Minnesota Vikings 2022 Season Review

Alright well that was a heart attack ride right?

Since I last updated y'all, lots has happened. The Vikings dropped a miserable loss to the Packers of all teams and then achieved a rare multi score win in Chicago to close the regular season. Then in the wild card round, Minnesota dropped an extremely winnable game to the upstart Giants. Very accurate for a Minnesota season.

The Vikings came into this season with kind of all over the map expectations. Plenty of fans saw the potential in this team, just with the right leadership could go a long ways. That came true this season, even if the national media didn't see it that way. Regardless of how the Vikings pulled off the victory, they did win 13 games this season. That is the most in a season for Minnesota since 2017, and I believe only 5th or 6th time the Vikings have achieved that mark. Its nothing to scoff at, even despite their bad loss in the playoffs. In Kevin O'Connell's first year as Vikings head coach, he brought a team that was previously 8-9, to a 13-4 playoff season. That is an insane achievement for a first year head coach! 

The biggest storyline of course though was how the purple won games. Minnesota set a new NFL record for most one score wins in a single season, and was perfect in one score games until the wild card loss to the Giants. The Vikings' only multi score wins this season were against the Packers in Week 1 and against the Bears in Week 18, weirdly ironic. Justin Jefferson was the team's undisputed MVP this season after breaking the franchise single season receiving yards record set by Vikings great Randy Moss. He finished with an exact 1,800 yards through the air, and was under 100 yards short of the NFL record. Obviously, he won the NFL receiving yards title this year, and is in the lead for NFL Offensive Player of the Year. He has even been named a finalist for NFL Most Valuable Player. Many expect Jefferson to receive a big money extension in the offseason, which will be interesting since he isn't the only player the Vikings have to pay. 

Another big storyline this year was the awful unit the Vikings called a defense this season. The once-vaunted defense finished near or at the bottom in the NFL in multiple categories this season. While the offense was able to overcome this weakness 13 times this season, the worst one of the year was in the wild card round when the defense gave up 200+ total yards to the Giants in the first half alone. 
While many called for defensive coordinator Ed Donatell's firing after the season ended, I in particular called for more. During the season it just kept appearing that this couldn't be cause Donatell is a terrible coach, he has coached many great defenses in his lengthy NFL career. I just believe this defense is broken beyond repair in its current form and I think they just rip the whole thing apart. No one is safe from being traded or released, included fan-favorites in Danielle Hunter, Eric Kendricks, and Harrison Smith. Personally, I believe almost every defensive position should be on the Vikings wish list for the draft. Except for defensive end, as I would keep Hunter and Za'Darius Smith. Ed Donatell was already fired just a few days after the season ended. In fact, the Vikings announced their hire of the new defensive coordinator this week. It is recently successful coach Brian Flores, who just over a year ago was finishing up a season with the Miami Dolphins. He will be a great coach for this defense, and I am very excited to see how this turns out for Minnesota.

In the coming weeks we will see just how committed the Vikings are to some of their best players. As I mentioned earlier, the Vikings plan to extend Justin Jefferson this offseason. But they also have a number of players that will become free agents this offseason. I would expect Minnesota to resign kicker Greg Joseph, longsnapper Andrew DePaola, backup QB Nick Mullens, and potentially cornerback Duke Shelley. Other then that, I believe the rest of the free agent list could be gone. That includes backup running back Alexander Mattison who has been a safety net for the Vikings over the last few years. I also believe they will let go of tight end Irv Smith Jr, corner Patrick Peterson, center Garrett Bradbury, defensive end Dalvin Tomlinson, and tackle Oli Udoh. I also believe they will not tender any offers around practice squad players Ben Ellefson (TE) and Kenny Willekes (OLB) as they would have signed them to futures contracts by now. There are also some that believe homegrown wide receiver Adam Thielen has played his last games in a purple uniform for now, which would be really sad in my opinion. Adam has been one of my personal favorite Vikings over the last 10 years, and I can't imagine him playing anywhere else in the NFL. And while Brian Flores typically favors a good free safety such as storied veteran Harrison Smith, I do have to wonder if Smith will be gone this offseason as well. Like I said before, we will know a lot in the coming weeks.

The Vikings next course of action will be the NFL Scouting Combine at the end of February down in Indianapolis. After that, the next big event is the NFL Draft in Kansas City at the end of the April. 

Until then, Vikings fans.

​#SKOL