Vikings GM Should Eat His Words at Trade Deadline, Analyst Says

Courtesy of Vikings Minnesota Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah admitted he was a little too candid in his first offseason as general manager of the Minnesota Vikings.

He knocked his quarterback in Kirk Cousins, calling Cousins, whom he offered a one-year, $35 million contract extension to just months prior, a “good,” not great, quarterback.

He also admitted he’s uneasy about the riskiness of going all-in on a season like the Los Angeles Rams did in their Super Bowl run last year.

“If it were a seven-game series, yeah, best team wins,” Adofo-Mensah said in a July interview with USA Today Sports. “That’s ultimately why when you’re team building, you never want to go full Rams. Because you need to give yourself three chances at it, four years at it. I know that’s hard for fans to hear.”

He is right. It’s not how you want to manage a team long-term. It’s also a reality fans don’t care about when the team has gotten off to one of their hottest starts in recent memory.

Minnesota is 5-1, coming out of the bye week with a 3-0 record in the division. FiveThirtyEight has the Vikings with a 92% chance of making the postseason and an 88% chance to win the division. A home playoff game is in the cards for Minnesota with a Vikings team that is rallying around first-year head coach Kevin O’Connell.

There are also no NFC teams proven to be better than Minnesota other than the Philadelphia Eagles, making a Super Bowl appearance that would end the franchise’s 45-year absence from the big game a possibility.

SKOR North’s Judd Zulgad questioned whether Adofo-Mensah will walk back his cautiousness of going all in this season and getting O’Connell some reinforcements before the trade deadline to make a run this season.

Will Vikings GM Support Kevin O’Connell At Trade Deadline?

In an October 25 column on Vikings Wire, Zulgad questioned whether Adofo-Mensah should consider eating his words and go all-in a week ahead of the November 1 trade deadline.

“With the NFL trade deadline approaching a week from Tuesday, one has to wonder if Adofo-Mensah and ownership has changed its view and made a decision that getting first-year coach Kevin O’Connell some immediate help might give the Vikings a chance at ending a Super Bowl drought that dates to Super Bowl XI on Jan. 9, 1977,” Zulgad wrote.

“The Vikings, who will play the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium after returning from their bye week, are a flawed team that still has found ways to win,” Zulgad added. “While Adofo-Mensah might have reservations about trading draft picks, O’Connell spent the past two seasons as the offensive coordinator for the Rams. It pains most NFL GMs to part with high draft picks, but the Rams haven’t picked in the first round since 2016, aren’t set to do it again until 2024. O’Connell saw that aggressiveness work.”

The Rams have pushed their chips in many times: acquiring Jalen Ramsey in 2019 for a pair of first-round picks and a fourth-round pick; sending the Detroit Lions two future first-round picks for Matthew Stafford in the 2020 offseason; and, after a 7-1 start last season, getting Von Miller at the trade deadline last season for second- and third-round picks.

A week after the Miller trade, the Rams signed Odell Beckham Jr. to reinforce their wide receiver corps after Robert Woods went down with a season-ending injury. Los Angeles kept betting.

Coming out of the bye week where the Vikings did plenty of self-scouting, the biggest question mark ahead is whether they believe this team can go deep in the playoffs and how Adofo-Mensah will respond.

“So could O’Connell influence Adofo-Mensah to decide there’s no time like the present to add a wide receiver, a defensive tackle, a defensive end or a tight end? The Vikings likely could acquire help for a second-day pick, enabling them to hold onto their first-rounder,” Zulgad wrote.

Vikings Won’t Be Blockbuster Buyers at the Trade Deadline

While the Vikings should look to improve their roster, they’re only likely to add supporting players to a roster already bolstered with Pro Bowl talent.

Minnesota has a league-low $851,678 cap space available to pay any new players. Restructuring a few contracts could create some cap space, but to support trading for a superstar player, the Vikings would have to part ways with their own talent, which is unlikely to happen.

What’s more likely is the Vikings, as Zulgad suggested, sending a Day 2 pick in a trade for a player on a rookie-scale contract.