The Minnesota Vikings made several big splashes this offseason, spending a whopping $123 million in first-year cash on the team’s new additions. They added a ton of outside talent, signing six outside players — Will Fries, Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave, Ryan Kelly, Isaiah Rodgers, and Jordan Mason — to deals exceeding $5 million per year.
All of those players appear to feature prominently in Minnesota’s plans for 2025. Mason is the only one who may not be a starter, but his deal puts him 19th among RBs, which means he should be expected to play a significant role as a complement to Aaron Jones. As such, it’s important to get familiar with their abilities and determine what they can contribute to the team in 2025 and beyond.
I watched each player’s tape to get a feel for who they are. You can read my full breakdown of Will Fries here. For the rest, we’ll look at their game through the lens of three plays, exploring each player’s range of abilities.
Jonathan Allen
The thing that pops most with Allen’s game is his excellent hand-fighting. He has great hands and uses them to proficiently disengage from opposing blockers. Allen will often attack blockers square on, then use a move to disengage and get around them. He still has some quickness, but he primarily wins by beating his opponents technically.
Allen’s pressure below against the Detroit Lions in the NFC Divisional round is a great example. Allen (No. 93) is lined up against LG Graham Glasgow. Allen can shock Glasgow with his natural strength on contact, and then he uses a swim move to get around him and pressure Jared Goff. Note how Allen pulls Glasgow forward with his right hand, causing Glasgow to lean forward and making it easy for Allen to swim over him.
Allen’s play strength shows up frequently in the run game. He regularly holds his ground against one-on-one blocks. There were some slight struggles against double teams, but he is a rugged player who holds up to individual blockers and shows good technique to prevent opponents from executing drive blocks.
The play below showcases Allen’s power. He’s facing off with Glasgow again on a zone running play. Allen can move laterally with Glasgow and use his strength to maintain the line of scrimmage. Glasgow’s goal is to push Allen downfield, but if you watch his feet, they never come off the white of the 15-yard line. That slows down RB Jahmyr Gibbs‘ ability to hit the hole and gives Dante Fowler time to run the play down from the back side:
Despite his natural strength, Allen occasionally plays too high. He’s also a less-than-stellar athlete at this point in his career and had multiple reps where he fell trying to turn in a way his body couldn’t match. Here’s an example of poor pad level, going against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ LT Tristan Wirfs in the run game:
Javon Hargrave
Despite being even older than Allen, Hargrave is an explosive interior pass rusher. In contrast with Allen’s play, Hargrave wins with a pure bull rush or his initial burst to get upfield and corner around opposing offensive linemen. Watching his tape, you see plenty of burst to win against offensive linemen on his first step, and you also need the power he can generate on his bull rush from his “natural leverage” (a creative way for me to call him short for a DT).
Take the play below where he’s rushing against Vikings LG Blake Brandel. On it, you see the immediate knockback Hargrave can get on contact; he pushes Brandel’s inside foot back a full two yards. Hargrave continues to drive, and Brandel is never able to anchor.
Hargrave was about to tag Darnold when the ball came out. You can also see that Hargrave didn’t really need to use his hands to do it — he just planted them in Brandel’s chest and drove with his feet.
Unfortunately, that power and leverage that Hargrave can play with as a bull rusher completely disappears in the run game. There are numerous examples of him getting driven far off the ball against the ground attack, limiting his ability to play on rundowns. He has shown the ability to disengage if blocked one-on-one but doesn’t have the anchor strength to hold up consistently, either.
Check out the play below, where Brandel and Garrett Bradbury combine to drive him well out of the play.
That said, Hargrave is still a very aware player on the football field. His experience has allowed him to get a great feel for opposing blocks. He gets great jumps on the ball and does a great job of recognizing screens.
On the play below, it almost seems like he has a precognition about the screen. He recognizes it before he makes contact with Brandel, as he immediately starts to shift to his right after engaging the block. I think he could tell just by the way Aaron Jones was moving, or maybe the fact that Bradbury didn’t slide over to help Brandel with him. Still, it really was an incredible find, and then he followed it up by disengaging from the block and chasing Jones to the sideline to get in on the tackle.
Ryan kelly
As mentioned in my Will Fries profile, Kelly also does a good job of moving players off the ball on double teams, although Fries and LG Quenton Nelson may be more of a driver of that movement than Kelly. Still, Kelly really shines in his ability to explode off the snap, get to, and execute his blocking assignment.
On the double team below, Kelly gets off the snap quickly and knocks Kenny Clark into the ground before turning up the field and getting his hands on Javon Bullard, who has come down into the box to fit the run. His contact with Bullard knocks him into a teammate and knocks him down, creating a pileup.
In pass protection, Kelly’s awareness of stunts shows his mental acuity. Here are several stunts Fries and Kelly easily picked up against the Green Bay Packers. Maybe I’m cheating by including a compilation rather than a single play, but offensive line is about consistency rather than single-play highlights, so it’s important to see more of the full picture.
While he has great veteran savvy, Kelly’s play strength probably isn’t where it was at the peak of his career. In pass protection, there are times when he will get walked back by opposing bull rushes, which could lead to pressures on extended dropbacks. Importantly, Kelly lacks the instant losses we sometimes saw with a player like Bradbury and consistently makes it difficult for opponents to get to the passer. Still, there will likely be instances where he gives up pressure against powerful rushes.
Here’s a good example of what happens when Kelly gets overpowered on a bull rush. He’s still able to strain his back and slow the rush down, and the ball gets out. However, QB Anthony Richardson would have been moved off his spot if this had been an extended rep.
Isaiah Rodgers
Rodgers is a sticky outside CB. He has great speed that he trusts and the flexibility to match with receivers breaking at any point down the field. Those skills are required to play man coverage in the NFL, and Rodgers has them. He also showed the ability to turn and find the ball in phase regularly, including an impressive bat to C.J. Gardner-Johnson for an interception after he covered Ja’Marr Chase on a vertical route.
The play below is a great showcase of Rodgers’ movement skills and his confidence. He’s at the top of the screen, and before the snap, he points at WR Jerry Jeudy to tell him to step back to avoid an illegal formation penalty. That’s the kind of thing you can only do if you’re confident and Rodgers locks Jeudy down.
Starting from a press alignment, he’s patient with Jeudy’s break, then turns to follow him upfield before quickly breaking on his outside stem. Rodgers showed great hips to turn outside and then turn upfield when Jeudy converts the route into a double move, pinning Jeudy to the sideline.
Rodgers also does a really good job of transitioning downhill and breaking on the ball against short curl routes. While Rodgers has great movement skills, opposing receivers can sell him on routes and allow open space. He tends to react too early and flip his hips in the wrong direction, allowing receivers to go the other way. That can happen when a receiver fakes inside then goes out, or fakes outside then goes in or threatens vertically and breaks his route off into a comeback like Brian Thomas did on the play below:
Rodgers played primarily outside CB for the Philadelphia Eagles and was often asked to be a Quarters defender. That meant he played with outside leverage and became susceptible to in-breaking routes. However, that’s difficult to defend for any player. Still, receivers beat Rodgers relatively often this way when asked to play man coverage or when his quarters responsibility turned into playing a deep in-breaker.
When Rodgers got beat, a major concern showed up in his game: His lack of physicality. Rodgers was perfectly willing to come forward and make hits or tackle against receivers on screens or after the catch downfield. However, he really struggled when trying to wrap up receivers. His small, 5’10”, 170 lb. frame really showed up as he tried to tackle, whether on comeback routes or routes running across the field. He also seemed to avoid contact when players tried to block him, shying away and backing down the field rather than attacking blocks.
The play below is an example of Rodgers getting beaten inside and lacking physicality. Puka Nacua beats him inside, and the excellent Los Angeles Rams WR drags him for what seems like 20 yards after the catch.
jordan mason
Mason earned his contract with the Vikings after they traded for him because of his consistent, high-level zone running. He’s an extremely smart player who consistently finds the correct hole, has the burst to hit that hole, and shows great movement skills to make small redirections to maximize yardage. Mason takes the yards that are there rather than trying to look for the home run. He runs through arm tackles and light contact and finishes runs well by lowering his pads into contact and falling forward consistently.
The play below is a great example of his ability to find space and execute. His movement skills, in particular, are impressive. After making his initial cut upfield, he transitions to change direction multiple times without slowing himself down, which is not a skill every back possesses. Mason is a smooth, rather than a stop-start, runner.
Mason isn’t a top-end athlete, but don’t let that scare you away from him as a full-time player. Unlike an Alexander Mattison, he has strong burst through the hole and consistently executes on holes in front of him. Mason just doesn’t have the elite speed to pull away from defenders and score explosive TDs. Last year, he had 23 rushes for 10-plus yards on 153 carries, including nine for 20-plus. He just wasn’t quite able to finish them off.
The play below is a good example, where he showcases good athleticism to hurdle Ivan Pace, the carry with his burst to run past Cam Bynum. Still, he can’t finish that acceleration, and Andrew Van Ginkel catches him from behind.
Mason doesn’t add much more than your average back in the pass game. The San Francisco 49ers didn’t ask him to run interesting routes all that often, although he was regularly leaking from the backfield as they got five players out into the route. They also seemed to avoid asking him to pass protect, with just 24 reps in pass pro on the year, seeming to prefer Kyle Juszczyk in pass protection. I can’t really blame them; Juszczyk is a unique player. It’s similar to what the Vikings did with C.J. Ham last year.
That being said, despite the limited pass pro reps, I really liked what I saw from Mason in pass protection. At 5’11” and over 220 lbs., he’s a rugged player who held up well with strong technique. Look at the rep below against Blake Cashman. Mason squares up, delivers a strong punch, resets his hands for another punch, and follows through with the rep until Cashman is on the ground. That’s really high-level stuff.
