In the hours before the trade deadline, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah sat in his office trying to decide what to do with the Minnesota Vikings.
We don’t exactly know what Adofo-Mensah’s thought process was, but it could have been swayed by the sounds of Creed. The early-2000s rock band provided the anthem to their recent winning streak. Adofo-Mensah was reportedly playing it in his office while he was pondering his options at the deadline, and a famous line probably drove driven what came next.
“Can you take me higher?”
On Monday night, Creed was nowhere to be found at U.S. Bank Stadium. The Vikings had just lost to the Chicago Bears to fall to 6-6 on the season. Now they’re a half-game ahead of the Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams, and the New Orleans Saints for the final playoff spot in the NFC.
The loss is not a death knell for the Vikings, but in hindsight, Creed may not have been the best choice. Instead, Monday’s loss could have been soundtracked by a different tune that has them looking back in hindsight and wondering what could have been.
Kenny Rogers’s 1978 classic “The Gambler” depicts a man who meets a gambler while riding on a train. The gambler reads the man’s bad poker face and explains he can tell he’s out of aces before giving him his outlook on life.
You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold’em,
Know when to walk away, know when to run
You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.
You may wonder what this has to do with the Vikings, but it has a lot of lessons that Adofo-Mensah can learn in his second season.
In a lot of ways, Adofo-Mensah saw an opportunity for the Vikings to “hold.” The Vikings had climbed out of a 1-4 start and had won three-straight games before Kirk Cousins suffered a torn Achilles. With an ascending team at the trade deadline, it wouldn’t make sense to stunt that momentum by selling off assets for the future, so the Vikings traded for Josh Dobbs at the deadline.
But even as Dobbs won his first two games, there was an opportunity for the Vikings to “fold.” Cousins’ injury threw a wrench into Minnesota’s plans, and Justin Jefferson’s hamstring was worse than initially feared. Even with a myriad of weapons on offense and an ascending defense under Brian Flores, the Vikings could only stay afloat for so long before succumbing to their own reality.
This didn’t stop Vikings fans from enjoying Dobbs’ first two outings for Minnesota. By leading the team to a 6-4 record and the driver’s seat in the Wild Card playoff race, fans were looking ahead – or in this case, counting their money – to the type of playoff run the Wilfs have dreamed about.
The prime example is that of the 2007 New York Giants. After entering the playoffs with a 9-7 record, the Giants pulled off three-straight upsets on the road with wins in Tampa Bay, Dallas, and Green Bay before the most improbable upset in NFL history against the 18-0 New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
The goal of just getting into the playoffs has been the ethos of the franchise but also comes with some flaws. While a team could theoretically get hot, it’s more likely that the superior squad with home-field advantage wins.
In the last 20 years, 21 of the 40 teams involved in the Super Bowl had home-field advantage in the playoffs, and 72.5% of participants were either No. 1 or No. 2 seeds. Of the 20 champions, five were ranked as a fourth seed or lower and only two of them (2005 Pittsburgh Steelers and 2010 Green Bay Packers) won the Super Bowl as a six-seed.
Even relying on those outliers, they all had things the Vikings lack, including a quarterback. While Nick Foles was able to lead the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl in 2017, he was also at the helm of a juggernaut that had earned home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
If Dobbs had stepped in and led the Vikings, there was a good chance they would have been in a Wild Card spot and get buried behind legitimate NFC contenders in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Detroit. With the football gods hinting that this wasn’t their year, Adofo-Mensah pushed his chips to the table while holding an off-suit No. 2 and No. 5 card.
After Monday’s loss to the Bears, the most likely outcome is that they sneak into the playoffs and get smashed by a true contender. It almost doesn’t seem worth forging ahead.
No NFL team is willing to tank – especially one with Flores as their defensive coordinator – but the chance to lean into the future was there. Instead, the Vikings remain in purgatory with 12 of the last 20 seasons ending between seven and 10 wins and not even a Super Bowl appearance to show for it.
It’s not as appealing when you consider the other path Adofo-Mensah could have chosen. By staying pat, the Vikings could have ridden things out and received a higher draft pick. While draft success has some randomness built into it (ask the Carolina Panthers), the chances of landing a franchise quarterback are far higher in the upper half of the board and don’t require the significant draft capital to trade up into a favorable spot.
With teams chasing the rookie quarterback window, draft spots have come at more of a premium; the Houston Texans traded two first-round picks and a fourth-round pick to move up nine spots to select edge rusher Will Anderson Jr. the next year.
The Vikings’ cap situation and roster construction suggest they could handle such a trade, but they could also be fixated on re-signing Cousins to a big-money contract that could limit their options.
Like Creed mentioned in their marquee hit, Adofo-Mensah’s goal has been to take the Vikings higher to a place where blind men see. But the better option may have been to heed the advice of Kenny Rogers and learn when to walk away.
