Vikings Budget Boost Goes Beyond Just a QB on a Rookie Contract
Look around online and the idea of the Vikings budget getting a boost from J.J. McCarthy — a QB operating on a rookie contract — won’t be hard to find.
To be sure, there’s good reason for the opinion. McCarthy, soon to enter his sophomore season, is the current leader to be the team’s starter. He’s operating on a four-year deal that’s promising to pay $21,854,796 (there’s a fifth-year team option, which is standard for 1st-Round selections). His cap charge in 2025 is a modest $4,966,999.
Vikings Budget Boost Goes Beyond Mr. McCarthy
McCarthy is a major reason why Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has been able to be so bold in free agency.
Chase Daniel, a former NFL passer, offered the opinion on social media, writing, “Vikings making moves…this wouldn’t have happened with the Sam Darnold contract.” There’s then a list of the now-familiar adds along the o-line and d-line — Ryan Kelly, Will Fries, Jonathan Allen, & Javon Hargrave — before Daniel concludes, “Trenches is where games are won.”
Similarly, Dustin Baker wrote about the situation for Vikings Territory. Baker sees the major money flying around in Minnesota and argues that McCarthy’s contract is the main reason why: “This is the fun part of employing J.J. McCarthy for the next four seasons on an affordable contract. Adofo-Mensah can spend liberally, surrounding McCarthy with pieces. Utilizing good-not-elite quarterbacks all but nullifies that style of team-building. Now, the Vikings have four years to ‘get it right’ with McCarthy.”
Without question, the Vikings having a rookie-contract QB is central to how the budget works. We should keep in mind, though, that there’s another key factor: the dead money, or lack thereof.
Currently, Adofo-Mensah is working with a Vikings budget that needs to digest a relatively small $11,113,363 in dead money, per OTC. Look around the NFL and you’ll see that the number is pretty modest. In fact, Minnesota is in the bottom ten teams in the NFL for dead money, which is a good thing that couldn’t be said about last year’s cap.
Last year, Minnesota had to work through a ton of lost cap space due to the massive dead money left behind by Kirk Cousins, Danielle Hunter, Marcus Davenport, and others. Per Spotrac, the Vikings were carrying an eye-popping $70 million+ in dead money in 2024.
Quite the difference between $70 million and $11 million, right?
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah isn’t a perfect GM, but he has proven to be quite adept at working around an NFL budget. He’s good at managing money, keeping top-tier talent on extensions while also finding a way to lure some excellent external talent to town. Putting together some top-tier draft classes could push Minnesota to new heights, perhaps allowing for some playoff runs that have so far been elusive in the Adofo-Mensah era.
Of course, the most important draft pick he has ever made — No. 10 overall in 2024, J.J. McCarthy — is carrying some huge expectations. If the QB thrives, the Vikings are going to be capable of finding success in the NFC.
The current NFL leaders for dead money are the 49ers at roughly $78 million, Seahawks at roughly $67 million, and Eagles at roughly $55.5 million.
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.
