There are a lot of talented players the Minnesota Vikings should be targeting to fortify their roster. If you ask the fan base, the biggest need is on the offensive line.
Now, offensive tackle isn’t a big issue. Sure, Christian Darrisaw is recovering from a torn ACL and MCL suffered against the Los Angeles Rams, but he is projected to return to the team in the 2025 season and Brian O’Neill had his best year in 2024. It’s the interior of the offensive line that needs work.
Garrett Bradbury is a bang average center with a major deficiency with his anchor. Blake Brandel is versatile but struggled without Darrisaw next to him and right guard was a mitigated disaster.
Vikings should avoid trading for Jonah Jackson
Improving the interior in some way, shape, or form should be a huge priority this March and April. They need to be careful on how they do it, as just adding players won’t necessarily fix the problem.
General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said as such during his season-ending press conference.
"I think having studied it, I would agree with what he said. What I would say is though, I think a lot of times everybody hears that and thinks the answer is kind of simple. And the answer can come from different ways. It can come from a different player. It could come from a player year over year improving. It could come from how we do things from a pass protection standpoint. Those two games revealed some issues in there that were tougher to overcome. How do you overcome them? And that's what's beautiful about football. It's this complex sport. If you want to run the football, there's a lot of ways to do it. You could maybe get better at receiver and make them play you a certain way. We’ll approach this off-season trying to fix the team with that creativity, that mindset in place. We'll collaborate with Kevin, but yeah, we want to be in a place where we're still playing football. And to win these last games, any potential places where teams can attack, you've got to be ready for, not just from your starting lineup, but from your two deep. And so we want to set ourselves up to be in that position and going from there."
We’ve seen the Vikings just try to add players to fix guard without a lot of success. Dakota Dozier, Dru Samoa, Alex Boone, and multiple day 3 draft picks have all been used with little to no success.
The one player that’s come to light this week is Rams left guard Jonah Jackson, who was given permission to seek a trade earlier this week.
Last offseason, Jackson signed a massive three-year, $51 million contract to be a force on the interior. Unfortunately, it didn’t manifest in the way they wanted.
Jackson only played in five games for the Rams in 2024 and the season was mostly lost. When he did play, he didn’t perform up to his contract and the Pro Football Focus grades reflect that.
- Overall: 67.6
- Pass Blocking: 59.5
- Run Blocking: 68.8
It’s not just the grades that were poor, he didn’t fit the scheme. Jackson’s best fit is with a man/gap/power scheme due to his lack of foot speed. In fact, the Rams signing him sent a signal to the world they might be shifting to that scheme with Kevin Dotson at the other guard spot. That didn’t happen, as they barely pulled any offensive linemen all season.
Just 10 times going into the divisional round game is absurdly low. It’s also a factor in the Vikings’ potential interest level.
Head coach Kevin O’Connell runs the same scheme as Rams head coach Sean McVay. If he didn’t work with McVay, why would he work in Minnesota? Fit is such a huge factor in running a zone scheme and that’s not what the Vikings need at the position.
Finding an improvement needs to happen, but giving up draft capital for a player who isn’t a fit with a massive contract wouldn’t be smart business.
