A pair of trades made by the Vikings last offseason are the main reason why they have so few picks heading into this year’s draft.
The Vikings are less than a week away from kicking off a critical NFL draft — one where they need to add impactful young talent despite currently possessing the weakest collection of picks of any of the league’s 32 teams.
Minnesota has just four selections at its disposal right now: A first-rounder (No. 24), a compensatory third-rounder (No. 97), a fifth (No. 139), and a sixth (No. 187). They’ll almost certainly trade down at least once to pick up additional capital, but it’s not a desirable position for a front office to be in.
How the Vikings ended up in this position mostly has to do with two trades they made last offseason. In mid-March of 2024, GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah gave up his 2025 second-rounder (and a late-round pick swap) to move up from 42 to 23 in a deal with the Texans. That move, well ahead of the draft, was ostensibly done to give the Vikings more attractive ammo in case they needed to move up for a quarterback.
“The move to get to 23 was about optionality,” Adofo-Mensah said this week. “It was about maybe a perceived gun-to-head need at a certain position and never wanting to be in that place, in addition to wanting to be the last call if anybody was considering a trade, which again, I think we executed in that regard.”
As draft night unfolded, the Vikings only ended up moving up one spot, from No. 11 to No. 10, to land J.J. McCarthy as their hopeful franchise quarterback of the future. Then, with an unprecedented run on offensive players to start the draft resulting in some talented defensive prospects falling, they made another move. They gave up a 2024 fourth-rounder, a 2025 third-rounder, and a 2025 fourth to go up from 23 to 17 and take Alabama edge rusher Dallas Turner, who was projected by many analysts as a top-ten pick.
So in total, they gave up their second, third, and fourth-round picks in 2025 (plus a 2024 fifth) to go up from 42 to 17 and land Turner. That’s why they’re so low on capital in this draft.
A year later, those moves haven’t aged particularly well, though it’s still far too early to judge. Turner was stuck behind Pro Bowl outside linebackers Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel — as well as fourth-year player Pat Jones II — as a rookie, playing just 310 defensive snaps. He finished the year with 12 pressures, three sacks, and an interception.
However, Turner is still just 22 years old. Jones left in free agency, paving the way for Turner’s snaps to increase in his second season. The Vikings remain big believers in his long-term upside. If Adofo-Mensah regrets the process that led to that pick, he obviously isn’t going to say so publicly.
“I love these questions where you go back because I’m pretty tough on myself,” he said. “When you’re trying for self-improvement, holding yourself to that standard, we all have that little voice that says we’re good enough and I’m not scared of questioning that voice every now and again to be really hard on myself, but I know exactly why we did those things at the time.
“Also knowing at that time … you don’t want to be planning to pick in the top of the first round. So, are these opportunities available for you in your future? Are we gonna be able to pick a player like (Turner) in the future if we’re the team that we think we can be? Those are all things that went into the calculus. Ultimately, don’t know how that answer’s going to work out, but looking back on it we feel good about that exact approach and that exact thought process.”
If Turner pans out after a slow rookie year, no one will end up remembering the picks they gave up to get him. If he doesn’t, the aggressive process will remain a talking point for a while, especially if the Vikings don’t get much out of their 2025 class.