How the Vikings' 2025 Free Agency Class Has Aged, One Year Later

The Vikings generated a ton of excitement with their 2025 free agent class last spring. Coming off a 14-win season, their bold choice to let Sam Darnold walk gave them the room to go out and load up in the trenches. And they did just that.

In need of a defensive tackle, the Vikings went out and signed not one, but two former Pro Bowlers in Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave. In need of interior offensive linemen, they added former Colts teammates Will Fries and Ryan Kelly, giving Fries a huge five-year deal worth up to $87 million. At cornerback, they re-signed Byron Murphy Jr. and added Isaiah Rodgers from the Eagles at Brian Flores' behest. They also rounded out their depth with various one-year deals for players like Justin Skule, Eric Wilson, and Rondale Moore.

Below are the 11 players who got at least $2 million in average salary from the Vikings. Many of the contracts look bigger than their actual functional price, based on how the guarantees were structured.

CB Byron Murphy Jr: 3 years, $54 million
G Will Fries: 5 years, $87.7 million
DT Jonathan Allen: 3 years, $51 million
DT Javon Hargrave: 2 years, $30 million
C Ryan Kelly: 2 years, $18 million
CB Isaiah Rodgers: 2 years, $11 million
LB Eric Wilson: 1 year, $2.6 million
CB Jeff Okudah: 1 year, $2.3 million
DB Tavierre Thomas: 1 year, $2 million
OT Justin Skule: 1 year, $2 million
WR Rondale Moore: 1 year, $2 million

A year later, how has the class aged? The short answer is not very well.

Murphy was OK in 2025 and led the Vikings in defensive snaps, but he didn't come close to repeating his Pro Bowl season from a year earlier. Fries led the Vikings in offensive snaps as their lone offensive lineman who didn't miss any time, but he was also merely OK.

Allen and Hargrave did not exactly live up to the hype. They combined for 65 pressures and seven sacks on the season. Both were outplayed by former UFL star Jalen Redmond, who emerged as the Vikings' best defensive tackle. Allen played a heavy load of snaps but didn't grade very well, at least by PFF. Hargrave graded better but didn't play as much, averaging just over 33 snaps per game.

Kelly was excellent when he played. The issue is that he suffered three concussions and was limited to eight games. Rodgers looked like a genius signing when he put together one of the greatest individual defensive games in NFL history in Week 3. Outside of that game, he was merely solid.

Isaiah Rodgers | Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Vikings' best signing, by far, was linebacker Eric Wilson, who emerged as a perfect fit in Flores' scheme and one of their most consistently impactful defensive players. Most of the other depth signings were busts. Skule struggled when thrust into action at tackle, Moore and Okudah got hurt again, and Thomas was involved in some key special teams mishaps (though he also did some good things in that phase).

On paper, the Vikings' plan — roll with J.J. McCarthy on a rookie contract, load up in the trenches — made sense. It just didn't pan out in the slightest. McCarthy was a disaster in both health and performance. The money the Vikings allocated elsewhere by going cheaper at quarterback didn't provide the desired return on investment. And oh yeah, Darnold won the Super Bowl as the Seahawks' QB. As a result, it wasn't shocking when GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was fired this offseason.

With all of that said, the book on the Vikings' 2025 free agent class isn't closed just yet. Fries, Murphy, and Rodgers will almost certainly be back in 2026. One of Allen or Hargrave will likely be a cap casualty, but one will probably stick around. And the way the contracts were structured will make it easy for the Vikings to move on from Kelly and one of the defensive tackles.

Last year's free agent haul wasn't nearly as successful as the Vikings' 2024 group, but it also doesn't have to cripple the franchise moving forward.

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