Sources have disclosed to Zone Coverage that Trent Williams is on the trading block and the Minnesota Vikings are interested in acquiring the seven-time Pro Bowl left tackle from the team that plays in Washington.
In the interest of full transparency, our “sources” are “everywhere you look on the Internet and Twitter” as well as “sports radio.”
Yeah, it’s not much of a secret — unless you’ve been living under a rock, or maybe hidden away from humanity in your house the past few weeks… hold on, maybe that should be re-phrased.
Anyways, the news on Williams is anything but exclusive and the speculation surrounding which team should trade for him almost always includes the Vikings on the shortlist. On March 25, the agents for Williams demanded that he be traded or released. Within 24 hours, ESPN.com’s John Keim speculated the Vikings are a potential landing spot.
In the two weeks since the news of Williams’ availability broke, he has also been linked to the Jets, Browns, Buccaneers, Bengals, Chargers, Dolphins and pretty much half the teams in the NFL. Some of the linkages are merely hopeful speculation. For others, the exercise of connecting the dots makes more sense.
I ran a ridiculously unscientific poll on Twitter this past weekend, asking folks which team will acquire Williams. Given that many of my followers are from Minnesota, the results were predictable.
We’ll go ahead and put that in the category of hopeful speculation.
If a Florida resident ran the same poll, the Dolphins and Buccaneers would probably net the most votes – that is, if people bothered to come in from the beach long enough to socially distance themselves from others and hop on Twitter for a bit.
Granted, the Vikings conjecture makes some sense. The offensive line is clearly still a need again this offseason. There’s the obvious tie-in with former teammate Kirk Cousins, whose blindside he’s protected before. Rick Spielman could make it work, too. The Vikes have a ton of draft pick capital to dangle in a trade.
Moreover, a deal that included a player with a big salary like Riley Reiff or Anthony Harris could give them enough room to afford Williams and his contract extension demands. If they deal Harris, Reiff could move inside to guard, which would address another need.
It all adds up.
This scenario also fits the franchise’s preferred narrative of being in win-now mode rather than a rebuild.
The Washington team isn’t going to release Williams. He held out all of last year so Washington is determined to get something in return. Why else hold on this long? The smart money says a deal will get done before the NFL Draft – or possibly very early on during the draft. You would think both Washington and the team acquiring Williams will want this wrapped up prior to the draft in order to clarify position needs.
Then again, nothing fuels a deal like a deadline and if the asking price for Williams includes a second-round pick, as widely rumored, maybe the trigger on a trade will be pulled on day two of the draft.
All of which begs the question: should the Vikings make the deal?
The vast majority of the rabid fan base would answer in the affirmative.
However, there are obvious risks:
- He sat out all of last season.
- He missed time in 2017 with a knee injury that landed him on injured reserve.
- He was suspended four games in 2016 for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy.
- He turns 32 on July 19.
- He’s likely going to demand a contract around $15 million annually.
Frankly, this list should be enough to make Vikings fans pump the brakes. In 2022, Cousins has a $45 million cap hit and he’ll be 34 years old. Can the Vikings also afford to hand out a multi-year contract in the neighborhood of $15 million, give or take a few million, to a guy like Williams who will also be 34?
That’s a lot of money tied up in two players of that age.
Mike Zimmer told the assembled media from his podium at the TCO Performance Center back in mid-January that the NFL is a “young man’s game.” It’s an old saying, and it served as a bit of foreshadowing for the release of Xavier Rhodes and Linval Joseph. How would acquiring Williams align with that philosophy?
Despite all the caveats and red flags, a Vikings trade for Williams would not come as a shock.
Here’s the thing: if this were three or four years ago, a trade for Williams would absolutely have made sense on paper. But look at what’s happened to him the past three or four years. Now let’s look ahead to the next handful of years. (Insert grimacing emoji face here) It would seem reasonable to assume that, regardless of health, Williams’ prime is in his past.
If the football gods can guarantee the Vikings that Williams will stay healthy (narrator: they can’t) and if the Vikings can wait this out and acquire him at a “reasonable” cost both in terms of what they would have to give up in a trade and in what they would need to pay him, then maybe this all makes a modicum of sense.
Then again, there’s another old chestnut that could apply here: sometimes the best trades are the ones you don’t make.
