Will the Vikings Regret Not Landing the Big Fish in Free Agency?
No doubt, Minnesota put in work back in March, welcoming a pile of new players who should make a positive difference. Among these players are EDGE Jonathan Greenard, EDGE Andrew Van Ginkel, RB Aaron Jones, LB Blake Cashman, and CB Shaq Griffin. Oh, and a new QB1 in Sam Darnold (at least for 2024).
Will the Vikings end up regretting a decision they didn’t make, though?
Going into free agency, all of the rumors surrounded a potential reunion between DC Brian Flores and DT Christian Wilkins. The pair have a history from their Miami days. Making things look promising was that the Vikings were sitting on some cap flexibility and a major need for a pass-rushing defensive lineman. Perfect fit, right?
Will the Vikings Regret Not Landing Christian Wilkins?
Robert Frost is a cherished American poet from the early twentieth century. His “Road Not Taken” may allow us to understand what’s going on in the 2024 NFL offseason.
Sit in a university classroom and the guy or gal at the front of the room — better known as the professor — will tell you that the speaker of the poem isn’t to be trusted. He is reflecting on not being able to “travel both” of the “roads [that] diverged in a yellow wood.” The reflections go on to note that the paths looked “really about the same” but that doesn’t stop the speaker from making the climactic statement at the end: “I took the one less travelled by, / And that has made all the difference.”
The speaker’s hindsight romanticizes the decision even though the pair of paths were close to indistinguishable. To a certain extent, then, we shouldn’t trust the proclamation at the end that choosing a certain path “made all the difference.” Life can be unpredictable and sometimes the decisions we make are random. Attributing ultimate meaning to these decisions can sometimes be a fool’s errand.
Does Frost help us to understand what Minnesota decided to do? Or, perhaps, what they didn’t do?
In free agency, there were a pair of paths. Unlike Frost’s speaker, the Vikings felt like they could see far enough down the roads to understand that there’s a clear difference. Kevin O’Connell spoke to this reality while at the Annual League Meeting, noting that the reinforcements along the edge ended up being the priority after missing on some DT talent in free agency.
No doubt, Christian Wilkins would have been a perfect fit for the Vikings.
Lining up alongside Harrison Phillips, Wilkins would have made the interior pass rush a force to be reckoned with. The 6’4″, 310-pound defender piled up 9 sacks, 23 QB hits, and 10 tackles for a loss in 2023. No one one on Minnesota’s defensive line has soared to those pass-rushing heights.
For the most part, Wilkins did his damage as a 3T and 5T, the precise position where Minnesota could use some help. Jerry Tillery, Levi Drake Rodriguez, and Jonah Williams are being leaned on to do damage, but it would be shocking to see them rise to Wilkins’ level.
The issue, of course, is the money.
Las Vegas lured the defender to Sin City via a four-year pact that promises to pay $110 million. Too rich for the Vikings. Instead, Jonathan Greenard got added for a four-year pact that promises to pay $76 million. The discrepancy between the deals helped Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to lure plenty of other players to Minnesota.
The Vikings, in short, looked at two roads that diverged in free agency’s woods and opted for the one without the major addition. Will the Vikings regret that move or will they look back and echo Frost’s poem by stating that it made all the difference?
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference, PFF, and Over the Cap helped with this piece.
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K. Joudry is the Senior Editor for Vikings Territory and PurplePTSD. He has been covering the Vikings full time since the summer of 2021. He can be found on Twitter and as a co-host for Notes from the North, a humble Vikings podcast.