EAGAN, Minn. — Will Fries is a mountain of a man and has been a mainstay of the Vikings offensive line.

Signed by Minnesota in free agency March 11, after starting 31 of 41 games in four seasons with Indianapolis, the 6-foot-6, 321-pound right guard has played 537 snaps on offense in 2025, more than every other offensive player and second on the Vikings roster overall, factoring in special teams (576).

A heckuva feat for a fella who broke his leg 13 months ago and is figuring out how to be himself, again.

"It can be really frustrating," Fries shared wholeheartedly.

"It was really hard to come back and not feel like the way you've been feeling when you come off a couple of games in 2024 – when you feel like you're playing some of your better football – and then you come back and you're not playing as crisp, or it's not working the same way you want to," Fries detailed. "But when I first got here, my first six months, having Coach Kup' (Offensive Line Coach Chris Kuper) and Coach Phillips (Offensive Coordinator Wes Phillips) having your back and realizing, you know, it's not going to be perfect right away, it takes a big weight off your [shoulders]. Because I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform well. I want to do well and I want to perform for the guys next to me on the team."

That's a mountainous incentive for Fries – to be available and to be better tomorrow than today.

"He's the epitome of a football dude," right tackle Brian O'Neill assessed. "This might be a weird thing to say, but he loves playing football, not just being a football player. He loves practice, he loves meetings, he loves everything about it. And it's (been) a ton of fun to watch him come back from the injury he had.

"He got married this summer and then left his honeymoon after two days to come back and rehab," O'Neill added. "They postponed the honeymoon, you know, the real honeymoon, until next year because it's important to him to do it and do it right, and he's willing to sacrifice and lay it on the line."

Fries is quirky in that he savors the stuff other players sometimes dread, such as a Thursday practice outdoors in mid-November when it's chilly and the body is sore from the first 10 weeks of the season.

"He's just excited to go out and do individual drills at a high level," O'Neill said with a smile.

"You want to prove the people right that always believed in you, and you play for your parents or your wife or coaches that believe in you," Fries expressed. "But then there's also the fun part of it where you get to prove people wrong, people that didn't believe in you or doubted you. I think that's kind of motivating, too, and it's a lot of fun when you're counted out and your back is against the wall and you get to go out there and put your best film on tape, rise to the occasion or you'll sink to the level of your training, whatever you want to say. … It's what you fight through so much adversity for and who you sacrifice so much for when you get to those high-stress moments. It makes the game a lot of fun."

With the travails he's overcome, it's fair to say Fries has proved one party right and the other wrong.

The 27-year-old was one of the club's biggest additions this past spring, and not just literally speaking. A seventh-round draft choice of the Colts in 2021 out of Penn State, he switched from tackle to guard in Year 2 and started all 17 games in his third pro season. In 2024, Fries was emerging as a stalwart, and then he fractured his tibia in a Week 5 game at Jacksonville, punching the pause button on his ascension.

Now it's resuming in Purple threads.

"You look at where our season's kind of gone [relating to the offensive line], and the ebbs and flows, Will's been a rock for us," Head Coach Kevin O'Connell said two days before hosting Baltimore. "And I think he's really coming into his own, finding his stride within our system, both the run and pass game.

"You feel his physicality on game day," he added, complimenting Fries' role at Detroit. "Even in a noisy environment the other day, he was noticeable early in the game, him and B.O. (Brian O'Neill) working together in combinations or him and Blake [Brandel] in an interior combination, you could feel that.

"And then I think coming off the injury," O'Connell continued, "the one area he probably needed a little time to work through early in the season was pass pro, and you feel him really coming into his own there, as well. So I've been really happy with Will. And most importantly, he's been one of those guys that has been a part of just about every [lineup] we've had, I think all 18 of them or whatever it's been."

That's the element of Fries' comeback that's mind-blowing.

He's the one person on the Vikings o-line that's played in every game this season. In a perfect world, Fries would be sandwiched every snap between his Colts teammate and first-year Vikings center Ryan Kelly, and Minnesota's fourth-longest tenured player, O'Neill. Instead, Fries, whom Kelly calls "Spud," has played beside both of them for 90 snaps spread across three games due to injuries (Kelly has dealt with two concussions and O'Neill missed 11 ½ quarters that began with an MCL sprain). As a result, Fries, so far, has taken his stance next to sophomore NFL players Michael Jurgens and Walter Rouse, and veterans Brandel and Justin Skule in addition to Kelly and O'Neill. According to Next Gen Stats, the Vikings lead the league with 12 different offensive line combinations that have played together for 10 or more snaps.

"After not having a whole offseason, that's really impressive," O'Neill said of Fries being the one constant. "What we're going to start to see is the more game reps he gets in this system and hopefully the more reps me and him get together, the better he will play, and then in turn the better we'll all play."

Although the quasi-musical chairs up front has curtailed Minnesota's o-line, which entered 2025 with new starters at center (Kelly) and both guard spots (first-round rookie Donovan Jackson and Fries), from forming crucial in-game chemistry, the frequent changing has probably caused Fries to acclimate quicker.

"He's kind of that tree stump in there. It's a very large tree stump, like a redwood that was cut down, just planted right in there," Phillips commented. "Will's like the ultimate o-lineman. He just wants to come off the rock and hit people, and you love that about him. He also is a young player that is still progressing in his career, so I think there's room for improvement, and he sees that and he works toward it every day."

O'Neill appraised Fries' strengths: "His sheer size and ability to move people in the run game is awesome. I think that's one of the really good things [he does]. I think he's able to keep the interior of the pocket firm. He's just a really well-rounded player, and he's really fun to have in the [o-line] room."

Fries is confident in the trajectory of his individual performance and bullish about his teammates.

"We have 10-11 guys in that room that can play and have dressed for a reason," he said. "It's not always going to be perfect. It never will be. Everyone gets 'got' in this league at some point. But how do you respond to that adversity? When you get beat or you lose a rep, how are you going to bounce back? – and not let it snowball into two or three bad reps and just keep it at one. And the more that we can do that and play with toughness and grit and all those kind of cliché words, the better the outcome will be."

Specific to himself, Fries is aware of areas of his skill set he aspires to elevate. As a road grader, he is working to fire off the ball "a little bit harder" and synchronize hot-blooded physicality with cleaned-up technique. And in pass protection, he's focused on bending lower in his base, he said, and "playing with really good hands and really good eyes, so I can protect against any front, any player and any scheme."

In dealing with a fury of adversity, beginning with his rehabilitation and continuing with his steady presence in a starting five that's more fluid than solid, Fries has realized there's a beauty to the struggle.

"You're only as good as how well you learn from mistakes, and if you can learn from one mistake a day that you made and make it right the next time, it's going to lead to more consistent play and the play that we all hope and dream of playing, you know, that All-Pro, best o-line, whatever mark you want to put on it," he said. "It's about getting a little bit better every single day and learning from your mistakes."

Suffice to say, the rock of Minnesota's offensive line is on the other side of a hard place.

"I'm super grateful for all the people here that kind of took me in and helped me grow and get back to being the player on the field that I want to be, especially the training staff," Fries offered. "Those guys did a really good job of helping me rehab and get back on the field. So definitely a big shout out to them."