The Vikings Are Competitively Rebuilding
It was March 11th, 2024, and millions of NFL fans were quickly refreshing Twitter to see what free agents their favorite team would sign, or in the Vikings’ case, let walk. Then, a tweet from NFL agent Mike McCartney sent fans in Minnesota and Atlanta into a frenzy. Kirk Cousins was leaving Minnesota and signing with the Falcons.
This news, coupled with the Vikings’ decision to let fan favorite defender Danielle Hunter leave for Houston, sent many purple faithful into panic. Fans on social media claimed they would sell their season tickets, refuse to watch the team on TV, or, in some extreme cases, find a new franchise to root for. Needless to say, this moment was a fork in the road for the Vikings and their future.
Since his hiring in 2022, GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has often referred to what he calls a “competitive rebuild.” The use of this term divided the fanbase. Many saw this as a cheap deflection of expectations, and others viewed the term as counterintuitive. The truth, though, was that this was the best possible way to describe where the Vikings stood. The team had several top-tier players on the roster when Kwesi and head coach Kevin O’Connell took the reigns in 2022 but had yet to reach its championship potential.
The roster was largely kept intact, with staples like Adam Thielen, Dalvin Cook, Cousins, and Harrison Smith returning, to name just a few. Previous coach Mike Zimmer was let go largely due to his inability to take advantage of the roster he had. KOC and Kwesi were stepping into a dream situation for any first-time coach or GM.
The 2022 season unfolded as one of the more confusing seasons in recent Vikings history. The team ended the season with a -3 point differential and, somehow, a 13-4 record to show for it. No one truly knew if this team was good, lucky, or somewhere in the middle. The team had difficult decisions to make after losing to the Giants at home in the first round of that year’s playoffs.
It was time to initiate the “rebuild” step of the competitive rebuild. Eric Kendricks, Adam Thielen, and Dalvin Cook were all released heading into the 2023 offseason. All three players were beloved by the fanbase and had made key contributions to the team’s success in recent years. It was a hard pill to swallow for many, but it was proven to be the correct move once we saw each of them with their new teams.
2023 got off to a painful start for the team in which constant turnovers and red zone struggles led to a 1-4 start. Justin Jefferson went down with a hamstring injury against the Chiefs and would not return until December. Despite this, the team picked up momentum. A win in Chicago and a Monday Night upset against the Niners showed the team was not quite out of the hunt.
The Vikings then traveled to Lambeau on October 29th, where the direction of the franchise would take a serious turn. With about ten minutes left in the game, Cousins stepped up in the pocket, only to crumble down to the grass in pain. His Achilles snapped in a freak non-contact injury. The season and team would never quite be the same.
The Vikings patched together a new-look quarterback room thanks to the acquisition of Cardinals QB Josh Dobbs, who led the Vikings on a two-week “Linsanity” run without even knowing the playbook fully. This, of course, was not sustainable for long. Soon, Nick Mullens and Jaren Hall were jumping under center, trying to provide some form of spark to a team that had experienced every possible high and low during the span of a couple of months.
Ultimately, the team missed the playoffs with a 7-10 record. With Kirk Cousins and Danielle Hunter about to hit free agency, KOC and Kwesi were entering the most important offseason of their young careers.
I’ll spare us all yet another detailed breakdown of a free agency period that has been analyzed ad nauseam to this point, but one thing was clear: The regime wanted to do things on their own terms.
Although the Vikings made attempts to bring back Cousins, the terms offered by the Falcons gave him the security and cash absent from a Minnesota offer. A day later, on March 12th, Danielle Hunter agreed to terms with the Houston Texans on a two-year deal. It was now official: the Vikings had to replace their quarterback of six years and their elite defensive pillar. The team was taking a massive gamble.
The Viking quickly joined the free agency frenzy. The team announced the signings of Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Blake Cashman, and former Packers running back Aaron Jones. The team also announced they had found their replacement for Cousins (at least in the very short term) in Sam Darnold.
For some fans, Darnold’s signing was too much to tolerate. How could the team replace Kirk with a journeyman QB who is carrying a losing record as a starter? The discourse on social media showed most of the purple faithful were not exactly optimistic about Darnold’s potential resurgence in Minnesota.
It was clear the Vikings were about to enter a true “rebuild” year, focused on future cap savings and roster development over immediate results. Many fans turned their hopes and attention to the upcoming draft and what potential quarterbacks the Vikings may target to lead them in the years to come. Through it all, a small but confident contingent of fans had a simple message: DO NOT sleep on Sam Darnold!
By March 15th, Vikings fans had something to truly excite them again. The team announced that they had acquired the 23rd pick from the Houston Texans, priming them to combine picks 11 and 23 for a massive trade for their QB of the future.
Fans spent the next month and a half projecting draft day theories and potential trades the team could make. Ultimately, no one could’ve predicted how things unfolded. Through additional maneuvering, the team ended up selecting Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy at pick ten and stud defensive end Dallas Turner from Alabama at pick 17 after another trade.
McCarthy had seen a meteoric rise throughout the draft process, while Turner had been projected by many as the top defensive talent in the draft. The Vikings found their replacements for Cousins and Hunter, both on rookie contracts.
Fast forward to August. The news out of training camp seemed promising. Darnold was outperforming expectations, McCarthy was improving every day, and Turner appeared to be the talent he was sold as. New defensive additions Greenard, Cashman, and Van Ginkel were also making noise.
Maybe this team was further ahead than most expected. After an extremely promising preseason debut for McCarthy, the positive vibes came crashing down. On August 14th, McCarthy underwent a season-ending meniscus repair. It was now clear that 2024 would be the year of Sam Darnold.
The team got off to a hot start against a less-than-stellar Giants squad, a fact many analysts held over their heads. Van Ginkel returned an intercepted screen pass for a touchdown, Darnold threw for two touchdowns, and the defense held the Giants to only six points. Still, fans and media alike wanted to see what the team could do against top competitors.
Over the next two weeks, they had their opportunity. The Vikings pulled off two consecutive wins against top-ranked teams, defeating the 49ers 23-17 and dismantling the Texans 34-7. By the end of week three, the Vikings’ new defensive group led the league with 16 sacks, and Darnold led the NFL with eight passing touchdowns. Suddenly, the narrative was different.
Perhaps the most shocking piece of the Vikings’ 3-0 start is that 2024 is still very much a “reset” year. The decisions to let go of Cook, Thielen, Kendricks, Hunter, and Cousins over the last two years were not made to somehow immediately improve the roster. They were made to get younger and free up cap space for future years.
Yet here they are at 3-0 after beating two of the best teams in the NFL. Even though the team is rebuilding, they remain VERY competitive. KOC and Kwesi are finally doing what they have openly set out to accomplish since they came to Minnesota: compete with the best teams in the league while continuing to build and develop for the future.
If 2024 is showing us anything, it’s that Kwesi and KOC are quickly building one of the most promising rosters and cultures in the NFL, and we have still yet to truly see the result of their vision. Despite the trepidation that can come from the significant changes the Vikings have made in the last two years, fans should feel confident that there is plenty to be excited about in the years to come.
In the meantime, this competitive rebuild is pretty darn fun to watch.
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