ESPN Proposes No-No Vikings Trade
The draft is just a couple of weeks away and the Vikings can finally add some young talent to the roster, holding a total of nine picks. Last year, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah made only five selections. He called seven players in 2024 and six in 2023.
It’s also a nice change that the club will have four picks in the top 100, after scoring only a total of four players in the top 100 across the last three drafts.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell opines the franchise should add a fifth pick in that range. A trade-down in the first round is his idea, from pick 18 to 25. So far, that’s a totally normal concept. However, the context of the Chicago Bears holding the 25th pick makes it a little more controversial.
In-division trades aren’t outlawed anymore, but they are still rare. Barnwell’s proposal sends Minnesota picks 25 and 60 for picks 18 and 163. Trading down seven slots in the top round turns a 5th-rounder into a 2nd-rounder.
Barnwell explained, “We don’t normally see many trades between division rivals, but trades involving draft picks can represent an exception. The Eagles and Cowboys traded first-round picks in 2021 in a deal that landed the former DeVonta Smith and the latter Parsons. The Vikings moved down in deals with the Lions and Packers in the 2022 draft, although that was under the stewardship of Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.”
The 2022 trades remain controversial. Detroit selected Jameson Williams and Green Bay Christian Watson. Neither has turned into a slam-dunk superstar, but both are pretty good wideouts. Unfortunately, Adofo-Mensah’s strategy didn’t pay off because his selections were massive disappointments. He didn’t fail because of his trade partners; he failed because he eventually picked the wrong guys.
Barnwell envisions the in-division trade to pay dividends: “It remains to be seen whether executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski would be as amenable to this sort of trade, but I do have the Bears paying a bit of a premium for the privilege of making a deal within the NFC North.”
Brzezinski has been in Minnesota’s draft rooms for decades, but has never been the ultimate decision-maker. That could change this year, depending on how much input the ownership group provides. Trusted coaches Brian Flores and Kevin O’Connell will certainly play a role, too.
More from Barnwell, who thinks adding another top 100 pick could help overcome past sins. “Brzezinski’s Vikings were the league’s third-oldest team on a snap-weighted basis last season, and that was with McCarthy and Max Brosmer taking the majority of the snaps at quarterback. Adofo-Mensah was wildly successful in free agency but struggled badly with his drafts, so the Vikings need to add more young talent to their core. Picking up an extra second-round pick would make sense, especially after they made just one top-100 pick a year ago.”
The Vikings have been one of the league’s older teams for years, and it certainly doesn’t help to miss out on draft picks repeatedly or to trade them away in the first place. Only good drafts can change the age problem.
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If the Vikings and the Bears do business, Minnesota would have one selection in the first round, followed by two picks each in rounds two and three. With more picks, the likelihood of finding more contributors increases.
Because of the added draft capital, facilitating the first-round trade-back since 2022 could make sense this year, depending on how the board is falling. If there’s another offer on the table, the Vikings might want to prefer that over the in-division deal, though.
Editor’s Note: Information from PFF, Over The Cap, and Sports Reference helped with this article.