Souhan: With this roster, Vikings coaches will need to excel for team to win

In evaluating the quality of the Vikings’ 2024 roster as final cuts loom, let me skip to a conclusion:

If the Vikings win with this roster, under these circumstances, Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell should get a lifetime contract and defensive coordinator Brian Flores should be an NFL head coach in 2025.

It’s not that the Vikings lack talent overall. It’s that they will try to compete in one of the league’s strongest divisions without an NFL starting quarterback on their roster.

The Vikings will announce their initial 53-man roster sometime Tuesday, a day after ESPN released its list of top 100 NFL players.

The relative quality of the Vikings’ roster, and that top 100 list, indicate the same thing:

To win, this Vikings team will need to maximize production from its non-quarterbacks, avoid impactful injuries and win close games, probably while playing an offensive style that is diametrically opposed to O’Connell’s preferred methodology.

Is it possible? Certainly. The NFL surprises us every year.

Is it likely? No.

The Vikings’ brain trust should be credited with scrambling to fix a broken team that lost two of its three most important players — quarterback Kirk Cousins and pass rusher Danielle Hunter — in free agency.

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But that scramble tells you exactly what a scramble in an NFL game tells you — that the original plan collapsed.

Acquiring Shaq Griffin, Stephon Gilmore and Fabian Moreau? Great.

Acquiring three veteran cornerbacks because your drafted cornerbacks couldn’t play? Not good.

Signing Sam Darnold to provide a bridge between Cousins and J.J. McCarthy as your franchise quarterbacks? Fine.

Asking Darnold to win after failing with three other teams? Not good.

Signing Justin Jefferson to a record-breaking contract? A must.

Realizing that you just paid a record amount to a wide receiver who isn’t going to be set up for record-breaking success in this offense? Bad timing.

ESPN’s top 100 NFL players list, like all internet lists, exists more to spur arguments than to end them, but it does provide insights into the Vikings’ talent level.

Cousins and Hunter are on the list.

There are three current Vikings on the list: Jefferson, tight end T.J. Hockenson and tackle Christian Darrisaw.

Jefferson is a great player dealing with hamstring soreness. Hockenson is recovering from a knee injury. Darrisaw is an excellent young player who might not yet have reached his peak, if his training camp encounter with Myles Garrett is any indication.

Two of the three Vikings on the new top-100 list will depend on Darnold to get them the ball, playing in an offense that will be forced to emphasize the running game.

To win, or even play meaningful games in December, the Vikings will have to become a power-running team that wins close games with defense.

Final cut-down day is an overrated date on the NFL calendar. The roster is never really finalized and will be in flux every week of the season.

What cut-down day can offer is a referendum on certain draft classes.

For the Vikings, the 2022 draft remains a problem.

Which remains problematic but is increasingly interesting.

Vikings General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah whiffed on his draft-day strategy in 2022, trading out of a position where he could have taken star safety Kyle Hamilton and instead spending his first two picks on failed defensive backs Lewis Cine and Andrew Booth Jr. He also chose linebacker Brian Asamoah, another disappointment, in the third round and struggling cornerback Akayleb Evans in the fourth.

But Adofo-Mensah might have done better than expected drafting underappreciated offensive players in 2022.

Late-second-round pick Ed Ingram is a solid starter at guard. Fifth-round running back Ty Chandler is dynamic. Sixth-round pick Jalen Nailor is the third receiver. Tight end Nick Muse could make the team.

You’d rather have Hamilton, but those offensive players are in the large group of players on this roster who possess talent and will need to overachieve this season if the Vikings are to contend.