When teams attack free agency, they aren't just targeting talented football players. There are many different facets to bringing players into the organization. Talent, contract structure, scheme fit, and player health are all different factors to consider.
The Minnesota Vikings are an interesting organization when it comes to how they prioritize their talent acquisition. They used the compensatory formula to their advantage in multiple ways this offseason, but it's one area that gives them an advantage that other teams don't have.
Kevin O'Connell raves about Vikings' training staff
The Vikings have shown a trend of bringing in players who are injured. It's a strategy where the Vikings feel they can get an advantage on the open market. General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has been known to try and find advantages on the market and he's identified injured players as one of those.
Head coach Kevin O'Connell was asked about that and gave a long answer that dives into everything with player health. Strap in, it's a good one.
"Yeah, I think, you know, every more and more every year, it's more of like Tyler and those they got them like, we're gonna be just fine. They've just proven time and time again, world-class down there with what they do. Same with, you know, we're really excited about Joe down in the strength and conditioning space with, you know, being able to keep Marquis and Dan, you know, in a world where the players now have the resources that with Ben, in the in the nutrition world, all of that plays into it. All of that is an idea of, how do we maximize our roster? But also combined with what we want to do, schematically and as football coaches, with what we can offer? We've just seen Aaron Jones and some of these guys that have either come off injury, Andrew Van Ginkel from the foot injury a year ago, and their second team all-pro, Aaron Jones playing 17 games. It just feels to me like we can use the resources but also the collaborative approach that I have with all of them to build a year-round schedule that maximizes every one of our 17 ops.
"Also, their expertise, not only Tyler, but our doctors, of what is the injury, where's the timeline on that injury? And then what are, what would we envision our process or return to play, kind of analysis, and then what actually happened? Because a lot of times you look at Jonathan Allen, I mean, torn pec, and then ends up coming back and playing and not just playing, he played pretty darn well when he did come back. So you have to take all that into account each situation, although injuries as a whole are very easy to paint with a broad brush if they sign a bunch of your guys. Well, it's not that simple, and it's more it's more something where you have to treat each one of its own because each player is going to come back, either on their own timeline, or all these guys are ready to go for the offseason program. That's a lot of your players every year. I mean, we have many guys that have different things come up during the season. They don't miss a single snap, but then they need to get things handled as the offseason extended."
That's a long-winded answer from O'Connell, but there are a lot of interesting nuggets in there. The biggest being the plan of attack to get them in game shape and keep them that way. Van Ginkel and Jones are the poster players for just that after their injuries in 2023. When you have the second-best training staff according to the NFLPA survey,
The hope is that Fries, Allen and Hargrave are the next up to play the entire season and the training staff has proven they can do it.
