Film review: Vikings’ spending spree didn’t go far with these 2025 free agents

The holidays and silver linings are over.

Time to look at some of the non-quarterback reasons why the Vikings are sitting at home during the NFL playoffs.

Many of the Vikings’ big free-agent contracts handed out during the March 2025 spending spree did not provide immediate return on investment. Below, we will detail three of those players: guard Will Fries and defensive tackles Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave. Their fourth big-name free agent, center Ryan Kelly, played just eight games because of three concussions.

(All salary position rankings are via OverTheCap.com.)

2025 cap: $5.64 million (14th among NFL right guards)

2025 cash: $22 million (2nd)

Contract: Five years for a max of $87.7 million ($34 million guaranteed)

Fries admitted that leg injury still affected his first Vikings season. He signed a five-year deal worth up to $88 million in March but couldn’t practice fully until midway through training camp.

Typical offseason goals for growth were shelved. While Fries played a team-high 989 offensive snaps (98.8%) in 17 starts at right guard, taking pride in gutting through knee and calf injuries to play every game, he didn’t bring the Pro Bowl-caliber play commensurate with his salary.

He especially struggled in pass protection. The final tally as counted by Pro Football Focus had Fries surrendering a team-worst 37 quarterback pressures this season (tied for 58th of 61 NFL guards). Pressure can be a QB stat, too, if that young passer holds on to the ball too long. But Fries had quick losses that would have undercut any quarterback.

The 2021 seventh-round pick acknowledged that he’s got room to grow entering a fourth year as a full-time starter, and that he’s looking forward to doing so with a healthy offseason.

“I think there’s a lot more out there for me individually and our whole group,” Fries said Jan. 5. “I’m excited to get after it this offseason so I can continue to improve.”

“Will’s going to get better,” Phillips said Dec. 30. “He’s as football as they come. He’d love it if we ran it every play. He just wants to get dirty and maul people. He’s shown the ability to really move people, but he’s got to get connected. He can pass pro, but once again he’s got to get connected. He’s got to keep using his hands and using his punch. I think he’s an ascending player still, and I think we haven’t seen the best of what Will Fries has to offer.”

Below is a five-play cutup of Fries’ season. The first illustrates how his pairing with Kelly, his former Colts teammate, didn’t result in immediate symbiosis. They struggled at times to pick up D-line twists like this. The second play shows Fries’ strength to carry 340-pound Chicago Bears defensive tackle Andrew Billings out of a run play. The third, fourth and fifth plays are examples of Fries struggling to punch and “connect,” as Phillips said.

“You get a good rusher with some space,” Phillips said, “they start wiggling their head and their hips a little bit, and I think what all linemen are all fighting against is your natural reaction is to stop your feet and catch. That’s what you’re trying to train out of these guys constantly is to throw hands and keep their feet moving, punch.”

2025 cap: $6.42 million (34th among NFL defensive tackles)

2025 cash: $16.2 million (15th)

For the Vikings defense, the season’s opening drive proved telling. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores mostly relied on a four-man rush, including new additions Allen and Hargrave on the interior.

Bears quarterback Caleb Williams threw for three first downs and scrambled away from that four-man rush for a 9-yard touchdown to take a 7-0 lead.

Flores’ aggression steadily returned in that Week 1 win as well as throughout the season. The Vikings finished with an NFL-high 44% blitz rate, according to Pro Football Reference, up from a 39% rate that also led the league in 2024.

The results, once again, were a top 10 defense. While the Vikings finished with the same number of sacks (49) as last season, they were better considering they faced an NFL-low 447 throws and had the league’s second-best sack rate (9.9%).

How much did Allen have to do with that? Perhaps not as much as the contract suggested.

But while on the field, he struggled to consistently disrupt or finish plays in the backfield.

“I’m not going to say it’s been great,” Allen said of his play after seven Vikings starts. “I’m not going to say it’s been terrible. I think for me it’s just doing anything I can to help this team … playing the run, rushing the passer, finishing on the quarterback.”

Allen finished fifth on the team with 34 quarterback pressures, tying for 27th among NFL defensive tackles. That included 3½ sacks, tied for fifth on the team. Teammate Jalen Redmond had as many batted passes at the line of scrimmage (five) as Allen has had in his career, so it’s never been his game, but neither Allen nor Hargrave was able to knock down a pass this season.

In a poor tackling year for many on the Vikings defense, Allen was tabbed by PFF with a career-worst 11 missed tackles. The Vikings also struggled at times to stop the run, and Allen had seven tackles for losses (his fewest in a full season since 2020).

In the five-play cutup below, you’ll see Bears right tackle Darnell Wright move Allen off the line of scrimmage in Week 1. Against the Cleveland Browns in London, Allen tried a rip move on first-and-15 and opens up a lane for a 14-yard run. He showed patience on the backside of a zone run against Philadelphia in Week 7, generating one of his 28 run stops on the season. But in the same game, he was driven backward on a different run that you will see in the next play.

2025 cash: $15 million (19th)

Contract: Two years for a max of $30 million ($19 million guaranteed)

Like Allen, Hargrave also struggled to finish plays behind the line.

Hargrave finished his first, and perhaps only, season in Minnesota with 3½ sacks and four tackles for losses (or exactly half of his 2023 production in San Francisco, his last full season). He suffered a chest injury in Week 3 against Cincinnati but also had his playing time limited by coaches when healthy. His role dipped to 30-50% involvement in a three-game stretch against the Browns, Eagles and Los Angeles Chargers in October. He was even replaced by Levi Drake Rodriguez in the starting lineup in Los Angeles.

Hargrave told reporters to ask coaches about his lack of involvement. Flores cited his health but also acknowledged that he wanted Hargrave to “build” on a strong performance in Week 9 at Detroit.

Hargrave remained in the starting lineup for the rest of the season, playing anywhere from 35% to over 70% of games. He finished playing 537 defensive snaps (50.2%) in 16 games, missing only the Dec. 21 win at the New York Giants because of a thigh injury. At 32 years old, Hargrave proved to be plenty physical but not very consistent as the primary nose tackle under Flores.

In the four-play cutup below, you will see a couple examples of Hargrave not holding the line against the run. That’s a problem for any team’s designated nose. By Week 12 at Green Bay, he had become a steadier presence in the middle. The final play is the aforementioned Williams’ touchdown scramble back in Week 1, when Hargrave’s initial pass-rush pressure was there, but he fails to turn it into a truly disruptive play.