Run it back or rebuild? That's still unclear after Vikings' end-of-year press conference
EAGAN — The first question posed to Minnesota Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah during Wednesday’s end-of-year press conference asked him to put things in market terms about where the team stands: If the Vikings were a stock, would they be on the rise, steady or falling?
The ex-Wall Street trader broke down stocks into two categories: startups and “long-tenured.” He said the Vikings had some elements of a startup because they brought in a new culture and playing style but also began the process of becoming long-tenured by winning 13 regular season games.
“I wouldn't say that we're the established 'there' team,” Adofo-Mensah said. “We haven't shown it yet to, year in and year out, compete in the playoffs… We want to be. That's why I'd say we're in between those two stages right now and we are trying to be that mature team that goes every year to the playoffs and has a championship standard.”
But the question is how the Vikings will take steps this offseason to become a “long-tenured” club that goes to the playoffs every year. Do they believe they need to take every swing possible to reach the postseason in 2023 in order to get tenured status? Or could that route include a detour — a roster reset in order to ultimately reach a plateau of high-level competitiveness?
If it’s the latter, that could mean parting ways with stars who have been in Minnesota for a long time like Eric Kendricks, Dalvin Cook and Adam Thielen.
Adofo-Mensah seemed to acknowledge that the roster has players whose accomplishments and value in the locker room deserve lauding but the realities of cap hits and future projections make it difficult to say that all the veterans who made the 2022 regular season a success will be back.
“We talk about culture meaning process and the way we do things, but it's also just the people, how they relate, how they show up and set a standard,” Adofo-Mensah said. “And that group of [veterans], they were foundational in that element. We've got to consider those things in addition to the production on the field. At the end of the day, we're trying to meet a talent threshold, a way of playing, a vision for this team that's a championship standard.”
In order to take an organization that has one NFC Championship appearance since Brett Favre to a championship level, they will need to make improvements. Their weaknesses on a 28th ranked defense in points allowed were ultimately their undoing. That side of the ball could require an overhaul. The offensive side also may need to replace the center and running back positions immediately.
The problem is that they are short on assets to replenish those parts of the club. They only have a first, third, fourth and fifth-round pick this year and are presently $24 million over the cap (per OverTheCap.com).
If the Vikings had a bevy of under-25 talent waiting in the wings, those issues might be mitigated with the new replacing the old but aside from Justin Jefferson and Christian Darrisaw, the only likely starters under the age of 25 for next season are Ezra Cleveland, Ed Ingram, Brian Asamoah and possibly Cam Bynum.
Adofo-Mensah was asked about the issues with draft capital, cap space and young talent.
On draft capital and young players, he said:
“There's always ways [to get more draft picks] but I'd also say that, last year when we talked about our plans, it was a two-year horizon. So last year, our class, I think was bigger than you normally would have expected, and I think we've got a lot of young, good contributing players out there... when you look at the ages of a lot of guys on sort of the back-end of our roster, we've got a lot of good, young, talented players, so I don't see that as a limitation to us, but there's obviously always ways to create more picks.”
The Vikings’ top two picks from last year Lewis Cine and Andrew Booth Jr. could end up as starters. However, both were injured this season and weren’t starting before they went down. Adofo-Mensah addressed how he views the future of the 2022 draft class.
“We talked about building bridges,” Adofo-Mensah said. “Building bridges from our young players from this year to next and so we got a lot of players exposure…. I would say it's ongoing. We actually have ways of calculating these things and comparing to other teams based on advanced metrics and different things.”
It’s hard to say what type of calculation could tell them whether the ‘22 draft class could take a big step forward next season. We have seen many players throughout the years develop in Year 2 and others fail to launch. With little to zero sample size on the class, that group appears to be a massive question mark.
As far as cap space goes, Adofo-Mensah said:
“We have a lot of tools at our disposal, extensions and different things like that where you can get under the cap and continue on,” Adofo-Mensah said. “So we'll consider everything we have, and ultimately it'll be to fit our vision with the end goal in mind of meeting that talent threshold to win a championship."
Yes, the Vikings do have tools. But those often come with a price in the future. In 2022, the Vikings were still paying salary cap space to Anthony Barr and Kyle Rudolph, for example. And how much space can they create without creating more holes than they can fill?
These things all tie back into the team’s timeline. The Vikings’ GM talked about his “competitive rebuild” statement from last offseason and whether he saw the team as still being in that type of mode or transitioning into one or the other. He pointed again to the potential of players who didn’t have huge roles this year.
“I would say that move would say that it was both competitive and a rebuild at the same time…You think about the bridges we tried to build, from our rookie class to who's playing now,” Adofo-Mensah said. “We had a really great special teams unit partly comprised of those young players that we had, and then ultimately at some point they're going to have to take on bigger roles and that's all part of the competitive rebuild and all those things we try to factor in."
Adofo-Mensah also cited the TJ Hockenson trade as a now-and-later type of play. But while Hockenson is fairly young and talented, he will soon be very expensive as well. He is eligible for an extension this offseason.
Speaking of which, two foundational pieces to the team’s timeline are quarterback Kirk Cousins and superstar receiver Justin Jefferson. The veteran QB is heading into the final year of his deal with a $36 million cap hit and Jefferson could sign the biggest contract for a receiver in NFL history.
"It's our expectation that he'll be our quarterback,” Adofo-Mensah said of Cousins. “I can't say exactly how that would look. Again, we have everything at our disposal. We'll consider all those things just like we would with everyone else on the roster."
There’s a lot of ways the Cousins situation could go. They could let him play out the final year of his contract, sign him to another short-term extension or look to make him a Viking for life. How the Cousins situation is handled could hold the keys to the overall approach to the offseason.
A Jefferson extension is a no-brainer from the team’s perspective. Whether the receiver is prepared to sign something this offseason is unknown.
"You got a special player, a special person,” Adofo-Mensah said. “Those aren't problems. Or at least those are champagne problems. So we'll start there. We've had initial dialogue with him his agent, all those things. We get back to that in the planning but again it really starts from the player, the person and we'll work on solutions from there on."
While the GM wouldn’t call it a “challenge,” a mega deal for Jefferson would likely create a massive jump in his cap hit two years down the road. Could that coincide with Cousins being on the roster at that point?
All roads lead us back to the question of whether the Vikings view themselves as a team that can be right back at the top of the NFC North in 2023 and transition the roster around an expensive QB or if they need to view next season as more rebuild-y than competitive. The answers on Wednesday leaned more toward optimism that they can make moves to get to the “long-tenured” level sooner than later.
“I challenge our staff all year, 'Hey. Look over our processes. How do we get better?’” Adofo-Mensah said. “Because again I know everybody else, the people that are already at that championship level, are getting better, so we have to get better, and we have to get better incrementally more than them.”
