikings fans have fantasized about top names like Trey Smith or Teven Jenkins for weeks, and they should be among Adofo-Mensah’s top priorities. However, I will focus on the process instead of getting too attached to a singular name. Minnesota must establish a viable, trustworthy presence on the offensive interior. That’s especially true if they’re going to solve some of the schematic issues that led to Monday night’s debacle, specifically their lack of commitment and diversity in their rushing attack; they cannot do so with a revolving door of turnstiles at guard.
That’s the type of problem they can’t afford to gamble on developing a rookie for, especially considering their draft capital and position. They need a veteran stalwart to anchor the interior of the line. It may be too pie-in-the-sky to dream of a complete overhaul of the interior. Still, even one more quality investment could completely change how they compensate for deficiencies in whoever remains of Brandel, Bradbury, or Ed Ingram/Risner.
We saw Christian Darrisaw make the four other guys on the line much better with his ability to play on an island and slide all help away from him. Think about what it could do for this offense to have a guy on the inside get a push on his own and free up the extra body for double teams down the line.
Despite the doom-and-gloom vibes from Monday night, there’s still so much reason for optimism heading into next season. I cannot wait to see J.J. McCarthy play in this offense. I cannot wait to see what Kevin O’Connell can do with the guy he chose, not the guy he inherited. The guy he’s piecing it together with on the fly, or the guy he’s getting the most out of in the short term. He chose McCarthy to be the QB he’s hitching his career in Minnesota to, and it’s up to Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to ensure this investment has every opportunity to succeed.
No matter how cliché it sounds, that all starts up front.