Four Reasons to Love the Vikings Trade for Nick Mullens
Josh Frey
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Earlier on Monday morning, the Minnesota Vikings made their highly anticipated QB move when they traded for Nick Mullens. The 26-year-old QB joins the Vikings after playing against them in the preseason opener in which he completed 7/9 passes for 94 yards and a touchdown. This move is a response to a very poor performance from both Sean Mannion and Kellen Mond, and the Vikings clearly felt that they needed to upgrade the backup QB position. With that in mind, here are four reasons to love this trade from Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and the Vikings.
[brid autoplay=”true” video=”1080613″ player=”26281″ title=”WATCH%203%20reasons%20why%20the%20Washington%20Commanders%20should%20pull%20off%20a%20Kareem%20Hunt%20trade” duration=”100″ description=”The Washington Commanders’ preseason opener this past weekend was defined by continued fumble issues from star young running back Antonio Gibson.It’s gotten so bad that head coach Ron Rivera and Co. had Gibson playing with deep reserves against the Carolina Panthers despite the fact that he put up north of 1,300 total yards a season ago.Washington finds itself between a rock and a hard place heading into the 2022 season. The team fancies itself as a legitimate playoff contender and one of the top threats to unseat the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC East. But with questions marks in the backfield and at quarterback, that seems to be more of a pipe dream than anything else.” uploaddate=”2022-08-22″ thumbnailurl=”https://cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/17660/snapshot/1080590_sd_1661173198.jpg” contentUrl=”https://cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/17660/streaming/1080590/1080590.m3u8″ width=”16″ height=”9″]
The Vikings Aren’t Settling
Minnesota could have gone into the regular season with the combination of Sean Mannion and Kellen Mond with their fingers crossed that nothing would happen to Kirk Cousins. After all, that plan has worked throughout the majority of Cousins’ career. That’s not good enough for Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell, though.
Not only did they go out and find an experienced player, but they got the best backup on the market to play behind Cousins. After the QB debacle against San Francisco, as well as some underwhelming play throughout camp, there was a clear need at QB. Kwesi saw it, and he addressed it with the best possible option.
They Didn’t Panic-Buy
It’s one thing to address the need at backup QB, but it’s another thing to pay entirely too much for a player that we hope won’t have to play a meaningful snap in the regular season. With the regular season just a couple weeks away, it would have been very easy to offer too much to the Raiders in exchange for Mullens in order to solve the problem as quickly as possible.
The Vikings didn’t do that. Instead, they got Mullens in about as cheap a trade as you can possibly find. Minnesota is sending Las Vegas a conditional seventh-round pick. That’s a lot better than panicking and offering up a fifth rounder.
Nick Mullens Carries Potential
I don’t want to get too carried away here, but perhaps there’s a thought within the Vikings organization that Nick Mullens could be more than just the Kirk Cousins backup plan. Mullens has started 17 games in his NFL career, and in those games, he’s completed 64.1% of his passes for 4552 yards, 24 TDs, and 21 INTs. Only eight QBs averaged more passing yards per game in 2021 than Mullens’ 267.7 yards per game in his starts.
Additionally, Kwesi is very familiar with Mullens considering that the two were in San Francisco together from 2017-19, and then they both were in Cleveland in 2020. If the Vikings GM didn’t see some potential in the five-year vet, it’s a very strange coincidence that they cross paths so often. Obviously, Mullens is a gunslinger that still has to perfect his craft, but he has shown flashes of great play in his early career.
More Moves to Come?
Finally, the fact that the Vikings were willing to go out and make a move to improve at their QB position could indicate that they are comfortable improving in other areas of the roster as well if need be.
One area that immediately comes to mind is center, especially if they don’t feel comfortable making Austin Schlottmann the full-time center. Another position to keep an eye on is the cornerback group after Andrew Booth’s ankle injury took him out of Saturday’s preseason game in the first half. Injuries have been a concern of his for much of his football life, so another cornerback could be a necessity. Either way, the trade for Mullens should be a promising sign that this regime is willing to go out and find immediate solutions if a problem were to emerge.
