When you go shopping, there are different types of capital for you to spend: Cash, gift cards, coupons, and credit.
For NFL teams, there are also different types of capital. Draft picks are like gift cards on Black Friday: You have limited spending power, and everything is in insane demand. Still, you have the possibility of an incredible discount on premium assets.
On the other hand, free agency is like trying to buy a house in 2025: You have very little control over the market and will almost certainly have to overpay. Anything you can afford will probably be older and require more upkeep than you’d prefer. You can also push costs into the future and borrow money as much as possible at the expense of your long-term financial viability; just ask the New Orleans Saints.
Contrived finance metaphors aside, the 2025 Minnesota Vikings have a lot of work to do and a specific type of capital to do it with. I’ve been writing the past few weeks about the emphasis the Vikings need to place on the offensive line in free agency and the numerous holes on the roster that may make a Sam Darnold contract untenable.
Many of my arguments centered around a core reality of Minnesota’s offseason this year: The Vikings only have three picks in this year’s draft, with a fourth pick only coming their way courtesy of Kirk Cousins. That’s if the experts with the compensatory-pick formula have calculated things appropriately.
That means there’s pressure, and a lot of it, on this free-agency period. The Vikings are cash-poor when it comes to draft capital. On the other hand, it is quite liquid when it comes to money to spend in free agency if they can successfully navigate the market.
Almost every team enters draft night with clear positions of need, and the old mantra of “take the best player available” oftentimes doesn’t come to fruition. Teams don’t always have the luxury of taking the best player available instead of the best player available at a position of need. The draft is a volatile market, where the supply and demand for premium positions are often not in your team’s favor.
For example, consider the 2024 draft. On the first night of the draft, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah made two trades, moving up for J.J. McCarthy and Dallas Turner. The Vikings had a clear need at quarterback and on the edge, so they took advantage of their extra draft assets to select both players. They had the draft capital to address their needs. Now, we need to see if those players develop into worthwhile solutions to the problems Minnesota drafted them to solve.
The Vikings entered last year’s draft with an obvious need at quarterback and a pressing need at edge rusher. However, they maneuvered their way to two first-round picks to try and fill those needs because they had the ammo necessary to skip up the board to get their guys.
These are not luxuries the 2025 Vikings can afford.
If the Vikings enter draft night with a glaring hole at any position, much less a premium or scarce one, they are at the mercy of the 23 teams ahead of them. Barring an extreme outlier scenario, it would be irresponsible for the Vikings to rationalize a move up to ensure they grabbed one of “their guys.”
It’s much more likely that they do the opposite and move back, putting themselves further at the mercy of the draft market. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah can’t operate assuming he can just find a corner or a guard at 24. That would be an insane gamble for a team that fancies itself as a contender again in 2025.
Instead, Adofo-Mensah must navigate the harrowing waters of free agency.
The Vikings enter free agency with a laundry list of needs. They have pending free agents and roster deficiencies that burdened them last year despite their 14 wins. Minnesota must bring in a startable QB2 to pair with McCarthy, totally overhaul the cornerback situation, solidify the shaky interior of the offensive line, beef up a thin defensive interior, bring in a minimum of two or three running backs, and figure out what they’re going to do at safety.
Forgive me for that long sentence, but hopefully, that reiterates my point about just how many needs this team has this offseason. And those are just the most pressing needs, not to mention the places where depth is also a concern. It’ll be up to Adofo-Mensah to paper over each of those holes by draft day.
For example, the Vikings only have one running back under contract: Ty Chandler, their RB3 last season. Therefore, they are in the market to add horsepower to their backfield.
Running back may be among the few positions available on draft night. Still, it would be a massive risk for a team that drastically needs to improve its running game to bank on finding their starter on draft weekend. Re-signing Aaron Jones or Cam Akers, or hitting the free-agent market for a reliable veteran, would set them up to pounce on an exciting talent at running back if one falls to them without resorting to desperation picks.
Now, just play out that same scenario for all the positions listed above.
This free-agency period is going to be fun for Vikings fans. Keep your notifications on because I expect Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to deal out contracts left and right, and it’ll then be our job to evaluate those moves based on how cost-effective and impactful we think they’ll be.
The Vikings stand at the precipice of a new chapter for the organization and a clear tipping point for this regime. How they set themselves up for success as they exit the “competitive rebuild” and simply seek to compete with this new vision will be crucial — and this March will set the table, one way or another.
