Daily Norseman
The first article from one of our newest writers!
Hey, all! This is the first article from Shawn, who is one of the two people we selected from the contest we ran earlier this year about joining the DN team. Welcome him aboard! -Chris
First and foremost, I want to thank the Daily Norseman leadership for the opportunity to join the contributor team. I’m incredibly fortunate and grateful for the opportunity. Here’s hoping to provide the DN community with the same kind of insightful and engaging content that has defined this site since its inception.
To quote the great 20th century philosopher Al Bundy: “Let’s Rock.”
With everyone at the DN covering the upcoming draft so thoroughly, any article on that would be both redundant and inferior; that can wait for another post. Instead, let’s have some lighthearted fun with this blank canvas and paint a picture of a successful 2025 Minnesota Vikings season.
I’ll address the QB position in a moment. As for the other starting 10, this is a superior unit to 2024 by any objective measure. Aaron Jones had a fantastic season, yet at age 30 and coming off a career-high in carries (255), a complement was needed. Enter Jordan Mason with his impressive YPC (5.2) and league-leading forced missed tackle rate (37.1%). I absolutely love this backfield. On the outside, Rondale Moore’s elite 4.28 speed and versatility in the run game brings an added dimension to the WR3 rotation. The main event, however, was in the interior trenches. The additions of Ryan Kelly and Will Fries were nothing short of a neutron bomb being thrown into the old way of doing things. There will be no more trying to coach guys up hoping they live up to their draft position. No more tackle-to-guard experiments. Enough was enough. Proven commodity time. The result? For the first time in what seems like an eternity, the interior offensive line may be…a strength? Perhaps. There are pesky age and injury concerns. At left guard, Blake Brandel could theoretically be supplanted with a poor offseason and training camp, but that assumes a viable alternative arises.
The additions of Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave make the front seven the most lethal since…2017? Definitely. As with the interior o-line additions, one must acknowledge age and injury issues. Totally fair. Yet if the stars align (yeah, yeah, I know…Vikings), it wouldn’t shock me if this front seven meets – if not exceeds – the heights of the peak Zimmer era. Unfortunately, the secondary welcomes uncertainty. Safety or cornerback could be the play at #24, we shall see. Chemistry and Flores’s unique scheme wrinkles could be an early factor with Isaiah Rodgers, Jeff Okudah, etc. How Mekhi Blackmon responds after a serious knee injury bears watching, as does the development and emergence of Theo Jackson at safety in a post-Cam Bynum reality. Harrison Smith returning for Year 14 calms the nerves for sure, but...
