Top Concerns Lurking Beneath the Surface for the Vikings

Some have great expectations for the 2025 Vikings, but a few hidden concerns could derail things. Here’s what fans should monitor.

The 2025 campaign might be a little optimistic for fans to pound the table for a Super Bowl, but if quarterback J.J. McCarthy evolves into a top-tier quarterback, the next few years could open a championship window.

Still, some concerns linger beneath the surface, and these are those items for 2025. They’re listed ascendingly (No. 1 = top concern).

Concerns to Track for the Vikings

There aren’t many, but there are a few meaty ones.

3. Leveraging Too Much for the 2025 Season Alone

The Vikings spent over $350 million in free agency, a jaw-dropping figure that proved the purple team is “in it to win it” as early as this season. Fans rejoiced — as they should. General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is serious about pushing his chips into the middle of the table for a Super Bowl run.

Kyle Joudry wrote about the cap situation this week, “With roughly $363.3 million in cap commitments for 2026, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is staring down a slow-moving crisis. The fine folks at Over the Cap insist the Minnesota is in debt by roughly $60.8 million, so we’re dealing with an issue that’s going to be in the back of the front office’s mind until next March.”

“Solutions do exist — painful ones, such as cutting O’Neill, Kelly, as well as moving on from others, which is to say nothing of the possible extensions, restructures, etc. — but those things are a work in progress. Plus, extending Josh Metellus still needs to happen (his final Vikings season is currently in 2025) and the team will need to make at least some additions, moves that involve having open cap room.”

It’s a bit of an undercover Vikings storyline, really.

Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily … More about Dustin Baker