Chameleon at center: Ryan Kelly brings calm, builds confidence in the Vikings huddle

Right guard Will Fries, the Vikings’ $88 million man in the middle, was a lowly rookie seventh-round pick for the Indianapolis Colts in 2021.

He hadn’t played a snap by Thanksgiving of his first year, yet Fries and his girlfriend (now wife) Isabella Therien were invited over for turkey dinner by Colts center Ryan Kelly, then working on his third consecutive Pro Bowl season.

“I didn’t know anybody my first year, and he invited me over,” Fries recalled. “He’s just a great dude, always looking out for people, taking care of people behind the scenes.

“You have to have guys believe in you maybe more than you believe in yourself,” Fries added, “and he was someone who helped instill confidence in me when I was younger.”

Before beginning the J.J. McCarthy era, one of the Vikings’ first moves this offseason was agreeing to terms with Kelly — a nine-year veteran — on a two-year, $18 million deal just hours into free agency.

Kelly, 32, is the “presence that you want,” offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said, someone who can both pump up the 22-year-old McCarthy off the field and unmask opposing defenses with correct protection calls on the field.

Kelly has started 121 more NFL games than McCarthy, who is Kelly’s 13th different starting quarterback. McCarthy, coincidentally, was 13 years old when Kelly got drafted in the first round in 2016 to protect then-Colts quarterback Andrew Luck.

“It’s fluid with each guy,” Kelly said. “It’s not like Rivers and I were going to hang out and play golf every weekend. He has 10 kids. I was getting ready to get married. I feel like I’m a little bit of a chameleon, you have to blend and adapt to who you’re with.”

With McCarthy, Kelly has been a natural fit. The former Colts team captain gained a reputation as a bullish brainiac and confidence-builder in his many quarterbacks. McCarthy has already said Kelly is one of his “favorite” teammates.

“Just his knowledge about the game, but who he is as a man,” McCarthy said. “It’s really one of a kind. The depth of knowledge, how he attacks every single day, how he is as a dad, all the things I get to learn from him on and off the field — it’s a tremendous blessing.”

After his first NFL start in Monday night’s victory over the Bears, McCarthy left the team’s facility on Thursday to be with his fiancée, Katya Kuropas, as she gave birth to their son.

“He’s got a lot to figure out at 22,” said Kelly, a father of three children. “I don’t know if I was ready, you know? That’s what I told him is no one’s ready to become a dad.”

The 2018 season, Kelly’s third in the NFL, sent his studies into overdrive. The Colts hired a new head coach, Frank Reich, and installed a new playbook.

That April, new offensive line coach Dave DeGuglielmo separated his linemen into three tables — left tackle/left guard, center, and right tackle/right guard — a setup that isolated Kelly for a pop quiz on the new system.

“I get like 95 percent,” Kelly said. “I missed some small term, and he chewed me out like I had never been chewed out before: ‘You think you get your own table for no reason?’ He’s like, ‘It’s your show. The right side and the left side, they’re all counting on you to do your job. You’re the nucleus that can bind.’ ”

Kelly started 12 games that year, Luck’s final NFL season before retiring because of health issues. Kelly said he’s still in a group text chat with Luck and other teammates from the 2016 team. He establishes lasting bonds. He called Brissett a “best friend.” He and Wentz, whom the Vikings signed last month, are offseason golfing buddies.

Luck, in a statement, said Kelly is “everything you love in a center.”

By the time offensive line coach Chris Strausser was hired by the Colts in 2019, Kelly had a strict routine. While eating breakfast on Wednesday mornings, he studied the coaches’ pass protection plans for that week on his iPad.

“Those aren’t coming in until Tuesday at midnight,” Strausser said. “I’ve been in a lot of places where it would’ve been fine if he hadn’t seen it until our Wednesday meeting, because we were still going to teach it. But for Ryan, that wasn’t his way to roll.”

Kelly made three consecutive Pro Bowls with three different starting quarterbacks — Brissett, Rivers and Wentz — under Strausser from 2019 through 2021. (He was a Pro Bowl selection again, working with mostly Minshew in 2023.)

“He understood the importance of the quarterback,” Strausser said. “Early on, he could tell the QB wasn’t necessarily right on a protection call or something and he’d allow the guy to work his way through some stuff while Ryan, in a subtle way, would help.”

“He knew everybody else had to respect the quarterback,” Strausser added.

“I tell the young guys, ‘When the quarterback is talking, you look him in the eye,’ ” Kelly said. “He gets in the huddle, he’s got a long play call, right? He’s got a lot of checks, a play clock, a coach screaming in his ear. If you look around and you see everyone from rookies to a seventh-year vet, a 10th-year vet like ‘Let’s go, kid!’ That’s pretty cool.”

On the field, Kelly commands first. He sets the initial pass protection plan. He targets run plays based on identifying the middle linebacker in the defense. McCarthy has the power to correct calls if his broader vision tells him something different.

Kelly, and many Vikings coaches, have helped McCarthy learn NFL defenses. But Kelly has taken a special interest in McCarthy’s command in front of the team.

“The pointing at the line, the demeanor, how your voice travels to the team,” Kelly said. “Those things matter. … The weight of a franchise is on your back. Sam Darnold’s no longer here; it’s now your show. You haven’t proven anything in this league. You’ve got maybe the most veteran team around you that I’ve seen in the NFL.”

“That’s where I can help quarterbacks,” Kelly added. “You always have to find out where your value is as an NFL player, and that’s what I can do — I feel I can help these guys gain confidence and take something off their shoulders.”

“He had no voice after the game,” Kelly said.

McCarthy was asked if he felt he had anything to prove to his teammates before playing his first game.

“I feel like it was more proving it to myself,” McCarthy said, “because I feel like this team, their belief in me is something that I tremendously appreciate.”

Right tackle Brian O’Neill became a translator for the Vikings offensive line this summer. The team captain sat between his new teammates, Kelly and Fries, during meetings so he could help them learn the Vikings’ many playbook calls and adjustments for concepts that were called by different names in Indianapolis.

O’Neill, an eight-year veteran, has learned from Kelly, too. During film studies, Kelly asked in-depth questions of offensive line coach Chris Kuper that educated the entire room. He wanted to know, for instance, how a defensive back’s pre-snap movement could tip off an incoming blitz.

Kuper said Kelly brings a “calming influence of a guy who’s seen and done it for a long time at a very high level” to an offense with two first-year starters in McCarthy and left guard Donovan Jackson.

“Ryan’s a high processor,” Kuper added, “and he can help bridge the gap on a couple things as you got a brand new quarterback in the offense.”

The end of Kelly’s nine-year run in Indianapolis, where he and his family became entrenched within the city and the Colts, was not how he would’ve drawn it up. But he said he feels he’s landed in the best possible situation.

He described the Vikings’ mix of many free agents, draftees, undrafted players and players from the previous regime as “the island of misfit toys.”

“I’ve been blessed that I came here,” Kelly said. “It’s kind of hard to figure out what makes a place special until you get in there. … I got here and I still can’t figure out what it is. I think Kevin [O’Connell] sets an incredible standard, but it’s the locker room."