The 3-4 Minnesota Vikings have lost two consecutive games coming out of the bye week and find themselves in last place in a highly competitive NFC North for the first time since 2013. Second-year quarterback J.J. McCarthy will get his third career start on the road against a dominant Detroit Lions team that has scored the third-most points per game and a defense that has allowed the eighth-fewest yards per game.
Detroit is an 8.5-point favorite against a middling Minnesota squad that has yet to find its footing at the midway point of the season.
If the Vikings lose, it could increase the likelihood that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah tries to offload hefty contracts for a team projected to be $36,269,628 above the salary cap limit in 2026. Adofo-Mensah invested heavily in the interior defensive line this offseason by signing Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave to big-money deals, in an effort to make Minnesota’s pass rush less reliant on frequent exotic blitzes. The problem is, the Vikings swapped weaknesses.
Minnesota went from having minimal interior pass rush and an elite run defense to an elite interior pass rush and a porous run defense. Opposing teams have exploited Minnesota’s soft interior. Opponents are averaging 30.4 carries per game, which is the second-highest in the NFL. As a result, Brian Flores’ defense has allowed 130.4 rushing yards per game (24th), which is in the bottom third of the league. If the Vikings want to make a playoff run this year, fixing their run defense has to be priority No. 1.
There is one big-name free agent still available at defensive tackle, one whom Flores is very familiar with from his time as head coach of the Miami Dolphins. I’m of course referring to none other than Christian Wilkins, Flores’ first draft pick as head coach, who established himself as one of the league’s premier defensive tackles with the Dolphins. Could a Christian Wilkins reunion be a viable solution for Minnesota’s run defense woes?
Last we heard from Wilkins, the Las Vegas Raiders released him in part because he didn’t want to undergo additional surgery for a Jones fracture he suffered in October 2024. There was also an incident in which Wilkins allegedly kissed a teammate on the forehead, prompting a confrontation. Regardless, Wilkins is still one of the best nose tackles in the NFL when healthy, especially against the run. Pro Football Focus had Wilkins as the third-highest rated interior defensive lineman as a run defender with an 80.2 run defense grade in 2024.
The Vikings aren’t deploying a true nose tackle. Instead, Javon Hargrave and Levi Drake Rodriguez have been splitting reps in the A Gap. Hargrave leads the team with 25 A Gap snaps to LDR’s 21. The lack of a true run-stuffing nose tackle is a big reason why teams continually run the football with ease against Minnesota’s defense. Although Hargrave has been Minnesota’s second-best interior defensive lineman as a pass rusher with 12 pressures, his 42.2 PFF run defense is far and away the worst amongst Vikings defensive linemen.
Meanwhile, Levi Drake Rodriguez has the second-best run-defense grade amongst Minnesota’s defensive linemen. The Vikings drafted Drake Rodriguez as a pass-rushing specialist, but Minnesota has had to use him at 0-tech on early downs in recent weeks. Furthermore, Hargrave hasn’t played more than 50% of the Vikings’ defensive snaps since Week 4, and his snap percentage has been on a steady decline since then, with Hargrave only playing in 30.1% of Minnesota’s defensive snaps in last week’s loss against the Los Angeles Chargers. That makes Hargrave expendable.
If the Vikings traded Hargrave, they’d save $1.38 million in 2025 and $15 million in 2026. Granted, trading Hargrave would incur a $12.9 million dead cap hit in 2026 from his signing bonus. It’s also worth noting that the Vikings likely wouldn’t get anything more than a couple late Day 3 picks for a productive, yet aging pass-rushing defensive tackle on a major contract. The Harrison Phillips trade only netted Minnesota two sixth-round picks, and that was for a guy who played a majority of Minnesota’s defensive snaps in 2024.
So that begs the question: Is it worth trading Javon Hargrave for pennies on the dollar to save future cap space? It’s not very appealing from Minnesota’s perspective. Even at 32 years old, Hargrave is still one of the NFL’s most effective interior pass rushers. Hargrave’s 14.9% pass-rush win rate is tied for 16th amongst all defensive tackles this season. That alone makes him a valuable asset. However, if a team like the Los Angeles Chargers is willing to offer an early Day 3 pick, then Adofo-Mensah would be foolish to decline such an offer.
In a perfect world, the Vikings can get decent draft capital for Hargrave, save $15 million against the cap in 2026, and sign a healthy Christian Wilkins to play 0-tech alongside Jalen Redmond and Jonathan Allen. Having a true nose tackle who can not only stop the run but still provide pass-rushing upside would make Flores’ defense less one-dimensional and better equipped to deal with Jahmyr Gibbs, Josh Jacobs, and D’Andre Swift in a black-and-blue NFC North division. However, there may be too many obstacles that could prevent this dream from coming to fruition.