Vikings Urged to Trade a Veteran
The Minnesota Vikings hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in the 2022 offseason after firing Rick Spielman. Trader Rick was gone, but unexpectedly, his successor is even more into trades than he was. Adofo-Mensah keeps pulling off trades at a high rate.
Vikings Urged to Trade a Veteran
Some of them were applauded, like the one that landed T.J. Hockenson in the Twin Cities, while others have drawn criticism. Dallas Turner was costly, and the draft-day trades in 2022 didn’t work out at all.
The former Wall Street Trader should once again facilitate a trade, thinks Bleacher Report’s Gary Davenport. Offensive lineman Blake Brandel should land on the proverbial chopping block, according to him.
Davenport wrote: “Not long after the Minnesota Vikings took Ohio State guard Donovan Jackson in the first round of the 2025 NFL draft, Minnesota head coach Kevin O’Connell told reporters what he envisioned the Vikings offensive line looking like in 2025. ‘Envisioning [Jackson] being on a front with potentially Ryan Kelly and Christian Darrisaw, Will Fries and Brian O’Neill,’ he said. ‘That’s a pretty formidable group on paper. We’ve got to make it come to life on the grass.'”
Indeed, Brandel’s starting days are undoubtedly numbered. NFL teams don’t throw $88 million contracts and first-round picks at guards to stash them on the bench, and the tackles Christian Darrisaw and Brian O’Neill are written in stone anyway.
“Now, there are some obstacles to that ‘dream’ O-Line coming to fruition—Darrisaw is rehabbing an ACL tear, while Fries missed most of last season after breaking his leg,” Davenport continued. “But the latter is nearing a return, and once he does Blake Brandel’s days in the starting lineup are all but certainly over.”
At guard, Will Fries, the expensive free-agent signing, and first-rounder Donovan Jackson should be considered front-runners to start in Week 1. If Jackson needed some extra time to get ready for the NFL, or Fries needed some more time to recover from his broken tibia, Brandel would be the obvious replacement early in the season after starting the entire 2024 campaign. Fellow guards Ed Ingram and Dalton Risner are no longer around, and the Vikings didn’t add any other real interior backup.
More from Davenport: “There’s a reason the Vikings wanted an upgrade at the position—in 1,117 snaps last year per PFF, Brandel surrendered seven sacks, was flagged 11 times and barely cracked the top 100 guards in overall grade. But Brandel has experience as both a guard and tackle and is under contract through 2026 at a reasonable cost. That sort of offensive line depth has value, and if another team suffers injuries in training camp, the Vikings could decide they’d rather have the trade return than the depth he provides.”
Brandel started the season as a decent guard, but his second half of the year was concerning. That drop-off coincided with Darrisaw suffering his season-ending knee injury and Cam Robinson’s arrival. Later in the year, the protection was so bad that the decision-makers decided to spend all the resources necessary to revamp the interior offensive line.
But Davenport made a good point: Brandel is important depth. Besides him, the interior backups are last year’s late-rounder Michael Jurgens, practice-squad guy Henry Byrd, and undrafted rookies Joe Huber and Zeke Correll. It would be fairly alarming to have them as the next men up.
Furthermore, Brandel came into the league as a tackle and has some experience as a backup there. Justin Skule was signed in free agency, and he is the expected replacement for Darrisaw until he’s ready for his comeback, but should something happen there, the Vikings might want to have another experienced reserve.
Depth is crucial along the offensive line. Too often, teams go into scramble mode when a guy is suffering an injury. Brandel might fetch a late-round pick, and there would be some cap relief, but he should stick around as the top reserve, unless one of the other backups is turning heads in the summer.
Brandel is 28 years old and has been a career Viking.