EAGAN, Minn. – Ever wonder about the complexities in the NFL that don't discriminate?
One of the most common is digesting information at an insatiable clip, regardless of a player being an undrafted rookie – scratching and clawing sunup to sundown for roster posterity – or a first-round pick out of a premier college program. Yes, even the latter's brain does somersaults like an irritable stomach.
"Oh my gosh, man, it's night and day," second-year left guard Donovan Jackson expressed recently. "I was like a headless chicken trying to learn a foreign language with this playbook. But a year under my belt, I come out here, and now I'm actually [able to try] to get better in certain details and certain crafts."
The Vikings 24th overall pick out of Ohio State last spring has a tighter grasp on the responsibilities that matter to him – and the wellbeing of the offensive line in the grand scheme.
That's a notable development (that's an understatement), after Minnesota's intended starting five (ordered left to right) of Christian Darrisaw, Jackson, Ryan Kelly, Will Fries and Brian O'Neill played 83 snaps together in 2025 – 83 freaking snaps, or 0.08 percent of the 1,001 totaled by the Vikings offense.
View photos of Vikings players during minicamp practice on June 11 at the TCO Performance Center.
In hindsight, there were warning signs, so to speak. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days ago, Darrisaw was straining to return from a torn ACL and MCL that torpedoed his 2024 near its midpoint. He made his season debut in Week 3 last year – 11 months after his injury on Thursday Night Football – and pushed hard to be his usual self.
Considering, too, that Kelly and Fries arrived in free agency after their final go-rounds with the Colts were cut short by injuries, and that Fries probably dedicated as much time to his rehab from a broken leg as he could to reps with the offensive line until training camp, it's easy to get lost in a world of what-ifs.
What if the o-line had a spring and summer to coalesce? What if it had a proper runway to take off?
Fortunately, the unit is in starkly different shape, health-wise, entering 2026. The players hummed off the rock in the offseason program. They will reconvene for training camp toward the end of July with an intact starting five of Darrisaw, Jackson, Blake Brandel, Fries and O'Neill, and they'll do it with intentionality that promoted offensive line coach Keith Carter has redefined with refreshing intensity.
"I've loved looking over there, walking over there in practice and seeing the way those guys have worked," Offensive Coordinator Wes Phillips told local media members during mandatory minicamp.
"We have all those sports science trackers [that measure datapoints]," he continued. "Those guys are really, really working hard. Keith and his group have done a phenomenal job right from the start, setting the standards, setting the tone, the expectation for the group. And I think it's going to pay off for us."
Phillips noted what Fries endured to make it to the field, no less be the only one up front to fill his role for all 17 games, can be easily forgotten. The "rock" of that line lost some weight, according to Phillips, and per O'Neill, whom he trained with in Arizona earlier this offseason, is "as motivated as I've ever seen him."
Fries, for sure, is "moving a couple clicks faster" on the grass, O'Neill shared, and he's noticeably leaner. The team's longest-tenured offensive player, O'Neill, also piped that his tackle mate "looks unbelievable."
"I'm so fired up to get him back to what we know he is – and what we know he can be," he said of Darrisaw. "I hope people didn't forget who he is, because that's one of the best tackles in the NFL."
It's the absolute truth. Darrisaw arguably was a Pro Bowl snub in 2023 when he toed the left side of the line in 15 contests and cleared an 85.3 Pro Football Focus pass-blocking grade, good for the No. 3 mark among NFL tackles (min. 5 games). The year prior, "Big Dog" strutted his road-grading gusto, earning an elite 90.6 run-blocking score, which also landed third on the edges. He wasn't far off the top tally, either, belonging to 12-time Pro Bowl bookend Trent Williams (91.8). Furthermore, Darrisaw was a top-performing tackle in 2024, ranking 11th with an 81.4 overall grade before injury. Case in point, he's a proven commodity when he's healthy – and staying that way is a skeleton key to the team's success in 2026.
Phillips lauded Darrisaw's warrior work habits, saying the 23rd overall pick of 2021 may be seen "around here (the facility) at midnight sometimes getting his workouts in with a couple guys, leading the charge."
After rolling out 26 iterations of the offensive line in 2025 – yes, 26, the most tabulated by Stats Perform Research for the Vikings in a single season in more than a decade – a healthy Darrisaw and Fries are unequivocally vital. Not just to protect the quarterback but firmly establish the identity the Vikings seek.
Another heaping piece of the pie is Brandel's emergence.
The 29-year-old has a one-of-a-kind résumé in the building; 200-plus snaps at left tackle in 2022; nearly 200 snaps at right guard in 2023; full-time left guard duties in 2024, eclipsing 1,000 snaps; and one start at left guard, one at right tackle and seven at center in 2025. He was practically a five-position substitute last season, and now he's preparing to be the lone player guaranteed to touch the ball every single snap.
Brandel recently described the challenge of embracing his new role, while simultaneously trying to see what Carter sees from a coach's vantage point, as "a different beast, different animal." He has invited the chance to learn with fervor, however, plus the help of a readily available quarterback – his wife, Natalie.
"My thought process was if she could catch [my snaps], then the quarterbacks can," said Brandel, who admittedly had a few wild shotgun hikes playing the pivot for the first time. "She'd let me know if it was a bad snap."
Brandel was part of a Vikings collective that jaunted to the desert this offseason to sharpen tools with other NFL ironsides. Specifically, in Arizona, he trained alongside and picked the brains of former Vikings center Garrett Bradbury (on the Bears now), as well as Giants center and former Gophers All-American John Michael Schmitz, and Colts backup center Jimmy Morrissey, who played at Pittsburgh with O'Neill.
Brandel has long prided himself on being "a guy who knows what's going on and knows what to do – but center, like I said, it's a different animal." His focus areas include honing the center-quarterback exchange (the CQ) and expanding his sightlines because having heightened awareness of the defense is imperative.
"Everything is still relatively new," said Brandel, "but I feel like I'm on the right track."
Head Coach Kevin O'Connell echoed Phillips in his final assessment of the o-line work this offseason.
"Keith's done a phenomenal job with that group, both in the meeting room and on the field," he remarked. "Every single day feels like there's such a purpose to what they're trying to do. Play style has been a term that we've used many, many times over the years, and that is the mentality of what we want to build. Those guys have very, very high expectations of themselves – and Keith is driving that.
"We've got great leaders in the room with B.O. (and) C.D., guys that have done it here for a long time," O'Connell added. "And then [Assistant Head Coach] Frank Smith's ability to come in and really apply some layers to our offense that have really helped me, helped Wes, helped our staff – and I think our players are excited about the direction [we're going]. All that means nothing until we put the pads on, but they've done everything to have me really excited about their potential when [the season begins]."
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