Sunday marked the end of the season for the Minnesota Vikings, and everyone was tired.
The Vikings had just gone 7-10 and tied for last place with the Chicago Bears. Harrison Smith hinted at retirement. Nick Mullens burst into tears at the podium. Justin Jefferson was visibly frustrated. The online war about cheering for your team to win or get a top-10 draft pick raged on.
It served as the prelude for an offseason that will determine the front office’s fate and the direction of a franchise that hasn’t been to a Super Bowl since 1977. The Vikings will answer plenty of questions between now and when they hit the field at TCO Performance Center next August. But they should have one primary goal:
Make the Vikings fun again.
Sunday was a miserable day to be a Vikings fan. With a 32-to-1 parlay to make the playoffs, their chances of getting into the postseason were slim. The potential of gaining a top-10 draft pick was there. But the odds weren’t in their favor, and they moved up from pick No. 12 to No. 11 with the loss.
The game wasn’t much better. The Vikings gave up 311 passing yards and turned the ball over twice to transform a potential upset of the NFC North Champion Detroit Lions into another frustrating defeat.
One of the common refrains among fans was that they just wanted the season to end. Looking back, it might have been the best thing.
The year started with the Vikings cutting several fan favorites, including Adam Thielen, Eric Kendricks, and Dalvin Cook. The offseason continued when Minnesota went bargain-hunting, bringing in Marcus Davenport and Byron Murphy Jr. to replace Za’Darius Smith and Patrick Peterson.
Things got weirder when T.J. Hockenson “held in” while battling an ear infection and back injury during training camp. Then Jordan Addison had an alarming citation for driving 140 mph on I-94 last August.
A dark cloud hung over the Vikings when they didn’t reach contract extensions with Kirk Cousins or Justin Jefferson, and everything turned into a battle from there.
The Vikings started 1-4 and had to will their way back into contention. Cousins led the league in passing and had to fight for half the fanbase’s respect before tearing his Achilles. Jefferson and Alexander Mattison had to stave off angry fantasy football players in their DMs, and the overall theme of tanking versus building a culture looked like an all-out brawl.
The Vikings became fun during a two-week stretch when Josh Dobbs surprised everyone with his play. But that quickly fell apart with a home loss to the Bears and a 3-0 win over the Las Vegas Raiders that should stay in Vegas.
Minnesota’s season ended with a pair of failed “Tush Pushes” in Cincinnati, Jaren Hall‘s disastrous start, and Mullens’ 10 interceptions in four starts. The final image is Jefferson having one of his best games of the season, 12 catches for 192 yards and a touchdown, but looking visibly frustrated as the year officially went down the drain.
At this point, nobody was having fun. That sounds like a problem reserved for a Pop Warner football team, but it’s notable, considering sports should be an escape from their problems instead of a three-hour UFC fight.
Think back to all the times when the Vikings were a fun team. In 1998, they were a blast with Randy Moss, a young star receiver, and an offense that scored at a record pace. They still have a star receiver with Jefferson, but they must ensure he sticks around by signing him to a long-term extension this spring.
The Vikings need to do a lot of work to make themselves comparable to the 1998 team. That squad had Robert Smith in the backfield. This year, they had Alexander Mattison, who became the 13th running back since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger to not score a rushing touchdown in a year with at least 180 carries.
Dalton Risner is a pending free agent, but the offensive line is in a better place compared to two seasons ago.
The 2017 Vikings were also fun. They had a dominant defense that carried them to an NFC Championship game. While Brian Flores succeeded in turning Minnesota’s defense into a respectable unit, he also could be one-and-done, leading to great uncertainty on one side of the ball.
Most of the players from that 2017 defense are gone. That’s the most critical part of Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s competitive rebuild. While keeping Danielle Hunter around is ideal, he could also be out of Minnesota’s price range. If he leaves in free agency, the Vikings will have to try to find his replacement while upgrading the secondary and defensive line.
But Minnesota’s biggest question of the offseason will be at quarterback. In 2009, the Vikings were on a magic carpet ride with 40-year-old Brett Favre, whose “Silver Fox” swagger led Minnesota to the NFC Championship game. That was so much fun, right up until it wasn’t.
While Cousins is a lightning rod for fans, he also has had his moments. He led the Vikings to eight comeback victories a year ago and embraced his “Kirko Chainz” persona until his injury last October.
Re-signing a quarterback coming off a torn Achilles is risky. However, it could provide an effective bridge if he wants to stay at a reasonable price. If he doesn’t, the Vikings will have to move on. But his return could at least lead Minnesota back to the playoffs, which would be a reasonable goal for next year.
Still, another avenue could make the Vikings even more fun. The last time the Vikings had the 11th-overall pick, they took Daunte Culpepper, a strong-armed quarterback out of Central Florida. Culpepper sat one season behind Jeff George and Randall Cunningham before forming one of the most dangerous quarterback-receiver duos in team history.
With Culpepper throwing the ball as far as he could and Moss running as fast as he could to get it, the Vikings went to the NFC Championship in 2000. However, they fell to 5-11 in 2001. Although they took a step back in 2002, they started 6-0 before Nathan Poole knocked them out of the playoffs in 2003. A year later, Moss’ mooning incident at Lambeau Field helped Minnesota beat the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card round.
Those were largely 8-8 or 9-7 teams, but they were a blast to watch. The Vikings shouldn’t try to turn themselves into a hot mess. But it would be better than their current iteration, which lacks identity and seems to have fallen behind their NFC North counterparts.
Detroit Lions fans can find optimism in a core that includes young stars Amon-Ra St. Brown, Aidan Hutchinson, and Sam LaPorta. The Packers found another quarterback to succeed Aaron Rodgers. The Bears have $60 million in cap space and the No. 1-overall pick. And the Vikings …have some really difficult questions.
It’s time for the Vikings to make this team fun again, and it has to happen this offseason.
