The Vikings’ Free Agency Habits and the Bad News that’s Soon to Become Clear
The Vikings’ free agency habits have left fans spoiled. March shows up on the calendar and the news arrives at breakneck speed for Minnesotans. No doubt, it’s one of the most chaotic, exciting times of the year for people who follow the Vikings.
The bad news is merely that next year is already looking pretty lean financially. Check out Over the Cap and the salary cap website will insist that Minnesota is already more than $17 million … over the cap in 2026. Keep in mind that the debt is occurring even though there are only 32 players being considered, well short of the 51-player cutoff for an offseason roster. What does that mean for what’s to come?
The Vikings’ Free Agency Habits Will Need to Change
Soon, the Vikings will participate in the 2025 NFL Draft.
If, for instance, the Vikings simply stick-and-pick with each of their selections, then there will be four players added. These four players will all earn four-year contracts (with the lone caveat being that the 1st-Round selection will have a fifth-year team option). The end result is that those players who will soon be grafted onto the roster, thereby resulting in even less cap space for 2026 since their deals will run from 2025-2028.
Of course, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has many levers that he can pull to get the cap back into decent shape. The GM knows what these options are and likely already can make some educated guesses about what he’ll want to do to climb out of salary cap debt.
In other words, there’s no reason for despair. The salary cap will get back into compliance with the league rules and life will go on. The issue is simply that the Vikings’ free agency approach seems likely to change next offseason.
Gone will be the buffet of deals for high-end players. Just consider, for instance, the most prominent contracts. All of Ryan Kelly, Will Fries, Jonathan Allen, Aaron Jones, Byron Murphy Jr., Isaiah Rodgers, Harrison Smith, Javon Hargrave, and Jordan Mason came at a cost that exceeds $10 million in total commitment over the course of years ranging from one to five.
Much more common, perhaps, will be deals for players like Justin Skule, Eric Wilson, Jeff Okudah, and Rondale Moore, none of whom exceeded $3 million on single-season contracts.
The other factor to consider is that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah will be looking to the 2026 NFL Draft for lots of reinforcements. Unlike 2025, the 2026 draft haul looks ample, in no small part due to the incoming compensatory picks.
So, less of an emphasis on getting frisky in free agency and more of an emphasis on bringing in lots of cost-controlled, young talent in the NFL draft. The 2026 offseason is looking like one where draft nerds will rejoice while fans of free agency may be feeling a bit disappointed.
A final thought.
An NFL salary cap is a malleable monster, something that can be manipulated in various ways to get the finances to work in any given year. The 2026 budget looks lean — because it is — but that’s a reality that can be helped by cap abundance in 2027, 2028, and so on. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah understands this better than anyone (he’s a numbers guy). Expect him to finance spending in 2026 by kicking the can down the road, leaning on future abundance to address a present-day scarcity.
As of right now, the Vikings are sitting on roughly $17.1 million in cap space. Any unused cap room will get rolled into 2026, helping to fund next season’s spending.
Editor’s Note: Information from Over the Cap helped with this piece.
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.
