On a late night in August, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is trying to put together a puzzle in his office. The picture in front of him spells out “2028 Super Bowl Champions,” and it has Kevin O’Connell holding the Lombardi Trophy. However, there are still a few pieces missing.
After searching for pieces that may have fallen out of the box, Adofo-Mensah finds one that says “99.” He shoehorns Danielle Hunter in, but there are still a few players he can’t quite make out.
Adofo-Mensah could stay up until 3 a.m. trying to figure out who these players are. Better yet, he could head straight to the negotiating table. That’s because after agreeing on Hunter’s new contract Sunday morning, Adofo-Mensah needs to figure out which piece of his competitive rebuild completes the puzzle and should be the top priority for Minnesota’s next big extension.
Kirk Cousins has told reporters that he’s tabled contract talks until next spring, so Justin Jefferson and T.J. Hockenson are the Vikings’ top candidates for an extension. While both players have strong arguments to become the next player to get paid, Adofo-Mensah has to ask himself how they fit into the long-term puzzle.
Jefferson’s case is obvious. No receiver has more receiving yards than the first three seasons of his career, and he is arguably Minnesota’s biggest superstar since Adrian Peterson won MVP in 2012. When people think of the Vikings, they think of Jefferson. Adofo-Mensah’s objective is to make sure it stays that way.
Since Adofo-Mensah took over last offseason, both sides have hinted at their interest in a long-term deal. Last summer, Jefferson said that he wasn’t “too fond of money” before threatening to become the NFL’s first 2,000-yard receiver. Adofo-Mensah called Jefferson’s contract a “champagne problem” this spring and hinted that Jefferson was being informed of the team’s plans heading into the offseason.
In the eyes of many fans, this should have led to Jefferson signing a blank check with purple-and-yellow confetti streaming down from the rafters of TCO Performance Center. However, that hasn’t happened for various reasons.
The first is that no receiver has been able to set the market this offseason. While Davante Adams (five years, $140 million) and Tyreek Hill (four years, $120 million) signed big-money deals early in 2022, no deal has been reached presumably because they’re waiting for Jefferson to sign his contract.
The situation is similar to the one between Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow this offseason. Both quarterbacks engaged in a staring contest. Herbert blinked first, signing a five-year, $262.5 million contract with the Los Angeles Chargers, allowing Burrow to reset the market and get more money than his counterpart.
For Jefferson, that could mean waiting on Dallas’ CeeDee Lamb, who reportedly was close to an extension that would have paid $30 million per season. However, nothing has been made official before training camp. When (or if) Lamb signs a new deal, it would give the Vikings a baseline for Jefferson’s contract, which could lead to a massive sigh of relief for everyone involved.
If the Vikings have to play the waiting game with Jefferson, they might be wise to check in on Hockenson. After being acquired at last year’s trade deadline, Hockenson has become a prototypical tight end in O’Connell’s offense. He also acclimated himself in Minnesota by buying beers for folks at a hockey game and looking exactly like the team’s Norseman logo.
Unlike Jefferson, there’s a baseline for Hockenson’s next contract. The Jacksonville Jaguars signed Evan Engram to a three-year, $41.25 million contract after initially hitting him with the franchise tag last spring. and the Chicago Bears recently signed Cole Kmet to a four-year, $50 million extension before training camp.
You could argue that Hockenson is better than both of those players. Hockenson’s camp could also up the ante by saying there’s another level to his game. Last year, he caught 60 passes for 519 yards and three touchdowns in 10 games after the Vikings traded for him.
Hockenson’s camp could also be waiting for bigger names like George Kittle and Travis Kelce to get a payday next offseason. The Kansas City Chiefs could work out a new deal that lowers Kelce’s $15.5 million cap hit for 2024, and Kittle has no guaranteed money remaining on the five-year, $75 million extension he signed in 2020.
The San Francisco 49ers may want to go after a certain quarterback next off-season, so they could strike an extension that gives Kittle a raise and lowers his $19.8 million cap hit for next year. While that contract could reset the market, so could Hockenson. He projects to catch 102 passes for 882 yards and five touchdowns if he maintains his usage rate from the Vikings next season.
But there’s also a good chance that doesn’t happen. The Vikings are hoping that K.J. Osborn and Jordan Addison are upgrades over Adam Thielen, which would siphon targets away from Hockenson. If Minnesota finds a more efficient running game after moving on from Dalvin Cook, that could also create a more balanced offense, which would also limit Hockenson’s opportunities.
Jefferson may see fewer targets this year, but chances are that he’d still get the same type of money. Even if Jefferson’s production declines by 10%, his camp can still bank on a receiver who caught 116 passes for 1,629 yards and seven touchdowns. Those are numbers that would indicate a market-shifting player and cost the Vikings more money in the long run.
It should also be considered that the Vikings currently have $46.5 million in void-year cap money to Cousins, Hunter, and Marcus Davenport next season. They also have another $3.5 million in dead money owed to Dalvin Cook. With Christian Darrisaw also likely to get a top-dollar extension next spring, it benefits the Vikings to not only get Jefferson’s contract done but to do it at a price point that allows them to still re-sign Hockenson.
I’m also not accounting for the possibility that Cousins or Hunter has the best season of their career and are in line to get their own new contracts next year. That means that any contract extension the Vikings can hammer out in the coming weeks is a good one. Adofo-Mensah and the front office are trying to put together the cap puzzle, and Jefferson is the biggest piece of them all.
