The Vikings’ Front Office Will be Doing Cartwheels if a Single FA Domino Falls
During the 2024 regular season, the Vikings’ front office made an educated guess. Send out some Day 3 draft capital for a new starter at left tackle and then allow the compensatory system to restock the cupboard.
So far, the plan hasn’t come to fruition.
Or, at least, not yet. Cam Robinson is still looking for his next employer. Robinson isn’t the world’s most dominant lineman, but he’s a capable starter who plays one of football’s top positions. Presumably, there’s a team out there willing to give him a large deal. If so, then Kwesi Adofo-Mensah & Friends are going to be doing cartwheels.
The Vikings’ Front Office & Cam Robinson’s Free Agency
Begin with Nick Korte of Over the Cap, an expert on compensatory picks.
Per Korte, Minnesota is sitting on the top compensatory selection in the 2026 NFL Draft due to Sam Darnold moving to Seattle to become the Seahawks’ new QB1. The major money deal is the key factor that allows Darnold to be perched above all compensatory competitors.
Dig in a bit further, though, and you’ll see that there’s potential for more. Korte lists Cam Bynum, Daniel Jones, and Patrick Jones as players who signed deals large enough to generate a comp pick. The issue is that onboarding Will Fries, Ryan Kelly, and Isaiah Rodgers cancel out those potential picks.
Any chance Minnesota feels a bit greedy? Put differently, is there a desire to pickup just one more compensatory selection due to another free agent departing for a large deal?
The answer, of course, is yes. Every GM wants more picks. Remember that the 2025 NFL Draft only has four selections for the Vikings (one of those picks being from losing Kirk Cousins last offseason). Adofo-Mensah doesn’t want a repeat of only having four draft picks.
Standing at 6’6″ and weighing 335 pounds, Cam Robinson possesses a great build to be an NFL left tackle. He was snagged at No. 34 back in the 2017 NFL Draft, performing well for Jacksonville across the years.
Last season, Robinson was guilty of allowing 7 sacks, 7 QB hits, and 52 pressures. Far from dominant, but the 64.7 PFF grade — alongside a 70.4 pass-blocking grade — means someone is going to sink some money into the veteran.
After the season concluded, Adofo-Mensah spoke about the trade for Cam Robinson. He begins by noting that Christian Darrisaw is tough to replace but that Robinson did an admirable job.
In fact, there’s even a hint about picking up a compensatory pick: “We knew from an asset standpoint of what it would cost, but also potentially of what it could be on the back end and what that would net us as a team.” Essentially, the GM knew that he needed to send over a conditional 4th/5th in 2026 while understanding that he could snag a Day 3 pick for allowing Robinson to walk away in free agency.
“That one in particular, we feel really great about what we did,” Adofo-Mensah concludes.
Darrisaw, the present and future at left tackle, went down in the LA Rams game from Week 8 (late October). Nothing is guaranteed when coming back from a serious injury, but there’s certainly a chance that he’s ready to roll for most (if not all) of the upcoming season. Keep in mind that Darrisaw agreed to a beefy deal before getting hurt: a four-year commitment coming in at a total of $104 million. In other words, Minnesota is going to move ahead with Darrisaw.
The hope in Eagan is that Cam Robinson will soon arrive at a meaty deal with a new team. If so, then the gamble that Adofo-Mensah took when shipping out a Day 3 pick for the left tackle will have been close to free (apart from some lost cap space).
The Vikings have been spending plenty of money, but there’s still some room left. Even with the buying power, though, Minnesota seems quite likely to be interested in picking up another compensatory pick or two, so the signings moving forward could end up being for cheap.
Stay tuned.
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference, PFF, 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 social media (Bluesky & Twitter). If you feel so inclined, subscribe to his Substack, The Vikings Gazette, for more great Vikings content.