The Hidden Brilliance of Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s FA Bonanza
K. Joudry
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Bonanza, perhaps, is a touch strong, but the allure of an alliterative title proved too strong for this writer to overcome. Yes, let’s say bonanza but settle in on the brilliance. The brilliance of Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is that he’s seemingly finding a way of having his purple cake and eating it too.
After all, the Viking went into the offseason with a challenging cap situation, a financial landscape that beckoned the purple doom & gloomers to proclaim that the time was nigh. Alas, Adofo-Mensah handled the situation with aplomb, deftly dancing around the landmines so that the team could be active in free agency.
The outside talent – TE Josh Oliver, CB Byron Murphy, EDGE Marcus Davenport, and DE Dean Lowry – were coveted players who fill positions of need (especially the defensive trio). The internal talent – C Garrett Bradbury, LS Andrew DePaola, K Greg Joseph, RB Alexander Mattison, OT Oli Udoh, and C Austin Schlottmann – helps to show the team’s commitment to continuity and constructing a less top-heavy budget.
Bringing in a four significant outside players while retaining a pile of one’s own free agents would cause many to be concerned about cap space, or lack thereof. However, the Vikings salary cap has a startling truth: it looks surprisingly healthy moving forward.
Take a peak at where things currently stand – per Over the Cap – for the NFC North’s 2024 budget:
| Team | 2024 Cap Space |
| Vikings | $58,608,407 |
| Packers | $14,775,218 |
| Lions | $83,719,871 |
| Bears | $121,727,078 |
At present, the team is scheduled to have nearly $59 million next offseason. Obviously, that’s a moving target. Once the rookie class gets added, a bunch of that money is going to get eaten up. Moreover, there’s a certain WR1 staring down his gaudy 5th-year option and (very likely) huge extension.
Adding in a T.J. Hockenson extension further eats into that potential cap space. Nevertheless, the finances look reasonably healthy in the future, and that’s even after accounting for the aforementioned increases that are easy to foresee.
Consider, for instance, some of the options that exist to carve out more room in 2024. Next year’s budget includes a $21,666,668 cap charge for Za’Darius Smith and $15,601,273 cap charge for Dalvin Cook. What are the chances those two upcoming hits get subtracted before becoming real in 2024?
The wild thing is that we’re talking about a future budget that’s scheduled to have nearly $40 million in dead money as a result of just 2 players: Kirk Cousins and Danielle Hunter (kicking in Marcus Davenport’s $6.8 million in dead money kicks that number even higher). Both could be extended or both could end up playing elsewhere. My best guess is that we’ll see that pair retained – with the safer money likely being on Hunter at this stage – but we’ll see how things develop.
The broader point, folks, is that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has been able to both gear up for 2023 while still leaving the franchise with flexibility in 2024 and beyond. Yes, there will be challenges – huge dead cap charges, large extensions – but the budget will still allow for more additions. If desired, the Vikings even have several options to open up plenty of cap space in 2023.
Overall, some nice work from the young executive and his team.
Editor’s Note: Information from Over the Cap helped with this piece.
