Financially, The Vikings Can Pull Off a Trade
For the most part, the Vikings are sitting in a fine position financially.
True, cap space can disappear in a hurry in the NFL, but Minnesota’s operating from a position of strength. Over the Cap puts them at roughly $10.4 million in open room, good enough for being around the middle of the pack in the NFL for cap space. So, the team can’t add anyone and everyone, but there’s enough wiggle room to add some help.
The Vikings, The Cap Space, & A (Potential) Trade
Stunningly, Minnesota is working with some financial flexibility.
Don’t forget that the team is working through a mountain of dead money. Saying goodbye to players like Kirk Cousins, Danielle Hunter, and Marcus Davenport (among others) meant accepting a huge portion of the 2024 budget being rendered inaccessible.
The dead money is tipping the scales at a whopping $66 million. The only team that’s in worse shape for dead money is the Denver Broncos, a team that decided to move on from Russell Wilson even though it was incredibly costly.
Shrink things down to the single-largest cap hit on Minnesota’s books for 2024 and it belongs to … Kirk Cousins. Saying goodbye to the veteran passer meant saying hello to $28.5 million in dead cap funds, a number that surpasses Brian O’Neill’s (roughly) $23 million cap charge.
The point, folks, is simply that there was a good excuse to struggle. Maybe the mountain of dead money would prove to be too much in 2024. After all, it’s not like the Broncos are setting the league on fire, instead working toward a solid-but-unspectacular 3-2 record across five weeks.
Minnesota is sitting at a pristine 5-0 despite the financial hurdle.
The other good thing is that Minnesota has the financial wherewithal to bring in talent if that’s the desired route. Yes, the draft picks are limited — especially in 2025 — but the money isn’t in bad shape.
There’s the aforementioned $10.4 million in cap space that’s sitting around in the present moment. That’s a number that could swell if, for instance, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah opted to shuffle money around for a player like Mr. O’Neill, someone with a large cap hit and who has several years left on his deal.
Plus, the 2025 Vikings are looking at some ample financial flexibility. OTC puts the current projection at $76 million. The number, to be sure, is going to move around a ton in the coming months, but the overall outlook is unlikely to change insofar as we can say that the Minnesota Vikings will have some money to spend in the offseason.
Alternatively, Minnesota could reach into that future abundance to help finance what’s taking place in the immediate. Put differently, kick cap hits into the future in order to facilitate potential business at the deadline.
Sitting at 5-0, Minnesota is well-positioned to be a buyer at the trade deadline. The offense is coming in at 6th in the NFL by averaging 27.8 points per game and the defense comes in at 4th by allowing an average of 15.2 points against per game.
The NFL trade deadline takes place on November 5th.
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference and Over the Cap helped with this piece.
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K. Joudry is the Senior Editor for Vikings Territory and PurplePTSD. He has been covering the Vikings full time since the summer of 2021. He can be found on Twitter, as a co-host for Notes from the North, and as the proprietor at The Vikings Gazette, a humble Vikings Substack.