Why the Vikings have not done enough in the 2022 offseason
By Luke Parrish
Did the Minnesota Vikings do well in free agency?
Free agency is always an exciting time as the Vikings tend to get bargain deals and fill the roster in ways they don’t expect. Once again this year, the Vikings added beef to the defensive line with Harrison Phillips and made their lone splash signing by stealing Za’Darius Smith from reuniting with the Ravens.
They really did not do anything that flips their roster into a contender in free agency on the defensive side of the ball. Smith is going to create a nice tandem with Danielle Hunter off the edge and the defensive front should be solid but the Vikings failed to add any true impact players in the secondary.
On offense, Minnesota decided that the best way to fix the interior offensive line would be to throw as many bargain darts at the dartboard and hope that literally any of them stick. They now head into camp with Chris Reed, Jesse Davis, Wyatt Davis, and Oli Udoh as the veterans fighting for a starting job.
That sort of approach simply has not worked for a handful of years, so expecting it to work in 2022 would be overt optimism.
Garrett Bradbury, according to most fans, was surely on his last leg and was set to be out of Minnesota by the time next season kicked off. However, he has been awarded the starting center job by virtue of the team doing nothing to challenge him for it.
J.C. Tretter is still available, I know, but the chances of him signing in Minnesota are slim and I am not necessarily a fan of paying him the contract that he will get. Tretter is old, has bad knees, and has been vocal about his disdain for playing on turf.
Factor all of that with his previous experience with Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who has yet to make a move for the star center, and it seems pretty clear that the Vikings are not the best match.
So, after all of the concerns about fixing the interior offensive line, the Vikings are in line to essentially trot the same level of players out on the field to protect Kirk Cousins next season. That’s not good, folks.
One splash move in free agency is not shifting the tide in Minnesota’s favor, which fans should be well aware of after 2018.
With free agency out of the way, how did the Minnesota Vikings handle the 2022 NFL Draft?