Getty Vikings quarterback Nick Mullens (left) suffered a back injury that could leave him out long-term and prompt a roster move.
Could the Minnesota Vikings land Trey Lance without ditching Kirk Cousins this season?
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell thinks so.
Barnwell released a mock draft on April 19 with trades at every pick in the first round and proposed the Vikings make a three-team trade involving the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers, who desperately need to get into the first two rounds of this year’s draft after dealing all their first- and second-round picks to land Lance two years ago.
Minnesota would get Lance by sending the 23rd overall pick and backup Nick Mullens to San Francisco and a 2025 fourth-round pick to Philadelphia. Meanwhile, the Eagles would help facilitate the deal by offering a second-rounder to the Vikings and receive a pair of third-round picks from the 49ers.
Here’s Barnwell’s breakdown of the deal:
Vikings get: QB Trey Lance, 3-102, 6-216 (from SF), 2-63 (from PHI)
49ers get: 1-23, QB Nick Mullens (from MIN)
Eagles get: 3-99, 3-101 (from SF), 2025 fourth-round pick (from MIN)Here’s how the Vikings get their quarterback of the future and the 49ers get back into the first day of the draft. It feels like this three-way trade should somehow involve Kirk Cousins ending up with the 49ers, but cap constraints on both sides make that impossible…
As it is, we have two trades. First, the 49ers would send their third-year quarterback and pick Nos. 99, 101 and 102 to the Vikings to move all the way up to No. 23. Those are also San Francisco’s top three selections as a result of the trades for Lance and Christian McCaffrey. This deal values Lance as being worth the 39th pick in a typical draft, which is probably fair given what little we know about him after his first two seasons. Nothing about how the Niners have handled his situation suggests they still value him like the player they gave up three first-round picks to acquire. They would also include a late sixth-round selection to reunite with Mullens, who would be displaced as the Minnesota backup.
Then, to avoid going without first- and second-round picks themselves, the Vikings would package pick Nos. 99 and 101 alongside a future fourth-rounder in a deal with the Eagles to move up to the bottom of Round 2. Minnesota would end up with no first-round pick and selections toward the bottom of the second and third rounds, but it would also land Lance, a long-term replacement for Cousins.
Vikings, 49ers Had Trade Talks Involving Trey Lance at NFL Combine: Report
Barnwell’s extensive mock draft comes coincidentally on the same day Lance’s name exploded on the newswire.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio confirmed that Minnesota and San Francisco discussed a potential trade involving Lance, he revealed in an April 19 article after reporting earlier this offseason that there were murmurs of a trade involving Cousins as well.
Those [Cousins] rumors may have come from the reality that the 49ers and Vikings had discussions about another quarterback. Per a league source, the two teams talked about Trey Lance,” Florio wrote.
Those talks happened the first week of March before many teams set out their plans for the upcoming season when free agency opened mid-March. Since then, Minnesota restructured Cousins’ contract, which makes trading him much more difficult for both sides, as Barnwell noted.
However, that doesn’t rule out a trade like Barnwell’s, which omits Cousins from the deal, from surfacing as the 49ers could land a top-five quarterback in this year’s draft with the 23rd overall pick from the Vikings.
49ers are Pushing Trey Lance Ahead of NFL Draft
Another development from Wednesday was a report from NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport that San Francisco has fielded calls for Lance.
Sources: The #49ers have received inquiries from several teams looking into a potential trade for former No. 3 pick QB Trey Lance. The conversations have been the result of SF fielding the calls, not making them, with teams aware that Brock Purdy is likely the future starter.
The 49ers floating that information to a national media siren like Rapoport is a clear message that they’re looking to entertain more offers and rid themselves of Lance.
That could prove advantageous for the Vikings who hope to land a quarterback of the future without mortgaging it at the same time.
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