The Minnesota Vikings have gotten a great free agency haul over the first few days with the trenches being the biggest focus of their haul. In fact, the Vikings now have the most spending on the offensive line.
The fanbase has been begging for the Vikings to fortify the trenches, especially the offensive line, for years and years. In fact, the interior of the offensive line has arguably been an issue since the departure of Steve Hutchinson after the 2011 season.
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Vikings hit potential jackpot in Will Fries
One of the first moves that the Vikings made was fortifying the trenches. First, it was center Ryan Kelly on Monday night with it being quickly followed up on Tuesday morning with defensive tackle Jonathan Allen, defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, and right guard Will Fries.
The latter of those is the one that Vikings fans have been wanting for a long time. They haven’t spent major money on a guard since the infamous poison pill incident of 2006 when they signed Steve Hutchinson to a seven-year, $49 million contract. It changed the Vikings franchise quickly and they emerged as a contender.
Fries was one of the last picks in the 2021 NFL Draft when the Vikings selected him with the 250th overall pick out of Penn State. Fries was a tackle in college before transitioning to guard as a rookie. He’s only played guard in the National Football League with just a single snap at left tackle in 2022.
Fries became the starter at right guard in 2022 and has played 2,057 offensive snaps in his career. He only started five games in 2024 due to suffering a fractured tibia in the week five game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Before that, Fries showed the exact profile that general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah looks for in a player he gives a long-term contract.
It didn’t take long into the film to see why Fries is as good as he is. The first play I saw was Fries get knocked back a step, but he re-anchors quickly against Kenny Clark. Needless to say, there will be a lot of domination from Fries.
Pass protection has been a big factor for the Vikings. Before being traded away on Thursday, Ed Ingram was the guy at right guard and he struggled, allowing 63, 42, and 26 pressures over his three seasons and 41 games. Fries has only allowed 57 pressures over his first four seasons on 1,220 pass blocking reps. That would be a significant improvement over both Ingram and Dalton Risner, who played some right guard last season.
What’s impressive to me is how strong Fries is. He also keeps leverage in a great spot, one thing that he is very consistent with. That strength really shows up in all facets of his game.
He doesn’t just use leverage when standing up, Fries’ core strength comes out in a big way as well. He can twist his midsection and reach across his body to seal the defender. That is a really nice ability with how the Vikings like to use zone run concepts where the guard will be often ask to reach and climb to the second level.
When Ingram was the right guard, one of the things that he struggled with was handling stunts. Ingram didn’t have a good feel for passing them off and it became a huge issue. Not even Brian O’Neill could fix that.
Fries and Kelly are really good at passing off stunts and they did so against the Green Bay Packers all game. Now, the stunts ran by the Packers were inherently bad, but it’s still noteworthy that they can do so with consistency. Having that ability will be huge for protecting J.J. McCarthy.
The last thing that should be really exciting about Fries is his mean streak. He moves very well, which maximizes the damage he can do. Pair with that the mean streak and strength profile and you have a grade A destroyer on the interior.
This kind of play looks exactly like something Hutchinson would have done and it’s one that the Vikings haven’t had at guard in years. Christian Darrisaw buries players into the ground like that, but you don’t see that from either
Is Fries perfect? Of course not. He struggles at times with run blocking and doesn’t always aim well when going to the second level. However, this is exactly what the Vikings need at right guard: consistency and destructive force. Turning 27 in April, Fries has a very bright future ahead of him.
It is somewhat of a risk, as Fries is coming off a broken tibia. That should heal nicely and he will be ready for week one. That’s become somewhat of a market inefficiency that Adofo-Mensah is exploiting and it looks to be paying major dividends.
Adofo-Mensah finally addressed the need in a major way and it could end up leading the Vikings to the Super Bowl.