The film remains tough to watch.
Sam Darnold catches the shotgun snap and shuffles backward. He tries to survey the field but doesn’t have enough time. Los Angeles Rams defensive linemen have bulldozed the blockers in front of him, and Darnold can only tapdance his way around them for so long.
It’s not a stretch to say that last year’s wild-card playoff loss was a turning point for the Minnesota Vikings under general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and coach Kevin O’Connell. The demolition forced them to say enough. Believing in guards with clear deficiencies? No more. Faith in a run game when you can’t move defenders vertically? A thing of the past. Finally, the Vikings made it their offseason mission to fortify their offensive and defensive fronts.
This is still football, a game where the team with more mass tends to win. Cost was not going to prevent Minnesota from acquiring a higher degree of nastiness. Snarl was welcomed. O’Connell wanted bigger and meaner, but also more football-intelligent and aware. He found it in center Ryan Kelly, who will be vital to the development of young quarterback J.J. McCarthy. First-round pick Donovan Jackson was part of the investment, too.
But the player who embodies what the Vikings want to be this season more than any other? It might be the mountain of a man former All-Pro center Olin Kreutz called “a monster.” It might be Will Fries.
You can find the play. It’s during a 2023 game between the Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Titans. Fries is playing right guard.
The Colts are in the pistol formation. Quarterback Gardner Minshew receives the snap, then hands the ball off to running back Zack Moss. Fries’ task? Lurch and grab the position of Titans defensive tackle Teair Tart.
Fries lunges and grabs Tart’s upper body. Tart tries to escape Fries’ grasp. Fries moves with him, maintaining control and pushing Tart up the field. Moss is in the defense’s grasp at this point, but Fries doesn’t care. He shifts from blocking vertically to simply punishing Tart, pushing him into the turf. After being splayed out on his back, Tart stands up and asks for a flag from the referee. It’s not coming. Everything Fries executed was legal.
These types of finishes from Fries — against those types of defenders — earned the Vikings’ attention. As much as anything else, the aggression Fries plays with is why he was made one of the highest-paid right guards in the NFL. To underscore the point, nasty was necessary.
“We’ve got to find a way to solidify the interior of the pocket,” O’Connell said following the playoff loss to the Rams. “There could be 1,000 excuses made, but for me, it’s the foundation of the interior of the pocket that we’re going to have to take a long look at.”
On a more technical level, Fries should immediately help the offensive line in two critical areas: space creation in short yardage and stunt defusal in pass protection.
O’Connell arrived in 2022. Since then, Minnesota’s offense ranks near the bottom in red zone rushing efficiency. The team’s average yards before contact is the lowest in the league over that span. Also notable is that opponents stunted against the Vikings on 31.3 percent of snaps, according to Pro Football Focus, which was the highest percentage of stunts faced in the NFL last season. Defenders would feign one way, then loop across the face of the team’s interior.
Rarely did the Vikings have answers.
Enter Fries, now 27, who began his NFL career as a tackle but moved inside to right guard in 2022. He started nine games that season, then all 17 the following year. The advanced pass-blocking metrics that year ranked him near Kansas City Chiefs right guard Trey Smith. Last year, before Fries injured his right tibia, he was graded even higher. The Colts have ranked in the top half of the NFL in average yards before contact in the red zone in recent years.
“I could sit around and talk about him all day, man,” Kelly said this summer. “One thing he had was this mentality of, ‘No one’s going to outwork me.’ And also, he’s the ultimate glue guy.”
All of this is to say that, health permitting, Fries represents everything the Vikings coveted this offseason. How, then, did he fall to the seventh round in the 2021 draft? How has he been able to continue developing as a pro? The answers to these questions only further validate one of the Vikings’ most critical free-agent additions.
Fries’ offensive-line coach at Penn State, Matt Limegrover, is talking about Fries’ commitment to getting better.
“If I said to him, ‘Hey, you need to go out and spin around on your head 100 times a day, and you’ll be better,’” Limegrover said recently, “he would’ve done it. He was so hungry.”
The tales are almost legendary. In recent summers, he has sought out the help of Kreutz and other experts. He’ll travel to wherever they are. He’ll scribble pages of notes. He’ll even bunk at their houses so he doesn’t waste any opportunities to study more film.
Hand placement is often the focus. In college, Limegrover recognized that he needed help to catalyze Fries’ growth. Fries had been exposed by elite pass rushers such as Rashan Gary and Chase Young, and Limegrover connected with longtime NFL O-line coach Paul Alexander to get his thoughts on any advanced teachings he could provide. Alexander said Fries should stop striking defenders with both hands. Position one arm on the edge rusher’s outside shoulder, and put the other on the defender’s body. This would create enhanced leverage.
Fries adopted the strategy and wasn’t sideswiped as easily. He continued working at it after Indianapolis drafted him. The more you hear about the close combat at the line of scrimmage, the more it sounds like a prizefight. Every punch is calculated, and the effectiveness of the punches hinges on the specific angle at which they connect.
“When you’re facing really elite rushers who can do a multitude of different things and win different ways,” Fries said, “there are certain ways you have to set them. You have to set them inside-out. You can’t set too far one way or the other. They’ll take advantage. They’re reading what you’re doing.
“It’s the same thing with hand placement,” he continued. “If you’re stabbing too far outside or inside, it leaves you vulnerable. You just have to be super sharp and almost surgical.”
Precision does not occur randomly. It’s the result of a considerable amount of practice, committed by people who have an almost concerning level of passion. Fries fits that bill. Vikings offensive-line coach Chris Kuper has said that Fries wanted to review tape with him as soon as possible following his signing. Pair his hunger with the ability to apply lessons in real time, and you have the type of player who defines what the Vikings were hunting for this offseason.
Monday night in Chicago will present the team with its first chance at establishing a new play style, to steal from O’Connell’s lexicon. Fries will stand on the front line of that attempt.
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