Trade Pitch Sees Vikings Cut Ties With $8 Million Draft Pick

Getty Cornerback Andrew Booth Jr. of the Minnesota Vikings.

Minnesota Vikings general manager Kwesi-Adofo Mensah has invested high-end capital in the secondary since assuming the job a couple of drafts back, and the clock may already be ticking on one of his top acquisitions.

Matt Holder of Bleacher Report authored a trade pitch on Tuesday, August 15, in which the Vikings part ways with Andrew Booth Jr., who is headed into just his second year with the team after Minnesota selected the cornerback with the No. 42 overall pick in the second round of the 2022 NFL draft.

[Booth] barely played last year before suffering a season-ending knee injury, participating in six contests with one start as a rookie. And it doesn’t seem like that will change much in year two.

The Minnesota Vikings signed Byron Murphy Jr. during free agency and drafted another cornerback in Mekhi Blackmon with a third-round selection. That, combined with fellow 2022 pick Akayleb Evans reportedly taking reps with the first-team defense during training camp, has pushed Booth down the depth chart, according to Alec Lewis of The Athletic.

However, the Clemson product has plenty of potential as he’s only a year removed from being a second-round pick. Someone should be willing to take a chance on him, and it doesn’t sound like the Vikings are going to use him, so why not make a deal?

Vikings Would Sell Low on Andrew Booth Jr. in any Trade Prior to the Season

Courtesy of VikingsMinnesota Vikings second-round pick Andrew Booth Jr. has battled injury for several years.

The answer to Holder’s question of “why not?” is the value the Vikings stand to lose in any deal made for Booth at this moment in his NFL career.

A second-round pick with a first-round skill set, it was the value potential Adofo-Mensah saw in Booth that spurred his selection. The former Clemson cornerback has surgery-related injury issues that stretch back to 2020. Booth’s injury problems continued during his first season as a pro and resurfaced again in training camp earlier this month when he left practice in the company of a trainer due to an undisclosed health concern.

It could be that Booth’s lack of experience and practice time to this point have jettisoned him to the bottom of the Vikings’ depth chart, or it could be the addition of new defensive coordinator Brian Flores and the change of scheme that arrived with him has also played a role. But whatever the problem is, one thing is certain — Booth’s NFL stock has never been lower.

Vikings Should Attempt to Find Out What They Have in Andrew Booth, Re-Establish His Value

GettyCornerback Andrew Booth Jr. (center) and linebacker Troy Dye (left) of the Minnesota Vikings move to tackle running back Kenyan Drake of the Las Vegas Raiders during an NFL preseason game in 2022.

Lewis, of The Athletic, noted that Booth is currently a third-string option looking up at a battle between Blackmon and free agent acquisition JoeJuan Williams for the No. 3 and No. 4 roster slots, rendering Booth a third-string player by Lewis’ estimation. Young or not, highly-touted out of college or not — there are CBs on cheaper contracts on whom opposing NFL teams can take a flier, guys who won’t also cost a draft asset on the front end to acquire.

Adofo-Mensah’s gamble in April 2022 was that Booth could get healthy and stay that way. The GM bet $8.3 million over four years on that outcome and is clearly losing — but the hand isn’t over yet. If the Vikings fold now, the best they can hope for is a Day 3 pick, and that is far from guaranteed for a guy who hasn’t really played since joining the NFL.

If Minnesota stays in the hand, they still have a couple of seasons to get lucky. Booth’s injury luck might turn around and he might become a staple of the secondary. If not, perhaps he becomes a solid rotation player worth some kind of meaningful draft asset somewhere down the road.

Booth’s practice injury wasn’t bad enough to hold him out of the Vikings’ preseason opener against the Seattle Seahawks, in which the CB registered one tackle, per ESPN. If nothing changes, Booth should be physically read for action come the season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on September 10.

The Vikings have little to gain by trading Booth before then and nothing to lose by giving him some run once the games that mean something finally begin.