Jonathan Greenard’s post-playoffs tweet has become Vikings’ offseason motto: ‘More is required’

Vikings edge rusher Jonathan Greenard shared the same phrase in posts on X twice in the span of a week in January.

The first time was five days after the Vikings’ 31-9 loss to the Lions in the regular-season finale.

The second was the morning after their 27-9 wild-card loss to the Rams.

“MORE IS REQUIRED,” Greenard wrote then.

The three-word mantra disseminated throughout the Vikings facility this offseason and wound up on T-shirts players found at their lockers when they arrived for the start of the offseason program last week, offensive tackle Brian O’Neill said Tuesday.

It’s a fitting phrase for a team that flashed greatness last year but looked the opposite in the two games that mattered most at season’s end.

Greenard said Tuesday that when he posted the phrase, he wasn’t sure how or where the team would discover that “more” for itself.

“We gotta dig deep somewhere to find it, but more is required, and that’s the only thing we can do,” Greenard said Tuesday. “Everybody can do that. ... Somebody else is always gonna be better than you if you’re not taking care of the little smaller things and putting that much more into it. That’s it. That’s the whole M.O.”

Though it’s been just a week since players made their formal return to the Vikings facility, some of their personal offseason work speaks to how Greenard’s message has been adopted.

Younger players such as 2024 first-round draft picks quarterback J.J. McCarthy and edge rusher Dallas Turner caught the attention of older teammates.

McCarthy, of course, is returning from a right meniscus tear that benched him for his entire rookie season.

Turner saw field time but had a wake-up moment when a coach got on him for his special teams play that has him “itching to learn, itching to get back on the field, itching to be more and do more,” safety Josh Metellus said.

The veterans, for their part, seem to have come with clear goals for the season after spending the month between their playoff loss and the Super Bowl ruminating.

Asked what “more” would look like for the defense this year, Metellus’ answer was direct: being better on situational downs.

The Vikings allowed 36% of opponents’ third-down attempts to be converted last season and 59% of red-zone attempts to become touchdowns.

“If we can figure that out by the end of the year, I’m sure with the guys we’ve got on offense and the guys who get it done, we’ll be sitting right where we wanna be,” Metellus said.

Veteran safety Harrison Smith, for his part, came back for a 14th season, a decision he wouldn’t have made “if he didn’t think there was a chance,” O’Neill posited Tuesday.

O’Neill also said quarterbacks coach Josh McCown put the Vikings’ offseason mantra in different framing during an all-offense meeting, likening it to the balancing of an old-fashioned scale.

If a Super Bowl ring is on one side, hard work has to balance it out on the other.

“More is required ‘cause clearly that scale hasn’t been tipped for us yet, and we need to find a way to make that happen,” O’Neill said.

McCown’s analogy is just part of the evidence the Vikings staff and front office are buying into the mantra Greenard set, too.

In the immediate aftermath of the Vikings’ playoff loss, when then-quarterback Sam Darnold was sacked nine times, head coach Kevin O’Connell acknowledged the need to make changes along the offensive line.

The Vikings did exactly that over the next four months, starting in free agency with the additions of Colts center Ryan Kelly and guard Will Fries.

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Then, in last weekend’s NFL draft, they used their first-round pick on Ohio State guard Donovan Jackson, whom they lauded for his selflessness in switching outside to tackle as the Buckeyes made a national championship run.

They have re-signed and extended key playmakers from last season, most recently outside linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel.

The Vikings have laid a strong foundation for the O’Connell era: 34 wins, Pro Bowl MVPs, a culture that’s praised by players in the building and players association report cards that are the envy of the league.

Now, Greenard wants the blocks to start mounting upward, past the hump that’s been the wild-card round of the playoffs.

“It’s time to add more,” he said. “No matter what, I’m gonna continue to say that. I don’t care how many wins we get, how much success we get.

“I’m always gonna say more is required.”

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