In the final moments of their NFC wild card loss to the New York Giants, everyone saw what the Minnesota Vikings needed to do this offseason. Their roster, which used to be one of the most dominant in the NFL, had succumbed to Father Time. Minnesota’s fairy tale season – which included eight fourth-quarter comebacks – had landed them in the same position they have been in since 2017.
The Vikings were good enough to get into the tournament, but they weren’t Super Bowl contenders. They needed to get younger and faster. Everybody saw it coming.
That puts the Vikings in a strange situation. They need to move on from some of the players who helped them compete in the 2010s, but they also need to acquire value to help build for the future. With less than two weeks until the draft, the Vikings are at a point where they may have tipped their hand and may have forced themselves to get rid of key players for nothing in return.
It started a few weeks after the Vikings were eliminated when Adam Thielen made a tour of radio row at the Super Bowl. Willing to tell anyone that would listen that he believed he’s still a top receiver, Thielen was practically marketing himself to 31 other teams ahead of an imminent stop in free agency.
At that point, Thielen’s $20 million cap hit was a hurdle the Vikings couldn’t avoid. Thielen believed his play didn’t merit the sort of pay cut he would need to take to remain in Minnesota, and the Vikings also knew they couldn’t retain Thielen at this salary. The rest of the league also knew that it was unsustainable for the Vikings to absorb that large of a cap hit for a 33-year-old receiver.
Ultimately, the Vikings had to release Thielen. He signed a three-year, $25 million contract with the Carolina Panthers. The Vikings had bungled the situation, and it was only the beginning.
A few weeks later at the NFL Scouting Combine, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported that he did not anticipate that the Vikings would reach the type of fully guaranteed one-year extension that Kirk Cousins has signed over the past few seasons. The Star Tribune’s Andrew Krammer enhanced that report, saying that Cousins even offered to take a discount to stay with the team.
Minnesota’s stance made sense. Quarterbacks typically begin to decline around age 35, and they would be foolish not to dip their toes into the quarterback class. But while teams in recent years have done so quietly, word leaked that the Vikings had been doing their due diligence on this year’s quarterback class.
Eventually, this hit the mock drafts, where the Vikings were projected to trade up for Will Levis or Anthony Richardson. Some pundits had them taking 25-year-old Hendon Hooker with the 23rd-overall pick. Even their top-30 visits screamed, We are definitely taking a quarterback! They included time with with UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Stanford quarterback Tanner McKee.
It’s possible that the Vikings have been bluffing all along. But if they’re enticed by trading up for the third-overall pick, the Arizona Cardinals have to be snickering on the other line knowing that they could ask for a king’s ransom in return.
The same goes for two names that have been rumored to be on the trade market but generated little interest.
Za’Darius Smith was one of the top performers on the Vikings’ defense for the first half of the season. But a knee contusion sapped his effectiveness and raised questions about his durability. With his base salary set at $9.4 million, the 30-year-old Smith looked like a steal, but the Vikings wanted something younger and cheaper.
Smith didn’t take this kindly and posted a farewell on his Twitter account. Minnesota stood pat, but the situation may have escalated to a point where the lone option may be to release him. Other teams know this and haven’t given the Vikings fair value in return, which could create an opportunity to land him in free agency without giving Minnesota anything.
However, that pales in comparison to what’s going on with Dalvin Cook. Anybody who pulls up Cook’s Over The Cap page could see that his days were numbered in Minnesota thanks to a $14.1 million cap hit. This, combined with Kevin O’Connell’s crusade to find more efficiency in the running game, signaled that Cook was on the market.
By stats alone, Cook should command a significant return. He’s run for 1,100 yards in each of the past four seasons, which is a feat that only Adrian Peterson has accomplished in Vikings history. Cook’s agent, Zac Hiller, also pointed out on the Caps Off Podcast that Cook has been doing this with a bad shoulder.
Like many of the Vikings’ endeavors this offseason, it wasn’t a secret that they wanted to move on from Cook. Cook’s camp was also aware of this and finally pulled the trigger on getting a shoulder surgery in part to activate a $2 million injury guarantee in his contract.
With Cook unable to pass a physical, teams weren’t willing to wait – especially if the Vikings wanted an elevated value in return. As teams filled their rosters with younger, cheaper talent, landing spots for Cook started to dwindle. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler even suggested that cutting Cook is an option as the draft approaches.
When looking at each move in isolation, it’s possible that the only player the Vikings could truly miss is Cousins. If Danielle Hunter’s absence from offseason team activities is more than meets the eye, it could mean that Minnesota is about to lose four key players from last year with minimal return.
Perhaps this is the penalty of squeezing one more year out of a core just to lose in the first round of the playoffs. It also could create a better future with more cap space and flexibility beginning in 2024. But these are the growing pains that have come with Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s plan to fix the Vikings. But for a team that is required to be “super competitive,” showing their hand could have long-term repercussions.
